Making quantum computing’s potential real

Computing hasn’t changed fundamentally since the advent of the abacus 4,500 years ago. But that could change imminently as the world ushers in the quantum computer, a radically new type of computing machine that has the potential to majorly outperform classical ones.That powerful thought came from Nathan Baker, a quantum computing specialist at Microsoft, during C&EN’s inaugural “Future of Chemistry” panel discussion at the American Chemical Society Spring 2025 meeting. The panel also featured Jamie Garcia, a quantum applications expert at IBM; Laura Gagliardi, a computational chemist at the University of Chicago; and Todd Krauss of the University of Rochester.Unlike conventional computers, of which the world has many billions, quantum computers number in the hundreds. They’re based on the curious properties of quantum particles, which can exist in an enormous number of states simultaneously—as opposed to the 1-or-0, on-or-off, here-or-there nature of ordinary things. That quantum character endows these emerging tools with extreme computational power that can accelerate drug development and the discovery of new materials, among other things.The potential of this emerging field is vast. And the rate at which researchers are making important strides in developing the hardware, especially the fragile qubits at the heart of these systems, and the algorithms that drive quantum computing is “mind blowing,” in Garcia’s view.Yet the state of play for quantum computing today is about where it was for classical computing in the 1960s, Gagliardi noted. Eventually those computers would come to be seen as primitive, and the toughest chemistry problems they