The 4004 wasn't useful to power a general-purpose computer as we think of one today, it was made for a 4 function calculator and it's hard to find many examples of it being used in other systems online. It took another 10 years of Moore's Law for the ingredients to come together and microprocessor-powered desktop computers to achieve critical mass.
Look at Table 2 in the (awful, IMO) Nature article. This thing is 10x slower than even a 4004.
> Dismissing any technology coming to market because you think it doesn't solve any problem is usually a bad idea because it takes non-zero effort and resources to bring anything to market. As a result, if you imagine what something is irrelevant because there are other proven solutions, then take that as a signal to say "Hmmm, what am I missing here?"
100%!
But is there reason to think Moore's Law is happening here?
Or did these researchers just print some minimum viable transistors on kapton?