Quantum computing has long been announced as “just around the corner,” but several companies are now determined to make this a commercial reality, with the promise of solving complex problems beyond classical computers’ reach. The problems in question are wide-ranging, from medicine and cybersecurity to materials science and chemistry. But first, there are very practical problems to be solved, such as developing chips that can reliably host large numbers of qubits — short for quantum bits, the fundamental unit of information in quantum computing. As usual in a high-stakes tech race with an uncertain time horizon, tech giants such as Google and Microsoft are at the forefront. Yet startups are also set to play an important role, especially tackling bottlenecks like connectivity and error correction that are critical for scaling quantum systems. But some startups and smaller tech companies are taking on the chip challenge head-on and deserve mention alongside the more attention-grabbing efforts from industry giants. While Big Tech projects typically boast the highest qubit counts, rethinking designs from first principles and using different approaches could yield equally promising results.

Full report : Top tech companies and startups racing to build quantum chips.