By Arsheeya Bajwa
(Reuters) -Quantum computing stocks sank on Wednesday, pausing a year-long rally, after Nvidia (NASDAQ:) CEO Jensen Huang said the technology’s practical use was likely two decades away.
The long wait outlined by Huang for “very useful quantum computers” throws cold water on a sector that was already expected to spend millions more on the technology, which can only perform niche calculations so far.
“If you kind of said 15 years… that’d probably be on the early side. If you said 30, it’s probably on the late side. But if you picked 20, I think a whole bunch of us would believe it,” he said on Tuesday.
Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum (NASDAQ:), Quantum Computing and IonQ all fell more than 35%.
The companies, in total, were set to lose more than $5 billion in market value.
“Any dollar chasing quantum computing stocks is not chasing AI stocks,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital.
“Jensen threw a wet blanket on the quantum story and did everything he could to sell the AI story. It’s that simple.”
Stocks of the four quantum computing companies had risen at least threefold last year, driven by a high-profile breakthrough at Google (NASDAQ:) in December and increasing computing needs brought on by generative AI applications.
Google had unveiled a new generation chip that it said solved in five minutes a computing problem that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe.
In April, Microsoft (NASDAQ:) and Quantinuum said they had achieved a key step in making quantum computers a commercial reality but did not comment on how many more years it would take to beat a conventional supercomputer using the tech.
“The 15 to 20 year timeline seems very realistic,” said Ivana Delevska, investment chief of Spear Invest, which holds Rigetti and IonQ shares in an actively managed ETF.
“That is roughly what it took Nvidia to develop accelerated computing.”
Source: Quantum computing stocks take a hit as Nvidia CEO predicts long road ahead By Reuters
