Scientists and engineers attempting to build a scalable and efficient quantum computer normally go about it in one of the two ways -- by trapping ions in magnetic fields, or by using superconducting circuits. In either case, the systems created utilize "qubits," which are quantum computing equivalent of electronic computing bits bits, existing in a state of superposition. The question that is often asked is this -- which architecture, trapped ions or a superconducting device, leads to the creation of faster and more reliable quantum computers? A team of researchers has, in a new study, attempted to answer the question. "If you want to buy a quantum computer, you'll need to know which one is best for your application. You'll need to test them in some way, and this is the first of this kind of comparison," Norbert Linke, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland's Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), said in a statement released Thursday.