picked interesting elements from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_quantum_computing_and_communication
- 1980 - Paul Benioff describes the first quantum mechanical model of a computer. In this work, Benioff showed that a computer could operate under the laws of quantum mechanics by describing a Schrödinger equation description of Turing machines, laying a foundation for further work in quantum computing. The paper [5] was submitted in June 1979 and published in April 1980.
- 1980 - At the First Conference on the Physics of Computation, held at MIT in May, Paul Benioff and Richard Feynman give talks on quantum computing. Benioff's built on his earlier 1980 work showing that a computer can operate under the laws of quantum mechanics. The talk was titled “Quantum mechanical Hamiltonian models of discrete processes that erase their own histories: application to Turing machines”.[8] In Feynman's talk, he observed that it appeared to be impossible to efficiently simulate an evolution of a quantum system on a classical computer, and he proposed a basic model for a quantum computer.[9]
- 1998 - First experimental demonstration of a quantum algorithm. A working 2-qubit NMR quantum computer is used to solve Deutsch's problem by Jonathan A. Jones and Michele Mosca at Oxford University and shortly after by Isaac L. Chuang at IBM's Almaden Research Center and Mark Kubinec and the University of California, Berkeley together with coworkers at Stanford University and MIT.[27]
- 1994 - Peter Shor, at AT&T's Bell Labs in New Jersey, discovers an important algorithm. It allows a quantum computer to factor large integers quickly. It solves both the factoring problem and the discrete log problem. Shor's algorithm can theoretically break many of the cryptosystems in use today. Its invention sparked a tremendous interest in quantum computers.
- 1999 - Yasunobu Nakamura and Jaw-Shen Tsai demonstrate that a superconducting circuit can be used as a qubit.[31] This leads to a global effort to develop quantum computers using superconducting circuits, culminating in Google's demonstration of quantum supremacy using this technology in 2019.
- 2004 - First working pure state NMR quantum computer (based on parahydrogen) demonstrated at Oxford University and University of York (more).
Earlier in the year, a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, built a quantum computer capable of processing two quantum bits, or qubits. Qubits store more information than the simple “on” or “off” bits of conventional computing, which means that a quantum computer outperform conventional computers in tasks such as cryptanalysis.
- 2006 - First 12 qubit quantum computer benchmarked by researchers at the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, as well as MIT, Cambridge.[49]
- 2009 - First universal programmable quantum computer unveiled
- 2011 - D-Wave claims to have developed quantum annealing and introduces their product called D-Wave One. The company claims this is the first commercially available quantum computer
- 2017 - IBM reveals a working 50-qubit quantum computer that can maintain its quantum state for 90 microseconds
- 2019 - A paper by Google's quantum computer research team was briefly available in late September 2019, claiming the project has reached quantum supremacy.[242][243][244]
- 2019 - IBM reveals its biggest yet quantum computer, consisting of 53 qubits. The system goes online in October 2019.[245]