It was big news last month for anyone who follows the semiconductor industry. IonQ will be coming public via SPAC, through a merger with dMY Technology Group Inc. (DMYI), reports Simon Erickson, founder and CEO or 7investing — and a participant in The Interactive MoneyShow Virtual Expo from May 11-13. Register for free here.

This will now be the world’s first publicly-traded quantum computing company. At first glance, this looks like a massive bubble might be forming. The combined entity is expected to have a valuation of $2 billion.

However, IonQ won’t have a commercially available quantum computer ready until 2023 and is still doing just $1 million in total revenue. That means the company is coming public at a nosebleed multiple of 2,000 times sales.

Today, quantum computing is still just a science project. It’s similar to biotech companies, who are pursuing innovative science but are still years away from bringing anything to the market. At $2 billion, there are a lot of hopes and dreams baked into that frothy IonQ valuation.

But before we completely write this one off, let’s dig deeper into why there’s so much optimism about quantum computing right now. At its core, this is a story about the anticipation of disruptive innovation.

Disruption describes when technologies are introduced that are fundamentally different than what the incumbents are using today. You can think about the lightbulb as an example of disruptive innovation. It wasn’t just a bigger and brighter candle. Instead, it used electricity passed through resistant filaments to provide a steadier and more dependable form of light.

Quantum computers themselves are disruptive innovations. They aren’t just faster computers, but are being developed specifically to solve problems that traditional computers cannot.

Calculations that involve millions of inputs would take thousands of years for today’s processors to compute. Instead of using 0s and 1s of binary data, quantum computers use qubits with superposition principles. Instead of running code in series, entanglement allows for much more efficient processing.

There’s some really neat science that’s in the works here. The Cliff’s Notes version is that quantum is Microsoft Excel’s “Goal seek” on steroids. It can optimize an output based upon millions of inputs. Think about how easy it would be to solve a maze if you could immediately see all of the dead-end paths in advance.

And in addition to their different architecture, just imagine what disruptions quantum computers could unlock in the commercial world.

They could render many of our “current ways of doing things” obsolete. The ability to solve unsolvable problems could quickly turbocharge fundamental science. For those developing materials, they could model superconductors that optimize electrical transmission.

For drugmakers, they could simulate and solve the problems of protein folding. For automakers, they could design longer-range batteries for electric vehicles. And just imagine all of the applications they could unlock with blockchains.

The ability to create these “modern lightbulbs” is the promise that quantum holds. Research firm Gartner believes that by 2023, 20% of global organizations are expected to budget for quantum-computing projects. That’s up from less than 1% in 2018 – which would be a 20-fold increase across the board in just five years.

That’s quite a forecast to make. And if it’s even directionally-correct, we’ll soon be witnessing a hockey-stick growth rate that the business world hasn’t seen since it embraced the internet.

Buckle up, because things are about to get interesting. There are several different quantum computing approaches (ion trapping, annealers, optics) being pursued by several different vendors (IonQ, D-Wave Systems, PsiQuantum). The competition is going to become intense. And we will almost certainly see more companies raising funds in the public market.

Subscribe to 7investing here…