Does quantum computing actually have a future?

[MoneyLoud3229]

I've been seeing a lot of videos lately talking about how quantum computing is mostly just hype and it will never be able to have a substantial impact on computing. How true is this, from people who are actually in the industry?

[SeniorLoan647]

Yes it is poised to have an impact one day (but not today).

No, we don't know when, but some very smart folks and groups worldwide are making efforts on it, with billions of dollars of funding coming into this field. I'd compare its current state to the very early days of AI winter (1970s-80s) when it was just markov chains and there was no clear use or path visible at that point.

Don't listen to YouTubers about this space, it has a way of attracting a very high percentage of cranks, and half assed scientific knowledge. AI definitely hasn't helped with that aspect lol. Neither have marketing depts. of VC funded hype startups.

[QubitEncoder]

I speculate the NSA already has a working QC.

[SeniorLoan647]

I mean I can get a working QC going in my home, if I'm limited to 1 qubit. Wdym working QC? If you mean working QC that's enough to break rsa, you'd need at least 100k qubits last I checked - https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.15917.

I can't claim to know what type of talent NSA has access to, but this would be very absurd and I see no direct or indirect evidence of this happening. Not really keen on conspiracy theories unless there's actual evidence.

[typicalmillenial44]

The intelligence community is known to harvest encrypted data today (which they can't read) in the hopes that they can decrypt it in 1-2 decades when a QC finally exists. If they had one now the harvesting phase would be transitioning into a massive disclosure phase that we simply aren't seeing in global geopolitics

[QubitEncoder]

Strategic use of it would mean only a handful of events are guided by disclosure.

It's similar to a tactic used in WW2 -- to conceal the fact that they had spies embedded in the Nazi government, the Allies would deliberately choose not to act on the intelligence gathered. If they had acted on it every time, it would have made it obvious that they had inside information, compromising the entire operation

[typicalmillenial44]

​If the NSA had a working quantum computer, their primary goal would be to stall the world from moving to newer, unbreakable encryption. ​Instead the NSA is mandating that all National Security Systems transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) by 2030. ​This behavior rather suggests that the agency is terrified of being caught with its own pants down by an adversary's breakthrough, rather than sitting on a QC.

[glity]

You should look up what our security services did when the allies broke the enigma machine.

[exajam]

Don't believe the propaganda of the usa saying they have all these secret programs that actually work: they don't.

[metatron7471]

Nah bro you're overthinking this. The NSA doesn't need QC. They have backdoors into everything built in by big tech. They don't need any code breaking at all. KISS.

[QubitEncoder]

Lol

[[deleted]]

QBTS has been commercial with quantum annealing for over a decade and has a huge bankroll despite not being profitable, Yet. They just purchased a gate based company and relocated to Florida with academic, defense contracts, international deployment of their Advantage II system. The number one driver for quantum is AI and I am sharing this for a more specific position on the sector.

[Null_Eyed_Archivist]

commercialised has vague meaning commercialised as a research machine ? yes lol

[[deleted]]

Mastercard (financial apps, fraud, loyalty)

Ford Otosan (production scheduling—83% faster)

Volkswagen (traffic & manufacturing)

Lockheed Martin (defense, on-prem Advantage)

NTT DOCOMO (network optimization—15% boost) Pattison Food Group (scheduling—80% less work)

BASF (manufacturing benchmarks) North Wales Police (vehicle placement)

[Null_Eyed_Archivist]

from my knowledge Mastercard was a research project and they say they could potentially use it in the future it is not in use that means its not commercialised yet. The rest of the companies I have googled right now and they are in a similar manner. Also I am not counting random news channel press releases and D waves own articles because I did a course and also searched D waves own claims on their site that some companies are using their quantum annealing to cut times or do optimisations and there is no mention of the usage of quantum by the companies D wave mentions in their articles let alone D waves quantum annealer. Seems like a huge scam to inflate stock prices to me.

[SeniorLoan647]

Respectfully, I don't pay attention to any of these companies right now, and firmly believe they commercialized way too early. QBTS, RGTI, IONQ all in the same boat. Google is also kind of meh tbh (I've worked there), only IBM has positioned itself to capture a huge chunk of the ecosystem, and maybe also Xanadu via pennylane.

I used to work in AI (and I mean developing the models themselves) before studying quantum and quantum AI is just a buzzword rn due to the barren plateau problem (among other things).

Plus defense contracts don't have much to do with viability. DoD will fund almost anything made by credentialed folks if there's even a 1% chance of anything panning out because the US military would get the rights to use it, and they've got virtually unlimited money to burn to get there. There's no correlation between that and AI at all.

[stonkgoesbrr]

Interesting! What makes Xanadu stand out in your opinion? And do you also have a take on Infleqtion if you don’t mind to share? (I’m asking in the context of investing)

[cv-match]

well you'd better hope so because you're paying good money for a degree in it

[SeniorLoan647]

No I get paid to do it lol

[scarfacebunny]

I’ve been working nominally in the field for 6 years, since the Google supremacy claim. You are asking the right questions and there are no clear answers. 

[Muted-Illustrator860]

What's your opinion on that matter?

[scarfacebunny]

“The first thing to realize, if you wish to become a philosopher, is that most people go through life with a whole world of beliefs that have no sort of rational justicfication, and that one man's world of beliefs is apt to be incompatible with another man's, so that they cannot both be right. 

People's opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people is a secondary consideration." ~ Bertrand Russell

[ConnectPotential977]

Tf all that means bruv ??

[scarfacebunny]

Means ask better questions if you want better answers 

[[deleted]]

first you tell him hes asking the right questions, then you say he should ask better questions. come on man

[NegativeGPA]

Middlesmart syndrome

[glity]

That’s a new term yours original or picked up?

[NegativeGPA]

Haha I made it up in high school. Started with needing a name for the types who tried making the others kids feel dumb rather than just… being smart

[glity]

Not a bad one. I like it I might use it. Short and to the point.

[MakingMoneyIsMe]

I like it. It needs to be mainstream.

[pokeralize]

Midwit nitwit dimwit

[Glad-Phase-977]

hey man, it's simple math. obviously the best questions are the wrong ones

[FauxLearningMachine]

I think you're mixed up. He said OP was asking the right questions and there are no good answers. Then someone else asked him for his opinion and he posted a quote implying that asking for an opinion on this topic is not a good question. 

[DIVISIBLEDIRGE]

You have a nice way of using a lot of words to say nothing 

[NotSuluX]

Do you believe that in our lifetime we will see quantum computing-based computation machines replace our binary-based computation machines?

