Stocks of quantum computing companies jumped Wednesday after Microsoft declared this as “the year to become quantum-ready,” adding “we are at the advent of the reliable quantum computing era.” Shares of Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum were both up more than 22 percent.

In November, Amazon.com's Amazon Web Services introduced Quantum Embark, a program intended to prepare its customers for quantum computing. Last week, quantum-computing stocks sank after Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said he expected it could be 15 to 30 years before there are really useful quantum computers.