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.

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.