We may have to 'cheat' to build them, but quantum computers are coming in some form or another. Whether they end up being quantum computers of the sort which meet everyone's preconceptions is another matter. They probably won't and the purists and idealists will be disappointed. But something will emerge from all this research; it won't be what everyone has expected and won't deliver on all the promises of quantum computing.

But something will be built from all this research, and it will represent a definite advance, possibly even a whole new way of using and thinking about mechanical computation.

It may very well transform our view of the world around us.

Then again, its applications may prove to be mostly mathematical and abstract, making the sort of people obsessed with Fermat's Last Theorem, the elusive patterns of primes, Banach spaces, face-centered cubic packing, Monster Moonshine, and the Langlands Program happy. But leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself using different tools.

All sorts of interesting developments are in the works!

(The article I went looking for, about a quasi-quantum computer, I was unable to find and is unfortunately not included below.)

http://www.nature.com/nsu/010201/010201-2.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/000810/000810-7.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/000706/000706-11.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/000601/000601-4.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/000210/000210-4.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/000113/000113-10.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/990930/990930-1.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/980716/980716-1.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/000615/000615-2.html