Progress in quantum computing?

In the past few weeks, I've heard lots of comments about quantum computing. Because I heard so much about it, I thought that there must have been a big breakthrough of some sort. The last I had heard was that a team at IBM had managed to factor 15 using Shor's algorithm. Because of the sudden interest, I thought that this record must have been beaten in some way, and I don't mean by factoring 17.

But when I looked around the Internet, however, I couldn't find anything that talked about bigger successes, although others have reproduced the factorization of 15. This leads me to wonder what caused the sudden interest in quantum computing. Are there quantum computers out there that can do more than factor 15?

Being able to factor 15 with a quantum computer is actually a very impressive technical accomplishment, but it's not one that leads me to believe that existing public-key technologies are in danger of being rendered ineffective by the existence of quantum computers any  time soon. Perhaps ever. Or is there research out there that I didn't find?

Comments

[Suz G]

Hi Luther,

Possibly one of the reasons that there has been a fair bit of press coverage recently is that several of the technologies are being realised on-chip for the first time.

So whilst there has been no breakthrough in scaling (allowing factorisation of larger numbers for example) or on the algorithms front, the hardware is now getting to the stage where it is in line with conventional lithographical techniques, and can be realised in commercial foundries rather than just in research labs. This is in itself a great step forward.

In addition, several of the different hardware models of QC are starting to compete (Ion trap vs. superconducting flux qubits for example) which should drive further progress.

So it's all going on behind the scenes!

[Rob Adams]

Possibly in reference to this:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17736-codebreaking-quantum-algorithm-run-on-a-silicon-chip.html

They factored 15 but on a small silicon chip.