Why the Commonwealth Bank and Telstra have joined the global race to build a quantum computer

The race to build the world's first true quantum computer is on, with huge potential payoffs for businesses that harness the technology before their competitors. The computers we use today represent information in binary bits – on/off, 0/1 – while a quantum computer's qubit can, in simple terms, be both on and off the same time. That means many computations can be performed in parallel; a quality that, when fully realised, will give quantum computers a huge speed advantage over'classical' computers in solving certain problems. Microsoft and IBM are ploughing significant sums into related research. Google, NASA and Lockheed Martin have invested in a D-Wave 2X -- described by its maker as the "world's first commercially available quantum computer", although debate rages over its capabilities.