The modern digital world is built with its transistor-based chips on the foundations of Quantum Mechanics, the physics governing the world at the fundamental level.
However, the world has barely scratched the surface when it comes to the full potential of Quantum Mechanics, that is, until Quantum computing came to the foray. In the same spirit but in different light to its classical counterpart, quantum-computing technology seeks to exploit particle superpositions for computing operations.
It differs from classical computing due to the particle superpositions that occur at the quantum scale, allowing a qubit to be in a state of both 0 and 1 until it interacts with the environment. This exploit would allow Quantum computers to outperform classical computers exponentially in certain computing tasks. This could have huge implications for healthcare, finance, telecom, and energy industries, among others, ushering the world in a new era of accelerated economic growth. Mckinsey estimates that an economic value of $0.9 – $2 trillion can be extracted by 2035 across four industries – chemicals, life sciences, finance and mobility – due to quantum computing.
The McKinsey report estimates the Quantum computing market size to be between $45 billion to $131 billion by 2040.
Precedence Research appears more conservative and probably more grounded (You’ll see why). According to their report, the market for quantum computing is around $1 billion as of this year and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 30.9% from 2024 to 2034, reaching a size of $16 billion by the end of the forecast period. The US is expected to comprise $7 billion of the projected quantum market pie by the end of 2034. The market in the US is expected to grow at a CAGR of 31.2% from 2024-2034. As of 2023, North America unsurprisingly comprises 61% of the quantum-computing market.
As we point out in a similar article from May, analyzing the quantum-computing equity market based on an ETF exposed to it is a bit tricky. Very few companies have core business related to quantum computing and most companies in these ETFs have peripheral Quantum computing projects but are big and high-performing in other industries that are core to their business, so an ETF’s performance wouldn’t be saying much about the quantum computing industry.
Therefore, we’ll delve a little deeper to see what actual challenges there are in the industry and whether they can be practically solved for the delivery of a return on investment as far as scalable practical use cases go.
Technological Challenges with Quantum Computing
Solving Quantum computing is akin to a Herculean labor. It’s hard to argue with the laws of physics, and when it comes to Quantum computing, a major problem yet to be overcome is Decoherence-induced errors. Decoherence is the enabler of transition from Quantum physics to the everyday physics we experience. Qubits (the quantum equivalent of bits) can only remain in a superposition as long as there’s no interaction with the environment.
Even the slightest interaction causes them to decohere to classical bits, introducing computing errors. The hard part is to keep them in a superposition long enough for quantum computation to be viable. Further, to scale quantum computing, you have to add more qubits to the system, but adding more qubits, in principle, increases the probability of error. Finally, any approaches to error correction must obey the Quantum no-cloning theorem, which makes these approaches inherently more challenging than their classical counterparts.
Progress to Overcome Challenges
In 2022, Azure Quantum demonstrated the soundness of physics required to build topological qubits (these qubits are different in that they can maintain coherence for longer and would thereby lead to a reduced error rate through more stability).
On the other hand, Researchers at Quantum AI, an arm of another big tech company, made a breakthrough in 2023, demonstrating a reduced error rate even with an increased number of traditional Qubits. However, rare correlated error events that happened roughly every hour limited the exceptionally low error rate required for practical quantum computing, with more research required to tackle them.
What the Big Money Says
Despite these steps, the challenges remain to be effectively overcome. It’s anyone’s guess how long it’ll take for quantum computers to scale and become economically viable. If the amount of capital being invested by venture capital firms in the industry is any guide, it certainly doesn’t look good for the industry as of recent.
According to IQM’s State-of-Quantum Report of 2024, the venture capital invested in Quantum startups dropped by 50% worldwide in 2023 compared to the year prior, with the US quantum startup ecosystem seeing the greatest decline of capital at 80%.
As far as public equity in the quantum computing industry goes, it is overall yet to be profitable. The industry hasn’t experienced any operating leverage in any meaningful sense and is focused on growing revenue in its early stage. The hard problems with regards to practicality and scalability has resulted in many quantum computing stocks trade at price levels that make them non-compliant with stock exchanges, resulting in delisting threats by stock exchanges.
A modern computer datacenter, running an advanced quantum computer system.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE:QBTS)
Median Upside Potential: 108.33%
Number of Analysts: 7
Insider Monkey Weighted Score: 47.5
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE:QBTS) is a leading company in the industry that develops and supplies quantum-computing systems and related software services. The company has been gradually scaling the number of Qubits in its systems. The first system was launched in 2011, with a 128-qubit chipset. The company has gone all the way from there to Advantage, which it launched in 2020, with over 5,000 qubits.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE:QBTS) announced in early 2024 that the prototype of Advantage2 had been developed with 1200+ qubits and 10,000+ couplers, double the number of the previous prototype for the same system, and with substantial performance gains over the original Advantage system.
Even though QBTS has a number of customers, the fact that the commercial usefulness of early quantum computers is hotly debated doesn’t do the company any favors. It’s operating in a capital-intensive industry, with annual net cash being in negative figures since 2021.
Even though it’s growing its revenue on a sustained basis, the company struggles with profitability, which could make it hard for it to innovate. QBTS faced the threat of getting de-listed by the NYSE on October 2nd for the third time after its stock price went below $1 for 30 consecutive days.
Regardless, a number of analysts remain bullish on the stock, leading to a median 12-month upside potential of 108.3%. It’s on the back of the company’s growing customer base, especially after their announcement of potential quantum supremacy in March 2024. The qubit density for the company’s Advantage2 has increased to 4,800 from 1,200 earlier in the year, further growing optimism around D-Wave’s goal to reach 7,000+ qubits for Advantage2. A major catalyst for the company is the fast annealing technology that was launched in April this year, which saw high levels of adoption.
Overall, QBTS ranks 2nd on our list of best quantum computing stocks to buy according to analysts. While we acknowledge the potential of QBTS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than QBTS but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/d-wave-quantum-qbts-leading-214438688.html
