Researchers in Japan and Australia have managed to get teleportation right. We’re now that much closer to a future where quantum computers will be on your desktop, which is to say not very close at all but still.
What they’ve done is teleport a complex set of quantum information that existed in a state of quantum superposition, meaning they existed in two different states simultaneously. That’s essentially the same as transferring information where the data is both a 1 and a 0. The kicker here is that the transfer was quick and there was no data lost, something that has frustrated scientists in the past.
The breakthrough has given the team cause for celebration. As we already know, the transfer of quantum objects within a computer or across a network is exponentially faster than classical computing. Steady but vital progress like this might see us teleporting cats in years to come. [PopSci]