Microsoft aims to win the race to build a new kind of computer. So does Amazon

A quantum computer's big selling points are speed and multitasking, enabling it to solve complex problems that would trip up today's technology. — Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

The tech giants are locked in a race.

It might not end for another decade, and there might not be just one winner. But, at the finish line, the prize they promise is a speedy machine, a quantum computer, that will crack in minutes problems that can't be solved at all today. Builders describe revolutionary increases in computing power that will accelerate the development of artificial intelligence, help design new drugs and offer new solutions to help fight climate change.