Qubit Skepticism Endangers National Security

I have been a quantum computing skeptic, but did you know that makes me a threat to national security?

Forbes reports:

Quantum computing will never work. Keeping enough qubits stable long enough to do any significant calculating or processing, is a mathematical impossibility. The whole idea that one day quantum computers will discover new miracle drugs, or crack public encryption systems, is a mirage. Even worse, it’s a hoax.

That’s been the message from so-called quantum skeptics for a decade or more, including physicists like Gil Kalai of Hebrew University and Mikhail Dyakonov of the University of Montpellier — all in spite of the fact that quantum computers have continued to grow in sophistication and qubit power. Most experts now agree it’s not a question if a large-scale quantum will emerge that can break into public encryption systems using Shor’s algorithm, but when.

But earlier this month a group of offshore short sellers appropriately named Scorpion Capital used these dubious claims to attack and drive down the share price of the first quantum computer company to go public, Maryland-based IonQ. The danger is that investors and the public will assume from this vicious and misleading attack that today’s quantum industry runs entirely on hype rather than achievement—an assumption that could ultimately threaten our national security.

Responses from Kalai, who doubles down, and Scott Aaronson, who refuses to update his views on whether quantum computing is a hoax.

Instead Aaronson brags about his eugenic donations to abort poor Texas babies, and complains that he has moved to a state where everyone has guns. It is funny watching him try to be a good liberal, while his more ideologial leftists despise him.

Kalai explains how quantum computing progress of the last ten years has largely consisted of dumbing down the goals.