I’ve been following developments in quantum computing with growing curiosity, especially the possibility that quantum computing and artificial intelligence could eventually work together.
I’m not a physicist or a quantum computing expert. My perspective comes from more than thirty years of watching technology evolve, sometimes participating in its early development, and seeing how difficult it can be to recognize the significance of something new.
What interests me most isn’t which company builds the fastest quantum computer or which country gets there first. It’s what these technologies might eventually make possible for humanity, and whether we’ll make the right choices along the way.
My hope is that AI and quantum computing will help humanity survive and thrive on a healthy planet. My concern is that commercial profit, corporate competition, and government interests may have more influence over their development than the well-being of people and the Earth we share. That’s the perspective I’m bringing to this exploration of the next five years.
I’ve seen something like this before
In 1994, my nephew Diego introduced me to the World Wide Web. He showed me a website, and I was fascinated by the idea that people anywhere in the world could access and share information. This was the era of Netscape 1.0, dial-up modems, and websites that could take more than a minute to load.
Diego and I believed the internet had enormous potential. Unfortunately, convincing anyone else wasn’t easy. We loaded a desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, and modem into my 1979 Lincoln Continental and drove from business to business, demonstrating what a website was and explaining why someone might want one. We visited real estate offices, bookstores, wineries, and government offices. Most people weren’t particularly interested. Many thought it was just more computer stuff.
Our timing was early. Very early.
We eventually launched SafetyNet.com, a website offering safety training videos. After three months, we had managed two rentals and one inquiry from the U.S. Postal Service. Not exactly a business revolution.
But an unexpected conversation with someone at the MetaCrawler search engine introduced us to the importance of making websites discoverable. That discovery eventually led us into search engine optimization, an industry that was barely beginning to exist.
Over the following years, I watched an obscure technology become part of everyday life. I also witnessed the rise of legitimate businesses, extraordinary innovations, unrealistic promises, and people more interested in making money than delivering actual value. I wrote about those experiences in Pioneering SEO 1994 to 2024: The Journey from Netscape 1.0.
I don’t believe quantum computing is following the same development path as the internet. The science, costs, and barriers are entirely different. But something feels familiar: a technology with remarkable potential, difficult technical problems, competing approaches, and uncertainty about when it will become genuinely useful.
I remember being excited about what the internet could become, even when the early evidence of commercial demand was discouraging, and I find myself curious again.
What’s actually happening in quantum computing?
The fundamental challenge has been making quantum computers reliable.
Conventional computers use bits that represent zeros or ones. Quantum computers use qubits, which behave according to quantum mechanics and can potentially perform certain calculations in ways conventional computers cannot.
The difficulty is that quantum information is extremely sensitive to errors. Increasing the number of qubits doesn’t automatically produce a more useful computer. Researchers need ways to detect and correct errors while preserving the calculations being performed.
Over the past two years, several developments have made that goal appear more achievable.
In December 2024, Google reported an important breakthrough with its Willow processor. Its researchers demonstrated that certain error rates could decrease as the size of an error-correcting system increased. That was a major scientific milestone, documented in Nature. It wasn’t a demonstration of a commercially useful, fault-tolerant quantum computer.
In October 2026, Google reported further progress using a technique called magic state cultivation, demonstrating a substantial improvement in the reliability of quantum states needed for advanced calculations.
Google’s October 2026 research
Quantinuum, which uses a different technology based on trapped ions, announced an error-correction milestone on October 19, 2026. Its Helios system reportedly achieved approximately five logical errors per million operations in a particular demonstration.
That’s a company-reported result, and the conditions matter. It doesn’t establish that the system can already perform useful calculations at commercial scale.
Meanwhile, IBM is targeting 2029 for its Starling fault-tolerant quantum computer, designed around 200 logical qubits and 100 million quantum gates.
Microsoft is pursuing topological qubits, a more contested approach, and in September 2026 opened a Maryland research center where DARPA evaluators can examine its Majorana 2 hardware.
PsiQuantum is pursuing still another approach, building systems around photons and semiconductor manufacturing techniques, with major projects planned in Australia and Chicago.
There are other important researchers and companies as well, but these examples illustrate something encouraging. The field isn’t dependent on one company’s technology or one laboratory’s results. Different approaches are being developed, tested, and improved.
