Quantum — downstream demand sensor
Wedge #3 of the frontier-risk engine. It does NOT pick the winning quantum stock (the pure-plays are a likely brutal shakeout — huge caps on ~$1-130M revenue). It grades the gap between quantum PROMISES and demonstrated CAPABILITY, and maps who gets paid either way: the supply-chain shovels + the post-quantum-crypto counter-wave.
Why this exists — in plain English, and for the kids
This is an honesty engine for the quantum boom. Quantum computing is the most hype-saturated frontier there is — companies worth billions have almost no revenue, roadmaps slip constantly, and “we beat every normal computer” claims get quietly walked back a few months later. This engine sorts the promises from the proof: it puts every program on a capability ladder (backed by cited results), grades the industry's dated roadmap promises hit-or- slip, and keeps score of which “advantage” claims actually survived.
The money angle isn't “guess the winning quantum stock” (a likely brutal shakeout — huge caps on ~$1-130M revenue). It's the picks-and-shovels — the lasers, cryogenics, and control gear every machine needs — plus the post-quantum-crypto layer that migration deadlines (NIST timelines, federal mandates) are pushing regulated buyers toward — a policy-driven demand claim, not a certainty. Every call is frozen and graded against a “nothing changed” baseline. Everything here feeds the materials mission: demonstrated capability is tomorrow's material demand, read early.
Quantum computers are all over the news, promising to be unimaginably powerful. But here's the secret this board refuses to hide: not a single one can yet do something useful that a normal computer can't. Lots of them can do cool tricks; none has won the real race. This is a truth-detector that scores how real each quantum team is, and shows the proof.
It also writes down every “we'll have it by year X” promise and checks it on the due date — and instead of betting on a flashy quantum stock, it watches the companies selling the parts. In a gold rush, the shovel-seller wins.
Q3->Q4 (2026-07-06 crew cite): sustained logical operation beyond break-even. Not Q5 (no useful fault-tolerant ADVANTAGE on a real problem yet).
cite: Quantinuum Helios (arXiv:2602.22211, 2026-02-25): up to 48 error-CORRECTED logical qubits on the 98-qubit Helios processor operating BEYOND BREAK-EVEN (logical gate error ~1e-4, better than raw physical) — dozens of logical qubits beating the physical error rate.
Q3->Q4 (2026-07-06 crew cite): logical qubits operated with error-corrected gates below threshold. Not Q5 (a fault-tolerant architecture demo, not a useful advantage).
cite: Harvard/MIT/QuEra (Nature, DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-09848-5, Jan 2026): 96 error-corrected logical qubits from 448 neutral atoms with error-corrected gates across all 96 simultaneously and 2.14x below-threshold suppression — the largest verified logical-qubit count to date.
The canonical Q3: the first clear below-threshold QEC demonstration. Not Q4 (no sustained useful logical computation yet).
cite: Google 'Willow' (Nature, 2024-12-09): below-threshold error correction — logical error rate falls exponentially as code distance grows (d=3->5->7).
Q2 (annealing paradigm — different from gate-model; advantage claim tracked in the Advantage Ledger, not counted as gate-model Q3+).
cite: D-Wave Advantage2 + 'quantum supremacy on a useful problem' claim (Science, 2025-03): annealing-based simulation advantage claim (contested).
Q2: strong NISQ + benchmarks + error mitigation, but sustained below-threshold LOGICAL operation is a roadmap target, not demonstrated -> not Q3.
cite: IBM Heron / Quantum roadmap (2025): large NISQ processors + error mitigation + quantum-volume/benchmark results; QEC roadmap targets logical qubits by decade-end.
Q2: #AQ is a benchmark metric, not error-corrected logical operation.
cite: IonQ Forte / #AQ benchmark disclosures (2025): algorithmic-qubit (#AQ) targets and high fidelities; no below-threshold QEC demonstration.
Q2 (early); smaller-scale NISQ.
cite: Rigetti Ankaa-class systems (2024-25): NISQ processors + fidelity milestones; no below-threshold QEC.
Q2; sampling-advantage claim tracked in the Advantage Ledger. Old evidence date -> may flag stale (needs re-cite).
cite: Xanadu Borealis (Nature, 2022): programmable photonic Gaussian-boson-sampling 'advantage' claim.
Q1 with a contested-evidence flag: a bold claim on disputed physics -> the Board watches whether it survives scrutiny (see advantage/scrutiny discipline).
cite: Microsoft Majorana-1 topological-qubit claim (2025-02): announced a topological qubit; the underlying Majorana evidence is scientifically CONTESTED.
Q1: building toward FTQC; roadmap-forward, few demonstrated benchmarks -> the canonical roadmap-vs-reality gap.
cite: PsiQuantum roadmap toward a photonic fault-tolerant machine (2024-25); heavy on roadmap, light on demonstrated qubits.
Rungs set conservatively — a qubit-count press release is Q1/Q2; only demonstrated below-threshold QEC earns Q3+. cap.massQ3plus is the honest denominator; Q5 (useful fault-tolerant advantage) remains 0 industry-wide — the real number under the 'quantum breaks encryption' hype.
Research + risk-intelligence, not investment advice, NOT a list of quantum stocks. Froth is computed (see provenance); capability mass is from the citation-gated Board; the Bubble-Radar link is cross-referenced, not re-reported.