2025 is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) marking a hundred years since the early development of quantum mechanics.
So, that said, how close are we to the first commercial quantum computers?
Companies seem to be flipflopping on the timeline. Big corporations like Google, Microsoft and IBM are full speed ahead with work on trials, research and development, but quantum computers are still several years out from market readiness.
Some of the early milestones, notably, Microsoft’s Marjorana 1, Google’s Willow and IBM’s Heron processors have caught purchase with enthusiasts, but analysts are cautiously estimating another 10 to 15 years for the systems to hit the shelves.
Going back on his previous estimation however, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, at the 2025 GTC AI conference said that it may arrive even sooner than formerly anticipated.
But instead of being busy with drawing a realistic timeline, researchers meanwhile are focused on the roadmap. Andrew Lord, BT Fellow and senior manager for Optics and Quantum Center of Excellence at the BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom), a multinational telecommunications holding company in the UK involved in quantum research, envisions a world where connected quantum computers “many many orders of magnitude” more powerful will be the standard.
In 10-20 years, Lord anticipates that nearly all of BT customers would want to have access to some form of quantum compute. “It’ll probably just become part of what they do,” he said. And when that happens, BT plans to be ready with all the pieces in place.
The quantum computers of the future will be powerful enough to make today’s supercomputers look like playthings, but scientists have a serious problem at hand. It’s impossible to scale a quantum computer by physically adding more qubits into a single system.
Of course, qubits are extremely fragile and need temperatures lower than deep space to remain stable, but there are other factors at play too.
“There’s too much stuff,” Lord said, while discussing the challenges at the Networking Field Day event in March. “There’s supercooling, magnets, lasers — the machines are big power-hungry things. You can’t keep scaling. At one point you have to say “Stop, let’s build lots of them and connect them together”.”
Interconnecting multiple quantum computers to scale the qubit count is a far smarter option when the goal is to build out the qubit blocks efficiently. Connecting these computers can lead to accumulation of “untold power”, Lord told.
“I want to labor that point. If I got my laptop and another laptop, and put them together, I get two laptops — that’s double. Not the case in quantum. If I get two quantum computers and put them together, it’s not double; it’s a vastly more powerful machine.”
This connection is called an entanglement network, and as of today, there are two main incentives for companies to want to create it. The first and more obvious one is the massive increase of the power of the machines. The second is commercialization of quantum technology and making it accessible to everybody.
But quantum networking to the point where anybody who needs access to quantum compute resources can have it, is not all trivial.
Lord proposes an orchestration layer for governing and policing the access of quantum resources in data centers to ensure that people are using it only when they need it and “not when they don’t need it and it’s not available for somebody else.”
“Quantum computers cost billions..I don’t think you always need quantum computing, they’re not good for everything. And ultimately, your compute resource will be a combination of quantum and classical compute,” he said.
On the day of the presentation – March, 19th – BT ended a milestone project that looks at putting quantum computers into data centers. Lord talked about BT’s partnerships with universities like Cambridge and UCL with which the company is doing research and engineering works on prepping devices to enable small and large-scale quantum computing and entanglement-based communication, harnessing Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) for secure communication, and defining operational principles.
“We are now starting to add [quantum] to everything that’s there already and making sure there’s resourcing [and] optimization that makes use of that quantum layer when it’s needed, and the algorithms and controls for all of this is already being developed,” he told.
But like all industries, quantum has its set of leaders and laggards, Lord highlighted. While some companies are miles ahead in the conception and incubation of quantum technology, others are viewing it as a distant thing and therefore too early to invest in.
A lot of when the technology will be ready for primetime depends on how soon quantum repeaters will be available, and building them is not a small feat because of the complexity of the devices and subsystems involved in their functioning.
Adding to that is the fact that quantum networks need a more powerful infrastructure than that we have today. Quantum networks require an optical fiber base that ensures lower loss compared to the fiber fabric of today.
Additionally, new lasers, cooling mechanisms and new ways of coupling computers and networks are being identified as critical building blocks for distributed quantum computing.
But researchers are optimistic about companies’ willingness to invest in this quantum infrastructure. “When you think that the end devices cost billions, why wouldn’t you spend a lot of money on your interconnect? If I buy a Porsche, I’m not going to drive it down a B road outside my house; I need to go on a motorway,” Lord told.
For quantum computing to reach its full potential and materialize as real-world machines, effective collaboration between companies and research organizations across the quantum supply chain is an essential step. BT is calling for this expanded industry involvement, especially in telecom where quantum has a foundational place. By being at the forefront of building public-private alliances, BT and many other companies like it are supporting an ecosystem that could advance the maturity and commercialization of quantum.
