But there has been intense disagreement over which, if any, of the claims is valid. And even if the reports turn out to be scientifically sound, it may take many more years of work before the machines become commercially useful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an awful lot of jumping on the bandwagon,\u201d said Bob Sutor, a former head of quantum computing at IBM. \u201cSometimes it feels to me like people are just rushing to get into the history books.\u201d<\/p>\n
Companies to report passing the all-important quantum milestone include Google, with an algorithm<\/a> that could lead to the development of entirely new materials, and D-Wave, whose technology tackles<\/a> extremely complex optimisation problems. <\/p>\n In November, Quantinuum said it had achieved promising results experimenting with superconductors at room temperature, while three groups of researchers working on IBM\u2019s quantum<\/a> machines released details of experiments they said appeared to have reached the critical technical threshold.<\/p>\n Experts admit that assessing these claims is difficult. One problem is that quantum advantage is a moving target: using new techniques, programmers of classical computers have sometimes been able to match or overtake the supposedly superior quantum systems. <\/p>\n That makes establishing the superiority of a quantum computer like \u201ctrying to prove a negative\u201d, Aaronson said.<\/p>\n Since Google<\/a>\u2019s first claim of quantum supremacy in 2019, traditional computers have leapt ahead. Even Google executives concede that a problem they once said would take a classical computer 10,000 years could now be done in 200 seconds.<\/p>\n Sabrina Maniscalco, chief executive of Finnish quantum software company Algorithmiq, said her company \u201ccan claim we are breaking all the classical benchmarks so far\u201d with a quantum algorithm used to simulate new materials. <\/p>\n But she added there was no way to tell whether someone would find a way to do even better using a classical machine, and that it would take time for the two different computing worlds to agree on areas in which quantum systems might truly excel.<\/p>\n To head off challenges to its latest claim, Google said it had taken the unusual step of \u201cred-teaming\u201d its results, or enlisting a team of researchers to exhaustively try to disprove its own results. <\/p>\n According to Aaronson, the tech giant is among the companies with the best claim so far to have achieved quantum advantage, along with Quantinuum and QuEra.<\/p>\n To try to break the cycle of claims and counterclaims, IBM in November backed the launch of a website to track possible examples of quantum advantage, releasing three initial cases \u2014 including the one from Algorithmiq \u2014 for others to test.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say the results that we put out are very close,\u201d said Jay Gambetta, head of IBM Research.<\/p>\n Yet even if the experts manage to agree on cases where quantum computers actually outperform today\u2019s machines, the systems may still be a long way from solving practical problems or justifying the speculation that boosted the stocks of publicly traded quantum companies last year.<\/p>\n Early claims of technical superiority rested on being able to generate circuits with complete randomness, a scientific demonstration without practical uses. <\/p>\n More recently, most of the work has turned to algorithms that could one day be applied to real-world problems, often involving the simulation of materials at the atomic level, which themselves exhibit the properties of quantum mechanics. <\/p>\n Today\u2019s quantum computers, however, are too small to conduct these calculations with the precision that would be needed to make their results useful.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/d73851bb-36d3-46b5-b9f0-33db2361b5a0.jpg\")
Quantinuum said it had achieved promising results experimenting with superconductors at room temperature \u00a9 Quantinuum<\/p>\n![\"Jay](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/32b7166b-442f-4bfc-92c7-efb5f45c0e31.jpg\")
Jay Gambetta, head of IBM research, said quantum advantage was similar to the point artificial intelligence reached in 2012, when the first breakthrough results in computer vision emerged \u00a9 Angela Weiss\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/images.ft.com\/v3\/image\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F101762.jpeg\")
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