defensaytecnolgia

BY PATRICK TUCKER US, China are betting millions on the promise of this newish field, but the real-world potential remains a mystery. An assortment of super powers awaits the superpower that harnesses quantum science: unhackable communications, radars that see underground, supercomputers that make today’s biggest machines look like first-generation Ataris. But which of those goals are achievable in the near future, and at what cost? Earlier this summer, the Pentagon announced a $45 million research effort into quantum networking. Meanwhile, China hopes to complete construction of the world’s largest quantum communication network and become the first nation to put a quantum communications satellite into orbit. But other military-funded research has suggested that quantum comms and cryptography may prove too complicated to warrant the effort, while quantum computing will remain out of reach for a decade or more. (Some argue that’s being very optimistic.) All ...