Nvidia CEO Apologizes for Driving Quantum Computer Stocks Down Earlier in the Year

The need to open a research center specializing in the problems of creating quantum computers forced Nvidia’s management not only to convene industry representatives at a separate event, but also to apologize to them for the excessive pessimism broadcast in January of this year.

Image source: NVIDIA

At that time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that he doubted that practical quantum computers would be able to appear on the market in the next 15 years. At that time, he was even convinced that it was better to set a time frame of at least 20 years. The head of Nvidia made such forecasts based on the experience of his own company, which had been developing a serious business in the field of hardware and software for 20 years.

After gathering the quantum computing industry at Quantum Day this week, Jensen Huang was forced to admit that he was wrong about his predictions. He also said he was surprised by the stock market’s reaction to his January statements. In fact, the fact that there are public companies working on quantum computing surprised the Nvidia founder. At the event on Thursday, Nvidia executives gave a series of talks alongside representatives from 12 quantum computing companies. Some of the attendees criticized Huang’s January statements. Huang even joked: “This is the first event in history where a CEO has invited guests to explain why he was wrong.”

The event also coincided with the opening of an Nvidia research center in Boston, which will specialize in calculations related to the development of quantum computers. Scientists from Harvard and MIT will collaborate with representatives of Nvidia and several companies involved in the creation of quantum computers: Quantinuum, Quantum Machines, and QuEra Computing. The new research center will begin work this year, and local computing power will be based on the latest Blackwell accelerators.

The head of Nvidia shares the opinion of some representatives of the quantum computing industry, who believe that after the advent of quantum computers, there will still be a place for traditional computing centers based on semiconductor components. They will work side by side. At least, traditional ones will be used to develop quantum computers. Huang added that he was wrong in his predictions about the expansion of computing systems based on GPUs. Many years ago, he was sure that they would push all others out of the market, but now he admits that he was wrong.