‘Spectacular’ progress has been made towards useful quantum computers

Fully practical quantum computers have yet to emerge, but the quantum computing industry is ending the year on an optimistic note. At the Q2B conference in Silicon Valley in December, which brings together experts in quantum business and science, the consensus seemed to be that the future of quantum computing is only getting brighter.

“Overall we think it's more likely than not that someone, maybe a few people, will be able to build a truly industrially useful quantum computer, but I didn't think I'd come to that conclusion at the end of 2025,” he said. Joe Altepeterprogram manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), during a presentation during the conference. QBI Purpose The challenge is to determine which of several currently competing approaches to building quantum computers can create a useful device that will also need to correct its own errors or be fault-tolerant.

The program will last several years and will involve hundreds of expert evaluators. Summing up the program after its first six months, Altepeter said the team had identified “enormous obstacles” to each of the approaches, but he also expressed surprise that this had not disqualified any of them from the race to create a useful quantum device.

“It seems to me that at the end of 2025, all the key building blocks of the hardware will be more or less in place, with roughly the required precision, perhaps for the first time, leaving only these huge questions about… engineering problems,” he said. Scott Aaronson at the University of Texas at Austin in another presentation. A respected expert and longtime industry observer, Aaronson noted ongoing challenges in identifying new algorithms that could lead to more practical uses of quantum computers, but called recent progress in hardware development “impressive.”

There are good reasons to be excited about quantum computing hardware, but applications are lagging, Google said. Ryan Babbush. At the Google Quantum AI conference and several partners announced the finalists of the competition XPRIZE competitionwhose goal is to change this.

The work of the seven finalists includes modeling of biomolecules important to human health, algorithms that could complement classical modeling of candidate materials for clean energy solutions, and calculations that can inform the diagnosis and treatment of diseases with complex causes.

“A few years ago I wasn't excited about running applications on quantum computers. Now I'm even more interested,” he said. John Preskill at the California Institute of Technology another outstanding scientist and voice detection in quantum computing. In his presentation, he substantiated the need to use quantum computers for scientific discoveries in the near future.

In the past year, several quantum computers have actually been used for computation, such as in high-energy materials and particle physics, in a way that could soon rival or surpass the best traditional computing methods.

Traditionally, several applications are considered particularly suitable for quantum computers, but there is still work to be done. For example, Pranav Gokhale V flexiona company that builds quantum devices from extremely cold atoms, represented on the basis of a classical algorithm – Shor's algorithm – this can be used to break most of the encryption used by modern banks. The work represents the first implementation of a version of Shor's algorithm in logical qubits – quantum computer components are protected from errors. However, this demonstration still does not reach the computational sophistication and processing power needed to easily decrypt encrypted information in the real world, highlighting how significant hardware and software improvements are still needed despite recent progress.

Dutch startup QuantWare presented a possible solution to the industry's big hardware problem – increasing the size of quantum computers, which would make them more computationally powerful without making them less reliable. The company's quantum processor architecture promises to include 10,000 qubits made from superconducting circuits, which is about a hundred times more than the most currently used superconducting quantum computers. Matt Reilaarsdam QuantWare says the first devices of this size will be fully operational within two and a half years. Several other firms, such as IBM and Quantinuum, are aiming to build large quantum computers based on similar termsand QuEra plans to create 10,000 qubits from ultracold atoms in just a year, so the competition will be as tough as the engineering challenges.

The industry is projected to continue to grow, from $1.07 billion in global investment in 2024 to approximately $2.2 billion in 2027. survey Quantum Computing Industry by Hyperion Research.

“More people are getting access to quantum computers than ever before, and I have a hunch they will do things with them that we never thought possible,” he said. Jamie Garcia at IBM.