How Close Is Commercial Quantum Computing?

THE RECENT SPATE OF NEWS IN THE QUANTUM computing space is raising hopes that we're finally on the cusp of broad commercial availability of this game-changing technology.

- — Elizabeth Heichler

Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google have unveiled chips billed as major advances, while scientific journals have reported some impressive results relevant to commercial applications.

To put these advances in context, we talked to Francesco Bova, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, chief quantum economist at its Creative Destruction Lab, and economist in residence at open-source nonprofit Open Quantum Design.

The three tech giants' new chips all tackle the problem of error correction — “one of the real challenges to scaling a quantum computer,” Bova said. Quantum computers are very sensitive to their environment, and it's difficult to mitigate the resulting errors.