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By Asa Fitch and Aaron Tilley 

In the race to lead quantum computing, some big technology companies and startups are discovering that, despite years of often heavy investment, the road to market remains longer than planned.

Quantum computers promise a leap in number-crunching by using atom-size particles instead of transistors. In theory, the enhanced processing power could help lead to the discovery of new drugs by running simulations of protein interactions that are too complex for current computers to work through. Or they could crack standard encryption methods in hours that it would take normal computers years to decode.

While regular computers base their calculations on bits, or pieces of information that are either ones or zeros, quantum computers process qubits that, because of their physical properties, can represent more than just ones and zeros.

Researchers at Alphabet Inc.'s Google said in October that they had made a breakthrough in the field, declaring "quantum supremacy" -- the ability to solve a problem with a quantum computer that a regular machine couldn't master in a reasonable time frame. Google's quantum computer, housed at a research lab in Santa Barbara, Calf., had performed a mathematical operation in three minutes and 20 seconds that would have taken a supercomputer more than 10,000 years to complete, the researchers said.

But despite some progress in demonstrating quantum computing's potential, many of the calculations now being performed in labs could be done much faster with traditional computers.

Microsoft Corp. has funded research in the field for decades and said in 2016 it had embarked on building a quantum computer. But after the company missed internal deadlines in building a working machine in 2018, it restructured the project.

Veteran Microsoft executive Todd Holmdahl -- who worked on the Xbox games platform and HoloLens augmented-reality glasses -- had led the company's quantum-computing effort since its inception. He stepped down last year after the missed deadline. Mr. Holmdahl declined to comment on his departure beyond saying he retired from the role.

Microsoft said it has demonstrated the ability to perform quantum-computing calculations and continues to pursue what it considers a computer design with real-world utility. The quantum team now reports to corporate vice president Rani Borkar, a chip-industry veteran who previously worked at Intel Corp. and International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft said.

Intel, which last month unveiled a chip designed to help speed the advance of quantum processing, said it could take many years to produce a quantum computer that is better than today's digital counterparts.

"What you're seeing is an overpromising of what can be delivered in the next two years," said Jim Clarke, director of quantum hardware at Intel Labs, Intel's research arm. "There's a lot of things we can do in the next decade."

IBM, which also has a long history of quantum-computer research, last month said "these are still early days for one of the future's most promising technologies."

Others are more optimistic. "We are only one creative algorithm away from valuable near-term applications," the Google researchers said in their paper about the accomplishment.

But even Google's quantum success hasn't been clear-cut. IBM researchers, in a blog post, said a classical computer could perform a simulation of the same task more accurately in two-and-a-half days. While slower than the quantum computer, the technology leap wasn't enough to warrant Google's claim of "quantum supremacy," IBM said.

Tech companies and investors have splashed out on quantum computing in recent years. The field attracted a total of at least $450 million in private investments in 2017 and 2018, according to the science journal Nature.

One of the hottest startups has been Berkeley, Calif.-based Rigetti Computing. It has attracted $120 million in funding since it was founded by Chad Rigetti in 2013. But people familiar with the startup say the promise has fizzled.

Several executives, including its chief technology officer and chief operating officer, departed last year, according to two former executives. More than 50 Rigetti employees have left during roughly the past year, according to LinkedIn profiles and one of the former executives. The departures, in part, were sparked by concerns Rigetti's technology wouldn't be commercially viable in a reasonable time frame, the former executives said.

The company also failed to meet several engineering milestones, the former executives said, and recently struggled to raise additional money to fund the next steps toward developing its quantum computer, they said.

Despite the turnover, a Rigetti spokeswoman said staffing at the company rose 18% last year, fueled in part by its July acquisition of QxBranch, a quantum-computing software company. She said the company raised significant capital last year and that the engineering road map included plans to scale up processing power.

The industry's struggles haven't scared off Amazon.com Inc. The cloud-computing giant said in December that it was starting academic partnerships on quantum technology. It also has started to offer its cloud users the ability to experiment with quantum computing using equipment provided by several startups.

Microsoft late last year also said it would provide access via its Azure cloud to quantum processors. But it said that rather than offering its own hardware, it planned to sell access to quantum computers built by Honeywell International Inc. and IonQ Inc., a startup based in College Park, Md.

Jim McGregor, founder of Phoenix-based Tirias Research, which focuses on semiconductors, said there was a business case for quantum computing, but added that a shakeout looms among the companies investing in the field. "A lot of those working on it won't survive," he said.

Write to Asa Fitch at asa.fitch@wsj.com and Aaron Tilley at aaron.tilley@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 06, 2020 16:32 ET (21:32 GMT)

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