The power of quantum computing could only be harnessed if an algorithm could exploit the potential of it. An algorithm is simply a program that is designed for the purpose of solving a certain problem. Without algorithms, we would have no computer (classical or quantum), because there would have been no motivation to build a computer if it could not solve any problems.
Similarly nobody wanted to build a quantum computer because there were no algorithms. In 1994 everything changed when Peter Shor, a Bell Labs scientist, wrote an algorithm which would factor large numbers on a quantum computer.
This discovery would change the world forever; as engineers and scientists stepped into the potent world of quantum computing. Since then, there have been great advances in the writing of quantum algorithms which are now armed with astonishing sophistication. The latest being able to manipulate 16 qubits, which is the world's first commercial quantum computer, the Orion by D-Wave Systems.