Australia is making a billion-dollar bet on a 'useful' quantum computer. So what are we buying?

Silicon wafers housing thousands of single-photon detectors lie at the heart of PsiQuantum's computer. (Supplied: PsiQuantum )

Three years from now, if all goes to plan, an industrial estate near Brisbane Airport will house an enormous quantum computer: one of the most complex machines ever built.

Inside, it'll be like nothing else on Earth: racks of cabinets cooled to the temperature of outer space, holding custom-built silicon wafers that can detect individual photons, particles that have no mass and are also (confusingly) waves.

The Californian start-up behind the machine, PsiQuantum, says it will be the world's first useful quantum computer, able to solve problems conventional computers cannot.

All up, it will cost more than $1 billion. Most of that will come from taxpayers, thanks to a massive investment from the Queensland and federal governments.

Partly due to the inherent uncertainties of quantum mechanics, even basic specifications like "size" are hard to nail down.

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