Some will probably fail. Others may take much longer than their developers expect. And unlike those early days of the internet, when a few of us could build businesses with desktop computers and modems, quantum computing demands extraordinary scientific expertise, investment, and infrastructure.
That’s one reason I think we should pay attention to who controls its development.
The importance of someone checking the claims
A recent episode of The New Quantum Era podcast featured Charles Tahan, a former U.S. quantum policy leader now working with Microsoft’s quantum program. He discussed the new Maryland research center and DARPA’s efforts to evaluate quantum computing technologies independently.
The New Quantum Era, Episode 117
DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative is examining whether an industrially useful quantum computer could be built by 2033, with its computational value exceeding its cost. That’s a research assessment, not a guarantee that one will exist by then.
DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative
I find the independent verification particularly encouraging.
During the early development of SEO, I watched a legitimate technology attract increasingly exaggerated promises. People were selling guaranteed results, sometimes using methods they couldn’t adequately explain or measure. I argued for better industry standards because I believed long-term credibility depended on results, transparency, and accountability.
Quantum computing is far removed from search marketing, but the underlying question about evidence remains. What has actually been demonstrated? What remains a research objective? And what is simply an ambitious commercial forecast?
I would rather see a company make a modest claim that survives independent testing than an extraordinary promise that cannot be verified.
What could happen between now and 2031?
Tahan suggests that progress during the next five years could rival what the field accomplished over the previous thirty. That’s an intriguing possibility, particularly coming from someone who has spent much of his career working on quantum science and policy.
His reasoning includes advances in error correction, investment in computing infrastructure, and the possibility that AI could accelerate scientific research.
I don’t know whether that forecast will prove accurate.
Several companies are working toward fault-tolerant quantum systems before the end of this decade, but a roadmap isn’t a result. Even if reliable machines become available, discovering economically useful applications could take considerably longer. Still, I think it’s worth considering what might happen if progress accelerates.
And there’s another possibility I find especially interesting.
What if AI helps us build better quantum computers, and quantum computers eventually help us develop better AI?
In a speculative 2024 paper, Tahan explored the possibility of quantum computers generating useful scientific data that classical AI systems could learn from.
That isn’t a demonstrated breakthrough in quantum-enhanced AI. It’s a possible direction for future research. But I like the idea of technologies complementing one another rather than having to replace each other. It reminds me of something I wrote about in 2024, imagining future teams of people and AI-driven systems working together to accomplish things neither could manage as effectively alone.
Quantum Content Strategists – Go Big, Dream Big, or Go Home
That earlier article was a speculative exercise about human-directed AI systems, not an account of actual quantum computing. The underlying idea still appeals to me: imagine what technology could make possible, then work backward to understand what must happen to make it real.
But imagination needs to be accompanied by evidence, and the direction we choose matters as much as the technology.
Four possibilities I’d like to see explored
1. What if we could better understand the natural world?
One of quantum computing’s potential applications is simulating molecules and materials.
Nature operates according to quantum mechanics. Understanding complex molecular behavior can be extraordinarily difficult for conventional computers. If reliable quantum computers eventually make those calculations more practical, researchers may be able to develop better catalysts, more efficient batteries, new medicines, and cleaner industrial processes.
Imagine reducing the energy required to manufacture essential materials, discovering better methods of storing renewable energy, or understanding biological processes that remain difficult to model today.
None of that is guaranteed within five years. But if these machines eventually help us understand the natural world more deeply, I’d hope we use that knowledge to protect and sustain it.
2. What if AI and quantum computing help address humanity’s greatest problems?
I find the possibility of AI and quantum computing working together more compelling than the idea of either technology becoming dominant.
AI may help scientists analyze enormous amounts of information, design experiments, and improve research methods.
Quantum computers may eventually become useful for particular calculations that conventional machines struggle to perform.
Together, they could open new avenues of scientific discovery. Perhaps the greatest opportunities will involve medicine, clean energy, food production, environmental protection, or challenges we haven’t yet identified.
But there’s an important distinction between what technology could enable and what society will actually prioritize. A discovery that improves a company’s competitive position is not necessarily the discovery that would do the most good for humanity.
That’s where I believe human judgment and public priorities need to play a much larger role.
3. What if we measure success by human and environmental benefit?
This is the question that matters most to me.
We tend to measure technological progress through speed, computing power, market capitalization, investment, and financial returns. Those measurements have their place. Businesses need capital, investors need returns, and competition can drive innovation.
