It’s Getting Spooky: Quantum Doom Clock, Halloween edition, October 2025

GM frens, this is the Quantum Doom Clock with Colton Dillion and Rick Carback, the founders of Quip Network, building the world’s shared quantum computer.

This Halloween season we got a treat with concrete proof that quantum computers are not tricking us via an experiment using Einstein’s spooky action at a distance paradox. Researchers have now built a functional "quantum lie detector" that confirms these machines operate through genuine quantum mechanics—not classical mimicry.

Using Einstein’s Spooky Action Paradox to Confirm Quantum Operation

Researchers have developed a quantum lie detector that confirms large-scale quantum systems are not simulating classical behavior but genuinely exploiting entanglement. The team, led by scientists at the University of Leiden, engineered a program that performs computations impossible under classical physics and validated its quantum nature using Bell’s inequality tests across 73 qubits. This experiment closes a long-standing loophole in quantum verification, proving that quantum computers are not just fast classical machines but true quantum devices. University of Leiden’s quantum lie detector demonstrates that quantum mechanics governs these systems at scale.

The breakthrough builds on decades of foundational work in quantum foundations, with the same principles that Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” now serving as a diagnostic tool. The Bell test protocol was adapted to run on real hardware, not just theoretical models. This validation enables the design of quantum algorithms with guaranteed non-classical advantages and paves the way for quantum-secure communication protocols rooted in physical law, not computational hardness assumptions. The Leiden team’s framework is now being adopted by quantum hardware providers to certify machine authenticity before deployment.

Nobel Recognition of Foundational Quantum Technologies

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their pioneering experiments in macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy quantization in superconducting circuits. Their 1980s work laid the physical foundation for today’s qubits, proving that quantum effects persist at macroscopic scales—a radical idea once dismissed as impossible.

The Nobel committee’s statement explicitly tied these discoveries to the rise of quantum computing, citing that their work “demonstrated that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale.” This formal validation elevates the field from speculative tech to established physics, accelerating academic recruitment and government funding for quantum infrastructure.

Quantum Advantage and Real-World Applications

Google’s Willow processor achieved quantum advantage not on synthetic benchmarks but on real-world molecular dynamics problems, outperforming classical supercomputers by 13,000x using their "Quantum Echoes" algorithm. This marks the first time a quantum computer solved a physically meaningful problem—modeling electron behavior in complex molecules. Google’s Quantum Echoes algorithm will enable accurate simulations of carbon capture materials and drug interactions previously intractable to classical methods.

Meanwhile, a number of real-world applications are now being deployed:

IonQ’s QC-AFQMC simulations are now being used by energy firms to model catalyst efficiency for hydrogen production.
UC Merced’s national effort on chiral molecules further proves that quantum computers are solving real chemical puzzles.
KAIST also developed energy storage materials using quantum computers for next-generation battery materials and carbon capture applications.
In the financial world, HSBC is now using Quantum Computing for bond trading. To our knowledge, this is the first real-world quantum advantage in live financial markets for portfolio optimization in production.

These developments are confirming what we have been saying since spring that quantum computing is here now. We are also starting to see a major divergence among quantum computing companies: Some are productizing while others are chasing further technological advances. It is unclear what strategy will pay off.

Major Breakthroughs in Quantum Error Correction and Fault Tolerance

QuEra’s algorithmic fault tolerance (AFT) technique reduces quantum error correction overhead by 100x, enabling logical qubits to be constructed with far fewer physical qubits. This breakthrough transforms error correction from a prohibitive resource drain into a scalable process, making fault-tolerant quantum computing feasible within five years. QuEra’s AFT framework has already been integrated into their neutral-atom quantum processors.

Meanwhile, Caltech’s 6,100-qubit neutral-atom array achieved nearly 13 seconds of entanglement coherence—a record that shatters previous limits. Caltech’s long-lived entanglement proves that qubit stability is no longer the bottleneck. Diraq’s silicon qubits also surpassed 99% two-qubit gate fidelity, demonstrating that scalable architectures can achieve the precision required for fault tolerance. These advances collectively dismantle the largest barrier to practical quantum computing.

