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While quantum computers are great, fast, and powerful, there are several things they are not . This is important to understand as well so quantum computing programs don't get over-glorified and over-hyped within the commerical and societal sectors.
Quantum computers as we have learned, are not deterministc and cannot give just a simple answer. It is highly dependent on several factors for an interpretable answer. And these answers are important. However, they are not easy to understand compared to the digital computer which gives simple answers for every day human sequential tasks.
The ways they are limited are as follows:
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Too many quantum device "options" : Although the immense research carried out in this field is deeply appreciated for the spreading of knowledge by the scientific community, the range of quantum products being commercialized by quantum computing companies is often met with confusion from those that are starting to get interested. In fact, it is one of the reasons of the necessitation of this paper in the first place. With so many different competing quantum technologies, while increasing the healthy competition that now exists in the market to promote quantum advantage, it can be difficult to decide from a customer standpoint which one to choose over the other. This is especially of concern considering that there are relatively few benchmarks and testing comparing these applications against each other. With more quantum technology companies starting up each year providing similar solutions, customers are often left in the dark without understanding the improvements of one form of quantum technology versus another unless they deep dive into each themselves.
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Popularization of specific methods: Not only is there still no clear technical direction driving quantum computer hardware development, a few pathways are gaining significant momentum and capturing large portions of funding and interest. In fact, each of the different system types vary with respect to the type of qubit[9].This risks the potential that certain types of quantum technologies, hardwares, programming languages, and software may become commercially adopted while not truly being the most efficient quantum solution for the problem.
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Confusion between quantum technologies: According to [3]: Most of the pathways currently being pursued are gate-based quantum computing technologies, as they are touted as being building blocks for eventual universal quantum computers; this is in comparison to quantum annealing technologies, which are easier to develop but limited in application. Although quantum annealing technologies have been successfully produced with higher qubit numbers, they tend to not reflect the true quantum benefits of quantum computing and are only able to perform a limited range of tasks. Time is required to delineate between not only classical and quantum, but also between the various quantum technologies themselves, a few of which were discussed in this work.
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Hardware consensus: Due to the influx of quantum computer hardware ideas and the lack of a consensus over which development path will yield the best computer, there is a general push to make framework-agnostic quantum computing software (Technological report [6]). In many cases, the specific hardware or software decisions are made with respect to the applications or types of industries that companies are targeting. This leads to a specialization in the quantum industry where experts are servicing as consultants rather than universal educational adoption which may also come with drawbacks.
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There are socio-political limitations. With global governments now understanding the potential impacts of quantum technology, there are increasing fears even though there is still much needed research done to advance the technology. Exporting controls rather than encouraging collaborations may be effective in limiting final users of the technology through directing the types of research that receive investment in the private sector.[6] Combined, these two factors (the security relevance and the early stage of development/high susceptibility to export controls), make quantum computing an ideal chokepoint technology for trade control policy. However given the immense promise of quantum computing, early trade controls attempt to mitigate security-relevant activities would likely have to be extremely targeted. Otherwise, overly broad controls risk meriting criticism from the private sector that may ultimately lead to non-compliance, or loss of American technological competence through excessive burden on economic benefits.
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Scalability - It is true that research is still being done on efficient ways to scale quantum computers, and the answer to that scalability is not yet publicly announced, although measuring by quantum "volume" rather than number of qubits is an important hint. As stated in "The goal here is not to implement classical algorithms on quantum computers because it makes no sense to build a much mor expensive machine to run only classical algorithms. However, the implementation we have jus described can be used for inputs in superposition, which is not allowed on a classical computer. Unfortunately, this quantum circuit construction technique for calculating truth tables is not efficient, since the number of multiqubit Toffoli gates increases exponentially as a function of the number of qubits in the worst case. Hence, research is constantly being done in this field to discover new techniques and methods to improve the scalability of quantum devices.
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While research and developments are quickly expanding in the field, classical computing technologies are also competing to not get left behind or become obselete in the shadow of what quantum technology introductions imply.