Unfortunately, there is a downside to the quantum computing industry. The biggest disadvantage is the fact that it has not been totally invented yet, and people are still making parts and projections about what this computer shall resemble. “Many of the scientists that lead the field in quantum computing are still expecting decades before quantum computers appear in the home or office (Danlu 2012).”
Another downside to the quantum computing is that there are many things that need to happen to make quantum computing accessible to the world. “One fact about quantum computing is that the quantum processor by D-Wave, needs to be kept at .02 K (Love 2013).” For those who are not science majors, .02 K is below the temperature of the universe, and very close to absolute Kelvin, which is the lowest temperature possible. This is a very hard temperature to maintain and control.
Also, quantum processors are very unstable. “Even when they first came out it was impossible to test them without disrupting their very unstable state (Diep 2013).” Now they have figured out a new test, but in the Ted Talk, Andris Ambianis, a quantum algorithm writer, also discusses how unstable the computers are. This is a problem that needs to be solved before quantum computers will appear on the shelves of a Best Buy nearest you.
The main problem with quantum computing is to actually develop it as a personal computer, and hopefully they will be in the price range of every day consumers. It will be comparable to when computers were first introduced. They were the size of a room and were very costly. Then they kept getting smaller and smaller and eventually appeared on the market. Most likely, the same sort of transition from those computers to quantum computers will take place, at first they will be accessible only to big businesses but then they will go on the commercial market. The main people that will lose out because of quantum computing are the companies who did not learn the lesson of history. This refers to the companies that did not invest in computers and stuck with punch card and tabulating technology because they did not believe that computers would become so popular, and these companies went out of business. An example of a company that did invest is IBM, and they are one of leading computer manufacturers nowadays, who (you guessed it) are already investing in quantum technology.
The only difference is, back then in the early 20th century, many people had no idea that a machine could change the world as much as it has. Many people were uneducated, as compared to the present where kids that are less than 5 years old have cell phones and iPads. This is the technological age, which was predicted by Moore’s Law, and now people are more accepting of such grandeur ideas of quantum computing because it’s not the first computer invented on the market. Cell phones are almost more powerful than a computer now, so it’s not a far stretch that we can manipulate an atom, something that we cannot even see because of its minute scale, and develop a quantum computer for the modern day world.
Quantum Computing: The Future Computers 