Not surprisingly, you probably won't get to use this quantum machine yourself. Much as in the old mainframe days, this computer is aimed at "business and science" customers that need to solve specific problems. To that end, IBM is helping research partners Canon, Hitachi Metals, Honda, JSR, Nagase and Samsung explore potential uses for quantum tech.

The exciting part, IBM argues, isn't so much the known performance as the possibilities. No one knows the full extent of what a universal quantum computer can do -- it's entirely feasible that the device will solve problems that aren't even on the table right now. The biggest challenges are creating a tangible roadmap for production, and developing something affordable enough that it's genuinely practical to use outside of a handful of cases.