The first quantum computer was invented in the early 1980s by physicist Paul Benioff, who proposed a theoretical model for a quantum computer based on quantum mechanical principles. However, the first practical realization of a quantum computer was achieved in the late 1990s.
In 1998, a research group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory led by Isaac Chuang and Neil Gershenfeld implemented a two-qubit quantum computer using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. They used molecules in a liquid-state sample as qubits and performed basic quantum computations.
This experiment marked the first demonstration of a working quantum computer, albeit with a small number of qubits and limited computational capabilities. Since then, significant progress has been made in the field of quantum computing, with researchers and companies developing more advanced quantum systems with increasing numbers of qubits and improved capabilities.
It's worth noting that the development of practical quantum computers is still an ongoing area of research, and we are still some way off from having fully scalable and fault-tolerant quantum computers that can outperform classical computers for a wide range of tasks. However, the field has seen remarkable advancements over the past few decades, and quantum computers hold great promise for solving complex problems in areas such as cryptography, optimization, and material science in the future.