But what if we also judged progress by whether these technologies improve human health, reduce suffering, protect ecosystems, and help future generations live on a thriving planet?
What if scientific collaboration mattered as much as technological leadership?
What if governments and companies invested more deliberately in discoveries whose greatest value might be public benefit rather than exclusive ownership?
I recognize that economic incentives are important. Without them, much of this research would never be financed. My concern is what happens when maximizing profit or geopolitical advantage becomes more important than the reason we should be developing powerful technologies in the first place.
I would like to see us ask those questions now, before the technology matures and its direction becomes harder to change.
4. What if more people could participate in shaping the future?
One detail from Tahan’s interview stayed with me.
He described how his father, an HVAC technician, helped him find a high school internship that opened the door to a scientific career.
Microsoft’s Maryland center includes a hands-on makerspace intended to encourage participation in quantum hardware research and education. I appreciate the idea of making complex technology more accessible to people from different backgrounds.
My own experience has taken me through firefighting, construction, and digital technology. I know that people can bring useful perspectives from fields that don’t appear directly related.
Quantum computing will require exceptional scientists and engineers. But decisions about how its capabilities are used should not belong exclusively to technical specialists. Educators, environmental researchers, public-interest organizations, policymakers, and ordinary citizens also have reasons to participate in the conversation.
The technology may be extraordinarily complex. Its consequences could affect everyone.
What concerns me about this future
My optimism about scientific progress doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with how powerful technologies are sometimes developed and controlled. Corporate investment can accelerate discovery, but companies are also accountable to shareholders and competitive pressures. Governments can finance basic research and protect public interests, but they also pursue national security, economic dominance, and geopolitical advantage.
Those interests aren’t always aligned with the long-term health of humanity or the planet. We’ve already seen how digital technology can concentrate extraordinary economic and political power. AI is raising similar questions about access, accountability, control, and the interests of the people developing these systems. Quantum computing could introduce further challenges.
Cybersecurity is one we already understand. Sufficiently powerful future quantum computers could break widely used forms of public-key cryptography, threatening the security of sensitive information.
NIST published initial post-quantum cryptographic standards in 2024 and finalized additional transition guidance in October 2026.
NIST’s post-quantum cryptography guidance
Organizations need to prepare well before such machines become available. But my larger concern goes beyond encryption.
If AI and quantum computing eventually provide tremendous new capabilities, who will decide which problems receive attention? Will scientific advances be shared broadly enough to benefit humanity? Will we invest in environmental restoration and public health when those opportunities compete with more immediately profitable commercial applications? Will international competition strengthen scientific progress or encourage secrecy and conflict?
I don’t have answers to these questions. I do believe they deserve serious attention alongside the technical milestones.
Five years from now, what will matter?
In 2031, we may have much more reliable quantum computers. We may have convincing demonstrations of applications that are difficult or impractical with conventional systems. AI may be accelerating quantum research, and quantum computing may be contributing to scientific work in ways we can only begin to imagine. Or some of today’s most ambitious expectations may turn out to have been premature.
I wouldn’t be surprised by either outcome.
In my early internet days, Diego and I were driving around demonstrating websites to people who had little interest in them. We believed something important was happening, but we certainly couldn’t predict everything that followed.
Years later, when I helped build an SEO operation at Overstock.com, we couldn’t know exactly where our work would lead. We pursued possibilities, tested ideas, measured results, and built on what worked. In three years, the business grew beyond what we initially imagined. Then Google moved the goal posts and threw us a penalty for practicing legit white hat SEO when they discovered it could jeopardize their IP.
Those experiences taught me the value of looking beyond what exists today while remaining grounded in what the evidence actually shows. They also taught me that commercial success and technological progress aren’t the same thing as human progress.
I hope the next five years bring extraordinary scientific achievements. But I would be even more encouraged if, by 2031, we were discussing measurable progress toward cleaner energy, improved health, more sustainable use of natural resources, and better opportunities for people around the world.
The healthy survival of humanity on a healthy thriving Earth seems to me a far more meaningful ambition than winning another technology race.
I don’t expect quantum computing or AI to solve humanity’s problems on their own. These are tools, and powerful ones may introduce problems of their own. What we accomplish with them will depend on our priorities, our willingness to cooperate, and our ability to look beyond immediate profit and competition.
What we build over the next five years will be important. What we choose to do with it may be even more important.