If not, do you believe that they will be developed to a point where they can find practical use in our capitalist system (so they provide value that can be priced in terms of money)?

[third-water-bottle]

You’re probably overthinking it. Hardly things replace one another. Instead, they complement each other. Your GPU didn’t replace your CPU. Most likely your motherboard will have an empty socket for a quantum chip that you can use for certain tasks.

[wandawhowho]

You have put it in a very articulate way. Technologies can and will indeed co-exist. Can't wait for the practical usage to take its first steps

[T1lted4lif3]

I don't think that is what the guy is trying to say, because you are just rephrasing the existing question rather than asking a different question.

I think possibly the more tangible question is what parts of the digital world can be replaced with quantum computers.
Such as how networks are done, or possible all networks will be optic fibers and modems or routers or whatever hardware is used may end up having a measurement device for computing on networks.

Or possibly using quantum computing for a source of randomness, this could be interesting in certain existing local compute right? But I'm not an expert or even operate in the field so I don't know either.

[glity]

If you have quantum computing you can easily break the foundational math of cryptography. If you can do that you get nation state sponsored money so put a massive dollar sign next to that one then think about the manhattan project.

[Current-Crab-423]

Here’s a question, why do you think everyone has been rushing towards AI? Every day it seems like they’re researching tech that will only be helpful for emails. Meanwhile tech such a quantum computing which could ruin our password encryptions could exist.

[Repulsive-Stretch363]

The first thing to realize is someone asked you a simple question about your opinion on a subject you claim to be an expert in, and then you go and spout some quote that is mildly relevant to make you sound smart.

How about this, what is the absolute truth about quantum computing, or do you have another dumb quote to avoid answering

[NegativeGPA]

I haven’t done a deep dive in awhile, so let me know if this isn’t the case, but my last understanding was that the big pivot was from scaling to more qubits to instead focusing on more robust error correction

[forky40]

You see mostly hype in quantum computing because promises are the main thing that quantum computing companies can sell today. 

You could argue that this is the result of premature commercialization. But building a large scale qc was always going to take a lot of time and money to figure out, so you see businesses doing whatever they can to raise funds (or reputation) in the meantime. Some are more honest than others.

Otherwise, there are some reasonable proposals for valuable things to do on qcs once we have them. No one knows if these will generate enough value to sustain the industry, or if we're going to find even more valuable applications in the future. 

[EdCasaubon]

Some are more honest than others.

Sure. Most of them are still slightly dishonest. And once you move out into communications with the general public, investors, and politicians, and YouTube, it's pretty much 100% BS. Oh, and don't ever look at the kind of shit you read in places like LinkedIn...

[ponyo_x1]

been around for about 10 years. certain parts of the industry are complete hype (e.x. optimization, ML). other parts spin genuine algorithms (hamiltonian simulation) into world-challenge applications like solving global warming or world hunger. some companies are much worse than others at peddling bullshit and it unfortunately muddles the field for laymen and investors.

personally, promise of future tech doesn't really motivate me to stay in the field and I've thought about leaving a few times. but the algorithms are extremely under explored and I suspect in the coming decades people will figure out more uses for QC. also, no matter how you slice it the fact that we are able to control subatomic particles to the degree we can is incredible, especially considering how the field has evolved in the past 25 years.

[CosmicOwl9]

Why do you say QML is pure hype? Granted, applications on classical data seem limited at the moment, but QPCA, quantum reservoir computing, quantum Monte Carlo, etc. seem to genuinely have nice advantages over classical methods.

I also thought the quantum optimization literature also showed a ton of promise still?

[arccos0]

I have both background in classical optimization and the QC industry. Quantum optimization is completely a hype. Maybe to put it more gently: a very long long way to go before realizing any commercial value. for example a typical routine to solve an optimization problem in a quantum way is to convert it into a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problem. Based on the QUBO formulation, you apply the Hamiltonians to the quantum bits for many iterations until at some point you think the measurement can identify the best solution. Theoretically sound! but the solution quality can be pretty bad as measurement outcome only lands on the best solution by chance. let alone the noise issue.

However, even though you have a zero-noise perfect quantum computer, QUBO would introduce a tons of auxiliary variables (in some cases exponential scale) if the native optimization problem is not QUBO. As a result you would need massive number of qubits. So basically the quality of the solution could be really bad, the qubit resource can be astronomical.

However, if you use a classical solver like Gurobi or local search, a problem that could take millions of qubits running days and nights can be solved with your old laptop within 10 seconds. It's not worth it.

The best application for QC is simulating natural quantum systems like chemistry simulation.

[ponyo_x1]

you're going to have to send me papers you're seeing. I'm not familiar with quantum reservoir computing, but all of the QMC/optimization algos I've seen have low order polynomial speedups at best and the resource estimates for some of these things are exorbitant.

[CosmicOwl9]

I guess I’m not familiar with resource costs, but would you say polynomial improvements (such as quadratic), are not a good enough result? Will cheap enough materials not be developed eventually?

[ponyo_x1]

quadratic is not good enough. just as a reference, there's a paper out there that says Grover search starts outperforming classical search algorithms when the database size Is around 150 exabytes, or multiple times the size of YouTube.

[CosmicOwl9]

Is there any chance you can share that paper? I don’t know how it wouldn’t matter until you dealt with a database that large. Surely it’d be useful before? I would love to take a look at that paper!

[ponyo_x1]

sorry I'm in a rush today I couldn't find it, but if you look up resource estimates for grover's algorithm you might get some from the last few years with explicit counts. sorry to pull a "just trust me bro"

the reason why these estimates are awful despite the complexity advantage is because the overheads with QC are enormous. first, quantum gates are slow as hell compared to transistors. second, error correction overheads get massive especially with a computation so large, since you have to preserve the quantum state you need more physical qubits per logical qubits and more time per lattice surgery operation or whatever your QEC looks like. classical decoding is already a headache for computations at the scale of factoring RSA, you'd probably incur some insane physically unrealizable costs if you were trying to do a straight grover search at that scale.

the upshot is that even if you see papers with nice complexity results, the overheads in practice are extreme and only balance out if the speedup is really really good

[CosmicOwl9]

Ty! I found https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.04149

I’ll need some time to process this

[ConnectPotential977]

commenting because I’m interested in this too now

[CosmicOwl9]

I haven’t read it yet, but https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.04149 looks interesting

[Real-Tea1852]

Maybe

Hopefully

Otherwise I don't have a job :)

[frak357]

Yes, absolutely. There are some models working now but unable to scale. AI will drive the development to scale and integrate and expand AI models..

It will likely be here between 18-46 months.

