Bill Gates: Huang could be wrong about quantum… or right
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on a recent podcast that Nvidia chief Jensen Huang’s forecast of useful quantum computers not arriving for another 20 years “could be wrong,” and that problem-solving quantum machines could appear within five years.
Although, moments later Gates also appeared to suggest that Huang’s prediction might be right.
Gates’ comments came during a wide-ranging 25-minute interview on the Yahoo! Finance Opening Bid podcast, convened to discuss Gates’ new memoir, “Source Code: My Beginnings.” During the same interview, Gates also talked generally about Microsoft, the current AI movement, the trend of tech giants building their own custom chips, and how Microsoft co-founder and friend Paul Allen played a big role in Gates’ first experiences getting drunk, smoking marijuana, and dropping acid.
In any case, back to quantum. Gates told his interviewer, “There is the possibility that he [Huang] could be wrong [about useful quantum computers taking another 20 years]. There is the possibility in the next three to five years that one of these techniques would get enough true logical qubits to solve some very tough problems.”
However, seconds later, as Gates discussed the progress Microsoft was making in building a quantum computer to be completed this year, he added, “I'm quite impressed with it [the progress Microsoft has made], but Jensen is correct, it could take longer. This is both in terms of how you build a quantum computer and what software you write that can solve problems that other computers couldn't write. There's some hard work to be done…”
So, there you have it: Quantum computers could make a difference very soon, or maybe not so soon, according to separate comments from three of the biggest–or at least most famous–tech execs on the planet. Gates’ observations followed statements from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who essentially agreed with Huang’s take during CES 2025 last month. Huang’s original statements sounded a little more like an off-hand answer to an audience question rather than a data-weighted, strategically-minded prediction, but his words nonetheless crushed quantum-related stocks for a couple of days last month and stirred quantum sector execs to defend their progress.
Meanwhile, during Gates podcast interview, the former Microsoft CEO also was asked about the custom chip movement among hyperscalers. He observed, “Microsoft started doing its own chips for Xbox… 15 years ago or something. And now, if you go into our cloud data center, we have a mix of Intel, AMD off-the-shelf Arm, but also custom Arm stuff that, some we do ourselves, some we work with Qualcomm on… If you want to optimize an entire system, often being able to work at that chip level and… get rid of the margin at that level, that's the way you can build the best system. That's a big challenge for people in the chip design business.”