The year isn't over yet, but we've already seen record-breaking quantum computers, skyrocketing levels of investment, and demonstrations of real-world benefits.

In all the hype about AI it can be easy to forget that we’re witnessing another revolution in computing: the beginning of the quantum era.

Quantum computers are expected to tackle problems completely out of reach of today’s machines, bringing about new developments in chemistry, biology and physics. They’ll also be able to tackle problems of interest to the average enterprise, such as logistics, AI and encryption, proponents say.

At the beginning of this year, however, it all seemed far away.

“AI is dominating the attention economy,” says James Sanders, semiconductor industry analyst at TechInsights. “The incrementalism of quantum computing is difficult to translate to public interest, against the backdrop of AI.”

In fact, in January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that quantum computing is still 15 to 30 years from being truly useful.