Continued Commercial Deployments

D-Wave’s Advantage2 system has been deployed across Europe through the Q-Alliance partnership. D-Wave’s Advantage2 deployment is being used for logistics optimization in real-time supply chains. EPFL’s quantum sensors have entered the medical diagnostics market, proving that quantum technologies are no longer confined to labs.

IBM’s Quantum System Two is now operational in Spain and Japan, offering enterprise clients guaranteed uptime and SLAs for quantum workloads. IBM Quantum System Two is the first modular quantum computer deployed outside research labs with full commercial support. Also, China’s Zuchongzhi 3.0-class system is now accessible via cloud platforms to global pharmaceutical firms.

Google Quantum AI’s acquisition of Atlantic Quantum and IonQ’s $2 billion funding round from Heights Capital Management signal that quantum hardware is now a strategic asset. Google’s acquisition of Atlantic Quantum brings critical superconducting qubit expertise in-house, while SC Ventures and Fujitsu’s Project Quanta is building a quantum-powered financial modeling platform. These moves confirm that quantum computing is transitioning from research to revenue.

Other News

Time Crystals Could Power Future Quantum Computers - Researchers demonstrated time crystals enabling continuous quantum operation without energy dissipation
EeroQ Demonstrates Single-Electron Quantum Control Above 1 Kelvin - Major breakthrough achieving quantum control at >1K (vs typical ~0.01K), dramatically reducing cooling requirements
6,000-Qubit System Operating at Room Temperature - Scientists built a room-temperature quantum system with 100x error reduction
Infleqtion Integrates SLM’s MEMS Modulator for Microsecond Qubit Control - Silicon-germanium MEMS enables individual qubit addressing at unprecedented speeds
QuantWare’s Contralto-A Wins Quantum Effects Award 2025 - Leading quantum error correction capabilities, delivered Tenor QPU to Italy
Quantum Brilliance’s ‘Quoll’ Named TIME Best Invention 2025 - Diamond-based qubits enabling room-temperature, compact edge quantum computing
Harvard’s continuous-operation system proves that large-scale quantum systems can run without interruption. IBM’s 156-qubit Heron chip and D-Wave’s Advantage2 deployment show that scalability is no longer theoretical—it is being engineered in parallel across architectures.
FirstQFM Secures €1.2M for Quantum Foundation Models - Developing proprietary foundation models specifically for quantum computing

Frequently Asked Questions

Have a question? Just e-mail us at team at quantumdoomclock dot com. Below are the top questions we have received since our last update.

Q: What is it with everyone claiming to be the first to achieve quantum advantage?

A: We understand your confusion. The most recent Google announcement is claiming to be the first to achieve quantum advantage on a real-world problem, after claiming something very similar last November with Google Willow. D-Wave has also repeatedly claimed supremacy and advantage on real-world problems, and IBM has also claimed supremacy on real-world problems.

The key is that these claims are now being made on real-world problems that are verifiable by classical computers, not merely synthetic benchmarks, or problems that can only be computed and verified by quantum computers. In our opinion, D-Wave was actually first to have a verifiable quantum advantage, but theirs is an annealing machine, not a Gate-based machine. Google has a valid case to claim a gate-based quantum advantage, but we will not know for sure until the public can get access to it.

When hearing such claims, the key question to ask is when we will start seeing real economic impact from quantum computing, or "when is this going to prod"? The answer in D-Wave’s case is now, and in Google’s case is unknown, but likely within the next couple years. Which leads us to the next question…

Q: Is quantum computing really commercially viable today?

A: Yes, we certainly think so. The deployments are the main evidence, if they were not ready then we would not see IBM, D-Wave, and other players investing so heavily in publicly accessible quantum hardware. The recent announcements also point to quantum systems now offering real customer use cases in pharmaceuticals, finance, and logistics. As we commonly cover in this newsletter, we are seeing repeated claims of quantum computers used in production, not just research.

The Quantum Doom Clock is brought to you by Richard Carback and Colton Dillion, the cofounders of Quip Network

The Quantum Doom Clock is a monthly mailing list that summarizes news for Quantum Computing and its effects on the cryptography and cryptocurrency spaces. We do not sell your e-mail.