It’s been a week since President Trump signed an executive order directing a government-wide push into quantum computing — funding it, securing supply chains, building its workforce, and making sure adversaries like China don’t get there first.
This marks a significant federal commitment to technology that could be the next big revolution in computing, or the most expensive scientific experiment in history, depending on the expert’s opinion. But one thing it can do: restore AI as the bearer of long-term hopes for the technology industry.
This could be the right time to change, as the vibe is changing in AI itself: models are more expensive to train, returns are harder to demonstrate. Investors who sent AI stocks soaring may soon be looking for the next big thing to believe in.
Quantum computing – with its theoretical promise of solving problems that would take a thousand ancient computers – is a real and truly fascinating technology. It’s far more complicated, and far, than the White House leadership suggests.
What is quantum computing?
Your laptop processes information in bits. Small switches in the computer see data in binary code: either 0 or 1. Quantum computers exchange those with qubits, which can exist as 0, 1, or a combination of both at the same time – a place called superposition.
That is, if we could use it, it would supercharge everything that a computer can do.
As IBM explains, think of solving a maze. A primitive computer tries every way until it finds a way out. A quantum computer, by using the interference patterns of qubits – the way in which the waves can cancel out the wrong answers and amplify the right ones – can find solutions for itself without forcing every option.
Add in qubits, where the qubits are so interconnected that measuring one tells you instantly about the others, and you have a machine that tackles certain problems in a completely different way than anything humanity has built before.
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First, researchers say, a fully functional quantum computer could spell the death of Bitcoin.
What can I do?
However, the most promising near-term applications are in science and industry, not consumer technology. Quantum computers are well-suited to simulating molecular behavior – which can accelerate drug discovery and materials science – as well as solving complex financial and operational optimization problems.
According to IBM, the field is expected to grow into a $1.3 trillion industry by 2035, with major players such as Google and Microsoft, as well as startups such as IonQ, which are already investing heavily.
MIT’s 2025 report found that quantum computing patents have grown fivefold over the past decade, business revenue has reached a new high of $1.6 billion by 2024, and demand for quantum skills has nearly tripled since 2018.
Business executives, the report noted, are increasingly “curious” — in part because watching the AI explosion has taught them not to sleep on the next big thing.
Why is there a ‘but’?
The gap between what quantum computers can theoretically do, and what they can do now, remains large.
According to IBM, current quantum processors are fragile, error-prone, and require cooling to temperatures colder than the outside environment in order to function. A researcher on r/Physics who works with quantum information puts it bluntly: commercial use cases are “very predictable,” and the classical computer base “changes so fast that it’s impossible to read in space.”
Engineering issues, such as error correction, qubit stability, and scaling, also remain major unsolved problems. IBM says it is targeting 200 logical qubits by 2029 and 2,000 by 2033. These are timelines that make quantum computing a decades-long project, not an imminent revolution.
Why is the Trump administration suddenly all in?
Last week, President Trump signed Executive Order 14413, which directed a government-wide push to accelerate quantum computer research, protect domestic supply chains, increase the number of workers, and prevent enemies – China holds 60 percent of the world’s intellectual property rights, according to an MIT report – from acquiring the strategy.
The order establishes a new effort to build a quantum computer at the Energy Department’s center and sets aggressive timelines across multiple agencies.
Legitimate national security concerns, dressed up in the language of a tech boom. Like fusion power, quantum computing is something real again the will issue – maybe a lot – but the current moment looks like the first round of AI. Expect more startups with “quantum” in your name to launch as a result.
