Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Gets ‘Dead Wrong’ About Quantum: D-Wave’s CEO

D-Wave Quantum CEO Alan Baratz said Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is “dead wrong” about quantum computing, after comments from the chip giant’s boss spooked Wall Street on Wednesday.

Huang was asked Tuesday about Nvidia’s strategy for quantum computing. He said that Nvidia could make conventional chips needed alongside quantum computing chips, but that those computers would need 1 million times the number of quantum processing units, called qubits, that they currently have.

Getting “highly useful quantum computers” to market could take 15 to 30 years, Huang told analysts.

Huang’s remarks sent shares in the nascent industry down, with D-Wave skydiver 36% Wednesday.

“The reason he’s wrong is because we at D-Wave are commercial today,” Baratz told CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa on “The Exchange.” Baratz said companies including MasterCard and Japan’s NTT Docomo “are using our quantum computers today in production to benefit their business operations.”

“Not 30 years from now, not 20 years from now, not 15 years from now,” Baratz said. “But right now today.”

D-Wave’s turnover is still minimal. Sale in last quarter fell 27% to $1.9 million from $2.6 million a year earlier.

Quantum computing promises to solve problems difficult for current processors, such as decoding encryption, generating random numbers and large-scale simulations. Technologists have been working on it for decades, and companies including Nvidia, Microsoft and IBM are pursuing it today, along with researchers at startups and universities.

D-Wave was among a number of companies that enjoyed a revival of interest from investors in December, when Google announced a breakthrough in his own research. Google said it had completed a 100-qubit chip, the second of six steps in its strategy to build a quantum system with 1 million qubits.

D-Wave stock rose 178% in December after rising 185% the month before. Quantum company Rigetti Computingwhich plummeted 45% on Wednesday, quintupled in value last month. IonQ fell 39% on Wednesday. The stock rose 14% in December after a 143% gain in November.

Baratz acknowledged that an approach to quantum computing, called gate-based, may be decades away. But he said that using an annealing method can be implemented now.

While Huang’s “comments may not be completely off base for gate model quantum computers, yes, they are 100% off base for annealing quantum computers,” Baratz said.

Nvidia declined to comment.

Even after Wednesday’s drop, D-Wave shares are up about 600% in the past year, giving the company a market capitalization of $1.6 billion.

Quantum computing has also been boosted by investor interest in artificial intelligence, the technology that has led to increased demand for Nvidia’s graphics processing units, which use conventional transistors instead of qubits. Nvidia’s market cap has risen 168% in the past year to $3.4 trillion.

Baratz said D-Wave systems can solve problems beyond the capabilities of the fastest Nvidia-equipped systems.

“I would be happy to meet with Jensen anytime, anywhere to help fill in those gaps for him,” Baratz said.

CLOCK: D-Wave CEO responds to Huang’s comments