http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news...ead-battle
EXCERPT: [...] The two devices are a long way from being useful general purpose computers. A practical device will require thousands of interacting qubits, the challenge being that maintaining a stable state becomes much more difficult with each qubit added. However, the experiment is a sign of progress according to Simon Benjamin, a physicist at the University of Oxford. "For a long time, the devices were so immature that you couldn't really put two five-qubit gadgets next to each other and perform this kind of comparison, " he told Science. "It's a sign that this technology is maturing...."
EXCERPT: [...] The two devices are a long way from being useful general purpose computers. A practical device will require thousands of interacting qubits, the challenge being that maintaining a stable state becomes much more difficult with each qubit added. However, the experiment is a sign of progress according to Simon Benjamin, a physicist at the University of Oxford. "For a long time, the devices were so immature that you couldn't really put two five-qubit gadgets next to each other and perform this kind of comparison, " he told Science. "It's a sign that this technology is maturing...."