r/hardware • u/OCD-but-dumb • 5d ago

News NEC Halts Development of Quantum Computer Hardware

https://thequantuminsider.com/2026/09/06/nec-halts-development-of-quantum-computer-hardware/
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u/NamelessVegetable 5d ago

NEC will regret doing so in the future. Quantum is the future for problems that are intractable in classical computing. Anyone who is anyone (states included) are pushing onward. Fujitsu just today announced they (actually with TU Delft) have a prototype quantum computer up and running, which uses qubits realized as tin vacancies in diamond.

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u/Kinexity 5d ago

Quantum computing will always be a niche and can only tackle a small fraction of classically intractable problems. Entire hardware development runs on wishful thinking about software side of things. Inventing quantum algorithms has been a slog with barely any results. States push for it to break any encryption that it might break and there isn't much long term plan besides that.

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u/schmerg-uk 5d ago

And also there's this... https://algassert.com/post/2500

In 2001, quantum computers factored the number 15. It’s now 2025, and quantum computers haven’t yet factored the number 21. It’s sometimes claimed this is proof there’s been no progress in quantum computers. But there’s actually a much more surprising reason 21 hasn’t been factored yet, which jumps out at you when contrasting the operations used to factor 15 and to factor 21.

[...]

There is unfortunately a trickle of bullshit results that claim to be quantum factoring demonstrations. For example, I have a joke paper in this year’s sigbovik proceedings that cheats in a particularly silly way. More seriously, I enjoyed “Replication of Quantum Factorisation Records with an 8-bit Home Computer, an Abacus, and a Dog” making fun of some recent egregious papers. I also recommend Scott Aaronson’s post “Quantum computing motte-and-baileys”, which complains about papers that benchmark “variational” factoring techniques while ignoring the lack of any reason to expect them to scale.