The future of quantum computing: Near- and long-term outlook

Quantum computing predictions

Mukesh Ranjan, vice president of Everest Group, an advisory firm, painted a near-to-intermediate-term picture in which cloud-delivered quantum services and quantum-classical computing hybrids will be prominent. "Quantum-enhanced hybrid computing could become standard by 2030," he said. The two types of systems will increasingly work together, and quantum cloud services such as IBM Quantum and AWS Braket will help integrate quantum algorithms into enterprise workflows.

Here are more predictions on how quantum computing technology is likely to evolve and steps enterprises can take to prepare.

1. Quantum processors support early use cases.

The holy grail of quantum computers capable of solving the most complex problems depends on innovations in new hardware, error correction and other techniques. An adjacent and much easier problem is using quantum processors from pioneers like D-Wave to solve simulated annealing problems, which have implications for optimization problems, materials discovery and financial portfolio management.

Rebecca Krauthamer, co-founder and CEO of QuSecure, a quantum security firm, said D-Wave's annealers are already delivering near-term benefits in niche optimization problems, such as route optimization for logistics and scheduling in manufacturing. "For many enterprises, annealing is often a quantum starter kit, albeit specialized," she said.

2. Quantum circuits get bigger.

There has also been impressive progress in the hardware needed to build more capable quantum circuits using various approaches categorized by physical properties, including supercooled electrons, neutral atoms, light and other techniques. IBM's recent 1,121-qubit machine and Atom Computing's 1,000-qubit quantum computers have generated considerable buzz in the industry.

Anders Indset, chairman of Njordis Group, a venture capital firm, said all these groups are grappling with the same fundamental challenges: scaling up the number of qubits and reducing error rates. Each qubit type has tradeoffs in coherence times, gate fidelity (i.e., how well the state of a qubit can be distinguished) and ease of manufacturing.

"While we're still in the NISQ [noisy intermediate-scale quantum] era, each incremental improvement, whether in error mitigation techniques, qubit connectivity or control electronics, brings us closer to a vision of fault-tolerant quantum computing," Indset said.

3. Error correction overcomes hardware noise.

Overcoming the limitations of the NISQ era using existing hardware will require progress in quantum error correction and mitigation to improve qubit quality. "Error correction and mitigation are crucial for any quantum computing advancements and are directly dependent on hardware improvements," Wisotsky said.

Researchers have been pioneering new approaches for encoding quantum data called surface codes or color codes to correct quantum errors, but implementing these at scale remains a huge hurdle. "Nevertheless, the collective hardware progress is driving real momentum toward industrial or enterprise-grade quantum devices," Indset said.

4. Topological qubits could scale more efficiently.

Another promising development has been Microsoft's Majorana work on topological qubits that use fermions, a type of subatomic particle, to build more stable qubits. Previously, they were purely theoretical qubits constructed to protect against certain types of errors.

"Think of topological qubits like a well-built house with good foundations -- they're naturally more stable, so you don't need to fix the foundation every time a breeze blows through," Krauthamer said.

If the architecture proves scalable, it promises fewer errors and more real-world applications, becoming one of the biggest breakthroughs of the last decade. "This is huge news for meaningful error correction, which is arguably the single biggest factor determining when quantum will be ready to deliver advantage in certain use cases over classical computing," she said.

Krauthamer predicts the next few years will be defined by the quest to minimize errors while scaling the number of qubits. The competition among quantum architectures will heat up, with superconducting, photonic, neutral atom and topological qubits -- among others -- leapfrogging each other at various points.

5. Development tools make progress.

While quantum hardware tends to get the headlines, the software layer has advanced remarkably in just a few years, according to Indset. Open source frameworks like Qiskit from IBM, Google's Cirq, TKET from Quantinuum and Xanadu's PennyLane have evolved from early research tools into more polished platforms. These toolkits lower the entry barriers, allowing developers to write quantum programs in higher-level abstractions that resemble classical programming paradigms.

Additionally, quantum software companies such as Terra Quantum (with its TQ42 platform) and SandboxAQ focus on building hybrid quantum-classical workflows. Because current quantum devices have limited qubit counts and relatively high noise levels, many of the most promising near-term algorithms, like the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) and the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA), rely on classical optimizers guiding quantum hardware, Indset said.

