Quantum Computing: Stocks in Free Fall After Critical Voices from the Tech World

The stocks of companies in the quantum computing sector are suffering significant losses again after another prominent tech CEO opined that the technology would not be beneficial in the near future. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stated in a podcast with Joe Rogan that he shared the views of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who predicted that the potential of quantum computing could only be realized in more than a decade. "Although I'm not an expert, as far as I understand, quantum computing is still a long way from being truly beneficial," Zuckerberg explained in the episode released on Friday. On Monday, the stock prices of D-Wave Quantum and Rigetti Computing plummeted by over 25%, with D-Wave falling about 30% and Rigetti over 27%. Meanwhile, Quantum Computing saw a decline of about 23%, and IonQ's shares fell over 12%. Already in the previous week, quantum computing stocks suffered under the remarks of Nvidia CEO Huang, who stated at the Consumer Electronics Show that viable quantum computers are not expected for decades. “If you say 15 years, that would probably be early, at 30 it would be late. But at 20 years, many of us would likely agree,” Huang said optimistically, suggesting that Nvidia would play a significant role in the development. D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz expressed to Quartz that Huang was mistaken in his assessments of quantum computers. “He could be correct regarding other companies, but he is completely wrong about D-Wave. D-Wave has chosen a different approach that makes us commercially successful today and likely positions us well ahead of other companies.” In December, Alphabet experienced a rise in its stock of over 4% following the introduction of its latest quantum chip, Willow. Google Quantum AI announced that the advanced chip had demonstrated two significant breakthroughs, including the "exponential" reduction of errors when increasing the number of qubits — a challenge that has existed for nearly 30 years.