It is the 119th time the prize has been awarded. Last year, artificial intelligence pioneers John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton won the physics prize for helping create the building blocks of machine learning.

Quantum computing is expected to leave classical computing in the dust when it comes to solving some of the world’s most fiendishly difficult problems. The best quantum machines today have one major weakness, however — they are incredibly error-prone.

Quantum computing is generating a lot of excitement in the tech world right now. Following several recent breakthroughs, this once theoretical technology is increasingly accessible to researchers and even businesses. Just in case you’re still not sure ...