Quantum stocks plunge after Nvidia’s CEO says the tech is decades from being useful
Quantum bits of anxiety… High-flying quantum-computing stocks nosedived yesterday after Nvidia boss Jensen Huang said the tech is decades away from being useful. He said it’s believable that “very useful” quantum computers will arrive in 20 years, a timeline investors seem repulsed by. Shares of Rigetti Computing plunged 45% yesterday, while rivals like D-Wave Quantum, Quantum Computing, and IonQ plunged about 40%.
Meanwhile: Huang said his company will play a “very significant part” in quantum computers, adding that “just about every quantum-computing company in the world” is working with Nvidia (they’re probably not very happy right now).
Move over, AI… Quantum computing has gotten a lot of buzz. Quantum stocks were on a tear late last year after Google introduced a quantum chip (Willow) that it said could solve problems in under 5 minutes that today’s top computers would take 10 septillion years to work out. Techno-optimists say quantum tech could speed up drug development, advance AI, and improve weather forecasting. Some worry that the supercomputers could one day outsmart encryption (the backbone of tech security) and undermine the $2T bitcoin blockchain. Others like Huang say those things won’t happen anytime soon.
The faster they rise, the harder they can fall… Rigetti shares rallied ~1,500% in November/December, while D-Wave shares nearly 10x’d. Quantum names are among stocks with the highest volatility in recent days. It appears that investors are starting to worry that the tech’s usefulness might be too early to call.