Quantum Information, Game Theory, and the Future of Rationality
One Moore Problem for Quantum Computing: A Giant Chasm for Mankind
Quantum computing has spent decades building an ecosystem of universities, startups, national laboratories, investors, and industrial research programs. Yet one Moore problem remains: what application will bridge the gap between quantum capability and widespread adoption? If the Internet had email, what will quantum have?
Faisal Shah Khan, PhD
6/17/20263 min read
Quantum computing is often discussed in terms of technical milestones. We hear about qubit counts, error correction, fault tolerance, coherence times, and demonstrations of quantum advantage. These are important challenges, and overcoming them remains essential to the long-term success of the field. Yet even if every one of these technical hurdles were eventually overcome, another question would remain. Would quantum computing become a widely adopted technology, or would it remain a remarkable capability used by a relatively small community of specialists?
This question brings to mind Geoffrey Moore's famous concept of the "chasm"—the gap between early adopters who embrace a technology because it is novel and promising, and the much larger population that adopts it because it solves an important problem. Crossing this chasm is often more difficult than developing the technology itself. Many technologies work perfectly well in laboratories and among enthusiastic early users, yet never achieve widespread adoption.
At the same time, it is difficult to argue that quantum computing lacks an ecosystem. What began as a largely academic endeavor in the 1980s and 1990s has evolved into a global network of universities, national laboratories, startups, investors, government programs, and industrial research groups. The past decade in particular has seen an acceleration of investment, talent development, and commercial activity. Whether one is optimistic or skeptical about the ultimate impact of quantum computing, the ecosystem itself is clearly real.
In this sense, quantum computing may be well along the path toward solving what I will call the Terman problem. Frederick Terman, often credited as one of the architects of Silicon Valley, understood the importance of creating the conditions under which new technologies could emerge and mature. Universities produce talent, governments fund research, companies develop products, investors provide capital, and entrepreneurs search for opportunities. Together these elements create the capability from which entirely new industries can emerge.
Viewed through this lens, quantum computing appears healthy. The ecosystem exists, investment continues to grow, and the underlying technological capability is steadily advancing. Yet despite this progress, the Moore problem remains unresolved. The quantum community continues to debate what widespread adoption might actually look like and what application or set of applications might ultimately drive it.
Most discussions implicitly treat ecosystem formation and technology adoption as separate stages. First an ecosystem emerges, then adoption follows. Yet the relationship may be more subtle than that. The intersection between the Terman ecosystem and the Moore chasm may not be empty at all. The bridge across the chasm may itself be an output of the ecosystem. Universities, startups, industrial laboratories, and entrepreneurs do more than develop technology; they also search for the applications that make that technology valuable. In this sense, the ecosystem does not merely precede adoption. It may actively create the conditions that make adoption possible.
The history of the Internet provides a useful example. ARPANET, packet switching, networking protocols, and the supporting infrastructure were extraordinary technical achievements. They created capability, but they did not by themselves create widespread adoption. What transformed the Internet from a research network into a global phenomenon were applications such as email, web browsers, search engines, and e-commerce. These innovations dramatically reduced the distance between the technology and the user. They translated technical capability into obvious value.
In hindsight, the crucial contribution of the Internet ecosystem was not simply that it built networks. It generated the applications that made those networks useful to ordinary people. Email, web browsers, search engines, and e-commerce were not external to the ecosystem; they emerged from it. In a very real sense, the Internet ecosystem generated the bridge across the adoption chasm.
Quantum computing may now face a similar challenge.
The question is no longer whether a quantum ecosystem exists. The question is whether that ecosystem can produce its equivalent of email. What application, product, service, or device will make the value of quantum technology so obvious that adoption becomes natural rather than aspirational?
Some point to quantum chemistry and materials science. Others argue for optimization, sensing, cryptography, networking, machine learning, or applications that have not yet been imagined. The diversity of answers is itself revealing. Unlike email for the Internet or spreadsheets for personal computers, the adoption-defining application for quantum technology remains uncertain. Different experts point to different bridges, suggesting that the bridge may not yet have appeared—or perhaps that it has appeared but has not yet been widely recognized.
This raises a deeper question. If we cannot clearly identify the bridge across the chasm, how can we confidently claim to know how it will be crossed? Much of the discussion surrounding quantum computing assumes that larger machines, lower error rates, and improved hardware will naturally lead to adoption. Perhaps they will. But history suggests that capability alone is rarely enough. Technologies become transformative when they solve problems that users recognize, value, and ultimately come to depend upon.
The future of quantum computing may therefore depend on more than technical progress. It may depend on whether the quantum ecosystem can generate the application that collapses the distance between quantum capability and everyday value. If such an application emerges, the adoption chasm may prove far smaller than many imagine. If not, even extraordinary technical achievements may struggle to move beyond a community of specialists.
The quantum ecosystem may already have its ARPANET.
What it is still searching for is its email.