Zak, forget your mere optical computers

[Lefty Scaevola]

Quantum computing is the way to go.
A quantum computer at a US University has solved a computational problem without running a program. scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gleaned the answer to an algorithm by combining quantum computation and quantum interrogation (a technique that makes use of wave-particle duality to search a region of space without actually entering that region) in an optical-based quantum computer through a process called "counterfactual computation".

[spartak]

what does that actually mean?

[wgabrie]

Computer looks, computer thinks.

[IdaGno]

sounds like heat & noise shouldn't be an issue

[History_Buff]

Heat will likely still be a problem. As far as I know, they use a good deal of lasers in order to properly manipulate particles in question, and those will probably require cooling.