r/QuantumComputing • u/Chance-Pen-5684 • 2d ago
News Are we getting fault-tolerant quantum computing in 2028 or 2050?
I’m getting a bit confused by the timelines being thrown around at the moment.
The US Department of Energy announced its Quantum Genesis programme in June, aiming for a “fault-tolerant, scientifically relevant quantum computing capability” by 2028:
https://www.energy.gov/science/articles/energy-department-announces-initiative-create-and-deploy-worlds-first
Meanwhile, Japan’s official Moonshot programme has “large-scale integration required for fault-tolerant universal quantum computers” pencilled in for around 2050:
https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/moonshot/sub6_en.html
Then there’s NIST’s quantum computing explainer, updated in May 2026, which says most applications are still “years, perhaps even decades, in the future”, and that a machine capable of running Shor’s algorithm could need millions of qubits able to operate error-free indefinitely:
https://www.nist.gov/quantum-information-science/quantum-computing-explained
Obviously they’re probably not all talking about the same thing when they say fault-tolerant quantum computing, but 2028 versus 2050 is still a pretty massive gap.
So what actually explains the difference?
What would count as a “fault-tolerant, scientifically relevant” machine in 2028, compared with the sort of large-scale fault-tolerant universal quantum computer Japan is aiming for by 2050?
Basically, what can the 2028 machine realistically do that still leaves another couple of decades of work before you reach the 2050 version?
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u/ctcphys Working in Academia 2d ago
The phrase " scientifically relevant" is doing a lot of heavy lifting... If you do a single fault tolerant two-qubit gates with performance clearly below the threshold for error correction, then that for sure scientifically relevant.
However, in 2028 we will very likely not be having any wide-scale commercially useful quantum computers
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u/CorpusculantCortex 2d ago
Well for starters, the 2028 one is based on nothing more than the ego of the Trump administration. I would trust people who know what they are talking about. Unless there is a revolutionary development in approach, I would trust the 2050 number as more reasonable expectation.
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u/Fragrant_Equal_2577 2d ago
QC is in a phase where government funding is replacing the initial private funding.
Meaning: commercial readiness is further out than expected.
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u/CapitalismSuuucks 2d ago
Neither is accurate. The truth is no one knows. The US department of energy's guess is as good as yours or mine
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u/Acetone9527 2d ago
I believe in 2028, FTQC will mean something that is achievable in 2028. Just like what IBM did with logical qubits.
Maybe it is any thing that shows increasing d suppress error rate and the extrapolation show within a reasonable number of qubits we can get 10^-8 error rate. Oh wait by this definition we have FTQC today.
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u/sinanspd 2d ago
There is no chance we have FTQC by 2028. This is the same timeline DOE, IBM and others have been constantly pushing back by 2-3 years since 2018. And as I previously mentioned, this reckless marketing stunt is hurting research. NSF and others are starting to judge research by FTQC metrics when we don't even have the slightest clue what things will look like in FTQC era.
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u/EverythingQuantum 1d ago
Clearly 2028 is unrealistic and the 2050 date holds to a more utopian goal. As other wise posters here commented, no one really knows. However one thing we can semi-rely on are mandates that help push forward the speed at which such related accomplishments may occur. I know this is an aside related to security, but here's some key dates from US executive orders, NSA CNSA 2.0, and NIST guidance. Anyone know of other mandates?
2027 - New national security system acquisitions must support CNSA 2.0 algorithms (from January 1)
2030 - Federal high value assets on post-quantum key establishment; contractor compliance rules expected; RSA and ECC deprecated
2031 - Federal high value assets on post-quantum digital signatures
2033 - National security systems fully transitioned to CNSA 2.0
2035 - Quantum-vulnerable public-key cryptography disallowed; all remaining federal systems migrated
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u/kingjdin 2d ago
It’s one of those technologies that’s forever 10 more years away. It was 10 years away when I got into quantum computing in 2020
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u/msciwoj1 Working in Industry 2d ago
Both of these are guesses. The important thing is that progress is being done continuously and many groups already have done nontrivial error correction. The rest is mostly engineering, although not easy engineering, and it still could take a while.
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u/Noether-Fan 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah probably, or at least something close to it :O A good bit of the science and technology that is needed to make these machines operate has been figured out -- imo it's going to be interesting to see which modality wins the race :)
giving the computers something interesting to do is the hard part
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u/Aggravating-Swim-805 2d ago
The definitions are being extended in opposing directions. An early version of commercially relevant FTQC is coming in that 2028-2030 time band, and having had early access to some of the next-gen QPUs, I don't mind them calling themselves FTQC or even having "quantum utility". But we're still all working out how best to make the software side work at scale, so it's not like a "one more thing" iPhone reveal.
Internet chatter tends to skew negative, so I'd recommend talking to folk working at these companies and getting some nuance/context. Ignore the press releases.
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u/FuguSandwich 1d ago
An early version of commercially relevant FTQC is coming in that 2028-2030 time band
No it's not.
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u/RossPeili 2d ago
There will be no one in 2050 to confirm, but I can tell you this, by 22 September 2036, Quantum computers will be so powerful (thanks to AI), that using a QC for 1 task we can comprehend with our two and three digit IQ organic processors eg. "Make me money fast", the QC will generate the outcome we are looking for, plus have a gazillion ripple effects, not onlt we haven't accounted for, but that we couldn't even grasp even if it was explainable. That leads to our greed using QC in ways that affects our past, present and future in ways that will shutter ehat we refer to as real life in a way we won't even understand or remember what was the case before the new paradigm shift.
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u/sg_lightyear Holds PhD in Quantum Optics 2d ago
Skimmed over the documents and I'm not sure if I can pinpoint what exactly do the different visions mean.
But in terms of capabilities for fault tolerant system, you can think of them in terms of Mega/Giga/TeraQoup regime instead of a monolith. Current NISQ processors provide up to a few thousand operations (KiloQuop) but through fault tolerance the idea is to push towards more operations though reduction of the logical error rates.
So in that context a 2028 fault tolerant machine could be in the Megaquop regime, while a 2050 machine could push towards TeraQuops. A TeraQuop machine will enable more scientific applications than a MegaQuop machine even if both are nominally fault tolerant.