Google CEO Sundar Pichai has compared the current development stage of practical quantum computers to where AI was a decade ago, adding that useful systems remain five to ten years away from reality.

“The quantum moment reminds me of where AI was in the 2010s, when we were working on Google Brain and the early progress,” said Pichai at the World Government Summit in Dubai, as reported by Bloomberg.

“The progress in quantum is palpably exciting,” he said.

His comments differ from those made by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at CES in January 2025, who said that “very useful” quantum computers may take 15-30 years to become a reality.

In December 2024, Google debuted its Willow quantum computing chip, claiming the processor performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes, which would otherwise take 1,025 years on a conventional supercomputer.

The company also claimed the chip was able to demonstrate 'below threshold’ quantum calculations. That means that, when Google added more qubits to the quantum computer, error rates dropped "exponentially." In the past, more qubits increased the error rate.

However, Google has yet to cross the threshold of using its quantum systems for something broadly useful with real-world applications rather than a very specific, tailor-made benchmark.

In other quantum computing news:

• TNO has invested an undisclosed amount in Irish quantum computing startup Equal1. Spun out of University College Dublin in 2018, Equal1 is aiming to build a quantum processor using silicon spin qubits, a technology that has been co-developed by TNO and Delft University of Technology. As a result of the investment, Equal1 will relocate part of its R&D activities to the House of Quantum in Delft, the Netherlands.
• German national research institute Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) has purchased a D-Wave quantum computer, becoming the first high-performance computing center in the world to own a D-Wave Advantage annealing quantum computing system. The institute’s system will be upgraded to D-Wave's next-generation Advantage2 quantum processor unit (QPU), once it becomes available. In January 2025, D-Wave announced it had made its first commercial sale of an Advantage system, although it's unclear if FZJ was that customer.
• TreQ has opened a UK HQ and production facility in Oxfordshire. According to the company, TreQ's core engineering team will be based at the facility, where it has the infrastructure and equipment to develop and deploy its first quantum computing system in 2025.
• IonQ and General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) have partnered up to develop quantum processing and networking applications for the government and defense sectors. In a statement, the two companies said the partnership would “combine GDIT’s deep technical and government agency mission expertise with IonQ’s pioneering quantum technology.” IonQ already has contracts with the US Air Force Research Lab and the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security.