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New quantum science just dropped from harvard, and wow!

I’ll distill the important bits for you.

Or should i say… q-bits? For decades, quantum computers have held the promise of changing everything, from finance to physics. But they’ve always had a fatal flaw: they couldn’t stay on. The fundamental units, called qubits, would literally escape the system, causing the most advanced machines to crash after just 13 seconds. This "atom loss" was a massive bottleneck, turning these revolutionary devices into little more than fleeting fireworks. And this “technical problem” has really been roadblock for humanity! We need computers that can run for hours or days to help tackle society's biggest challenges. For example, accurately simulating the complex molecules needed to design new medicines is a task that would take a normal computer thousands of years., but a quantum computer only days. As long as quantum computers keep crashing, life-saving drugs and other huge discoveries remain stuck on the horizon.

But now, Harvard physicists have solved it. They’ve built the first quantum computer that can run continuously. Using a system of “optical tweezers” and an atomic “conveyor belt,” their machine essentially heals itself, replacing lost qubits on the fly faster than they can escape. They’ve already run it for over two hours, and in theory, it can run forever. This breakthrough clears the roadmap, shrinking the timeline for truly powerful quantum computers from five years down to potentially just two or three.

And don’t worry about this power breaking all encryption—experts have been preparing for years, and new "post-quantum" security standards are already being rolled out to keep our data safe.

CAPTION: ❓What is quantum computing? 👇

Quantum computing is a new kind of computing that uses the rules of quantum physics (ie the weird behavior of tiny particles) to process information. Regular computers store data as bits that are either 0 or 1; quantum computers use qubits, which can be 0, 1, or a mix of both at the same time (called superposition). Multiple qubits can also link together in a special way (entanglement), letting the machine explore many possibilities in parallel. By carefully steering the probabilities with quantum operations, a quantum computer can, for some tasks, find useful answers much faster than a normal computer (like factoring huge numbers, searching certain databases, or simulating molecules). The catch is qubits are extremely fragile—tiny disturbances cause errors—so building large, stable, error-corrected machines is very hard. If we solve that, quantum computers could help design new medicines and materials, optimize complex systems, and tackle problems that are out of reach today.

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New Study DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09596-6

Perspective on the Current State-of-the-Art of Quantum Computing for Drug Discovery Applications - DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.2c005741321600