CAMBRIDGE, U.K. – A small Microsoft Research team had lofty goals when it set out four years ago to create an analog optical computer that would use light as a medium for solving complex problems.

Governments and tech companies continue to pour money into quantum technology in the hopes of building a supercomputer that can work at speeds we can't yet fathom to solve big problems.

What’s BECCS, and why’s it so complicated? Sucking carbon pollution out of the atmosphere is becoming a big business—companies are paying top dollar for technologies that can cancel out their own ...