Quantum industry now looks like crypto in 2013, investor says after Quantum.Tech World

Entrepreneur and investor Karnika E. Yashwant said Quantum.Tech World 2026 in Boston felt like the early days of crypto, with strong technical promise but little clarity on near-term use cases. He pointed to a market still selling tools to other builders, not finished products for broad enterprise or consumer adoption.

Why it matters: - Quantum computing is still early enough that even industry builders struggle to answer when the technology will create practical value. - The gap between technical progress and usable products is shaping what is selling now: infrastructure, efficiency tools and training rather than end-user applications. - The comparison to crypto in 2013 suggests the sector may be at a formative stage, with commercial maturity still years away.

What happened: - At Quantum.Tech World 2026 in Boston, entrepreneur and investor Karnika E. Yashwant served as a track chair and pressed attendees on when quantum computing would become useful. - The event featured opening keynote speaker Peter Shor and 2025 Nobel Physics laureate John Martinis. - The gathering drew more than 1,000 senior decision-makers, national lab leaders and representatives from U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories. - Attendees included leaders from Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, NIST, DARPA, the Department of Energy, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, HSBC, Citi, JP Morgan, Mastercard, Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Roche, Moderna and AT&T.

The details: - Yashwant said no one in the room could give a clear answer on when quantum systems would reliably deliver practical results. - He said quantum computing only matters once it works, which is pushing the market toward interim approaches such as GPU-based algorithm simulation and other stopgap architectures. - Yashwant said much of the commercial activity around the event focused on additional hardware for existing quantum systems, including smaller, more efficient or alternative execution methods. - He also saw vendors selling training programs for engineers entering the sector. - He described the market as selling tools to the people building the field rather than to broad users. - Yashwant said AI tooling shows a similar pattern, but quantum is even earlier in the adoption curve. - He said quantum has little clarity around consumer or even enterprise usage today. - He compared the atmosphere to Bitcoin and blockchain in 2013, when the value proposition felt obvious but the path to adoption did not. - Yashwant said he expects the industry to be much more solid in five years.

Between the lines: - The remarks underscore a familiar frontier-tech pattern: big scientific promise, thin product-market fit and heavy reliance on infrastructure spending before mainstream adoption arrives. - The presence of major government labs, banks, defense contractors and global manufacturers suggests quantum computing is still being shaped by strategic and research-driven buyers, not mass-market demand. - Yashwant’s analogy to crypto in 2013 frames quantum as a sector where conviction is high but commercial standards are still forming.

What's next: - Quantum vendors are likely to keep selling enabling hardware, software and training while waiting for more reliable hardware and clearer use cases. - The industry will probably continue leaning on hybrid approaches, including simulations and intermediate systems, until fully usable quantum computing becomes more common. - Yashwant’s five-year view points to a market that may mature gradually rather than all at once.