{"id":33510,"date":"2025-04-19T17:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T17:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/33510\/"},"modified":"2025-04-19T17:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T17:39:15","slug":"why-are-tech-companies-investing-in-quantum-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/33510\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are tech companies investing in quantum computing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, Amazon unveiled its first-ever quantum computing chip<\/a>. This follows similar announcements from Microsoft and Google.<\/p>\n

Research into quantum computing, which could speed up some computing tasks by orders of magnitude, used to happen largely within academic labs. But private sector investment in quantum computing has grown 10-fold in the past decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Your everyday computer runs on bits. A quantum computer runs quantum bits, or qubits. These qubits harness the behavior of subatomic particles, which, according to MIT research scientist Andrew McAfee, can make them a pain to work with.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to kind of coax them into being, and you\u2019ve got to wrangle them in these very weird conditions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

For instance, he said that MIT has a quantum computing lab on campus that is the coldest place. Period.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, down closer to absolute zero than any other place in the universe we know about. And the reason is to kind of convince qubits to hang around a little bit longer and come together in ways that we can harness,\u201d McAfee said.<\/p>\n

On the most basic level, an ordinary computer bit is like an on\/off switch \u2014 it either represents one or zero. Qubits work differently though, according to Heather West, a research manager at IDC.<\/p>\n

\u201cQubits rely on quantum properties that allow them to hold the values of 0, 1 or any value in between,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Quantum processors could do calculations that are functionally impossible with today\u2019s computers<\/a>, she said. \u201cThat will allow for scientists and engineers in the long run to be able to solve complex problems that have eluded them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quantum computers could speed up things like drug discovery, materials science or the pricing of risk in the insurance industry<\/a>. But it could take years to get there, noted Amy Webb, CEO of Future Today Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a field that really has a very long horizon ahead of it in terms of research and development, scaling and getting these concepts into market,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And that can be tricky for companies seeking investor dollars, \u201cbecause investors have ever-shortening expectations for when they\u2019re going to see a return,\u201d Webb said.<\/p>\n

But quantum computing is likely to become so valuable<\/a>, said MIT\u2019s Andrew McAfee, that it makes sense for tech firms to spend on it now \u2014\u00a0at least the firms with deep enough pockets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat allows them to extend their timeline beyond, you know, next quarter, what we\u2019re going to put in the annual report next year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Because, McAfee added, for whoever manages to scale quantum computing, the returns will certainly be there.<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Thursday, Amazon unveiled its first-ever quantum computing chip. This follows similar announcements from Microsoft and Google. Research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3164],"tags":[3284,3358,2343,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-33510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-computing","9":"tag-quantum-computing","10":"tag-research","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}