Is quantum computing playing out like mobile phones, circa 1995?

When we think about a technology we can’t live without, the mobile phone is often near the top of the list. It has become far more than a telephone and influences how we work, communicate, conduct research, navigate, consume media, read, shop, and organize our lives. This outcome was far from obvious during the early 1990s. Mobile phones were expensive, coverage was incomplete, batteries were limited, and our range of applications was narrow. But the technology was already useful—it didn’t need to become a smartphone before it created value.

What followed wasn’t the result of one decisive breakthrough. Devices improved. Networks expanded. Costs fell. Signal processing became more sophisticated. Software ecosystems emerged. Each layer reinforced the others, and adoption accelerated. In the U.K., mobile connections exceeded the population by 2004.

Quantum computing has reached a similar point. It’s not waiting for a single future moment when it suddenly becomes useful. Its practical phase has already begun through hybrid quantum computing, in which quantum processors, quantum-inspired algorithms, artificial intelligence, tensor networks, central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and high-performance computing (HPC) are integrated into complete industrial workflows. More powerful quantum processing units (QPUs) will dramatically expand what these systems can achieve, and fault tolerance will accelerate the transition. But neither one is the starting point of the market.