[vtomole]

> The cynicism stems from people telling others that practical quantum computers will change the world for at least a decade.

Practical quantum computers will change the world (break RSA 2048). The question is "when". The people who have a timeline of ~10 years instead of decades contribute to what we in our community call "Quantum hype" and it's very much frowned upon by most of the members in the community.

> combines Quantum computing with the current hot thing

The founder of this lab has an illustrious career in machine learning and is now researching how quantum computers can help with that.

[hedora]

How would breaking RSA change the world?

Perhaps via some practical (non-crypto) application of factoring large numbers?

[vtomole]

Breaking RSA changes the world by breaking crypto and implicitly by moving protocols to post-quantum crypto, which is already happening https://security.apple.com/blog/imessage-pq3/.

Quantum computers also change the world by solving circuit-SAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_satisfiability_problem more efficiently than classical computers than.

They also change the world by simulating quantum systems efficiently, which classical computers cannot do. This has profound implications for physics.