My first attempt at quantum coding wasn’t nearly as painful as I’d feared—and it’s probably something you could do, too. Reading time 6 minutes Quantum computers aren’t as mysterious as you think.

After 30 months of fast-paced innovation in quantum algorithms, six research groups are hoping to hit paydirt. But there can be only one big winner—if there is a winner at all.

Quantum computing seems to pop up in the news pretty often these days. You’ve probably seen quantum chips gracing your feeds and their odd, steampunk-ish cooling systems in the pages of magazines and ...