An exec from quantum computing start-up IonQ suggested that recent comments by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang that were widely perceived to be a negative take on quantum computing “were taken a little bit out of context.”
That observation comes after Huang, in a Q&A following a CES 2025 appearance last week, suggested that “very useful” quantum computers are about 20 years away. His words–as is often the case with Huang’s views on computing–triggered an immediate stock market effect, deflating a great deal of recent excitement that had built up around the quantum computing community. Publicly-traded quantum stocks of start-ups like IonQ, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave, and Quantum Computing, Inc., all soared at the end of 2024 following news of new contracts and partnerships, but in a matter of seconds Huang sent their share prices tumbling backward.
The knee-jerk reactions to Huang’s comments largely ignored the fact that Nvidia has been one of the biggest and strongest supporters of the young quantum computing ecosystem, partnering with at least a dozen firms in the sector, and developing its CUDA-Q platform for enabling hybrid classical-quantum computing.
IonQ is one of those partners and CUDA-Q users, and IonQ CFO Thomas Kramer, while speaking at the Needham Growth Conference this week, said he thought Huang’s comments were taken out of context. “It's frankly hard to fathom that you will build an entire new version of CUDA for quantum if you thought nobody would be using it for a while,” Kramer said, while pointing out that not just Nvidia, but also Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Intel, and others “are all investing heavily into quantum.”
As further proof that quantum computing is viable today, IonQ also has sold a handful of full-scale quantum computing systems based on its trapped ion technology, which Kramer suggested is more commercially ready right now than systems that use superconducting technology to create their qubits. A few other firms in the sector also have announced sales of quantum computers or quantum processors, while users who can’t afford such systems also have the option today to pay by the hour to use real quantum processors via the cloud through services like Amazon Braket.
Backing up Kramer’s assessment of the reaction to Huang’s comments was the fact that Nvidia this week announced that its annual GTC event in March will include GTC Quantum Day, a round of sessions “exploring what’s possible and available now in quantum computing, and where quantum technologies are headed,” according to a statement from an Nvidia blog post.
Kramer was not the first quantum executive to parse Huang's words. In the days immediately following Huang's comments, Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave quantum, a provider of quantum annealing systems, took to Bloomberg, CNBC and other outlets to refute Huang's statements, pointing out that D-Wave has customers using its systems today.
What did Huang say? A closer examination of the original attention-grabbing quote may actually show how intent Huang and Nvidia are on helping quantum computing maximize its potential.
Noting that “just about every quantum computing company in the world is working with us now,” Huang went on to add, “If you kind of said 15 years for very useful quantum computers, that would probably be on the early side. If you said, you know, 30 [years] it is probably on the late side, but if you pick 20 [years], I think a whole bunch of us would believe it, but what we're interested in is we want to help the industry get there as fast as possible, and to create the computer of the future, and we'll be a very significant part of it.”
While the full extent of this statement, along with Kramer’s observation and Nvidia’s Quantum Day announcement, help paint a more accurate picture of where Nvidia stands on quantum, some uncertainty still exists pertaining to how Nvidia’s role in quantum may evolve. Will it eventually design its own quantum processors? Will it acquire one of the quantum upstarts? Nvidia has some time to figure this out, though probably not anywhere close to 20 years.