Looking at the development of computers over the last two decades, you'd think that the increases in performance would go on for ever. But until recently, many observers believed that the limiting factor in processor design would, eventually, be the speed of light - restricting the speed with which instructions and data could flow through a chip. And even that's assuming that plenty of other seemingly intractable problems could be solved beforehand.

But the prospects for ever-increasing processor speed, and faster communications in general, have received a boost recently, thanks to developments in quantum computing that make the speed of light look distinctly tortoise-like.

Quantum entanglement is a strange feature of some pairs of sub-atomic particles, where the (initially unknown) characteristics of one particle are dependent on those of the other. Bizarrely, measuring the characteristics of one particle will instantly determine the outcome of measuring the other particle. This is true not just if the entangled particles are side-by-side, but even if they're separated by millions of miles of 'empty' space.

In this way, two entangled particles at either ends of the universe could 'communicate' instantaneously. How? Nobody knows; even hardened physicists tend to call it weird and ask for another beer. It's an area where probability controls reality, rather than reflecting it.

But it means that, potentially, computers could be built that could operate, and communicate with each other, at phenomenal speeds, leaving the speed of light to slink off into a corner and moan about the good old days.

There are problems - as there would be, in a system where even looking at the 'machine' could destroy it - but recent news suggests that these problems are slowly but surely being overcome, and that some form of distributed quantum computing is likely to be with us within the next five years. What'll happen then will certainly be interesting ("Sorry, Miss, Schrödinger's cat* ate my homework.").

I wonder if Intel has trade-marked the name 'Quantium' yet.