<story><title>Ask HN: What has quantum computing achieved so far?</title><text>As a lowly web developer I struggle to understand what concrete progress has been made in quantum computing. I understand there are papers that have shown results that no classical computer could achieve but what has translated into practical applications?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>kossTKR</author><text>Interesting. What are the motivations behind this funding? What is to gain?&lt;p&gt;As far as i can see there is quite a lot of &amp;quot;quantum safe&amp;quot; encryption so what kind of historical data exists lying around with lots of value?</text></item><item><author>sandworm101</author><text>The big project is decryption.  There is a race to be the first country&amp;#x2F;agency to be able to decrypt data protected by pre-quantum encryption schemes. It is a very narrow use case but there are very deep pockets funding the race.</text></item><item><author>MattPalmer1086</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not even sure that a quantum computer has incontrovertibly outperformed a classical one at this time on anything. Some have claimed it, on problems that have no practical utility.  Classical results have also been improved on response.&lt;p&gt;Arguably then the only concrete achievement of quantum computing to date has been improvements to classical algorithms.  However, I fully expect that we will eventually have powerful quantum computers.&lt;p&gt;Practical applications for those are things like modelling chemical reactions or quantum systems, or optimisation.&lt;p&gt;No discussion on quantum computing would be complete without a link to Scott Aaronson&amp;#x27;s blog.  Worth a read to get a better understanding of the subject.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scottaaronson.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scottaaronson.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rashkov</author><text>Suppose for a moment that you’ve collected twenty years worth of sensitive but encrypted foreign communications. What kind of advantage can you get by having a peak at it?</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What has quantum computing achieved so far?</title><text>As a lowly web developer I struggle to understand what concrete progress has been made in quantum computing. I understand there are papers that have shown results that no classical computer could achieve but what has translated into practical applications?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>kossTKR</author><text>Interesting. What are the motivations behind this funding? What is to gain?&lt;p&gt;As far as i can see there is quite a lot of &amp;quot;quantum safe&amp;quot; encryption so what kind of historical data exists lying around with lots of value?</text></item><item><author>sandworm101</author><text>The big project is decryption.  There is a race to be the first country&amp;#x2F;agency to be able to decrypt data protected by pre-quantum encryption schemes. It is a very narrow use case but there are very deep pockets funding the race.</text></item><item><author>MattPalmer1086</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not even sure that a quantum computer has incontrovertibly outperformed a classical one at this time on anything. Some have claimed it, on problems that have no practical utility.  Classical results have also been improved on response.&lt;p&gt;Arguably then the only concrete achievement of quantum computing to date has been improvements to classical algorithms.  However, I fully expect that we will eventually have powerful quantum computers.&lt;p&gt;Practical applications for those are things like modelling chemical reactions or quantum systems, or optimisation.&lt;p&gt;No discussion on quantum computing would be complete without a link to Scott Aaronson&amp;#x27;s blog.  Worth a read to get a better understanding of the subject.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scottaaronson.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scottaaronson.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bordercases</author><text>&amp;gt; As far as i can see there is quite a lot of &amp;quot;quantum safe&amp;quot; encryption so what kind of historical data exists lying around with lots of value?&lt;p&gt;I find this statement funny, not at your expense.&lt;p&gt;In public discourse, speak about quantum encryption too early – such as within the last five years – and the common opinion on say Stack Overflow&amp;#x2F;HN&amp;#x2F;Reddit&amp;#x2F;among the outer circles of cybersecurity is &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t model a threat before you get there&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Now apparently there is a lot of quantum-safe encryption - not true, NIST barely came to a standard in the last year, which failed quickly, even though there are quantum-resistant strategies which have gained tentative adoption in companies like Signal and MullvadVPN. But interesting that this is a perception someone has now, and suddenly quantum computers are being put under popular scrutiny again, perhaps driven by advancements in inner circles and higher tiers of tech.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s tiresome to see these discourses out of sync</text></comment>