Quantum mechanics remains an enigma and for many so does its application to computation, but this has not stopped academia and the big players that can afford the research from ploughing on in what seems like an endless journey. Quantum computing was touted by some futurologists as a key emerging technology that would shape the coming century, at the turn of the Millennium almost 20 years ago, and so was nuclear fusion – neither of which has yet delivered. There is a similarity between the two in that both are scientifically feasible but represent huge engineering challenges without any absolute guarantee that either will deliver on an industrial or commercial scale. In fusion, the proof of concept requires getting more…