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Quantum computing reality check: What business needs to know now

Beth Stackpole

Dec 9, 2025

What you’ll learn:

Four guidelines for advancing commercial quantum computing:

Address the need for more quantum algorithms.
Don’t write off classical computing.
Switch to post-quantum cryptosystems now.
Accelerate the development of quantum error correction.

Quantum computing is having a moment as the pace of startup activity, innovation, and funding deals heats up.

Commercialized quantum computers and applications are a decade or more away, experts estimate. Yet it’s not too early for technology and business leaders to track quantum as it evolves from a novelty into a critical asset for solving industry’s and society’s toughest problems.

Quantum is early in its trajectory, considering that it took classical computing nearly a century to progress from the vacuum tubes of 1906 to the superchips powering AI and high-performance computing today, said William Oliver, director of the MIT Center for Quantum Engineering.

In a presentation for MIT Data Center Day, sponsored by the MIT Industrial Liaison Program, Oliver made the case that quantum computing is actively transitioning from a scientific curiosity to a technical reality — an indicator that it’s high time for organizations to dive in.

“Advancing from discovery to useful machines takes time and engineering, and it’s not going to happen overnight,” said Oliver, a professor of physics and of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. “But you’ve got to be in the game to play, and getting in the game is happening right now with quantum.”

Quantum defined

Quantum computing is a collection of sensing, networking, and processing technologies capable of performing functions that are either practically prohibitive or even impossible to accomplish with current techniques.

While a fully scaled quantum computer will outperform classical computers for certain problems, the technology is not a one-to-one replacement for classical computing.

4 guidelines for advancing quantum computing

Getting in the game requires an understanding of both the possibilities quantum brings and the reality of the current and future landscape.

In his talk, Oliver shared four critical observations that can help leaders size up the market and identify what’s necessary to accelerate quantum’s evolution.

Don’t write off classical computing. Despite their promise, quantum computers will not replace conventional computers. Quantum is aimed at mathematically complex use cases in areas like cryptanalysis, scientific computing (such as materials science and quantum chemistry), and optimization.
“Quantum computers solve certain problems really well, but they’re not going to replace Microsoft Word,” Oliver said.
Address the need for more quantum algorithms. Many of the existing quantum algorithms have roots at MIT, including the hallmark algorithm developed by applied mathematics professor Peter Shor. Shor’s algorithm factors a large composite integer into its constituent prime numbers, with application to the cryptanalysis of today’s ubiquitous RSA-type public-key cryptosystems.

More and different algorithms are also central to realizing what’s called commercial quantum advantage — the benchmark of a quantum computer’s ability to do something better than a classical computer can to solve a commercially relevant problem.

That is not yet a reality, Oliver said. “There are lots of problems I’m aware of today where I don’t know how to do it on a classical computer and I also don’t yet know how to do it on a quantum computer,” he said. “We need more people thinking about the application space and writing those algorithms.”

Implement post-quantum cryptosystems now. While quantum computing — and Shor’s algorithm, specifically — has many people fretting over the potential for bad actors to use quantum to crack complex cryptographic systems, a cryptographically relevant machine is not yet available, Oliver said.

To break RSA encryption, public-key crypto systems would require a very large error-corrected quantum computer with millions of qubits, the processing power at the heart of quantum computing. That milestone is still a ways away, Oliver said.
Nonetheless, this is not a time to be complacent. “We need to start now to switch over to new post-quantum cryptographic systems that we believe will be immune to attack by a future quantum computer,” Oliver said.
Industry should move quickly toward new cryptography standards outlined by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology that are designed to withstand attacks from a future quantum computer, he said. This would provide forward security.
Accelerate the development of quantum error correction. One of the biggest obstacles to quantum’s success is the reliability of qubits. Qubits are faulty and fail after about 1,000 or 10,000 operations — nowhere near the stamina required to account for the billions, even trillions, of operations necessary to reach commercial quantum advantage.
The key to addressing the gap is quantum error correction — an emerging technology that drives better reliability for large-scale quantum use. In late 2024, Google Quantum AI announced that it had reached a milestone, revealing that its Willow processor was the first quantum processor to have error-protected quantum information become exponentially more resilient as more qubits were added.
“We need quantum error correction to make this all possible,” Oliver said. “With the demonstration from Google last fall, we saw a major step in that direction.”

Watch: Quantum Computing 101 — Foundations, Frontiers, and Future Impact

William Oliver is the Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor of electrical engineering and computer science and a professor of physics at MIT. He serves as director of the Center for Quantum Engineering and as associate director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and he is a principal investigator in the Engineering Quantum Systems Group at MIT.

Oliver’s research interests include the materials growth, fabrication, design, and measurement of superconducting qubits, as well as the development of cryogenic packaging and control electronics involving cryogenic CMOS and single-flux quantum digital logic.

The MIT Industrial Liaison Program is a membership-based program for large organizations interested in long-term, strategic relationships with MIT. The group engages with organizations from around the globe, in any sector, that are concerned with emerging research- and education-driven results that will be transformative. Executive leadership who would like to learn more about the MIT Industrial Liaison Program and its MIT Startup Exchange are invited to send an email with their name, title, organization name, and headquarters location.