Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is growing more bullish about quantum computing — and he expects they’ll start solving real-world problems in the coming years.
“Quantum computing is reaching an inflection point,” Jensen declared during his keynote speech at Nvidia’s GTC Paris developer conference Wednesday.
Quantum computers are machines that use the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems too complex for classical computers, which store information in bits (ones and zeroes).
Quantum computers use quantum bits, or “qubits,” which can be zero, one or something in between — the aim being to process much larger volumes of data to facilitate breakthroughs in areas like medicine, science and finance.
Quantum has been a buzzy space for investors with the rise of several popular stocks, such as Rigetti Computing and IonQ, which on Monday acquired Oxford Ionics for $1.1 billion. Shares of Rigetti and IonQ were up 4.5% and 3.7% respectively in U.S. premarket trading.
Huang on Wednesday said he’s been impressed with the “large community” of quantum computing companies within Europe, adding that he’d met with representatives of French quantum startup Pasqal on Tuesday night.
“We are within reach” of being able to apply quantum computers “in areas that can solve some interesting problems in the coming years,” Huang added, as he talked up Nvidia’s own hybrid quantum-classical computing solution, Cuda Q. “This is a really exciting time.”
This marks a more bullish view from the Nvidia boss on quantum, after Huang previously said he thinks a 15-year timeline for realizing useful quantum computers is “on the early side,” and that a 20-year timeframe was a likelier target.
His views at the time led to quantum computing stocks including Rigetti, IonQ and D-Wave Quantum plunging. More recently, Huang has admitted his comments came out wrong and expressed his surprise about the ensuing market movements.
Huang isn’t alone in spotting the quantum computing hype. Late last year, Google announced its latest quantum chip, Willow, which it said marked a major breakthrough in so-called “error correction” — a set of techniques used to protect quantum information from errors.
– CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report
