Scott Aaronson on the Google and the Caltech papers: > When you put both [papers] together, Bitcoin signatures for example certainly look vulnerable to quantum attack earlier than was previously known!  In particular, the Caltech group estimates that a mere 25,000 physical qubits might suffice for this, where a year ago the best estimates were in the millions. How much time will this save — maybe a year?  Subtracting, of course, off a number of years that no one knows. > In any case, these results provide an even stronger impetus for people to upgrade now to quantum-resistant cryptography.  They—meaning you, if relevant—should really get on that! Scott is probably the best-known quantum computing educator and academic and is historically a skeptic of aggressive quantum timelines. Maybe some of you should start to pay attention? scottaaronson.blog/?p=9665

Ouch. A lot of mistakes. 1. Landauer's principle establishes a minimum energy dissipation for irreversible bit erasure. You apply this rigidly to estimate ~2,900 W minimum for human-level cognition, escalating to megawatts or higher with overhead. But the principle applies specifically to irreversible operations; reversible computing theoretically circumvents this limit by avoiding information erasure. Biological systems, such as the human brain (consuming ~20 W), achieve high efficiency through mechanisms not strictly bound by naive applications of the limit in digital computing paradigms. Many Computational researchers argue that advanced architectures could approach reversible regimes, rendering the limit non-prohibitive for AGI. 2. Your calculations are inconsistent: The estimate of 10¹⁸ irreversible operations per second for human-level cognition is arbitrary and high. You say that even unlimited energy cannot suffice due to data movement, but you ignore potential solutions like neuromorphic or in-memory computing, which mitigate the von Neumann bottleneck. Most AI and physics experts does not support thermodynamic impossibility as a settled verdict.

$IONQ originally projected in their 2021 investor deck that they would have 17 quantum systems online by 2025 and 33 systems by 2026, with aggressive targets for system lifetime value (LTV) and gross profits as their technology matured. According to the deck, each system was projected to generate $118.6 million in lifetime value, with $107.3 million in gross profit, representing an extraordinary 90% gross margin. For 2024, IonQ’s own projections called for having 7 systems online, with a combined system lifetime value of $830.2 million. They did hit and exceed 60m revenue in 2024 but not for enterprise quantum computing. For 2025, they projected $237 million in revenue, heavily dependent on direct system sales to enterprise customers, predicting 17 systems online, with a system lifetime value of approximately $2B. This illustrates how central enterprise system sales were to their original business model and long-term revenue targets. Throughout 2021 and 2022, IonQ management made bullish statements during earnings calls, repeatedly emphasizing future system sales as a cornerstone of their growth. The Bothell manufacturing facility was highlighted as a critical piece of infrastructure to support these deployments, enabling IonQ to produce systems at scale to meet anticipated enterprise demand. At Quantum World Congress 2023, IonQ introduced the Forte Enterprise and Tempo systems, which were designed in a blade server format for seamless integration into enterprise data centers. This pivot to a modular form factor was intended to accelerate adoption by large corporate customers, making quantum systems easier to deploy alongside existing infrastructure. At the time, IonQ’s partnership with Dell to deliver hybrid quantum-classical systems was also believed to be a major accelerant for enterprise adoption, but it has resulted in little more than a few website sections and press releases, with no evidence of meaningful commercial traction or system sales. Despite these announcements and technological milestones, the promised enterprise system sales never materialized. IonQ’s actual revenue growth has come primarily from research contracts, government agreements, and cloud-access usage via partnerships with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, not from direct system sales to Fortune 500 companies. One system to Basel and AFRL each as of today. While IonQ has exceeded its revised guidance, that does not change the core reality. IonQ has failed to achieve the ambitions laid out in 2021, particularly the financial projections tied to enterprise quantum computing sales, which were supposed to be the primary driver of IonQ’s long-term value creation. This failure to deliver on enterprise system sales has led to a clear strategic pivot toward quantum networking, along with growing recognition that significant capital injections will be required to pursue this new direction. That shift raises real questions about whether IonQ’s core hardware platform has not yet reached the level of technical achievement necessary to create the promised value in stand-alone enterprise systems, forcing the company to seek alternative business models and technical pathways to monetization. The result is a stark disconnect between what IonQ told investors in 2021, a story built around accelerating enterprise system sales, and what has actually happened, which is a strategic pivot toward cloud revenue, networking, and government contracts, with enterprise hardware sales still largely absent. Amazon, SoftBank, and Google Ventures have exited their IonQ positions. Hitting revised guidance after drastically lowering expectations is not the same as success when the original vision of IonQ as a leader in enterprise quantum hardware sales has yet to materialize in any meaningful way. Therefore, sure IonQ may still yet be successful in the future. However there are a lot of questions. Looking to valuation is crucial as is skepticism of grandiose claims.

Fair. I guarantee you that 99% of retail have no idea about anything quantum technical. Some of us can do research but can’t evaluate it.

