Abstract
About a century after the development of quantum mechanics we have now reached an exciting time where non-trivial devices that make use of quantum effects can be built. There already exist a number commercial and experimental devices using quantum effects, from quantum random number generators to  analog quantum simulators and quantum annealers. In my talk I will look forward to future universal quantum computers. First demonstration devices exist and a universal quantum computer with computational powers beyond that of any imaginable classical computers seems just over the horizon and feasible within the next decade. I will discuss the origin of the exceptional computational performance of quantum computers but also the challenges involved in designing new quantum algorithms. In particular I will discuss our search for the quantum “killer-apps”, the real-world applications that can be solved efficiently on a quantum computer but not on the fastest special purpose classical hardware that could be developed over the next decade.