In a hot tub in 2012, physicist Seth Lloyd pitched a quantum internet application to Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page. He called it Quoogle: a search engine that, using mathematics based on the physics of subatomic particles, returns results without ever actually knowing the query. Such an advance would require an entirely new kind of memory, called qRAM, or quantum random access memory.

You’ve just booted up a game on a state-of-the-art quantum computer. You’re running 19 superconducting quantum bits on a processor held at near absolute zero. Anticipating its sheer power, you press start and...

We are one step closer to a quantum internet, thanks to a team of Aussie researchers who have worked out how to dramatically improve the storage time of a vital component: telecom-compatible quantum memory.

Here's what that means.