Comment by mert-kurttutan

There are different types of skepticism when it comes to Quantum Computing (QC). One can be skeptic about its feasibility, namely achieving Fault Tolerant Scalable Quantum Computer (for instance Gil Kalai).

Or, they can be skeptic its applications on the real world.

I am on the second camp, very much. It has mainly two important application areas: Breaking Some Public Key cryptography and Simulating Quantum System.

I think the 1st one is very real, we need to be serious and careful on the migration.

The second area is, I think, extremely overhyped.

One should ask what cases there are for investing in QC that makes financial sense. I can think of couple of areas where quantum effects are important enough to justify this. Better designs for Enzymes and Solid State Batteries. The case for enzyme designs is weakened even more if you check the recent paper by Garnet Chan: https://bsky.app/profile/dulwichquantum.bsky.social/post/3mh...

Unless we see collorobaration between IBM/Google and BYD/CATL/Tesla that will lead to next gen solid state batteries, I would say it wont have substantial impact on the real world. One also has to consider that QC is not the only method to simulation strongly coupled Quantum Systems, there are already other methods, tensor network, Deep Learning based, etc.

Lastly, the QCs will be coming in the future. SO, yhey kind of need to hurry up since current benchmarks for EV batteries are improving every year. There is also the issue of translating lab result into production environment.

All of these factors are eating away the relevance of QCs when it comes to real world applications.

I think we are essentially left with a situation where the only practical application of the technology (QC) is to steal stuff on the internet.