Can quantum turn ‘magic’ into money?

{"text":[[{"start":5.44,"text":"Two years ago quantum physicist Dolev Bluvstein opted for a post in academia rather than the business world. Practical quantum computers, he had concluded, were “too far away to commercialise”."}],[{"start":17.44,"text":"Today things look very different. Oratomic, a company Bluvstein helped found and now heads, recently raised $300mn — the largest first financing round for a quantum start-up — and is racing to build a full-scale machine before the end of the decade."}],[{"start":33.68,"text":"The about-turn reflects a surge of optimism that has swept through the sector, as a series of technical breakthroughs raises hopes that the dream of harnessing the quirky world of quantum mechanics to power a new form of computing, first proposed in the 1980s, is finally close to reality."}],[{"start":51.2,"text":"Unlike the bits in conventional computers that register only as a zero or a one, quantum “qubits” can increase calculating power by existing in combinations of both and becoming “entangled”. The industry hopes to harness these properties to produce machines capable of solving problems far beyond the reach of current technology."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":71.52,"text":"One result of the shift in sentiment has been a surge of new investment. More than $4bn of venture capital has already been sunk into quantum companies this year, according to PitchBook, almost as much as in all of 2025, which itself nearly matched the four previous years combined."}],[{"start":87.76,"text":"There has also been a burst of stock market activity, including the sector’s first initial public offering by US company Quantinuum and the first listing of a European quantum company, Finnish start-up IQM."}],[{"start":99.6,"text":"Yet for the widening circle of investors drawn into a deeply technical field, uncertainties abound."}],[{"start":106.24,"text":"Among the most significant: when will quantum computers be able to solve real commercial problems; will they be useful for more than a narrow range of tasks; and which of a bewildering array of quantum technologies — and the companies developing them — will be best placed to profit?"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":120.64,"text":"Christophe Jurczak, a founder of French quantum company Pasqal and head of specialist investment firm Quantonation, calls quantum computing a “perpetual five-year technology”, one that has long seemed close to reality but remained just out of reach."}],[{"start":136.26,"text":"Despite significant headway, he said, “each advance reveals new constraints previously invisible” that constantly push back the finish line."}],[{"start":143.466,"text":"Many in the field now claim the hard science has been cracked and what remains are more tractable engineering problems. Yet even at this late stage, some of the industry’s leaders have been hedging their technology bets."}],[{"start":157.706,"text":"Google and IBM, which have been racing to build computers using superconductors as qubits, have dipped their toes into alternative types, raising questions about which approach will yield the best results."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":169.768,"text":"At Google, that has meant launching a research programme into neutral atoms — the technology also used by Oratomic — while IBM in July bought a company working on “silicon spin” qubits."}],[{"start":181.246,"text":"Recent headway has included the first claims of quantum advantage — the point at which a quantum machine can outperform traditional computers on a particular task. But these demonstrations have yet to cross from scientific experimentation to commercial practicality."}],[{"start":196.408,"text":"For all the hardware breakthroughs, not enough work has gone into getting the technology out of the lab and into the hands of engineers who can develop practical applications, according to Jurczak."}],[{"start":207.54,"text":"James Palles-Dimmock, chief executive of Quantum Motion, believes the industry also needs to find more cost-effective ways of building large-scale machines."}],[{"start":216.48,"text":"“The mistake that people have made with quantum computing is thinking that it’s essentially magic and therefore worth building at any cost, which unfortunately is not the case,” he said."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":226.542,"text":"Central to the search for commercial relevance is the question of what the first quantum computers will be used for."}],[{"start":232.8,"text":"Researchers have long dreamt of quickly carrying out calculations that would take traditional computers years, if they could handle them at all."}],[{"start":241.377,"text":"So far, however, algorithms have been developed for only two types of task that promise an exponential speed-up over traditional computers."}],[{"start":249.6,"text":"One — breaking the most common forms of encryption — has huge security implications for the digital world. But as recently listed quantum company Infleqtion’s CEO Matthew Kinsella conceded, cracking encryption is unlikely to create a big new market for most quantum companies."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":265.68,"text":"The other — and the one listed by most quantum companies as their most promising near-term opportunity — involves simulating subatomic particles, the quantum systems in nature whose behaviour quantum computers may be particularly well suited to model."}],[{"start":279.76,"text":"While this points to a highly specialised role for quantum computers in advanced scientific work, it “shouldn’t be mistaken for a narrow [business] opportunity”, said Steve Brierley, chief of Riverlane, a UK company that develops error-correction technology for quantum machines."}],[{"start":295.52,"text":"The results could be extremely valuable, he added, “from developing new medicines and improving batteries to tackling problems in energy and climate”."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":303.698,"text":"How much of the value from advances like these would flow to the companies supplying the computing is an open question, although some backers expect huge returns."}],[{"start":312.984,"text":"Peter Barrett, a partner at venture capital firm Playground Global, said quantum companies would forge profit-sharing deals with pharmaceutical or chemical companies, earning them “hundreds of billions of dollars” over the next decade."}],[{"start":324.88,"text":"Beyond breaking encryption and simulating the subatomic world, there is less agreement about where else quantum machines might be profitably employed, at least in the near term."}],[{"start":334.499,"text":"While some companies have claimed that the machines will be useful for solving optimisation problems common in business, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said last year that such problems could already be tackled using existing technology."}],[{"start":348.32,"text":"For most optimisation problems, according to Jurczak, companies can use heuristics — shortcuts that produce an approximate result — without needing the sort of precision a quantum computer might one day deliver."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":360.166,"text":"Yet many quantum executives argue that their machines will still be useful for handling a wide range of commercial tasks, even if these do not involve reaching the limits of the technology’s capabilities."}],[{"start":371.858,"text":"Niccolo de Masi, CEO of IonQ, predicted that the “majority of the value” from quantum computing would come from algorithms that deliver what is known as quadratic speed-up — much faster computation than a traditional machine can handle, although not the exponential acceleration quantum systems are theoretically capable of."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":390.72,"text":"That, he said, might mean being able to complete a task in 17 minutes that would have taken 24 hours with a traditional computer — something that would be “very valuable to banks and financial trading firms”."}],[{"start":400.16,"text":"De Masi believes companies in more industries are likely to find many cases like this as they start looking into how to apply quantum computing to their own fields."}],[{"start":410.1,"text":"As in the early days of semiconductors, it seems too early to predict the range of tasks the machines will be able to take on. But “more and more algorithms and applications” were likely to be “unlocked” as the technology evolved, said Jan Goetz, chief executive of IQM Quantum Computers."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":428.08,"text":"The big hope for many working in the field is that some of these will turn out to be profound."}],[{"start":432.64,"text":"This year a group of researchers that included representatives from Google and Oratomic outlined a technique they claimed could yield exponential gains in the time it takes to process massive data sets. This was the first research that “established there is genuine [quantum] advantage you can get in machine learning”, said Bluvstein."}],[{"start":451.914,"text":"Work like this points to a time when quantum computing might transform AI, the most important technology of the age. But as the first practical quantum machines promise to come within reach, such hopes remain a long way off."}],[{"start":468.08,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1790389627_2842.mp3"}