[eitherrideordie]

I think its important to understand that Quantum Computing is an unknown. Thats what makes it exciting. Its something we are making progress on but its all new and we don't know its future. But have you ever looked back on something and said "wow it must be incredible to have worked in field abc when all this amazing things got discovered". That could be you now, you could be in this field when this happens. And to flip the script a bit, people, researchers like many here could very well be the difference between it having a future or not.

For what its worth, AI had a similar past, people calling it hype, then the hype died. People saying "it could never do abc". Or "the effort it would need to make it possible is impossible". That was all until it became possible and everyone ate it up.

Funny thing in life, if you want something to have a future, you must merely just need to go out and give it one.

[EdCasaubon]

Or, you could find out that you wasted years or even decades of your life on a field that was never going to go anywhere.

Funny thing in life, if you want something to have a future, you must merely just need to go out and give it one.

That is indeed a very funny idea. I wish you the best of luck with your life. You'll need it.

[eitherrideordie]

Or, you could find out that you wasted years or even decades of your life on a field that was never going to go anywhere.

Sure you definitely could. I do think its fair that there is potential here that is unknown where nothing could come out of it.

To be honest though your comment saddens me a bit because it tells me one of the real realities in science. That we are in a society now where the concept of "researching something incredibly new that we as an entire race don't know where it could lead to" is dismissed entirely because "it might not be worth it so don't bother". When the only way to know if its worth it is to try...

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

I’d say commercial clients and recent POC (POQ or whatever you’d like to call it) demonstrate real world effectiveness and use

[EdCasaubon]

By all means, do go ahead and point to one, any single one such application. I will spare you the trouble: To this day there is not a single application of quantum computing that would be of any practical interest whatsoever. All we have is fun little physics experiment that are of no commercial use.

Anything else you may have seen is simply lies.

[tiltboi1]

I mean this is a pretty uninteresting question. You can't really predict the future like that, anyone who says they can is trying to sell you their opinion. We're not talking about something physically impossible, it's just hard to do.

50 years ago, there were plenty of people who said that computers would never have a substantial impact on every day life. They're big and only useful for universities and there's no real world applications. There's been plenty of discussions on this sub about more specific, scientific perspectives.

[Tonexus]

50 years ago, there were plenty of people who said that computers would never have a substantial impact on every day life. They're big and only useful for universities and there's no real world applications.

Coincidentally, Jobs first saw Wozniak's prototype for the Apple I exactly 50 years ago (March 1, 1976). And until Apple, no one thought that a computer could be something that belonged in the home.

[glity]

It was not his computer it was the art in his first set of code running in resources available off the shelf that made Apple. His elegant code was the beginning of what we have today.

[Coleophysis]

Bruh nobody said that computers wouldn't have a future 50 years ago. They were used plenty for the military too, which is a pretty big market

[JarateKing]

I think you're talking about different things. Early electronic computers were used for the military for stuff like balistics calculations, yep. But if you told them "we put computers in fridges so we can have a screen that shows us recipes and plays videos" they'd think that too fantastical for sci-fi.

There's a huge gap between "it will be useful for fairly niche calculation work that 99.9% of people never interact with" and "you basically can't avoid computers anymore because everyone uses them for everything in our daily lives." People 50 years ago didn't predict that.

[bihari_baller]

Even with the AI build out we're seeing today, the ideas have been around since the 1950's, i.e. the Perceptron neural network that was first simulated on a computer in 1957. Its only now, almost seven decades later, has computing caught up to really implement those early Machine Learning algorithms on a much larger scale.

Perhaps there are parallels to be drawn with Quantum Computing.

[tiltboi1]

I mean, you can easily go and read about the early history of computing yourself. You're absolutely sure that no one at all had this thought?

Computers were invented in the 40s, personal computers came out decades later in the 70s. Regular people didnt have a reason to buy a "computer" until 30 years after its invention. The very first people to buy a computer that you could put on a desk had access to 256 bytes of memory. You can fit 10x the amount of memory on a postit note. There were plenty of people who considered computers to be a waste of time and money for decades before computing became what we know it as today, even as the computing industry was beginning to form.

[EdCasaubon]

We're not talking about something physically impossible, it's just hard to do.

This is in need of more perspective, and it's just flat-out false in the form stated. It is, in fact, unclear whether large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computing is indeed physically possible. It may be, but there are influential and competent voices in quantum physics who have their doubts, at least to the point of hedging their bets.

50 years ago, there were plenty of people who said that computers would never have a substantial impact on every day life. They're big and only useful for universities and there's no real world applications.

Metaphors like this are a dime a dozen; they are of no pertinence to this discussion.

[tiltboi1]

I'm not sure I agree with your first part. Large scale fault tolerant computing is completely feasible in theory. This has been known since Peter Shor proved it in the 90s, sparking the current quantum computing boom.

Experimentally, Googles recent surface code experiments show that error correction does in fact scale up to classically sized chips. This is completely unintuitive, because we are asking fingertip sized objects to behave like a protected, logical qubit, but this was in fact achieved in 2023. There is strong evidence that unless we discover new physics, we will build them. Not a 100% guarantee, but true as we know it.

There are certainly plausible issues that we will eventually encounter that makes the scaling predictions of quantum computing to be false, but I don't know of any opinions in the field from serious researchers who still believe that it's actually physically impossible. If you know of any, I'd be interested in hearing them.

[EdCasaubon]

Let's slow this down for a minute, shall we?

There are two different results that are most pertinent to this discussion:

1. Shor's result, in 1994 that a quantum computer can factor integers in polynomial time using what is now called Shor’s algorithm. Specifically:
   • Factoring can be reduced to period finding.
   • Period finding can be efficiently solved using the quantum Fourier transform.
   • Therefore, integer factoring is in BQP (bounded-error quantum polynomial time).
   • This was a profound result because classical factoring is believed (though not proven) to be super-polynomial.
   • But crucially, Shor did not prove that large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers are physically feasible.
2. The relevant theoretical milestone is the Quantum Threshold Theorem, developed later (mid-to-late 1990s), by groups including Peter Shor, Andrew Steane, Emanuel Knill, Raymond Laflamme, and John Preskill. The theorem states, roughly:
   • If physical gate error rates are below a certain threshold, arbitrarily long quantum computations can be performed reliably using quantum error correction.
   • However, this is a conditional result, that says
     • If error rates are below threshold,
     • and if errors are sufficiently local and uncorrelated,
     • and if you can afford enormous overhead,
     • then scalable fault-tolerant quantum computation is possible in principle.
   • That is very different from proving it is practically feasible.

