Can engineering catch up with quantum physics and bring us useful quantum computing (www.techradar.com)

The quantum computing field is facing a practical bottleneck beneath the hype: aging classical infrastructure, especially centimetre-scale coaxial cables, is limiting the ability to scale systems from hundreds to thousands (and eventually millions) of qubits. Coax—designed 1916—still serves as the "nervous system" for routing control and readout into millikelvin cryostats, but its bulk, limited channel density and many thermal-cycle-prone connections create space, reliability and signal-integrity problems that can destroy fragile quantum states. This matters now because investors have poured roughly $3 billion into the sector in a single month, and AI, materials and drug-discovery workloads will demand far larger quantum machines to realize practical advantage. Engineers are responding with multichannel, flexible cryogenic cables that embed superconducting traces, filtering and signal conditioning to dramatically increase I/O density and reduce failure points. Current solutions claim ~8× channel density over traditional coax at comparable cost, with roadmaps to ~32× within 18 months and 5–20× fewer connection failures. These improvements lower crosstalk, noise and thermal perturbations—critical enablers for advanced control schemes and quantum error correction. In short, scaling quantum computing may hinge less on qubit physics and more on rebuilding the cryogenic wiring stack; companies that solve this connectivity challenge could determine which ventures turn recent investment into practical, fault-tolerant machines.