They're definitely referring to a real ("universal") quantum computer, not the quantum annealing devices of D-wave. Their computer will be able to run the Schor

They're definitely referring to a real ("universal") quantum computer, not the quantum annealing devices of D-wave. Their computer will be able to run the Schor algorithm, if it is as advertised. If they have 20 qubits in two months, as they say they will, that seems like great progress compared to where I thought the field was. And if they have 50 within a couple years after that, it would be huge. One caveat is they seem to be making a distinction between a "universal" quantum computer, and a "universal fault-tolerant" one. Fault-tolerance requires a lot more qubits so it's not clear to me how valuable even 50 will be, if not error-corrected. I must say I will be kind of amazed if quantum computers prove to be scalable the way classical ones have been. I'm inclined to believe that the "Church-Turing" thesis will ultimately prevail once the cost of construction of the machines is factored in (~linear growth for the classical machines, greater than polynomial for the quantum). But I've been wrong before.