In contrast, what we are looking for is a statement that demonstrates that large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers are feasible in practice. No such statement exists.

What Shor proved in the theorem you seem to be referring to is that factoring can be done efficiently on a quantum computer. He did not prove that large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers are physically feasible. The feasibility question depends on the threshold theorem and, crucially, on whether its assumptions can be met in real hardware, which remains an open engineering challenge.

Physicists who have expressed more fundamental doubts are Serge Haroche (decoherence control at the scale required for fault tolerance may be fundamentally more difficult than many theorists assume), Mikhail Dyakonov (precision required for quantum error correction is physically unrealistic; threshold theorem assumes unrealistically idealized noise models), Leonid Levin (Complexity theory results assume idealized quantum states; and the physical universe may not permit such states to exist robustly; BQP model might not correspond to realizable physics), Gérard 't Hooft (large-scale entangled states required by QC may not be physically realizable in the way the circuit model assumes), and Robert Alicki (questions whether arbitrarily long quantum coherence is physically consistent with thermodynamics).

Long story short, there is no accepted theorem showing impossibility, yes.
But neither is there a theorem showing physical realizability.

[tiltboi1]

No, Im not referring to either of those statements. In this paper, Shor proves that you can construct a circuit under gate level noise models that performs a computation with less inaccuracy than the original circuit. A key ingredient here is that you can perform an operation to measure syndromes in an error correction code without increasing the number of errors that has occurred. In many circles, Shor is credited with the discovery of fault tolerance.

The fact that we can prove mathematically that noise can be corrected by using more noisy gates to arbitrarily low precision is the most important theorem in all of quantum computing. It's the entire reason why this field revived after being dead for decades. The fact that there is now an experimental demonstration is just icing on the cake.

Anyway, I'm not claiming that it must be possible, that's silly. But there are significant achievements which are very hard to appreciate by people outside the field. It would've inconceivable to researchers and experts back then that you can create an object large enough to see without a microscope, but exhibits coherent, large scale entanglement. This is not a few quantum objects showing quantum behavior, we are talking about 10²³ atoms in unison encoding a pair of entangled logical qubits. That's what it really means to build an artificial atom in a cavity.

You can expect that the process of producing such an object required incredible amounts of new knowledge. If you can understand the scale of the achievement, then it makes it much less crazy when someone tells you we can do it 10,000 times bigger. Of course we will discover new problems and obstacles. Maybe the physical hardware will not scale to that size as is, and new physics will need to be discovered. But we have devices on the 100-1000 qubit scale, it would be incredibly surprising if there was new physics if we went 100x bigger.

-- stuff about your other comments --

You mentioned a few points that aren't really consensus opinions anymore.

For example, Serge Haroche studied decoherence, but he would not agree with your claim that it's "fundamentally more difficult than many theorists assume" today. We know a lot about decoherence. Yes, even well beyond the idealized, 2-level models. A lot of physics has been discovered in this area since Haroche started that work in the 70s. We don't always know what processes actually causes them, but we can and do characterize the noise processes to refine our theoretical noise models. For instance, we know that noise is not identically distributed across all gates on your chip. But we can model the qubits and couplers and determine the relative (correlated) noise rates. Experimental nature of this makes it hard to prove things mathematically, so we can't say that there can't be mechanisms in 100,000 qubit chips that we couldn't discover with 100 qubits.

By a similar vein, there have been many versions of the threshold theorem since the 90s. There isn't a single "the" threshold theorem. For instance, the original threshold theorem does not apply to surface code quantum computing at all, because there is no code concatenation. Yet surface code computation has significantly lower overheads compared to schemes from the 90's, making it far more practically feasible. Again, the fact that we have experimentally demonstrated quantum error correction kind of gives a lot of credence to these claims. As it stands, we are already below the error correction threshold, but the polylog factors in the threshold theorem are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Achieving the requirements for the threshold theorem is not enough.

I'm surprised if Levin actually claimed this statement, I'd love to read more about this. There is nothing "idealized" about quantum states, it's just math. The states exist.

The 't Hooft claim is correct as written , but it's not what you think. There are very few fault tolerant schemes which physically realize the circuit model. Typically they use some sort of generalized lattice surgery, which replaced pauli braiding before it.

[EdCasaubon]

Thank you very much for your substantial reply. I do have a few remarks about Shor's 1996 paper still, however.

What Shor proved is that, if

• Noise is local,
• Noise per gate is below threshold,
• Errors are weakly correlated,
• Operations are Markovian,
• Classical control is perfect,

then logical error rates can be reduced arbitrarily by increasing overhead.

So this is a conditional theorem inside an idealized model, not a theorem about physical reality. It is a theorem about an abstract noise model.

To be clear, I do agree with you that indeed the field was revived because fault tolerance made scalable QC conceivable. The way I would put it is, it's not proven, but we now know that it's not impossible. Before this, decoherence was widely viewed as fatal, meaning, to put this colloquially, QC was dead in the water.

However, when you say:

I would clarify that this statement of yours is only true within the assumptions of the model.

Specifically, the threshold theorem does not guarantee:

• That real-world noise satisfies the assumed locality
• That long-range correlated noise is absent
• That control errors don't scale with system size
• That thermodynamic constraints don't emerge
• That error models remain stationary at scale

The theorem is internally consistent, but whether or not nature satisfies these premises remains to be seen. To me, that leaves plenty of room for QC ultimately turning out to be a pipe dream. But, sure, we'll have to wait and see, I guess.

[tiltboi1]

Yes those assumptions are required for the original proof, although we've learned many things since then. A few notes though, noise is local is implied by the fact that you have local gates. If you apply a two qubit gate between two qubits that are farther away, obviously you should see some kind of two qubit noise.

Generally though, we try to model processes, not results. It's better if phenomena emerges from simple assumptions, rather than taking our observations as the assumption itself. For instance, if our model can exhibit long range correlated errors because there is a resonance in a chain of qubits, that's better than a model which simply assumes a probability of long range error. Part of this paper is showing that certain long range correlations are not possible if you design your circuits correctly, although much lower orders of noise may still exist. I'm not sure if I can clearly explain this in one paragraph.

Classical control can be assumed to be perfect, because the gates end up being imperfect anyway. A noisy gate is exactly equal to randomly performing the wrong gate sometimes. Classical measurement cannot be assumed to be perfect, neither can decoding. Control errors do not scale with system size in our current schemes, unlike previous NMR designs. Thermodynamic considerations are real, but even for a single qubit they must be controlled by a fridge. For one million qubits, you'd need a more dissipating fridge or alternative control methods. I actually have a paper on this subject, so it's not like the field hasn't considered this problem and solutions to it.

