The "Quantum Winter" is a Myth, But the Hardware Bloodbath is Here

A significant percentage of the quantum hardware vendors currently operating won't exist independently in 24 months. The era of raising $50M on a theoretical architecture and a press release is over. While overall capital is still flowing, the market is brutally consolidating. The transition from NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) to fault-tolerance is a grind, and the investment community is finally demanding commercial milestones over academic papers. This talk introduces the GQI framework to help enterprise buyers and investors separate the "zombie companies" from the true survivors and to start evaluating vendors based on their error mitigation roadmaps, enterprise integration capabilities, and runway - the challenge pathway concept.