Neurosurgeon: we may have underestimated the neuron

[Drashner1]

Even if consciousness is a quantum mechanical thing (and not arguing that it is), there's nothing that says we can't develop quantum computers that could replicate the process in that case or that such computers would take substantially longer to be developed than AI based on more 'conventional' computing models. Quantum computing is admittedly in its infancy at this point, but so was regular computing less than a century ago - even on merely historical time scales that's very little time indeed.

Todd