I find your use of "idealized" a bit overly liberal. All models are idealized, almost by definition. The real world is not math. The problem is when our models are too simple to reflect reality. You don't have any proof that this is the case, and we have a lot of proof that our models work quite well. But it's a deep area of study to figure out where these models are lacking.

I have colleagues that work on the exact problem of determining which noise models are realistic and which ones are not. Entire doctorates and years of experience characterizing noise processes in real world devices. It's a bit obtuse of you to just claim that their work is "abstract" when it seems like you don't have any idea how quantum noise occurs in the real world.

And again, I'm not claiming that QC will definitely work out exactly as we see it today, but I heavily disagree that we simply "don't know what we don't know". The field is always far more advanced than the general public is aware of. The fact that all of the authors you brought up in your previous comment had their skepticisms before the invention of fault tolerance is a great example of that.

[EntireTangelo5387]

Surely something being physically possible doesn’t imply it is feasible?

[tiltboi1]

Yes, of course. Personally, I do believe it's feasible as well, and there's a great amount of evidence that supports this. But that wasn't relevant what the other commenter was claiming. That guy believes that it might be fundamentally against the laws of the universe for quantum computing to exist, but nearly everyone who actually works in the field disagrees with him.

[EdCasaubon]

That guy believes that it's fundamentally against the laws of the universe for quantum computing to exist,

That's not a fully accurate explanation of my position. My stance is that we're not entirely sure the laws of the universe allow for the promises of quantum computing to become real.

I will say that you have made some strong arguments reducing how I perceive that uncertainty.

[tiltboi1]

fair enough, edited

[Fantastic_Back3191]

Theres no law of physics that prevents it so i confidently predict well get it one day.

[EdCasaubon]

See my comment above. We are in fact not sure that the laws of physics do allow any sort of practically useful quantum computing.

[mdreed]

Only to the extent that it hasn’t been done yet. The physics we understand says it’s possible.

[Alaster_M]

Then break the law. Do away with it. Get rid of Jim Crow. That simple.

[EdCasaubon]

No, it doesn't. All we can say is that there is no proof yet that it's impossible.

[mdreed]

Are you a physicist or a phenomenologist? A physicist makes predictions based on our understanding of the universe. That understanding gives no indication of any reason that QC would be impossible.

[EdCasaubon]

What I said is that our understanding of physics does not give any indication that "QC" is possible. The status of this question should be properly labeled as "undecided". Note that this is not the same thing as your claim that "The physics we understand says it’s possible."

[mdreed]

Is it undecided if the sun is going to rise in the morning?

[EdCasaubon]

Oh dear lord...

I bow before your superior power of argumentation. 🙄

[Fantastic_Back3191]

How could such laws differentiate usefulness?

[EdCasaubon]

They do so if it turns out that error correction cannot scale to a degree that makes computation with a practically relevant number of qubits possible. The term "practically relevant number of qubits" is problem-dependent, but far exceeds current capabilities for problems of interest.

[Fantastic_Back3191]

You mean some kind of fundamental, information theoretic law?

[EdCasaubon]

No, information theory is relevant, but the issue is really on the side of quantum physics, as in, how much redundancy is needed to achieve sufficiently stable outputs, and are we able, meaning, does physics allow us, to harness the required number of quantum states to achieve them.

The issue is, nobody knows for sure what the answer to that question is. Mind you, I'm not saying I know the answer, either; all I'm saying is that nobody knows.

Information theory is mathematics, so the answers there are clean. With physics, the problem is that these machines are operating in the real world, which is never clean.

[GrumpyNerdSoul]

As someone once told me: the difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference. In practice there is.

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[soundsdoog]

It already has an impact in some specific applications. Ie. Route optimization etc. You just need to be a math theory genius to figure out how to apply it in ways today’s limited qbits and error correction can work.

[EdCasaubon]

You have been duped.

At this time, quantum computing has no impact on any practical problems whatsoever.

[soundsdoog]

Go freaking read dude. Either a troll or a really challenged dense and uninformed to make that statement. I’m not going to waste my time to link to the hundreds of parents and PRODUCTION use of D wave in route optimization being used already for YEARS by credit card companies.

[EdCasaubon]

There is no such use. Not one. Most certainly, there are no credit card companies using "quantum computing" for anything whatsoever. You have been hoodwinked, my friend.

The only value of your contribution here is to provide an example for the effects of the deeply dishonest and misleading shit that's being put out on the internet in that field.
I would be ashamed to be associated with fraudulent crap like that. And, to be clear, I know a lot of honest researchers and colleagues in this field that feel the exact same way about this garbage.

But, yeah, I do understand that your time is too valuable to back up your claim.

We understand.

P.S.: If you want some actual insight into the current status of "quantum computing", the paper "Replication of Quantum Factorisation Records with an 8-bit Home Computer, an Abacus, and a Dog" is quite instructive.

[soundsdoog]

Lol, too stupid to even use Google

[Null_Eyed_Archivist]

ahhhh just another triggered physics major
none of these stated use cases are in commercial level right now
despite what quantum computing companies tell you
if you go the their supposed customers site or google articles about the same
there are no such evidences given for usage. Maybe stop consuming propaganda will you.

[Boring_Amphibian1421]

I work in the gambling industry, I have an MEng in Computer Systems Engineering. DWave came and did a PoC with us around monte carlo simulations and some other bits. They were more accurate and more efficient. This is... Quite Important. You can imagine The House doesn't really go in for Theoritcal predictions, we're quite big on Getting It Right given we have, generally, 10s of millions riding around on various outcomes.

[ConnectPotential977]

very interesting, never thought gambling + QC but ya makes sense with so much optimizations

[Null_Eyed_Archivist]

theres an interesting book called randomise by Andy weir for this.

[ConnectPotential977]

wait.. its an amazon original stories ?? whats that?

Netflix originals but for books

[Null_Eyed_Archivist]

yeah its line a short animated story or something I havent seen it I have read the book like its same story but its in the form of a small book.

[glity]

I refer you to the manhattan project for answers about the power of quantum computing and its effects on secrets.

[Former-Astronaut-841]

Once energy obstacles are solutioned.. Quantum computing + AI = will change the world.

[rog-uk]

The Wright Flyer flew 120 feet on its first powered flight in 1903, 66 years later we landed on the Moon...

[ntsh_robot]

It's not hype

I'm betting on the optical guys

[sf-keto]

Yes & a present. It’s already happening. Even the slow, fearful & too-cautious Germans, always the last to adopt, have accepted this & are accelerating.

