Spotting Quantum Computing Hype

A Guide for Non-Scientists Reading Quantum Announcements

The evolving Quantum Computing (“QC”) industry has reached a critical juncture where legitimate scientific progress coexists with significant hype, marketing spin, and even outright fraud. For readers without deep technical backgrounds, distinguishing between genuine breakthroughs and overstated claims has become increasingly challenging yet vitally important. This post is intended to provide some practical background and tools to help evaluate QC announcements with a more critical eye.

What is Quantum Commercial Advantage?

Before we get into the specifics of what to look for in an announcement, there is an important distinction we need to make. There is an ongoing raging debate, even among the most well-informed industry participants, about when Quantum Computing will provide commercial value. One barometer that is often cited is the ability for a Quantum Computer to break RSA encryption. Most secure communication today, including accessing your bank records online, relies on something called RSA-2048, which uses an exceptionally hard math problem to encode information. To grossly oversimplify, it’s currently very easy to multiply two numbers together, but it is exceedingly difficult to do the reverse…to “factor” large numbers. There is no known formula or existing method to factor large numbers so any would-be hacker would need to use trial and error. However, even for today’s most powerful supercomputer, it is estimated it would take trillions of years to decode something encrypted with RSA-2048 (i.e., determining the two prime factors of a very large number, which is the “key” to the encoding). However, Peter Shor, a renowned mathematician, has proposed an algorithm that can use QC to substantially accelerate that and by some recent estimates, a QC with 1 million qubits should be able to run Shor’s algorithm and break RSA in 5-7 days. OK, that sounds like an impressive improvement from trillions of years, but this is a false flag. Many experts expect it will take 10-15 years or more to have Quantum Computers with that capability, but that is not the primary thing we hope to achieve with Quantum Computers. I’ve been unabashedly bullish on Quantum Computers for a few years, yet I agree with this timeline estimate for this specific use case. The real question is not “when will Quantum Computers break RSA” but “when will Quantum Computers provide incremental commercial value that can’t currently be achieved with classical computers.” This is a very significant distinction. Here are a few examples:

• Weather forecasting is notoriously difficult, with an enormous number of inter-dependent variables that shift quickly. If we can can improve weather forecasts by 5% with Quantum Computing, that would be of significant value to logistics planners.

• Most portfolio analysis seeks to maximize risk-adjusted returns with attempts to normalize for inter-related risk factors and construct portfolios with optimal diversification. If adding a Quantum Computer to the analysis can enhance these returns by even a few basis points, it would be of significant commercial value.

• Today, it is estimated that it takes up to 15 years and $2.6 billion to bring a new drug to market. If Quantum Computers can help simulate drug mechanisms of action and eliminate some candidates from further development, it could make the entire process more efficient and save years and/or millions of dollars from drug development.

These are just a few examples but there are many others. We are on the cusp of achieving these sorts of commercial improvements, so will not have to wait 10-15 years or more before you begin seeing more announcements about “quantum commercial advantage.”

What Should Readers Look for in Quantum Announcements?

Given the impending arrival of quantum commercial advantage, how can we discern hype from reality in each announcement? There are several core factors that affect the power of a Quantum Computer, including the following:

• Number of Qubits (how many qubits are available for processing)

• Coherence Times (how long do the qubits retain their quantum state)

• Gate Fidelities (how accurate are instructions that affect a given qubit or the interaction between two or more qubits)

• Connectivity (how many qubits can work together on the problem, all-to-all, nearest neighbor, etc.)

• Error Correction (can the system make error corrections mid-cycle, how many logical qubits can be derived from the physical qubits, etc.)

The challenge is that all these factors are vitally important, but very often a given QC company will focus on just one or two. As a rule-of-thumb, once we have about 50 perfect qubits, we can begin doing things that are impossible to do on existing classical computers. The key word here is “perfect”, and while we have many Quantum Computing companies with more than 50 physical qubits, they are currently far from perfect. The key takeaway here is to be cognizant of the inter-dependency of all these variables. There is some effort in the industry to create standardized benchmarks that factor in all of these metrics together (i.e., “Quantum Volume” or “CLOPS” (circuit layer operations per second), but there is no consensus yet on a universal measurement yardstick, so readers need to remain guarded in the evaluation of an individual company’s announcement which will likely only focus on one given metric.

