It's been a month since Google (GGOGL) first introduced its Willow quantum chip, which catapulted the entire quantum computing ecosystem by hundreds of percent in just a few weeks.
Over the past year, Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ:RGTI) is up more than 900%, D-Wave Quantum (NYSE:QBTS) is up almost 600%, and IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) is up almost 150%.
And yesterday, the market was made to realize that it could take decades for the innovation offered by quantum computing to become commercially viable and have a financial impact.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, often called the AI Godfather, said at CES 2025 that it will likely take 15 to 30 years before useful quantum computers become commercially viable.
Huang said: If you said 15 years for very useful quantum computers, that would probably be early. If you said 30, it's probably late. He continued. If you picked twenty, I think a whole bunch of us would believe it.
The market responded to the revelation by pulling back on the shares, each falling more than 40% in just one day: IonQ fell 39%, Rigetti plummeted 46.25%, D-Wave followed its peers and fell 47 .70% and QUBT fell by 47.70%. 43.44%.
In response to the statement, D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz strongly disagreed with Huang saying he was completely wrong. “Not in thirty years, not in twenty years, not in fifteen years, but now and today,” he said.
Baratz explained that D-Wave is already working with Mastercard Inc and Japan's NTT Docomo for commercial use and that this is proof that quantum computing is already being deployed and impacting our lives.
Baratz continued: “I will be happy to meet with Jensen, wherever and whenever, to help fill these gaps for him.”
Checking the numbers, D-Wave has generated revenue over the last twelve quarters, but still hasn't covered the capital spent on operations.
And the financial position is like crying for help. We will only know when the investors' capital can absorb the losses.
Quantum computing is a new industry and its adoption is not yet widespread. However, when adoption becomes widespread and more partnerships take place and ultimately more revenue comes in to cover operational costs and save profits, the quantum computing sector will undoubtedly become a very intriguing industry to follow.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
