MIT Technology Review: Quantum computing has a hype problem

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/03/28/1048355/quantum-computing-has-a-hype-problem/

“The qubit systems we have today are a tremendous scientific achievement, but they take us no closer to having a quantum computer that can solve a problem that anybody cares about. It is akin to trying to make today’s best smartphones using vacuum tubes from the early 1900s. You can put 100 tubes together and establish the principle that if you could somehow get 10 billion of them to work together in a coherent, seamless manner, you could achieve all kinds of miracles. What, however, is missing is the breakthrough of integrated circuits and CPUs leading to smartphones—it took 60 years of very difficult engineering to go from the invention of transistors to the smartphone with no new physics involved in the process. “

Machine Learning Reimagines the Building Blocks of Computing

https://www.quantamagazine.org/machine-learning-reimagines-the-building-blocks-of-computing-20220315/

Now researchers are taking a fresh look at traditional algorithms, using the branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning. Their approach, called algorithms with predictions, takes advantage of the insights machine learning tools can provide into the data that traditional algorithms handle. These tools have, in a real way, rejuvenated research into basic algorithms.