A huge step in quantum computing was just announced: The first-ever quantum circuit

Quantum computers are very interesting indeed. One aspect that was always challenging for me to understand is how exactly do we "collapse" a wave function, but then use the power of quantum entanglement and uncertainty in quantum states anyway? I mean it's like burning a lot of coal to produce steam so it could produce electricity - so much energy is lost in the process. With quantum computers, all the magic of having more states than 1 and 0 needs to be converted into a classic state anyway, but it seems that this quantum computation will be lost at that point?

This part is so cool:

Quantum computers are needed because classical computers cannot model large molecules; they are just too complex.

For example, to create a simulation of the penicillin molecule with 41 atoms, a classical computer would need 1086 transistors, which is "more transistors than there are atoms in the observable universe".

For a quantum computer, it would only require a processor with 286 qubits (quantum bits).

This stuff bows my mind — so cool!