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Dr. Erik Lucero, Lead Engineer of Google Quantum AI, stands beside a quantum computer at the Quantum AI campus in Goleta, California on September 21, 2022. In Google's Quantum AI laboratory, dozens of super smart people labor amongst the tech-firm-typical climbing walls and electric bikes to shape the next generation of computers -- a generation that will be unlike anything you have in your pocket or in your office. "It is a new type of computer that uses quantum mechanics to do computations and allows us... to solve problems that would otherwise be impossible," explains Erik Lucero, lead engineer at the campus near Santa Barbara. It's a field of research that scientists say could be used one day to help limit global warming, design city traffic systems or develop powerful new drugs.The promises are so great that governments, tech giants and start-ups around the world are investing billions of dollars in it, employing some of the biggest brains around (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)