David Wineland has cautioned that such a super-computer was still a "long, long way" off.

AFP Wednesday, Oct 10, 2012

WASHINGTON - David Wineland, who won Tuesday the Nobel Prize for work in quantum physics with Serge Haroche of France, said our limited computers will "eventually" give way to super-fast, revolutionary ones.

The pair, both 68, were honoured for pioneering optical experiments in "measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems," the Nobel Physics jury said in its citation.

"Most science progresses very slowly," Wineland told AFP.

"On the computing side, we are able to think about applying these quantum systems to solve other problems that we try to do on computer now but our computers are limited.

"It has not happened yet and I am not even sure it will happen in the next decade, but I think it will eventually happen using quantum principles to make a quantum computer that will actually have applications."

In a pre-dawn phone interview recorded and posted on the Nobel committee website earlier, Wineland cautioned that such a super-computer was still a "long, long way" off.

Today's computers use a binary code, in which data is stored in a bit that could be either zero or one.

But in superposition, a quantum bit, known as a qubit, could be either zero or one, or both zero and one at the same time.

Originally posted here:

Quantam research will yield 'super-computers': Nobel winner