Consider the Source

Skipping past the technical jargon or an isolated claim, some practical common sense can guide you in evaluating a given Company’s quantum claim. Here is a quick guide to help, based on the source of a claim, in order of credibility (least to most):

• Press releases, panel presentations or talks, and self-produced White Papers: If these are the only source of information for a given achievement, you should heavily discount the credibility. Many quantum companies are constantly chasing investment dollars so are under pressure to announce achievements. This is especially important to consider when the underlying claims are focused on some contrived demonstration as opposed to a true practical application.

• Independent 3^rd Party Validation: This may come in the form of an independent publication which replicates the results, or more often from a customer that validates the technology through the purchase of product. While these are helpful, there is typically context involved so dig in a bit to see the motivation behind the 3^rd party. Companies often cite government contracts as commercial validation, but often the government funds prototypes or development plans without necessarily confirming external commercial applicability. There are also often exaggerations, such as quoting the full possible value of a government program while only beginning with a modest Phase I portion that may or may not advance to that full program.

• Preprints on Scientific Repositories, such as arXiv: This is much more credible than a simple press release because it invites deep review, but it’s not quite the same as external validation. However, there is often cogent commentary as third parties review the details, so seeing how experts react to a preprint can be telling.

• Collaborations with Universities or Research Institutions: This is especially validating, particularly when the associated collaborator is well regarded.

• Peer Reviewed Publication: This is the gold standard of validation, when the results of a given achievement are published in a journal such as Nature.

In addition to the guidance noted above, here are a few questions to ask yourself regarding any given QC announcement:

• Does this solve a problem businesses actually need solved?

• Is this a general capability or a narrow demonstration?

• Can classical computers not practically solve this problem already?

Remember that Hype Can Go Both Ways

Unfortunately, there are a very limited number of public companies in the quantum industry, so their valuations can whip-saw as announcements are made. There have also been a few prominent examples of short sellers releasing seemingly thorough evaluations that eviscerate a given company, and while they caveat their reports with notice that they have short positions in the stock, the underlying research is often not robust. For example, in May of 2022 Scorpion Capital released an 183-page report bashing IonQ. Given the report’s heft, detailed charts and purported “extensive” interviews, it appeared credible to a non-expert, but as I noted in a prior post (which you can read here) it was very poorly done, highly misleading and not reflective of reality. While that report led to a short-term drop in IonQ stock to about $7.00, the fact that IonQ is now above $50 (and was as high as $80 recently) helps confirm that the report wasn’t as credible as it appeared.

There are also several quantum naysayers that focus on that RSA decryption timeline of 10-20 years, and highlight all the other near-term challenges that QC companies face, to bash just about any announcement or achievement. I’d place any individual pundit’s negative assessment of a given achievement as similar to a company issuing a press release…consider it, but without further validation, it’s just one opinion.

Conclusion

As with most information that you can get today, caveat emptor, or “buyer beware”. Consider the source, try to get independent third-party validation, and consider whether there is true commercial value or potential in the achievement. As the overall hype regarding quantum continues to grow, you’ll need to stay vigilant. Oh, and of course, please continue to read the Quantum Leap to keep you informed of industry developments.

Disclosure: I wrote this article myself and express it as my own opinion. This post should not be used for investment decisions, and the content is for informational purposes only.

Bendor-Samuel, Peter, “The Realistic Path to Quantum Computing; Separating Hype from Reality,” Forbes, May 7, 2025.

“Decoding quantum hype: what Google, Microsoft, and AWS are really announcing,” Moodys.com, April 4, 2025.

Ivezic, Marin, “Quantum of Flapdoodle: A Guide to Quantum Hype and Scams”, Postquantum.com, Jan. 29, 2025.

Swayne, Matt, “Google Researcher Lowers Quantum Bar to Crack RSA Encryption,” Quantum Insider, May 24, 2025.