IBM celebrating ten years of cloud quantum makes me wonder how far the field has really come

[Cole_25]

IBM marking a decade of cloud accessible quantum computing is a strange milestone. On one hand, ten years of giving researchers and developers access to real quantum hardware is genuinely impressive. On the other hand, if you asked the average tech person what quantum computers have changed in their daily life, the answer is basically nothing. Maybe that is unfair because infrastructure progress often looks boring until suddenly it matters. Do you think IBM's cloud quantum decade proves steady progress, or does it show how slow practical quantum really is?
A Decade of Quantum on the Cloud

https://newsroom.ibm.com/2026-05-04-ibm-a-decade-of-quantum-on-the-cloud

[Rory84]

Ten years sounds long until you remember how difficult the physics is. I do not think slow progress means failed progress

[NinaVrina]

IBM deserves credit for making real hardware accessible instead of locking everything inside private labs

[Tracey]

The average person also did not care about early cloud computing until it quietly took over everything

[Violet Caitlin]

It is a fair criticism though. Quantum has had a decade of public access and still very little ordinary impact

[Cass_9]

Maybe the value was never supposed to be consumer facing yet. Training a generation of researchers might be the real achievement

[Red Wrench]

I am tired of judging every technology by whether it has a phone app yet

[QuantumLeap96]

The milestone is impressive, but it also reminds everyone that quantum computing is not moving at chatbot speed