> The problem it solved would take a septillion years to do on a conventional computer
And more importantly, the solution is not actually verified in any way. It might be wrong.
I don't understand (as a complete laymen) why the milestone isn't something classically hard but easily verified (in line with you). I feel like it's weird because people have spent a lot of time telling me how trivially quantum computing will break encryption that defeats normal computers.
> why the milestone isn't something classically hard but easily verified
They're far from being able to do any such thing, so posing such milestone would make the field look stagnant and thus be a bad marketing and hurt the money stream. The "milestones" are chosen so that they are plausibly reachable in short time relevant to patrons/investors, because people working on this need to constantly demonstrate progress.
And more importantly, the solution is not actually verified in any way. It might be wrong.
I don't understand (as a complete laymen) why the milestone isn't something classically hard but easily verified (in line with you). I feel like it's weird because people have spent a lot of time telling me how trivially quantum computing will break encryption that defeats normal computers.