This hybrid strategy could provide near-term practical benefits for specific use cases in molecular simulation, cryptography and small-scale optimization, even though the quantum devices themselves are still noisy. "As these frameworks evolve, we're seeing more robust development, debugging and benchmarking tools, which in turn accelerate the pace of innovation," Indset said.

6. Quantum-inspired algorithms bring value in the short run.

The excitement about new quantum hardware has also accelerated research into quantum-inspired algorithms that run on classical computers. "One of the byproducts of quantum computing is a paradigm shift that has led researchers to develop quantum-inspired algorithms and technologies that perform remarkably well compared to standard methods," Wisotsky said.

He predicts more development of high-performance quantum simulators that can be used in lieu of actual quantum devices. Many of these alternative quantum-inspired technologies are useful today, and enterprises should view them as another tool in their toolbox. "By developing for quantum computing, an organization can also develop for quantum-inspired technologies," he said.

7. Quantum-safe security becomes an industry imperative.

Security researchers have been pondering the implications of when quantum computers could start cracking the public key cryptography that underpins the internet and cloud computing. Although this so-called "Q-day" could be years to decades away, it has important implications today because it would enable adversaries to decrypt captured communications and cloud storage. It could also affect embedded systems in physical equipment, such as satellites, industrial equipment and IoT devices.

NIST recently standardized the first quantum-safe replacement algorithms for post-quantum cryptography. Vendors and cloud providers have already started adopting the new techniques. Also, quantum key distribution is emerging for distributing encrypted keys over specialized fiber optic and satellite networks.

Cloud services are expected to support post-quantum cryptography fully in the next couple of years. However, enterprises might take longer to replace their existing public key encryption in legacy and embedded systems as well as older applications. In the short run, this should drive interest in new crypto-agility processes and tools for inventorying cryptographic footprints.

The best evidence of how real the quantum threat is, according to Ben Packman, chief strategy officer at quantum security vendor PQShield, is that governments, security agencies and institutions around the world are taking it seriously enough to work hard on upgrading to post-quantum cryptography. "Ultimately, whoever first develops a quantum computer capable of breaking [Rivest-Shamir-Adleman] or [elliptical curve cryptography] will not reveal that they have done so, and instead use it to harvest as much data as possible covertly," he said, referring to two commonly used public key cryptography systems. That makes post-quantum cryptography a "critical priority," he said.

It doesn't mean people should panic over Q-day or speculate on when a sufficiently powerful quantum computer will arrive. But it does mean they should start thinking seriously about risk when discussing the post-quantum future, according to experts. "Cybersecurity is built around risk and how you mitigate it -- as long as the risk of a quantum-powered cyberattack is not zero, the need to protect against it is serious," Packman said.

Quantum computing's impact on industries

These developments, plus new qubit designs, software platforms and tailored algorithms, are converging to make quantum computing more accessible to enterprises. "We're seeing a growing trend of pilot projects in industries like finance, healthcare, materials science and supply chain management, where even incremental speedups or novel capabilities could yield significant value," Indset said.

"Quantum computing is set to drive significant disruption across multiple industries, though the pace of impact will vary based on computational demands and hardware maturity," said Everest's Ranjan. His predictions on how these trends will affect specific areas include the following:

• Cybersecurity presents an immediate concern as quantum computing threatens current encryption methods, prompting urgent development of post-quantum cryptography.
• Finance and pharmaceuticals are poised for early adoption in three to five years, using quantum algorithms for portfolio optimization, risk modeling and drug discovery, where even near-term quantum advantages can provide competitive gains.
• Aerospace, defense and energy (5-10 years) will follow, benefiting from quantum simulations for material science, fuel efficiency and nuclear fusion research, although these applications require more stable, fault-tolerant systems.
• Robotics and AI (10-plus years) will likely experience quantum impacts last, as real-time quantum processing and AI advancements remain in early research stages.

"Overall, industries that rely on optimization and complex simulations will see the first practical benefits, while more latency-sensitive applications will require longer-term breakthroughs in quantum hardware and software integration," Ranjan said. "While fault-tolerant quantum computers may still be in development, hybrid approaches will deliver tangible benefits in finance, pharmaceuticals and materials science before full-scale quantum adoption."

George Lawton is a journalist based in London. Over the last 30 years, he has written more than 3,000 stories about computers, communications, knowledge management, business, health and other areas that interest him.