Quantum computers could be commercialized before 2030

“By the end of the decade, we believe there will be commercialized quantum machine systems, available in the data center,” Zulfi Alam, Microsoft’s vice president of quantum, told CNBC. “Last year, I did not dare to comment clearly. But this year, I can confirm that by 2029, we will have machines with commercial value, meaning they will perform calculations that classical computers cannot do.”

While traditional computers rely on bits with only two states, 0 or 1, quantum computers use qubits with an infinite number of possible states. In theory, each additional qubit doubles computational power, allowing quantum computers to analyze countless possibilities at once, taking just minutes to solve problems that would take classical computers millions of years. This opens up a huge range of possibilities in research, medicine, economic forecasting as well as many other fields.

The goal comes soon

The year 2025 will see a series of advances in quantum computing. In particular, Amazon Web Services launched the Ocelot prototype with the introduction that “represents a breakthrough in error correction and scalability”, two issues that are considered bottlenecks that slow down the quantum chip development process. Microsoft announced that it has created a new state of matter for the Majorana 1 quantum prototype. Or Google upgraded the Willow chip at unbelievable speed.

As more and more quantum chip prototypes appear and are introduced as breakthroughs, experts believe this technology is about to be applied in real life. According to Ellie Brown, quantum computing and cloud computing economic analyst for S&P Global Market Intelligence, based on the latest research data, most current industry development roadmaps target the deployment of quantum computing systems in the 2028-2032 time frame.

Analyst Madeleine Jenkins of multinational investment bank and financial services UBS (Switzerland) sees “the benefits of quantum computing will appear in the early 2030s”. Many companies even see 2027 as a big year for quantum computing in terms of roadmap and achievements.

Patrick Moorhead, CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy, noted large-scale cloud service providers and platform providers are increasing their investments through providing cloud access, pricing control and developer platforms. The defense sector is even investing early in both quantum and network computing. Governments also stepped up, led by China with $18 billion, followed by the European Union, according to data from the European Center for International Political Economy (ECIPE).

“The ChatGPT moment of quantum computing is coming sooner than you think,” Dr. Chris Ballance, co-founder and CEO of Oxford Ionics, told Quantum Insider. “From Google’s achievements in error correction to recent performance records, we can now answer ‘yes’ to fundamental questions like: Is it possible to build powerful and accurate quantum computers at scale?, or: Is it possible to correct errors in quantum systems?”.

In a 103-page report released last month, UBS said the quantum industry is getting closer to completing the first commercial machine. This system can cost tens of millions of dollars to create, but is capable of solving problems in 200 seconds – what a conventional supercomputer takes 10,000 years.

According to UBS’s Jenkins, in terms of energy, quantum computing is more optimal, requiring only a small fraction of today’s data centers. “The most important thing is time. When solving the same problem, a conventional computer takes tens of thousands of hours, while a quantum computer only takes a few seconds, obviously requiring much less energy overall,” Jenkins explained.

Mr. Alam of Microsoft also emphasized this factor. For example, Majorana 1 “exhibits more power than the entire planet’s computing power, and doesn’t run too hot,” he said.

Regular computers are not going away

Although the quantum field is developing rapidly, experts agree that in the short term, this technology is unlikely to completely replace existing classical computing in data centers. “Ideally, the overall efficiency would reduce workload. However, that cannot completely replace existing solutions,” said S&P’s Ms. Brown.

According to Alam, quantum systems will not operate independently. Instead, they still need a high-performance computer located very close to boot and accelerate performance. Sharing the same opinion, Moorhead, if quantum technology develops, will play a complementary role, creating a type of “special infrastructure” in data centers, helping to shift the design of facilities to “quantum modules” with their own power and temperature needs.

“Quantum computing does not replace existing computing. Instead, it serves as an extension of the AI ​​data center, adding specialized load segments and operational complexity,” Moorhead commented.

Ms. Brown estimates that there are only a small number of specialized quantum computers deployed in data centers. This problem is increasingly difficult, as the world is lacking quantum experts, people who understand and optimize settings to take advantage of quantum computing power effectively. However, in the long term, he predicts there will be “a good interaction between quantum computing, data centers and AI”.

According to Alam, despite growing strongly and receiving great investment attention, the quantum computer field still faces a series of major challenges when it comes to operation, from meeting performance standards to solving complex technical problems. “It will take a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” Alam warned.