The Quantum Computing Bubble

ft.com

7 points·belter··4 comments

The key quote: "The reality is that none of these companies — or any other quantum computing firm, for that matter — are actually earning any real money. The little revenue they generate mostly comes from consulting missions aimed at teaching other companies about “how quantum computers will help their business”, as opposed to genuinely harnessing any advantages that quantum computers have over classical computers."

Say what you want about the dreams people have of what quantum computing might do in the future, it doesn't do anything useful (other than generate hype) today.

> Say what you want about the dreams people have of what quantum computing might do in the future, it doesn't do anything useful (other than generate hype) today.

Like the Newcomen engine circa 1711. Then it revolutionized mining and powered an industrial revolution. If there's a quantum platform that could do the same for extracting prime numbers, etc., it could have a similar trajectory. At first it would get a huge infusion of investment from (crypto) miners, and then disrupt everything as an efficient (pattern recognizer) human labor replacer.

Sure, it's a big if.

No. Quantum computing won't be a "human labor replacer". Existing computers are just fine on their own for that.

I see this take a lot and think it is a failure of pattern recognition. People see "quantum computers" and think their adoption will look like CPU->GPU transition. It certainly will not.

I think the qubit is a dead end. The future of quantum computing is holography, or treating the quantum domain as an analog scalar sieve.

Let’s check back in 20 years and see what’s what.

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