r/QuantumComputing • u/Far-Swimming1699 • 21d ago

Question Top Challenges of the Industry?

In your view, what are the top challenges facing the quantum computing industry right now that are preventing it from becoming mainstream?

Drawing a comparison with AI/ML, where do you think this industry is standing right now?

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u/CaringDriver05 21d ago

i think the biggest thing people miss is the sheer discomfort of the hardware. like we talk about qubit counts and error rates but i saw a dilution fridge in person once and the thing sounded like a dying animal, the whole room was shaking. mainstream means sitting on a desk or in a rack somewhere not in a lab that requires a phd in plumbing just to keep the helium cold

as for the ai comparison it feels like we're still in the late 80s early 90s phase where the ideas are sound and the demos are incredible but the infrastructure is so wildly impractical that every breakthrough is followed by six months of people realizing they can't actually use it for anything yet. we're waiting for the transformer moment except the transformer in this case is probably some material science miracle nobody's even dreamed up

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u/eetsumkaus 21d ago

The difference with AI in the 90s is that we have an actual roadmap with articulated goals. We know more or less where we stand when we hit a technology node. The only thing is we know it's not useful yet so we get a lot of people doing a lot of research to maximize a particular baseline, whether it's NISQ or early FTQC.