Quantum shares like Rigetti fall after Nvidia’s Huang says PCs are 15 to 30 years away
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks to reporters during the launch of the Gefion supercomputer at the Vilhelm Lauritzen Terminal in Kastrup, Denmark on October 23, 2024.
Ritzau Scanpix | Mads Claus Rasmussen | Via Reuters
Quantum computing shares fell on Wednesday after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated that useful quantum computers are still many years away.
“If you said 15 years for very useful quantum computers, that would probably be early,” he said during Nvidia’s analyst day. “If you said 30, it’s probably too late. But if you picked 20, I think a whole bunch of us would believe it.”
Huang said he believes Nvidia will play a “very significant role” in the creation of PCs and help the industry “get there as quickly as possible.”
Rigetti drops comments for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
Stocks related to quantum computing fell after the comments, s Rigetti Computing drop by 40%, while IonQ fell more than 32%. D-Wave Quantum fell more than 38%, while Defiance Quantum & AI ETF fell 5%. Quantum computingwhich announced a stock offering to raise $100 million, sank 39%.
The sector got a boost in late 2024 as excitement around quantum computing exploded after Google unveiled its latest Willow chip, which it said performs better than its 2019 predecessor in reducing errors. Many investors also hoped that the sector would be the next big tech craze since the rise of artificial intelligence after ChatGPT.
The excitement fueled year-end stocks, with Rigetti and D-Wave gaining 1,449% and 854% respectively.
Proponents of quantum computing say the technology will be able to perform computational tasks that ordinary computers cannot and process far greater amounts of data.
But many investors are warned that it might be too early to exclude real winners in the sector and real-world use cases of the technology.
