Last week, the entire tech community, including investors and enthusiasts, turned their attention to one of the year’s most highly anticipated events.
The Nvidia GTC (GPU technology conference) is a week-long event athatserves as a platform for the company to unveil its newest devices. This year, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang showed off the new Blackwell Ultra and Rubin graphics processing units (GPUs), its latest artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
This week’s conference also introduced a new addition to the Nvidia GTC lineup, something the company had not done in previous years. Thursday, March 20, marked the first Nvidia Quantum Day, an event centered around the company’s quantum computing plans.
Huang revealed that Nvidia has big plans for quantum computing in the coming year, highlighting it as an important tech market. But he did something unexpected that took the industry by surprise.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently admitted something that left the industry in shock.
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Huang said the words that most guests weren’t expecting to hear
On Nvidia Quantum Day 2025, Huang took the stage along with the CEOs of several prominent quantum computing companies. The list of experts included D-Wave Systems (QBTS) CEO Alan Baratz, Peter Chapman, executive chair of IonQ (IONQ) and John Levy, CEO and Co-Founder of SEEQC.
While addressing this panel of industry leaders, Huang addressed a statement he had previously made, in which he stated that he believed useful quantum computing systems were still 15-20 years away, sending quantum stocks into free fall. This led to a backlash from quantum experts, including Baratz, who made it clear he ddisagreedwith Huang’s thesis.
On the stage at Quantum Day 2025, Huang walked back his earlier prediction, admitting that he’d been incorrect. “This is the first event in history where a company CEO invites all of the guests to explain why he was wrong,” he noted, highlighting the unprecedented nature of the event.
Later Huang discussed the logic behind his previous statements on quantum, admitting surprise that his comments impacted quantum computing stocks as they did. He clarified, though, that he believes in the importance of quantum technology and isn’t threatened by its progress.
At quantum day at #GTC25, Jensen Huang announces the opening of a quantum research lab in Boston! @nvidia pic.twitter.com/fnbUmULIoP
— Zeus Kerravala (@zkerravala) March 20, 2025
“A long time ago, somebody asked me, ‘So what’s accelerated computing good for?” he recalled. “I said, a long time ago, because I was wrong, this is going to replace computers,” he said. “This is going to be the way computing is done, and everything, everything is going to be better. And it turned out I was wrong.”
Nvidia GTC 2025 revealed just how focused Huang is on expanding into the quantum computing field. On March 18, Nvidia announced that it will bbuildan accelerated quantum computing research center in Boston, Massachusetts.
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According to a statement released by the company, this new facility will allow Nvidia to“ integrate leading quantum hardware with AI supercomputers, enabling what is known as accelerated quantum supercomputing.”
A quantum computing leader responds to Huang’s new take
Huang’s new comments on quantum didn’t initially boost shares for the sector. Most quantum computing stocks, including QBTS and IONQ, dipped in spite of his positive sentiment. However, these stocks started this week on a positive note, indicating that market momentum is shifting in a positive direction.
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After attending the event, Levy spoke to TheStreet, sharing his take on Huang’s new quantum computing statements.
“Jensen used this moment to convene a series of discussions by the leaders of the quantum computing industry in, what I felt, was a sincere effort to better understand the state of play as well as offer ideas to help the quantum industry emerge from an embryonic to a more mature state of development,” he recounts.
Levy took it further, adding that “it was clear through the questions Huang posed and the ensuing discussion that he is trying to work through the challenges and opportunities of the quantum ecosystem and was exploring how best for quantum technology to develop and Nvidia serve as an ally.”
