Quantum computing is more than qubits
A Dutch quantum computer just reached its first customer, not for its power to solve problems yet, but to learn what building on this new kind of computer means.
A Dutch company delivered the first Dutch-built quantum computer to a customer this week. I paused on that sentence longer than I expected.
Not because it sounded historic, although it may well turn out to be. Because I realised I didn't actually know what it meant. I have a reasonable picture of quantum computing as a scientific field. Qubits. Error correction. Different physical approaches. But what happens once a machine leaves the lab? Who buys it, and what are they hoping to do with it?
That question sent me looking.
Beyond research
Most news about quantum computing is about research. A record number of qubits. A new paper. A breakthrough in coherence or error correction.
A customer buying a quantum computer belongs to a different category. It marks the point where science starts becoming industry: an ecosystem still finding its shape.
I started looking at the companies active today. IBM, IonQ, Quantinuum, PsiQuantum, Xanadu, QuiX and others are all building quantum computers, but they are not building the same machine. Some use superconducting circuits, others trapped ions, photons or neutral atoms. Each approach solves certain problems and introduces different engineering challenges. There is no obvious winner.
That reminded me of the early decades of computing, when several architectures coexisted before the industry gradually converged.
The missing layer
The biggest surprise came from somewhere else.
A few weeks ago I watched an interview about CUDA by one of the ACM Turing Award recipients, David Patterson. His point was that NVIDIA did not become influential simply by producing powerful GPUs. CUDA gave developers a way to program them. Around that grew libraries, tools, education and eventually an ecosystem.
Once I started looking through that lens, quantum computing looked different.
Every serious company is investing not only in hardware but also in software. Programming frameworks. Compilers. Simulators. Cloud access. Development environments. The processor is only one layer. A useful computer also needs a way for people to think with it.
The competition is no longer just about building better qubits. It is also about becoming the platform developers choose to build on.
QUANTUM COMPUTING PLATFORM
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Applications │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Algorithms & Libraries │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ SDKs • Programming • APIs • Simulators │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Compiler & Runtime │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
▲
Software ecosystem
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Quantum processor │
│ Superconducting • Trapped ions • Photonics • │
│ Neutral atoms • Silicon spin qubits │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
▲
Hardware race
Early users
That also changed how I interpreted the first customer.
I had assumed organisations bought these systems because they already had problems that only a quantum computer could solve. In reality, many of the first customers are buying something else: experience.
They want to understand what programming a quantum computer feels like. They want to develop software, test algorithms, train researchers and discover where the technology fits into their own work. They are investing in learning before they are investing in productivity.
That feels familiar. New computing platforms rarely arrive fully formed. They become useful because hardware, software and users evolve together.
The platform
I thought I was reading about a quantum computer. I was actually watching a computing platform come into existence.
Whether quantum computing eventually follows the path of the microprocessor, the GPU or something entirely different is still an open question. What already fascinates me is the process itself. The point where a scientific idea acquires software, users, competition and its first practical applications.
History often looks obvious in hindsight.
Watching it take shape is much more interesting.