Member-only story

Quantum computing: it’s a crying shame, but for the moment, it’s pie in the sky

Enrique Dans
Enrique Dans
Published in
3 min readJan 9, 2025
IMAGE: A comic-style image of a quantum computer depicted as a mess of golden tubes, anthropomorfized with a pair of legs and figuratively crying

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s prediction at CES that quantum computing is perhaps two decades away has spread panic in the markets, driving down the share price of companies like IonQ and Rigetti Computing.

Rightly considered a visionary who steadfastly steered the company he founded to become one of the world’s most valuable, ignoring the doomsayers who questioned the course he charted along the way, he is, without a doubt, one of the brightest stars in the computing firmament. But suddenly, he has set the cat among the pigeons with his comments:

“If you said fifteen years for very useful quantum computers, that would probably be on the early side. If you said thirty, it’s probably on the late side. But if you picked twenty, I think a whole bunch of us would believe it.”

Given that he provides little evidence, Huang’s prediction is certainly open to debate. Nevertheless, the fact that somebody in his position does not expect anything useful from quantum technology before 15 years and possibly up to 30, makes it clear what the real expectations of the majority of the industry are with respect to a technology that…

--

--

Enrique Dans
Enrique Dans

Published in Enrique Dans

On the effects of technology and innovation on people, companies and society (writing in Spanish at enriquedans.com since 2003)

Enrique Dans
Enrique Dans

Written by Enrique Dans

Professor of Innovation at IE Business School and blogger (in English here and in Spanish at enriquedans.com)

Responses (10)