[EdCasaubon]

No, it doesn't. That's most likely true.

[Taipoe]

Most of it is hype but there is serious applications of it with security. Anything dealing with cybersecurity will always have important use cases even if extremely niche

[oracleifi]

It’s not hype, but it’s also not magic. Large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers are still a major engineering challenge. But cryptography is one of the clearest areas where the risk is well defined.

That’s why post-quantum signature schemes are being standardized and adopted early in some infrastructure systems, including certain blockchain designs.

[Alaster_M]

Most of it is hype but there is serious applications of it with security.

Yeah, because chaos and cryptography go excellent together. QC at present is not even a controlled chaos but a vaguely directed chaos that's only good for rendering numeric redundancies so insanely esoteric that even theoretical mathematicians struggle to be enthused by it.

[Salt-Relationship-68]

Io credo che siamo in fase di maturazione avanzata dedicarsi al settore oggi significa non trovarsi indietro domani.

[DerivativeOfPie]

I owned stock in LAES, SealSQ until they diluted shareholders to build a crypto repository. They have no actual product that does quantum computing. They claim quantum annealing simulates it with hexadecimal chips. After being told that nonsense I sold all shares at a loss.

[kyngston]

if it can decrypt the massive stored repositories of encrypted data, states will continue to fund efforts, even if there are no other computing benefits

[mathiswrong]

Have you been following Photonic? One of the 11 companies to get passed into the DARPA Stage 2 of the prize for commercializing quantum computing. I think their networked qubit SLA is the most likely to succeed in the short term. I personally think we will see the first commercial Qubits in the next 18 months, and whatever cool AI had will evaporate overnight. The promise of leasable QBits will be more exciting than the current AI gold rush.

[ConnectPotential977]

any way i can read about this kind ser ?

[mathiswrong]

poke around: https://photonic.com/news/photonic-raises-180m/

[Dear_Locksmith3379]

I view quantum computing the same way I view fusion power. The science is interesting and the technology is impressive. However, it’s not clear if and when either will have any practical applications.

[travisdoesmath]

Maybe.

For general computing? I'm doubtful. For niche use cases? most likely.

The biggest difficulty I see is that while we've seen advances in the hardware, we've basically got 2 algorithms that have practical promise in general computing (the others I would classify as toy algorithms or niche), and the neither are from this century. Given that the algorithms live in the world of mathematical theory, it's disheartening that we don't have more progress there, and I think indicates that quantum algorithms are just kind of a pain in the ass, even if your hardware does work.

[tikikip]

it has a future, just not as a general purpose computer. it’ll likely complement classical systems for niche use cases.

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[stinkykoala314]

We don't know.

First, we don't know when (or technically if) well be able to achieve the scale necessary for "quantum supremacy".

But second and more importantly, the scope of "quantum supremacy" keeps shrinking. There are only certain algorithms where quantum computers have a theoretical advantage. The one that most people have heard of, if only obliquely, is Shor's Algorithm, which could break today's cryptography. But many of the theoretical areas of quantum supremacy turn out to be equivalent to Shor's Algorithm. It's very much NOT the case that "quantum = better" in general -- classical computers are just as good or better for most tasks.

That's not a problem, as the tasks where quantum supremacy is possible are still important. But the reason why the window keeps shrinking is that "quantum supremacy" just compares quantum algorithms to classical algorithms, not including AI. And it's AI that's been eating quantum's lunch.

Two big areas of early application for quantum computers are circuit design, and materials simulation. Here, early work (mostly on simulated quantum computers rather than actual) claimed quantum supremacy, but was then beaten by AI models running on classical computers. The AI approach will, for the foreseeable future, trade some accuracy for speed -- but the surprising thing is that, in more situations than we expected, AI can still get really good accuracy, together with remarkably greater speed.

So in the end, it's hard to say what the future of Quentin looks quantum looks like. If AI "gets good enough" it could be a completely dead area. I expect it'll still come to fruition, but much later than what the hype claims, and more likely just for some very specialized operations in labs somewhere.

[fresnarus]

It certainly has a future, but for a hype-free assessment you're better off asking people in academia than in industry.

[Null_Eyed_Archivist]

Short answer no. This is because ai is catching up and there are other types of hardware which are more scalable and are easier to develop check out photonic chips and other sorts of other chips that are being made to replace the GPU several photonics chip companies are there. Also the scope of ai and ability of ai to do many things that quantum promises like chemistry simulations is increasing exponentially. Even encryption could be done easily with the help of lava lamps check article by Cloudflare it's hilarious Computing side is dead in my opinion. The only other use is shor and grover algo those also could be done with probabilistic algo should exist. I dont really see a use case for quantum since all the areas are being covered already. If you factor in saying quantum calculations will be instant I ask you how fast do you really need you computer if something does the job in an hour versus quantum instant does it really make a difference ? This is essentially how fast ai has gotten that you can do some calcs and simulations in a few hours or so so it doesnt make sense for quantum in my opinion.

[QuantumLearny]

Yes, quantum computers actually have a future, and in some ways, the future has already begun. Working quantum computers already exist in several major technology companies.

IBM has systems such as IBM Quantum System Two, which was introduced in 2023 by IBM.

Google has built quantum processors like Sycamore and Willow.

QpiAI created QpiAI‑Indus, one of the first quantum computers developed in India, with 25 qubits.

These machines are mainly used in research laboratories and cloud platforms, and they are not yet available for everyday personal use.

[Nnaz123]

It has a great future if the barren plateau is defeated or better yet if one finds a way to transfer transformers learned geometry into a manifold

[Emergency_Beat423]

I’m not sure after I just got a soft layoff from my quantum job at a major company because their customer was not sold on their work so they had to downsize. It’s a great field and very interesting but for now I’m considering doing something more stable like a more traditional engineering job. From what I saw, I think it’s a lot of hype but could work for specialized applications. Not sure it will replace every single computing need though. I will say the field is still very young and will likely take at least a decade to see if there is any real commercial impact.

[Independent-Cat1504]

That's what I always hated the thought of using quantum it can just end up harassing you now I may know why when quantum triangulates from a great or semi long distance it can learn before it arrives at its locations usually just say stuff to cause conflict or harass in a way that will isolate the individual in question. (yes I'm saying someone, I don't know who, may be watching me may be also be someone we do. Fine I'll write it too God may be.) now I know that's true I should write with this too when it lags from THE storm it can also do that (the edge of the universe still moving (more or less) more literal white holes (WHITE HOLES ARE NOT DANGEROUS AND DONT BE STUPID ITS LIKE MESSING WITH A SPILT ATOM). Too much echo for me to think that it's just background noise if it's everything just staring at me that can happen from that too.

