That's like asking if a stapler can dispense tape. QC is not and never was intended to be for general purpose computing. It's a tool for specific use cases where classical computing falls apart very quickly, like the traveling salesman problem.
Problems like TSP are terrible examples because we have an excellent and affordable approximation for lots of them. A working general quantum computer (if anybody builds one) will be an expensive way to slightly improve those results. It's the gold-plated HDMI cable of quantum computer applications.
Factoring isn't like dispensing tape, it has one of the few applications (breaking conventional asymmetric cryptography) for which an expensive but working general quantum computer gives you a clear benefit (with Shor's algorithm) over just buying a lot of ordinary computers.
And all these press release "breakthrough" machines can't do it because it's hard. They're at best a stalling tactic, to buy more time/money to solve the hard problems and at worst they're essentially a con.
Factoring large numbers is by far the most famous "specific use case" for quantum computers. Even in theory, they can't achieve exponential speed up (only quadratic) for travelling salesman.
Yes, I understand that I will not be running Windows desktop, or doing anything remotely familiar on a QC. But factoring very large numbers very fast has been, for quite a while now, the sales pitch of the QC evangelists. One of the strongest use cases put forward, one that has gotten many a grad students a thesis, and many schools and labs a fat grant. But yet, my $1.50 microcontroller can do it in a few milliseconds, while a $10M, liquid nitrogen cooled monster is incapable of doing so. I don't see progress occurring.
