Throughout my career in quantum science, I have noticed a concerning pattern. Big technology companies announce major breakthroughs, and raise much investor capital. But some of these advances are questioned within months, weeks or even days. And, in some cases, published landmark papers are later retracted from scientific journals.
When I entered quantum computing in 2017, I studied the framework championed by Microsoft. This approach aims to use exotic Majorana quantum bits (qubits) — theorized particles yet to be detected in the laboratory — as robust information carriers. But, in 2021, a landmark paper in Nature proposing the discovery of these qubits was retracted (H. Zhang et al. Nature 556, 74–79 (2018); retracted 591, E30; 2021). This was a huge setback for the field, and I chose another subject for my master’s thesis. Last month, Microsoft announced their latest chip based on Majorana qubits, the Majorana 1. Yet again, challenges to assertions in its announcement have already sprouted.
Quantum technologies need big investments to deliver on their big promises
I’ve seen takedowns of a host of other striking announcements, from qubits travelling through a ‘worm hole’ simulated in a quantum computer to suggestions of entanglement with a living microorganism. A debate erupted last December over whether the calculation speed made possible by Google’s Willow chip — which solved a task with no real-world application much faster than a supercomputer can — “lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes”, as asserted in a blogpost by Hartmut Neven, head of Google’s quantum team in Mountain View, California (see go.nature.com/4crvka6).
The potential sums associated with announcements of quantum-tech breakthroughs are huge. Within 24 hours of the Willow chip’s launch, Google’s parent company Alphabet saw a jump of around 5% in its stock price, boosting the combined value of shares held by its two biggest institutional investors, Vanguard and BlackRock, by more than US$15 billion.
But it can be hard for investors, policymakers and the public to know where things stand with quantum technologies. Such devices are touted to have the potential to upend numerous industries with their immense computational power, fast and secure data transmission and high-precision measurement and sensing — yet few people realize how much quantum tech still has to mature. This culture of overhype must be challenged.
Why even physicists still don’t understand quantum theory 100 years on
The technology can do enormous good for society, by accelerating the pace of material and drug discovery, for instance. However, we won’t see that future if investors lose faith in quantum’s promise before we get a handle on the hype. To deliver on its promise, quantum needs steady, sustainable and ethical investments. That’s why, in 2021, I founded the Quantum Ethics Project, a consulting company that has built, through in-person events and on the online platform Discord, one of the world’s largest networks of specialists in responsible innovation and the socio-economic impact of quantum tech.
To chart a sustainable course for such technologies, researchers, institutions, companies and governments must act on two fronts.
