The Quantum Leap: How Quantum Computing Is Set to Revolutionise Science, Medicine, and Security
In December 2024, Google's Willow quantum chip completed a benchmark computation in five minutes that would take the world's most powerful supercomputer ten septillion years. The caveat is that the task has no direct practical use — yet. This is a rigorous, up-to-date account of where quantum computing actually stands, what it will genuinely be good at, why the threat to current encryption is already urgent, and what the second half of the 2030s could realistically bring.