Sometime in the future, a medical researcher opens her laptop to investigate a rare disease. Through an AI assistant, she taps into quantum processors working alongside conventional computers in a distant data center. Together, they help identify molecules worth testing. She has never seen the machines doing these calculations and yet she’s confident this work could finally produce an effective treatment, saving millions of lives.

One organization chasing this very scenario is Diraq , a Sydney-based quantum company founded by physicist and engineer Andrew Dzurak. That work begins with fitting millions of qubits, the basic units of quantum computing, onto a single computer chip.

What Quantum Computing Is

First we must define terms. “Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which process information very differently. While classical bits always represent either one or zero, a qubit can be in a superposition of one and zero simultaneously until its state is measured,” explains Caltech Science Exchange . And, according to IBM , “By taking advantage of quantum physics, large-scale quantum computers would be able to tackle certain complex problems many times faster than modern classical machines. Quantum computers have the potential to solve certain problems in minutes or hours that would otherwise take conventional machines millennia to complete.”

Dzurak envisions tomorrow’s researchers accessing quantum computers remotely, not unlike how many of us now access cloud-based AI services today. “Our view is that our quantum computers will sit in that data center environment alongside the bigger AI factories,” he told me. “It’s about driving costs and energy consumption down so that quantum computing becomes more regularly available.”

The Machine You’ll Never See

There’s a practical reason for working remotely with quantum computers. Even if you and I could afford the hefty price tag to buy one, they are not exactly home compatible. Not only do they take up a lot of space, but they also operate only at extremely cold temperatures. “Heat causes errors in the qubits that are the building blocks of a quantum computer, so quantum systems are typically kept inside refrigerators that keep the temperature just above absolute zero (-459 degrees Fahrenheit),” MIT explains.

It’s a good bet your thermostat doesn’t go that low. No matter. The democratization of quantum computing could still happen if we could tap into a distributed network where such compute is available. For now, ask the average person if they have even heard of quantum computing and they will likely shake their heads. For those who do grasp the concept, it still smacks of science fiction, a technology that won’t arrive for hundreds of years, if at all.

The Reality of the Situation

The truth is quantum computing is very real. Scientists have proved qubits can work. Today’s challenge is ensuring enough of them can operate reliably and cost effectively so that the public can eventually use this innovation, not just governments and well-heeled organizations. “We’re still a few years away from generating meaningful commercial value with quantum computing. The goal is what we call ‘utility scale’: when these computers can create more value than they cost to own or operate,” explains Dzurak.

Not everyone is sure quantum computing will arrive so promptly. Asked in January 2025 how far off useful quantum computers were, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said fifteen years would probably be “on the early side,” and that twenty was the number most people would believe. Quantum stocks plunged roughly 40% the same day, CNBC reported. Huang walked the comment back two months later.

This brings us back to Dzurak. Part of the value he describes can be unlocked when quantum computing marries AI. Over the last few years we have witnessed the rise of Agentic AI . From research universities to Fortune 500 companies, semi-autonomous AI agents are working on behalf of humans.

What if these agents could be paired with quantum computing in a computing symbiosis? Microsoft is already engaged in this collaborative work, calling its approach “scientist in the loop,” meaning the agents advise while researchers make the decisions. The Quantum Insider reports that “researchers can deploy teams of AI agents that analyze large collections of information, generate hypotheses, optimize experiments and validate theories while working under human oversight.”

But gains from quantum computing and AI need not rely on Agentic AI for their utility. Drug discovery work by University of Toronto researchers and Insilico Medicine shows what is already possible before the field reaches the utility milestone Dzurak describes. “In the study published in Nature Biotechnology , the researchers combined quantum computing and generative AI with classical computing methods to create molecules targeting a cancer-driving protein called KRAS, which had previously been considered ‘undruggable,’” according to University of Toronto News . Igor Stagljar, co-investigator on the study and professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the Donnelly Centre at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, explains the significance of this work: “With computational approaches like this, we have the potential to shorten the preclinical phase of drug discovery by years.”

Impressive as this result is, it raises a more pressing question: what happens when quantum computing, coupled with artificial intelligence, becomes more readily available? “Some of the most exciting stuff has not even been thought of yet,” said Dzurak. Knowing that every remarkable advancement humankind has ever produced began with a thought inside a brain, we would do well to start imagining.

Looking beyond medical innovations, widespread adoption of quantum computing could produce physics breakthroughs, including solving thorny questions that eluded Albert Einstein and everyone since as they sought a unifying theory of the universe. As Google Research explains, “Gravity is only one example of the unique ability of quantum computers to probe complex physical theories: quantum processors can provide insight into time crystals, quantum chaos, and chemistry.”

Of course, no discussion of quantum computing would be complete without acknowledging dangers. Some worry quantum computing could crack the encryption protecting bank accounts and even the nuclear codes. Dzurak pushes back against such risks. “Quantum computers will attack certain classes of encryption,” he said. “But the good news is that there’s actually a lot of different codes that are now available that are already quantum hard , meaning they are designed to resist attacks by quantum computers.”

That may well be the case. Even so, security experts urge caution over the so-called “harvest now, decrypt later” threat. This describes how bad actors are amassing encrypted data presently so that at some unspecified future date they can employ quantum-enabled tech to crack it.

Whether or not that day comes, the race is on to develop quantum hardware that will enable mass adoption. Going forward, it’s not likely that we will each have such a device in our home in the way we own a desktop computer. The more reasonable scenario is that more and more people and companies will be able to tap quantum computers from remote data centers powered and enabled by AI via the cloud. With so much compute at our fingertips, the new critical question becomes: What couldn’t we achieve?