Quality Over Count: How Quantum Leaders Aim to Scale with Fewer Qubits
Experts emphasize operations, error correction, and modular systems as key to commercial quantum advantage
Can quantum computing achieve its long-promised leap in performance without building machines with millions of qubits? Industry leaders say yes—but only if those qubits are highly coherent, precisely controlled, and cost-effective to scale.
Instead of counting qubits, the field is shifting toward measuring what matters: how many operations a system can run, at what cost, and how long it takes. That was the resounding message from a panel of scientists and investors at a recent industry gathering, where the emphasis turned to high-fidelity architectures and modular quantum networks.
“We have to fold it all up,” said Stephanie Simmons, founder and Chief Quantum Officer at Photonic. “It has to all fold into a system that can deliver exponential speedup within reasonable budgets and timeframes.”
The emerging consensus is clear: perfecting logical qubits matters, but only if the architecture can deliver value in practice. That means less focus on headline-grabbing hardware milestones and more attention to scalable, usable, and integrable platforms.
“Ten perfect logical qubits are perfectly useless,” Simmons remarked. “If you can’t hit the scales, speeds, and cost points required, it’s all irrelevant—it’s just an experiment.”
Scaling Through Modularity
The discussion took place at Commercializing Quantum Global 2025, hosted by The Economist on May 13, 2025, in London. The panel featured leading voices from across the industry, focusing on how quality and modularity can enable the practical deployment of quantum technology.
Simmons is betting on modular quantum systems built on silicon spin qubits that can be networked via photonics. Her team’s platform is designed to scale horizontally, linking large numbers of modules via entanglement, the foundational resource in quantum networking.
Photonic’s approach, she explained, is based on lessons from classical computing.
“You have to be able to think about modular or distributed quantum computing,” she said. “Not just one box, but a thousand modules linked together.”
The company’s prototype has demonstrated the potential to fabricate over a million qubits on a single chip, laying the groundwork for scalable entanglement distribution and the long-anticipated arrival of quantum repeaters for networking.
“The solution to scale quantum networks is actually to use small quantum computers,” Simmons added.
Neutral atom systems offer a different kind of scale advantage. Sebastian Blatt, Co-founder and CTO of PlanQC, emphasized that neutral atom qubits can be densely packed into a compact footprint thanks to their atomic uniformity.
“Nature gives us a few gifts,” Blatt noted. “We can put millions of atoms in a small device, but the challenge is controlling them individually with light.”
Blatt described how PlanQC utilizes laser beams to individually address qubits, building toward a goal of hundreds of logical qubits with sufficient fidelity to surpass classical supercomputing.
“That’s a critical intermediate milestone on this roadmap,” he said. “It’s not yet industrially relevant, but it might unlock new applications we haven’t foreseen.”
Operational Benchmarks Matter
For William Zeng, partner at Quantonation, a venture capital firm focused on physics-based technologies, the debate over physical versus logical qubits misses the point.
“We should be talking about how useful a program you can run,” he said. “The number of logical qubits is not the spec you should lead with.”
Zeng advocates a pragmatic approach to evaluating platforms: what applications can they support, and how efficiently can they help them?
He predicts that new startups will emerge with a focus not on hardware demonstrations but on demonstrating high-performance logical qubits from the outset.
“In the next few years, we’re going to start seeing startups whose first milestone is not physical qubits—it’s a logical qubit,” Zeng said. “That’s going to reshape how we fund and scale the ecosystem.”
He also sees growing opportunities in the supply chain.
“There’s a lot more happening in the picks-and-shovels layer than people think,” Zeng added, referring to hardware providers of quantum memories, repeaters, and control electronics. “A lot of these systems are interoperable, which opens the door to more partnerships and modular growth.”
Recent demonstrations of urban-scale quantum networks on commercial telecom fiber, he noted, suggest that the technology has matured faster than expected.
“A few years ago, that was science fiction. Now you can run entangled networks between labs in different parts of a city,” he said.
Building Useful Systems
Both Blatt and Simmons emphasized that supporting technologies will determine who succeeds in the long run. While neutral atoms rely on precision optics and lasers, silicon-based systems leverage decades of semiconductor fabrication expertise.
Simmons also pointed to a growing maturity in application development. “Now the world is doing a lot more application engineering,” she said. Advances in quantum algorithms and error correction are driving down the resource requirements for useful applications.
She highlighted the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-led Quantum Benchmarking Initiative as a key development. The initiative uses quantum resource estimation (QRE) to evaluate entire platforms, combining coherence, gate fidelity, and system costs into a single model.
“We want a maturation in how we talk about the commercial opportunity,” she added.
Blatt agreed, noting the rapid pace of progress.
“I would never have believed a few years ago how quickly things moved toward error-corrected qubits,” he said. “We’re hearing new results monthly, and it’s still accelerating.”
Readiness and Reach
Looking beyond the lab, panelists were unanimous on one point: the world must prepare for post-quantum cybersecurity now.
“Anyone just coming to quantum should sort out their cryptography first,” Simmons warned. “We know this is coming. The standards are there. Let’s get going.”
Zeng noted that the open-source community offers a route for broader global participation.
“Everything we’re talking about runs on software,” he said. “Making it open source is good for everyone and makes it more accessible around the world.”
He also pointed to promising efforts in the Global South, particularly in Africa, where quantum machine learning research is gaining ground.
“There are opportunities for real contribution, even without massive capital investment,” he said.
Although the timeline to practical quantum advantage remains uncertain, the message from the panel was clear: commercial value will come not from the largest machine but from the smartest one.
With growing algorithmic innovation, fresh approaches to error correction, and increasing public-sector coordination led by organizations such as DARPA, the commercial quantum era is likely to arrive not with a single breakthrough but through a cascade of interoperable, cost-effective advances.
Companies that align their engineering roadmaps with scalable architectures and credible cryptographic foresight are likely to define the next phase of competition.
The challenge now is to prioritize applications that can deliver real value in real time and ensure that when the quantum moment arrives, the infrastructure, policy, and talent are ready to receive it.