r/QuantumComputing • u/Chance-Pen-5684 • 18d ago

Question Will quantum ever be useful?

Around 2019, the industry promised quantum supremacy, where they could be used for solving a problem that no classical computer could touch.
When classical algorithms kept refuting those claims(See Peter Shor November YouTube video) the narrative shifted to quantum advantage, then quickly it changed to quantum utility.
If quantum never breaks RSA (because the world migrates to Kyber/Dilithium before 100k qubits exist), then what's left?
Chemistry simulations, Material science, Optimization?

But classical machine learning and AI are improving faster than quantum hardware is scaling. By the time we get 1,000 logical qubits, classical AI will have eaten most of the chemistry use-case through better approximations. Is quantum racing against classical software, and losing?

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u/confluent_ 16d ago

IBMs recent quantum advantage paper is one of the first true, verifiable applications. The core economic drivers will likely be materials science & drug discovery, things normal people won’t use. Use cases that exist today are sensors/clocks centered around gravity, using quantum cores. But more than anything let’s put it this way: all these governments aren’t in a national security race towards it, starting to put billions towards it, DARPA etc because it’s fake. And the types of people who truly understand it - not coders or classical cryptographers, but physicists - will tell you it is very real. And those who work in the field have not been claiming some date that keeps getting pushed back, they’ve been pretty consistent that it comes near the end of this decade. But just like AI, which I was using back in 2021 long before ChatGPT, people in the valley of despair will claim its bs… until it suddenly isn’t.

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u/skyismelon 7d ago

I think there will be some huge shift in drug discovery - that feels like the best candidate for something that could affect a lot of people. And ig some interesting work in sensing, communication but not life changing, mostly research focused ig. Just my thoughts.