Far from commercially feasible, but more than possible, one day quantum computing will transform reality.
Updated October 2026. We added recent hardware milestones and the 2024 NIST post-quantum encryption standards, corrected a physicist’s name, and removed several claims we could not verify.
We have seen exponential growth in computing power over the past two decades. From bulky, sluggish computers to handheld and ultra-fast computing devices, namely smartphones, the technology and capabilities of hardware have come a long way. Now, we have surpassed our own innovation with quantum computing. Quantum computers are capable of handling complex problems with ease that may exceed the capabilities of modern digital computers or take years to solve.
In 2019, Google made headlines by claiming “quantum supremacy” with its Sycamore processor, and IBM has also showcased increasingly powerful quantum processors. In December 2024, Google announced its 105-qubit Willow chip, reporting that errors went down as it scaled up the number of qubits and that it completed a benchmark computation in under five minutes that Google estimates would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years. The power and performance of quantum computers are impressive, but that doesn’t mean existing software will run incredibly fast on them. Quantum computers work differently and are able to solve certain types of problems really fast, and large, error-corrected machines for everyday commercial use are still being developed.
Have you ever wondered what these machines actually do and what their uses are? In this article, we’ll discuss 6 incredible uses of quantum computing in different fields.
1. Weather Forecasting
Weather affects a large part of the economy, directly or indirectly. A better weather forecast can provide more time to avoid disasters, which can greatly benefit sectors like agriculture, transportation, retail and many other businesses.
This has been a long-time goal of scientists, but the huge number of variables makes detailed simulations very slow on classical computers. Researchers are exploring whether quantum computers could one day help build better climate and weather models that simulate different conditions and give earlier warnings.
2. Artificial Intelligence
It is said that AI will be to the 21st century what electricity was to the 20th century. AI works by learning from experience and becomes more accurate over time. The output is based on an enumeration of several possible options. These choices can be a huge number, so quantum computing is needed for an AI to become truly intelligent.
Companies are researching how quantum computers could speed up parts of machine learning, such as optimization problems with a very large number of possible options. These applications are still largely experimental.
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3. Molecular Modeling
Chemical reactions create highly entangled quantum superposition states in nature. Quantum chemistry is so complex that existing computers cannot analyze it. Ordinary computers can only analyze simple molecules.
Quantum computers are expected to be much better suited to modeling complex molecules. Google has already simulated the energy of hydrogen molecules with the help of quantum computers. In the future, this technology could help make more efficient products, from solar panels to medicines and fertilizers. Fertilizer production uses a lot of energy, so more efficient production methods would save energy.
4. Cryptography
Most of the security algorithms in those days are based on the difficulty of dividing large numbers into prime numbers. Digital computers take an immense amount of time to search through every possible factor which makes cracking the code impractical and a lot more expensive.
A large enough quantum computer could handle this factoring far more efficiently, which would make some current security methods obsolete. New cryptography methods have therefore been developed. In August 2015, the National Security Agency announced plans to move to cryptography that resists quantum computers. In 2016, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) called for submissions of quantum-resistant algorithms, and in August 2024 it published its first three finalized post-quantum encryption standards: FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA).
5. Particle Physics
Researchers are already taking advantage of quantum computing, as models of particle physics are very complex and their numerical simulation requires a vast amount of computing time. In 2016, researchers from the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information and the University of Innsbruck used a small programmable quantum computer, made of four trapped calcium ions controlled by laser pulses, to simulate the creation of electron-positron pairs out of the vacuum. It was the first quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories, published in the journal Nature.
Theoretical physicist Peter Zoller said that quantum simulations cannot replace the experiments done with particle colliders, but that by developing quantum simulators, researchers may be able to understand these experiments better one day.
6. Finances
The modern market is one of the most complex systems in existence. Although we have developed highly sophisticated tools to run the system, there is one drawback, we cannot run experiments like in other fields.
The advantage of using quantum computers in finance could be to aid in many financial tasks such as arbitrage, which may require a lot of path-dependent steps. The number of possibilities can easily exceed the capacity of modern digital computers.
Banks, cyber security firms, aerospace companies, pharmaceuticals, everyone is looking to take advantage of quantum computing. Investors are scuffling to enter the quantum computing ecosystem. We have seen many incredible uses of quantum computing to date, but many of them are still unexplored. As hardware capabilities increase, we will see new opportunities being created.
