Quantum computing has picked up a kind of mythic status. You hear claims that it will become a god machine, crack every password in seconds, or create self-aware AI. You also hear the opposite: it’s hype, it will never work, and it’s just a funding game for physicists in expensive fridges. Both views are wrong.
Start with what a quantum computer actually is. A normal computer stores information in bits, which are either 0 or 1. A quantum computer uses quantum bits, or qubits. Thanks to quantum effects like superposition, a qubit can be in a combination of 0 and 1 at the same time. Link many qubits together using entanglement, and you get a system that can explore certain complex possibilities in parallel. This is not magic. It is physics.
Now for the first myth: “Quantum computers will replace normal computers.” No. Your phone, your laptop and the servers running the internet are staying classical. Quantum machines are not general upgrades. They are specialists. They are built to solve particular classes of problem that are too hard or too slow for even the best supercomputers.
Second myth: “Quantum computers can already break all encryption.” Also no. It is true that a large, mature quantum computer could in principle break some widely used encryption schemes. But the key word is large. The devices in labs today are powerful in scientific terms but nowhere near that scale. On top of that, new quantum-safe encryption standards are already being developed so that secure communication survives the quantum era.
So if it’s not about faster Netflix and instant password theft, what is the point.
The point is this: quantum computing is a tool for problems built out of quantum rules. Chemistry, for example. Molecules are quantum objects. Simulating complex molecules on an ordinary computer becomes impossibly expensive. A quantum computer can model them more naturally. That means better catalysts for clean energy, new battery materials, new medicines.
It also matters for optimisation. Routing aircraft, freight and power grids is painfully hard at scale. Quantum algorithms could deliver leaner logistics and lower energy waste.
In short, quantum computing is not here to make your emails load faster. It is here to make certain impossible problems possible. And those problems sit directly under health, climate, energy and security.
