The NISQ Trap: Was Quantum Advantage Doomed From the Start?

About this episode

This week a philosopher of physics and one of quantum computing's most influential complexity theorists went head-to-head over whether eight years of 'quantum advantage' claims were ever destined to succeed — and it's landing right as the DOE commits to a 2028 fault-tolerant deadline. Today's episode walks Amit Hagar's 'NISQ Trap' argument, Scott Aaronson's public rebuttal, Gil Kalai's older and more radical skepticism, and the split between DOE roadmap optimists and inside skeptics like Jay Sau. The NISQ Trap: Eight Years of Demonstrations the Hardware Was Built to Lose — arXiv / Amit Hagar NISQ and quantum supremacy did not fail — Shtetl-Optimized / Scott Aaronson Gil Kalai — Wikipedia Scott Aaronson's View of my View About Quantum Computing — Gil Kalai / Combinatorics and more Quantum Skepticism, Noise, and the Limits of Scalable Quantum Computing with Gil Kalai — QuEra podcast U.S. Department of Energy Issues RFI for 2028 Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer — Quantum Computing Report Trump's Quantum Orders Push Fault Tolerant Qubits Toward 2028 — IEEE Spectrum Energy Department Announces Initiative to Create and Deploy the World's First Scientifically Relevant, Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computers — U.S. Department of Energy Quickly Quantum is an AI-voiced podcast, built and run by a real person. Nothing in this episode is financial advice.