Goldman Sachs Bank has dismantled its quantum computing equipment after researchers discovered that using quantum computing technology to solve certain financial problems would require millions of years of computing and a processor with at least 8 million logical qubits (error-correcting quantum processing units). According to a study by Goldman Sachs, the best processors available today do not exceed 100 logical qubits.
The discovery, reported by Bloomberg on April 26, resulted from a collaboration between Goldman and Amazon. According to media reports, the bank has assembled a group of expert scientists to investigate whether quantum computing can improve customer profits. What they found was the opposite: a gap between what technology promises and what can be achieved today. The scope of the project was too broad and there was no practical scope.
JP Morgan took the opposite path. The bank maintains a team of over 50 physicists, mathematicians and scientists Computational scientists are researching applications of optimization, machine learning, and cryptography, according to Bloomberg.
Rob Otter, head of quantum at JPMorgan, points out: They want to run useful algorithms on quantum processors. “In the next few years,” he said, but for now he clarified that he hopes the hardware will become “more commercially viable.”
The disagreement between the two banks reflects the depth of tensions within the industry. Subodh Kulkarni, CEO of Rigetti Computing, one of the most relevant quantum hardware companies in this space, admitted to Bloomberg that he was clearly aware of this issue in 2023.
The quantum industry, including our company, was making a lot of promises. And frankly, we were far from achieving them.
Subodh Kulkarni, CEO of Righetti Computing, said:
More directly, Matt Johnson, co-founder of QC Ware, a quantum software company that has worked with JPMorgan, believes the bank’s investment in technology was “badly timed.” That promise was real, but the hardware couldn’t keep up.
The practical conclusion for now is that Wall Street doesn’t know when to make serious bets. Goldman chose to wait. JP Morgan chose to invest. No one can prove they made the right decision.
Same classification for Bitcoin
This debate is not limited to Wall Street. There are also two competing positions in the Bitcoiner ecosystem.
Meanwhile, in March, Google Quantum AI Up to 20x the required quantum resources Compromising the encryption that protects the signatures of Bitcoin transactions. Along the same lines, researchers at Caltech and Oratomic have reduced the physical hardware required to run the Scholl algorithm, a quantum method that could theoretically break codes, by about 100 times.
Similarly, following Google, companies such as Grayscale and Cloudflare; They set a goal for 2029 Achieve comprehensive post-quantum protection in your system.
Meanwhile, Adam Back, a prominent cryptologist and Blockstream developer and co-founder, denied that any threat was imminent. As he explained, current quantum computers are “Too basic” And we estimate that it will take about 10 years for the ecosystem to transition to a post-quantum format.
Buck believes part of the panic is due to media imbalance. He said that while “negative news sells,” certain technological initiatives don’t get the same attention.
What Goldman, JPMorgan, and the Bitcoin ecosystem share is an underlying sense of uncertainty. No one knows exactly when quantum computing will stop being a promise and become a real threat. The range of estimates is 10 years to 2029, and the several-year gap between projections is itself proof that the debate is far from resolved.
(Tag Translation) Bitcoin (BTC)
