There are limitations to quantum computing, though, including issues with keeping a quantum state active at room temperature. (It’s only been previously done for around two seconds.) Recently, though, a team of international scientists smashed that record and created a quantum state that survived for a total of 39 minutes.

In standard computing, information is stored in strings of 0’s and 1’s. With a quantum state, qubits (quantum bits of information) can be both 0’s and 1’s at the same time. This means that multiple calculations can be handled simultaneously. Unfortunately, quantum computers need to operate at almost absolute zero temperatures to sustain a quantum state, which hinders the reality of actually using quantum computers.