So that is practically true, and in fact. EXPTIME is one of the few things we can show is large enough that we can even prove it properly contains P. But, in context this isn't as bad as it looks. The vast majority of interesting things we can do on quantum computers take in practice much less than exponential time (look at factoring for example). In fact, BQP actually lives inside PSPACE, so this shouldn't be that surprising.

But practical issues aside , most of the arguments about using quantum computers to do AI or consciousness involve claims that they are fundamentally necessary. The fact that we can simulate them with sufficient slow down demonstrates that at least that version of that thesis is false.