Curiously, all of these three (VR/AI/QC) are limited by hardware. But AI is the only one that has seen meaningful progress by just throwing more contemporary hardware at it. Sure, future hardware might bring advancements to all of them. But if you're making an investment plan for the next quarter, the choice is pretty obvious. This is why AI rules the venture capitalist sector instead of fusion or other long term stuff.

Of the three, QC is different in that it's not a solution looking for a problem. If we ever scale QC to the point where it can do meaningful work (the "if" is doing a lot of work there - per your point about hardware), then I don't see it fumbling like the other two have. We have immediate and pressing needs that we know how to solve with QC. The other two are very much research coming up with cool toys, and product fucking around so that they can find out what to use them for.

When considering scientists perhaps, but when you look at the general population the other two have way bigger ramifications on daily life than QC.

Quantum AI will be the next buzzword, once AGI loses steam.