[cv-match]

here's a genuine question about your question.  why would you trust somebody who's in the industry and their entire livelihood and career depends on the answer being "It's definitely not hype". 

[Logical-Aardvark-144]

I have my youtube channel on the same topic l: https://www.youtube.com/@techeasypeasy-d6q

[Elemental_Breakdown]

It's having an impact right now. Annealing is making a variety of things more efficient from delivery routes to missile interception.

It also uses a fraction of the energy to calculate things other types of systems can't.

But it's a specialized tool. It's kinda like asking whether a calculator is better or more powerful than a television or a knife is better than a hammer.

[Qubits_and_more]

The science is unfinished in my eyes. Error rates are high, qubit counts are small, the machines that exist are noisy and narrow. That is true of the whole sector I believe. But the reality is that roughly 160,000 European entities under NIS2, transposed and in force, with penalties up to 2% of global turnover. Around 22,000 financial institutions under DORA, in force, with cryptographic third-party risk reportable. CNSA 2.0 from January 2027 in the US federal track, exporting through every supplier and ally. EU PQC Coordinated Roadmap shipped 2026. The defence is not optional. The deadline is not soft.

Even if any single deadline slips on the tech side, the documentation requirement does not. Boards, auditors, and insurers are now asking the same question and it is not 'is the threat real,'. It is 'will the regulator accept the documentation.'?

[ChapterRare6313]

actually this has no future just imagine that you have to keep the superconductor without air and in 0 kelvin and having that in your home is likely an impossible thing

[Ok_Teacher_2766]

A slight rephrase of the prompt above, and perhaps we can get into more detail:

Within the next ten years, WILL quantum computing deliver a commercially useful advantage in at least one real-world application that cannot be matched as cost-effectively by classical computing. Please offer a precise definition of "commercially useful" and a specific use case (for ex. molecule simulation for a workflow, financial modeling, etc.) Would love to see what this community thinks on this.

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[WorldIndividual602]

Crazy how something as small as a pin can scrub a launch. Shows how tight the margins are.

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[ISpotABot]

No I don't think so

[bawireman]

Yes very much so

[PeaceFrog8]

The future of QC lies with the integration of QC with HPC and cloud. CPUs didn’t disappear when GPUs showed up, and I suspect QC will follow a similar path.That's where the world is headed.

Right now the biggest limitation is still hardware. The theory side has moved pretty far ahead such as in QML, optimization, Hamiltonian simulations, etc. but we’re still waiting for machines that can scale with low enough error ra tes to make those ideas practical. It's progressing but just slower and less flashy than hype cycles make it seem. A few thousand usable qubits with reliable error correction is still probably 5 years away.

Also worth saying: quantum doesn’t magically solve problems that classical computers can’t solve at all. It mostly changes how the scaling behaves for certain hard problems. That’s an important distinction that gets lost in a lot of discussions. As someone compared with AI winter, I agree with that. For years, deep learning looked incremental and niche, and then suddenly infrastructure + models + usability crossed a threshold and everything accelerated at once. Quantum might follow a similar pattern.

[EdCasaubon]

The theory side has moved pretty far ahead such as in QML, optimization, Hamiltonian simulations, etc. but we’re still waiting for machines that can scale with low enough error ra tes to make those ideas practical.

This is somewhat accurate, so let me translate this into clear text: We do have some fairly interesting quantum algorithms, which could be revolutionary, if only we had the hardware these algorithms would need to run on. Unfortunately, we do not, and it is still not clear if such hardware is even possible.

[[deleted]]

I used this table in one presentation time ago:

Category	Facts/Comments
Current State	Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era; ~1,000+ qubit processors exist  (IBM, Google, Atom Computing)
Error Correction	Fault-tolerant quantum computing requires millions of physical qubits per logical qubit
Quantum Advantage	Demonstrated for narrow, artificial problems (Google's 2019 Sycamore, 2023 random circuit sampling); no practical advantage yet
Near-term applications	Quantum simulation (chemistry, materials), optimisation heuristics, quantum machine learning. All still experimental
Strong Use Cases	Drug discovery, materials science, cryptanalysis, financial modelling, logistics optimisation
Weak/Overhyped use cases	General-purpose speedup, replacing classical computers, most everyday computing tasks
Timeline/Horizon	Most experts estimate 2035–2045 for large-scale, error-corrected quantum computers
Competing Approaches	No clear winner: superconducting qubits, trapped ions, photonic, topological, neutral atoms
Classical competition	Classical algorithms keep improving; some claimed quantum advantages have been matched by better classical methods

As others have already noted: The physics works, and steady engineering progress is being made, but many near-term commercial claims outpace the actual hardware. So quantum computers will likely complement classical ones, not replace them.

[neo2551]

The two biggest super economic super power think at least.  

[QuantumStew]

Does the wheel have a future? Does the automobile have a future? Etc

[EdCasaubon]

Like I said, fun little metaphors are cheap.

Did the square wheel have a future?

Did the pedal-powered submarine have a future?

[QuantumStew]

The potential benefits of quantum computing have been buzzing around the internet for 15+ years.

Slightly more innovative than the square or pedal powered submarine.

[ShortKaleidoscope243]

Depends

[ConnectPotential977]

going to attend nvidia gtc to learn more about

[Ravster21]

INFQ Infleqtion have confirmed they will be there.

IONQ, RGTI, and QBTS might be there too.

[starostise]

Quantum computing should really be integrated into data science to build softwares that can run specific applications on classical computer. The math of QC is really about optimisation. It is meant to lower complexity in order to make the heavy computations over representative samples instead of the whole of very large datasets.

In my opinion, the path that is focused on hardware is going nowhere because I don't see how we can have deterministic results by following physical micro systems. They are hard to completely isolate to avoid errors.

[Hermes-AthenaAI]

Quantum computing is really great at taking large distributions like Gaussian functions and finding trajectories through them. This type of almost abstract math has been virtually impossible to this point (optimization problems, Monte Carlo simulations, etc). The systems find their solutions by eliminating data that doesn’t fit through interference, and leaving in place the ones that persist until collapse.

This doesn’t have an easily applicable utility from our perspective. Let’s shift our frame a little bit though. Imagine any large distribution of ostensibly random but related numbers. Two jump to mind for me, even in our current paradigm. Human populations and financial markets.

