A single remark by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about the future of quantum computing triggered a massive selloff on January 8 erasing approximately $8 billion in market value from the sector. Stock Market Impact Quantum computing companies faced significant losses following Huang’s comment. IonQ: Shares plunged over 40%. Rigetti Computing: Declined by more than 45%. D-Wave Quantum shares fell by 36% though they remain up about 600% year-on-year. The selloff came during Nvidia’s analyst day at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) where Huang expressed skepticism about the immediate viability of quantum computing. He stated it could take 15 to 30 years to bring very useful quantum computers to market citing the need for 1 million times the current number of quantum processing units (qubits). Industry Reply To Nvidia CEO D-Wave Quantum CEO Alan Baratz strongly disagreed with Huang’s assessment calling it dead wrong. Baratz highlighted that D-Wave’s annealing quantum computers are already in commercial use by major clients like Mastercard and NTT Docomo benefiting real-world business operations. Baratz admitted Huangs comments might apply to gate-model quantum computers which rely on a different approach but insisted they were 100% off base for D-Wave’s annealing quantum technology. Offering to meet Huang any time any place to discuss the matter Baratz reaffirmed that D-Wave is delivering tangible benefits today. Googles Breakthrough  Before the selloff quantum computing had been gaining momentum driven in part by Google’s December announcement of its Willow quantum chip. Google achieved a 100-qubit chip marking the second of six milestones in its quest to build a system with 1 million qubits. D-Wave shares had previously soared climbing 178% in December after a 185% jump in November. Who Is Jensen Huang? Jensen Huang the co-founder of Nvidia has been the company’s president and CEO since its establishment in 1993. Under his leadership Nvidia has revolutionized accelerated computing with its invention of the GPU in 1999. The GPU not only transformed PC gaming but also laid the foundation for modern AI and advanced computing. Huang a recipient of numerous awards including being named the world’s best CEO by Fortune The Economist and Brand Finance was also recognized as one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people. Before Nvidia he worked at LSI Logic and Advanced Micro Devices and holds engineering degrees from Oregon State University and Stanford University.