Quantum Computing Leaps Back Into the Scene

Quantum Computing stocks have been quiet for several months now after broadly selling off earlier this year. Readers know that I had made IBM (IBM) my name for quantum computing exposure after touring through the world of IonQ (IONQ), D-Wave (QBTS) and Infleqtion (INFQ). None of these names have done especially well since. IBM sold off and has worked its way sideways to higher. The sales that we made in the other names all ended up being good sales.

Now, out of the blue, there is news. On Wednesday morning, IonQ announced a major milestone in fault-tolerant quantum computing. Researchers at IonQ demonstrated the development and successful testing of the industry’s first end-to-end real-time quantum error correction decoder that runs on a single standard off-the-shelf CPU (central processing unit).

Why is this a big deal? According to the company, “Quantum error correction is essential for building practical, fault-tolerant quantum computers because physical qubits are inherently sensitive to environmental noise.”

“However, finding and fixing those errors in real time has historically presented a significant computing challenge. In conventional approaches, the classical computers tasked with decoding errors can easily become overwhelmed. That creates a processing bottleneck that forces the quantum computer to pause and wait.”