The District’s technology community woke to a shock in November when Harry Weller, a rising star at esteemed Maryland venture firm New Enterprise Associates, died in his sleep at 46. Weller was fascinated by peculiarities in how fast-changing scientific advances can reshape the world, and he rose to prominence by shepherding successful businesses in murky fields such as cybersecurity and e-commerce.

One of his last projects was a start-up called IonQ, and it may have been one of the most un­or­tho­dox investments of his career.

IonQ includes academics from the University of Maryland and Duke University who want to sell quantum computing capabilities to giant technology companies within a few years.

Quantum computing is a still-aspirational field of computer science that envisions impossibly fast computers built on the laws of particle physics. Mainstream scientists theorize that a quantum computer could perform tasks unattainable to even the most advanced traditional computers, such as seamlessly breaking data encryption or rapidly analyzing the human genome.

Read more via the Washington Post.

Learn more via Scienceag.org - Scientists are Close to Building a Quantum Computer that Can Beat a Conventional One