Google CEO predicts quantum computers will be ready in 5 to 10 years
On February 12, 2025, Google CEO Sundar Pichai predicted that quantum computers will be in practical use within the next five to ten years.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai sees 'useful' quantum computers 5 to 10 years away - The Economic Times
Quantum computers have finally arrived, but will they ever be useful? | New Scientist
Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, UAE, Pichai said that a 'practical quantum computer' is still five to 10 years away, and compared the current situation with the 2010s, when Google began to develop AI in earnest.
Speaking online, Pichai said, 'The current state of quantum computing reminds me of AI in the 2010s, when we were working on Google Brain and beginning to see early results.'
Quantum computers are computers that perform calculations using quantum mechanical phenomena such as 'superposition' and 'quantum entanglement.' As a technology that can solve problems in a short amount of time that would take a conventional computer to solve, it is expected to be applied in a variety of fields.
Google is leading the field, releasing its early quantum chip 'Sycamore' in 2019. In addition, in January 2025, IBM and quantum computing company Quantinum used a quantum computer to analyze the oxygen transport mechanism of a respiratory pigment called hemocyanin , and a study was reported that it was possible to gain insights into the development of anti-tumor vaccines. However, most quantum computers are used primarily for research purposes and are not yet widespread.
Google completes quantum computer that solves a calculation problem that would take 10,000 years in 3 minutes and 20 seconds - GIGAZINE
In addition, many people are cautious about the feasibility of this technology, as NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang predicted in January 2025 that 'it will be 20 years before a practical quantum computer is developed.'
Meanwhile, Google is very optimistic about the future of quantum computers, with Hartmut Neven, head of quantum AI at Google, saying in February that 'commercial quantum computing applications will emerge within the next five years.'
'Quantum advances are obviously exciting,' Pichai said, referring to Google's quantum chip, which can solve problems in five minutes that supercomputers could not solve even if they were to calculate the end of the universe.
Google announces 'Willow', a quantum chip that can perform calculations that would take 10^25 years on a supercomputer in just 5 minutes - GIGAZINE
Google isn't the only company actively developing quantum computers. The aforementioned Quantinum is tackling quantum error correction, a major challenge for quantum computers, by grouping physical quantum bits into 'logical quantum bits.'
Scaling up is also essential for quantum computers to be put to practical use. In that sense, California startup Atom Computing is leading the way, releasing the largest quantum computer to date, a 1,180-qubit computer, in 2023, made of ultra-cold ytterbium atoms, also known as 'neutral atoms' because they have no electric charge.
Yet another startup, Pasqal, announced in June 2024 that it had successfully trapped 1,110 rubidium atoms in optical tweezers with up to 2,088 sites and loaded over 1,000 atoms into a quantum processor in one shot.
'Until about 10 years ago, it wasn't clear that quantum computing would be anything more than a fun experiment, but then a whole globalized ecosystem has emerged,' said Laurent Prost, product manager at Alice & Bob, a French startup that aims to develop a practical quantum computer by 2030.
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