$IONQ This is my problem with IonQ. If you can read this and not feel like your trust has been shattered, you’re either not paying attention or you have the memory of a goldfish. I’m not going to pretend this didn’t happen. Earnings call after earnings call, they’ve sold the same dream — that a flood of QPU sales was just around the corner. Yet here we are, and the only system they’ve actually delivered went to QuantumBasel in November 2024. One especially egregious example of the hype cycle was Quantum World Congress 2023, a prime showcase of how they’ve consistently overpromised and underdelivered, leading everyone to think that more sales were imminent. The pattern is clear: promise after promise, and none of it materializes. Here I have chosen to analyze Q4 2021 and Q1 2022 IonQ earnings calls, but you can find it in subsequent ones also. Always promsing tons of demand and immanent interest from customers. "What is new is that we have seen a great deal of interest from several customers where they have expressed interest in getting a full system, and so that is new from what we had said before." — Q4 2021 This is a perfect example of IonQ constantly dangling the “imminent demand” carrot in front of investors. They always see "great interest," but there’s never meaningful follow-through. Fast forward several years, and all they’ve managed is one system delivery. "As we are getting ready to sell full systems over the next couple of years, we believe there is potential for a significant upside for the next 24-month period. Our team is filling out nicely with top talent joining both at the executive and individual contributor level. We're focusing special attention on scaling our sales force." — Q4 2021 "we are already seeing substantial interest in system sales stemming from private companies and governments alike." — Q4 2022 This is the same recycled narrative from every EC. There’s always "potential upside" in the next two years. Spoiler: the two years came and went — no flood of system sales, no exponential growth, one single install in Basel. "This year, we are starting to stand up our production engineering and manufacturing departments. This group will be responsible for building all commercial quantum computers going forward, including, for the first time, selling systems outright to customers, which we anticipate could start shipping as early as 2023." — Q4 2021 "So we set an aggressive goal on kind of putting the team together. So they're busily working on sales now. And I would expect that the sales effort will, you know, continue to grow. There's lots of greenfield in terms of opportunity, both, you know, domestically and also internationally." — Q4 2022 2023 came and went. What actually shipped? One system to Basel at the end of 2024 and two government contracts for future delivery (not currently delivered). The entire manufacturing ramp was framed as if it was gearing up for some robust demand pipeline — yet there was no pipeline. They positioned themselves as ready to scale, but there was no customer base to scale for. They hyped up demand that didn’t exist. "Recall that, as Peter noted, we are investing heavily in R&D, and given anticipated demand, of building more systems than previously projected this year." — Q4 2022 This one’s priceless. They were hyping "anticipated demand" that didn’t exist. They made it sound like they were scaling up for a wave of customers that never came. "We do not need a breakthrough in manufacturing, in material science, physics. No breakthroughs are required. We're largely an engineering organization, where we're taking what the two Co-Founders have done at the university or laboratories and productizing it. So the short answer is, I don't think there's anything – there's nothing that's standing in our way. There is no magic that we have to figure out going forward to getting to a much larger quantum computer." — Q4 2021 This is my favorite. No breakthroughs required, nothing standing in their way — and yet, here we are, with essentially nothing to show on the financial bottom line for all the supposed "smooth sailing," while many experts in the field say that quantum computers are not ready for prime time. If there were no scientific hurdles and no technical blockers, why is there still no meaningful customer adoption? Why is "Quantum AI" still just an R&D project? Why has every promise about system sales to companies been vapor? IN the Q4 2022 call an analyst asked: "First of all, is there real demand here for private companies buying a quantum computer in the near term? And would those customers be using it just for themselves or potentially sharing it with the small group because it seems like a eight-figure kind of a purchase might be a little bit heavy for most organizations, at least initially here. Or is this something that's mostly a government kind of a sale here, at least in the near term?" — Q4 2022 Even the analysts were starting to ask the right questions — is there even real demand for private system sales? IonQ’s own answer misrepresented the reality: "You can put it on your credit card. So more seriously, I would say right now what we're seeing is a lot of demand and interest there. Many times it's for an area or a group or an organization that's looking to get it for kind of a group of end users. Sometimes with, you know, sometimes with, let's just say, it could be in a university setting or in an international or national setting, a government. So it's kind of in those contexts." — Q4 2022 This quote is the perfect encapsulation of the disconnect we have seen from IonQ. "We have demonstrated the value of our systems numerous times with customers who are working to understand how to apply quantum computing to their everyday business problems in industries ranging from energy and mobility to machine learning and financial services." — Q4 2022 This is the "trust us" slide in every investor deck with dozens of partners that are presented as potential customers. They always "demonstrate value," but somehow that never translates into big revenue for quantum computer sales. If they’ve really unlocked so much value, where are the deals? "We are seeing strong momentum both in external demand and internal technical advances." — Q4 2021 All of the supposed momentum somehow leads to the same flat reality — almost no customers taking delivery of QPUs, just wishcasting.