| Such a device could help address climate change and food scarcity, or break the Internet. Will the U.S. or China get there first?  Illustration by Carl Burton The competition to reinvent a computer “from scratch” is under way—in the form of a quantum computer—and, if it succeeds, it could “open new frontiers in mathematics,” help develop life-saving drugs, and enable groundbreaking “discoveries about space and time,” as Stephen Witt writes in this week’s issue. But who will be the first to get there, among Google, Intel, I.B.M., Microsoft, Amazon, the Chinese government, and other contenders? Witt visits Google’s A.I. Quantum lab, housed in a scarcely marked warehouse facility in the outskirts of Santa Barbara, California, delves into the history of quantum mechanics, and explores the root of quantum-computing research: a scientific concept, first described by Einstein, known as “quantum entanglement.” Along the way, he interviews scientists in both the U.S. and China who are at the forefront of the field—including a Burning Man aficionado who helped create social-media face filters, and a mathematician named Peter Shor who is obsessed with algorithms. “I think about them late at night, in the shower, everywhere,” Shor said. “Interspersed with that, I scribble funny symbols on a piece of paper.” —Jessie Li, newsletter editor Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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