The statement of the CEO of Nvidia that caused an avalanche in the hot trend of Wall Street

CEO and founder of Nvidia Jensen Huang caused a small earthquake in the stock market when one of his statements last night (Tuesday) as part of the technology products conference CES in Las Vegas sent the shares of quantum companies down.

When asked how mature the technology is and when we will be able to use a fast quantum computer with satisfactory performance, Huang replied that “within 15 years is an optimistic estimate, 30 years is the pessimistic estimate, and the average is probably around 20 years.”

A quantum computer does not operate on chips that store and process information using bits – small memory units that represent only two values, zero or one, but on subatomic units capable of containing information using nuances between zero and one, for example 0.1, 0.2 and so on.

In contrast to the regular silicon chips that currently operate computers and servers, the quantum companies are developing future processors that will be able to calculate an extremely high number of operations, when there is an “arms race” between chip developers based on light waves on a diamond and chips based on the movement of ions, the atomic particles.

Because of this, quantum computers are supposed to have a computing capacity hundreds of millions of times higher than those of standard personal computers of our day and therefore even pose a threat to companies like Nvidia. This, provided that Nvidia will not be the one to develop the first quantum computer.

wave of declines

The ETF that follows the quantum shares, QTUM, recorded a 5% drop in trading (Day 4), and after the start of the day recorded a 1.5% drop. These are the ETFs with the highest yield last year, with a 52% increase in 2024.

IonQ stock is down 40%, D-Wave Quantum stock is now crashing 45% and Vergeti Computing is down 43%. This decline should be taken in proportion, as the stock has risen 800% over the past year.

Analysts estimate that following Huang’s statement, 2 billion in the market value of companies was wiped out.