How do you know when quantum computing is actually ready for business? We built a checklist.

The quantum computing industry has a hype problem. Every week brings announcements of "breakthroughs," "quantum advantage," and systems that will "change everything." But if you're a CIO evaluating whether to invest, a policymaker allocating research funding, or an HPC center director planning for the next decade, these claims create more confusion than clarity.

The real question isn't "who has the most qubits" or "who claimed quantum advantage first." The question is: what does the path from experimental prototype to production-ready quantum computing actually look like?

Why Aviation Makes the Perfect Analogy

In 1903, the Wright Brothers achieved powered flight for 12 seconds. By 1914, the first scheduled commercial flight carried passengers across Tampa Bay—all of 23 minutes. By the 1950s, jets were crossing oceans. Today, hundreds of millions of people fly safely every year on systems so reliable we barely think about them.

The parallels to quantum computing are striking:

• ‍Early aviation struggled with basic reliability (frequent crashes, short flight times) just as today's quantum computers struggle with high error rates‍
• The breakthrough era introduced safety systems (pressurized cabins, navigation, redundancy) that made commercial flight possible—this is where quantum is heading with error correction‍
• Modern aviation achieved the scale and integration needed for business-critical operations—the destination for quantum

Just as aviation evolved through concrete, measurable milestones, quantum computing must hit specific technical achievements before it's ready for production use.

The goal shouldn't be to build a billion-dollar, football-field-sized quantum machine that only a handful of institutions can access. The goal should be to build the 777 of quantum computing—powerful, reliable, and affordable enough for mid-sized universities and Fortune 500 companies alike.

Three Stages, Nine Milestones

We've developed a vendor-neutral, modality-agnostic framework that lays out exactly what any quantum computing platform—regardless of whether it uses superconducting circuits, trapped ions, neutral atoms, or photonics—needs to demonstrate on the road to commercial reality.

Stage 1: Foundational Capabilities Before you can build fault-tolerant systems, the basic hardware must work reliably. This means qubits that stay coherent long enough to finish calculations, operations that consistently produce correct results, and the ability to make decisions mid-computation. Think of this as moving from "works in the lab" to "runs as a service." In aviation terms: autopilot, reliable engines, and in-flight navigation.

Stage 2: Fault-Tolerant Operations The quantum computing community agrees that error correction is essential. But what does "achieving error correction" actually mean in practice? This stage breaks it down into three concrete demonstrations: showing that protected logical qubits outperform unprotected ones, proving that error rates decrease as you scale up, and implementing the full gate set needed for universal quantum computing. This is the pressurized cabin moment—the breakthrough that makes the technology commercially viable.

Stage 3: Mass Commercial Advantage Technical capability isn't enough. To reach commercial reality, quantum systems must be faster or cheaper than classical alternatives on relevant problems, run reliably without hand-tuning (meeting industry SLAs), and fit into existing compute infrastructure. This is scheduled commercial service—predictable, reliable, and integrated into standard operations.

What This Framework Is—And Isn't

This isn't a prediction of when each milestone will be reached, or a claim about which platform will get there first. It's a structured way to evaluate progress and cut through the noise.

Different quantum computing approaches will advance through these stages at different speeds and may excel at different milestones. That's fine. What matters is having a common language to discuss where we are and what still needs to happen.

What Progress Actually Looks Like

So what does it mean to make real progress against this framework? Let's look at concrete examples.

Foundational capabilities in practice: A 256-qubit system that has run continuously on AWS for nearly three years, operating 130+ hours per week with strict service-level expectations. Not a one-off lab demonstration—a production system serving customers worldwide. This demonstrates stable qubits and accurate operations at scale.

Fault-tolerant operations in progress: Work on magic state distillation and logical circuits running on deployed gate-based systems, with atoms being dynamically rearranged in hardware to enable more efficient circuits. Collaborations with Los Alamos National Laboratory, NURC, and DARPA programs advancing error correction techniques. This is the hard middle stage where the industry is making the transition from noisy to fault-tolerant.

Early mass advantage demonstrations: Applications moving from theory to practice—defect classification in manufacturing, weather forecasting for financial clients, antibiotic design using quantum machine learning. Systems being deployed on-premise and in hybrid configurations, not just cloud-only. Real customers working on real problems, even as full-scale quantum advantage remains ahead.

No vendor—including us at QuEra—has checked all nine boxes yet. But the framework makes it clear what "checked a box" actually means, and that's the point. Roadmaps and slideware are easy. Deployed systems, logical error correction, and measurable progress against objective criteria are what matter.

Why Now?

We're at a pivotal moment in quantum computing. The field is transitioning from pure research to commercial development, with billions in investment at stake and critical infrastructure decisions being made. Decision-makers need clarity.

This framework gives HPC centers a way to evaluate when to invest in quantum co-processors, helps policymakers understand what technical milestones deserve funding priority, and provides enterprises with realistic expectations about quantum computing timelines.

The aviation industry didn't go from the Wright Flyer to transatlantic service in one leap. It happened through systematic progress on concrete engineering challenges: engine reliability, navigation systems, safety protocols, manufacturing standardization, and operational integration.

Quantum computing will follow the same path. The question is whether we can be honest about where we are on that journey.

Different quantum architectures—superconducting circuits, trapped ions, neutral atoms, photonics—will advance through these stages at different rates and may excel at different milestones. Some may reach Stage 2 faster but face deployment challenges in Stage 3. Others may take longer to demonstrate error correction but offer advantages in scalability or operating costs.

The framework treats all approaches equally. What matters is demonstrable progress, not promises.

Talk Is Cheap

The quantum computing industry loves bold predictions. Everyone has a roadmap to fault tolerance. Everyone claims their approach will win.

But as the aviation analogy makes clear: what matters is not the blueprint for the 777, but whether you can actually build one, certify it meets safety standards, and operate it profitably on scheduled routes.

The nine-milestone framework provides the certification checklist. Now it's on the industry to demonstrate real progress against it.

[Download the full 9-milestone framework →]

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