[manyoso]

We are so far from talking about this that your question is nearly meaningless. Quantum computing has not even been demonstrated yet. This "quantum supremacy" is for a highly contrived algorithm and set up that has very little if any real world use cases.

A generalized quantum computer able to run standard computing algorithms is very far in the future and so much basic research in computing science has to happen before it can be talked about meaningfully.

[marcosdumay]

> Quantum computing has not even been demonstrated yet.

That's quite an uninformed comment. Anybody thinking this can start at Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing#Timeline

That list has completely functional computers with up to 4 qbits with results to show.

[petra]

What about quantum machine learning? assuming quantum computers become powerful tomorrow, won't they be useful in that field?

[kneel]

Depends on what you mean by powerful and how that can translate to a meaningful calculation.

[typon]

Pretty sure the only thing quantum computers are better at than classical computers currently is simulating quantum mechanics

[johncolanduoni]

We actually have a few examples of an absolute speed up for quantum computers, though none of them are exponential and some of them are problems nobody cares to solve. For example, Grover's algorithm is superior (O(sqrt(n)) vs O(n)) to the best possible classical algorithm for the same problem.

If you are willing to accept comparisons of best known classical algorithms to best known quantum algorithms (without a guarantee that the existing algorithms are ideal) you can add others like factoring to the list, with exponential speed ups.