Now that you are more familiar with quantum mechanics, Carmina will give you an overview of the current state of quantum computing.

• Quantum computers will not replace classical systems, but they will be much faster at solving certain specific problems, such as the ones related to simulation and optimization.
• In 2019 a team from Google claimed to have demonstrated quantum supremacy using their 54-qubit Sycamore processor. This term refers to quantum computers being able to solve problems that a classical computer cannot.
• We are currently in the NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) era of quantum computing. Intermediate defines a range from 50 to a few hundred qubits in a chip whereas noisy emphasizes the fact that such processors are error prone.
• Current quantum processors can be combined with classical ones to run hybrid quantum-classical algorithms such as the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) and the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA).
• A full-stack quantum computing system allows to express a quantum algorithm in a high-level language that is further translated in a quantum circuit by the compiler and ultimately to the pulses that operate on the quantum device.