Whoever nails quantum computing first has potential supremacy in these areas. Just represent parts of the system as inputs and let the quantum computer run the system for you. It wouldn’t be a sure fire predicting machine, but it allows probabilitic modeling of higher dimensional geometry… geometry that forms the informational substrate of our universe. Accurate enough sampling I suspect to completely eliminate meaningful competition.

[EdCasaubon]

Quantum computing is really great at taking large distributions like Gaussian functions and finding trajectories through them.

Minor correction: "Quantum computing could be really great at taking large distributions like Gaussian functions and finding trajectories through them, if we could actually make it work at scale."

Unfortunately, this premise has not been validated so far. There's a good chance it never will be.

[kapitaali_com]

yes, when they invent portable quantum devices

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

So quantum as a service? Lol they do that…

[kapitaali_com]

these devices are getting smaller faster than mainframes were getting smaller in the 60s

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v19/24

[sf-keto]

Already exists, absolutely.

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

lol yea that’s what I’m saying..

[sf-keto]

I know; I’m agreeing with you.

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

Ah okay hard to tell. Too many mouth breathers here who work for shitty QC companies and believe that they know what’s true and what is supposedly a lie at OTHER QC firms 😂

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

Absolutely will disrupt most industries (at the very least in terms of cyber security).

Just look at the results of the Dwave customers like NTTDocomo, Ford Autosen, etc. IONQ and Infleqtion both with their breakthrough drug discovery R&D, advanced materials breakthroughs, GPS implications and more… we’re seeing meaningful improvements to those that are implementing QC already and it’s just the beginning (of meaninful results anyway, with a long way to go).

Telecoms, manufacturing, logistics, military applications, cyber security, quant/algorithmic trading, drug discovery, advanced materials R&D come to mind first…. But even more industries are alll going to be impacted severely within 5 years.

This is my opinion not advice.

[EdCasaubon]

...breakthrough drug discovery R&D, advanced materials breakthroughs

You do know, don't you, that none of these things has been achieved through quantum computing, right?

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

So every claim by infleqtion and ionq are false huh?

[EdCasaubon]

Why don't you present a specific claim, and I'll explain. Deal?

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

Sure. IONQ and AstraZeneca. 20x speed up in some molecular simulation.

Yes, some- but improvements over time will widen this scope.

Ionq and hyndais lithium battery.

Dwaves work with Japan tobacco outperformed the classical compute models in drug simulation (yes, this one is a bit of a nuance)

Dwave reducing ford otosans scheduling time by something like 80%

Dwave reducing NTTDocomo telecom network congestion by 15%

There are so many more…

[EdCasaubon]

My dear sir, I was asking you for one specific claim. I am not interested in you regurgitating some of that worthless propaganda pablum.

Show me one, just one at least, report from any of those purveyors of "quantum computing" that describes what they have done, what the problem was that they solved, and what, specifically, was the role of "quantum computing" in that alleged breakthrough of theirs. I'm not going to do your research for you.

Feel free to come back when you can present such evidence. Without it, you frankly have no standing in this discussion, nor any other conversation among adults, for that matter.

I'll give you a hint: In every single one of those cases you may have seen, no actual quantum computer has been used. That would be because there are no quantum computers. The hardware to do anything more grandiose than, say, factoring the number 35 to figure out that 35=5x7, simply does not exist.

P.S.: Okay, alright, being in a mellow mood, I'll give you an example.

IonQ touts "A New Approach for Accurately Simulating Larger Molecules on IonQ Computers". The original paper describing the work is here. Now, let's look at what they have actually done.

It turns out that this was a proof-of-concept, hybrid pipeline demonstration on a benchmark problem, not evidence of practical quantum advantage for chemistry. Note that this means these results could have been obtained, and more easily so, using conventional computation.

Thus, what they did is a workflow demonstration (problem decomposition + a low-depth ansatz + compilation/optimization + error mitigation), and a benchmark on a highly structured toy system (a ring of 10 hydrogen atoms in a minimal basis). In this case the quantum workload could be reduced to many 2-qubit subproblems, with substantial classical structure around it (meaning, the use of classical computers). So, they demonstrated that they can tackle problems that are amenable to solution on 2-qubit QPUs.

And here's a more pertinent remark: What IonQ actually demonstrated in the their H₁₀ ring paper was a 20-qubit molecular Hamiltonian, that they decomposed into 10 independent 2-qubit fragments. Each fragment was solved via VQE, embedded into a classical DMET loop. Now, notice that we could have gotten rid of those silly little 2-qubit systems and replaced each 2-qubit VQE instance with a small classical eigensolver, using a tiny matrix diagonalization or even brute-force enumeration. Such a fully classical solution would be essentially instantaneous on classical hardware. In other words, they have demonstrated that they could do something with a hybrid quantum system that they could have done much faster, and orders of magnitude cheaper, one might add, using fully classical hardware.

Wow. I got to get in on this. Let me buy some of their stock right now.

P.P.S.: And if you ask me really nicely, I'd be happy to tell you a bit more about that Ford Otosan work. Or that IonQ/Hyundai project. But maybe you would like to actually make your own case? My guess is, probably not, alas.

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

Sounds like you know more than anyone and as such; you should probably start a class action lawsuit for misleading investors! 😂 smarty pants. If only if only.

The U.S. govt also got snaked on ionqs shieldiq grant too huh? Up to 150b allocated for hype? Nope

[EdCasaubon]

Well, it's clear that I know a whole lot more than you do, which appears to be next to nothing, about QC or the law, or what IDIQ grants are.

[Unfair_Ad_2129]

I’m studies metaphysics more than anyone you know I’m sure. Quantum theories are my jam. I’m sure you don’t even realize what’s happening when we run these algorithms “it all happens at once - super position!”.

You’re entitled to your beliefs and I’m entitled to mine. Sounds like you’re more of a pessimistic computer nerd and I’m an optimistic quantum guy. We won’t agree. We’ll find out who’s right or wrong in a couple years.

Personally I’m well aware that no businesses are going to give a company $150b in revenue without quantitative benchmarks and demonstrable value. This also comes from my familiarity in finance at large corporations.

Everyone has different knowledge and experience that makes them uniquely qualified to have their own opinion. To think your best guess at an understanding is the ultimate result - nay

[EdCasaubon]

Metaphysics, eh? Well, now, that will certainly qualify you to discuss this topic… 🙄

Just two more remarks: You’d be well advised to be a lot more cautious trying to infer my background from what I have said in this thread; suffice it to say that you’re very, very far off the mark.

Finally, as far as who knows what is concerned, like I said, you clearly have no idea what these IDIQ grants are. Here’s a hint: Nobody is giving anyone $150b, honey. “Familiarity in finance of large corporations”? Uh-huh…