It was previously assumed that Fault Tolerant Quantum Computing (FTQC) was still many years away and that the industry would be working with Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) processors until then. However, recent roadmaps from a few quantum hardware vendors indicate that fault tolerant processors will be available within the next few years, much earlier than previously thought. Both types will be available at the same time and end users will have a choice between using these fault tolerant processors that contain a moderate number of error-corrected qubits or one of the NISQ processors that contain a larger number of noisy qubits. This talk will discuss the latest progress being made in both types and the criteria that end users will need to evaluate when choosing which way to go.

Doug Finke, Chief Content Creator, GQI