India, Aug. 21 -- Do you know? Launched in 1951, the Universal Automatic Computer I, or UNIVAC I, was the first commercially available computer. Manufactured by Remington Rand and designed for storing and managing census data, payrolls, inventory, insurance, and scientific calculations, UNIVAC I was capable of performing about 1,000 additions per second and storing around 12,000 characters of data.

The world has come a long way since UNIVAC I. Quantum computers, which are capable of handling specialised problems and processing millions of combinations in parallel, far surpassing a supercomputer or a classical PC, have lately become the talk of the town.

These machines are not only pivotal in helping scientists explore quantum phenomena ...