Maybe the most intriguing thing I have seen in recent years is the combination of quantum computing and quantum sensing, from the group surrounding John Preskill at Caltech, especially the astounding Robert Huang. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2y5YF-gAAAAJ&hl=en
They have shown how coupling a quantum sensor to a quantum computer dramatically reduces the number of times you need to actually run the quantum experiment. https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.00778
This is one of the most important ideas in recent years, IMO, and it will take us years to figure out all of its implications. It might be used in either a lab+data center configuration, or wide-area setup, it's not clear yet.
All of this work is supported on what, by my estimate, is about 1% of what's being spent on #QuantumComputing. It's a small but critical part of an entire ecosystem.
Okay, I think that covers what I wanted to say about the utility of entangled networks, both data center and wide-area. Let me also comment on the cookie:
The cookie analogy for entanglement is incomplete, and simplified to the point where it's misleading. Let me see if I can do a little better, but this makes it a LOT longer and murkier, so stick with me...
A cookie has two properties, perhaps flavor (chocolate and vanilla) and shape (round and square), but when you are given a cookie you can't learn about both. You have to pick one.
You can either feel the shape with your hand or you can taste it, but not both, and if you try to look at it instead it just crumbles before you can learn anything about it.
You and I ask the Quantum Internet to make a special pair for us. Then we each, independently, decide whether to taste our cookie or feel it, then we share what we found.
Of course, if we do this just once, it doesn't tell us much. In fact, we have to repeat this a bunch of times, and what we get is just this weird statistical result.
Until the advent of quantum computing, that's all this was, a weird statistical anomaly, with the profound but esoteric suggestion that quantum mechanics and relativity don't mix.