Quantum computers are expected to revolutionise industry across all sectors. They promise to solve problems that are currently impossible or impractical to handle using conventional methods. While the real-life use cases of quantum computing are still relatively scarce, early adopters are already leveraging this technology to generate business value. Myself, I had an opportunity to work on such a project for one of our clients.

Has this technology shown up on your radar? Have you considered adopting it in your organisation? Is this a good time to start planning your first steps?

In this article, I want to share three main reasons why you should start investigating quantum computing and consider introducing it in your organisation.

You’re probably wondering about types of problems that can be solved with this technology. Multiple real-life examples show that quantum computers are a good fit for applications involving optimisation and solving combinatorial challenges. With current quantum hardware, the range of solutions that can generate business value is still narrow. You must be careful with selecting the area you want to address with this technology.

Before jumping into details, let’s look at the predictions. According to the EY Quantum Readiness Survey 2022, nearly half (48%) of responders believe quantum computing will play a significant role in their industries by 2025. The vast majority (97%) think quantum will disrupt their industries—as well as the UK economy—to at least some extent by 2027.

Those significant indicators should be enough to inspire put this technology on the radar. From the technical perspective, I see three main reasons why this is a great time to start looking into this technology. First, quantum technology is more accessible than ever, thanks to the availability of cloud quantum computing. Second, aggressive roadmaps mean quantum processing units (QPUs) are rapidly emerging into commercial usefulness. Finally, innovative scaling techniques will soon apply quantum to much larger-scale business problems.

Cloud Quantum Computing

The possibility of running your quantum application in the cloud is a game changer for this technology. You don’t need to secure millions of pounds in your budget to add quantum capabilities to your data centre. Instead of that, you can run your quantum application in the cloud. You have two options — either using the quantum hardware vendor’s cloud directly, or leveraging a quantum service offered by one of the general cloud providers (like AWS or Microsoft Azure). Both approaches have their pros and cons.

The quantum hardware vendor’s cloud will allow you access to the latest technology and probably the most sophisticated tools. Unfortunately, you will need to introduce a new partner to your organisation and conduct a legal check.

In the case of the general cloud provider, there is a considerable chance that your organisation is already working with them. In that case, testing quantum computing will only add an item to your invoice. Moreover, this approach allows you to check how your application performs on multiple quantum hardware platforms.Microsoft Azure, for example, provides access to Quantinuum, IonQ, Quantum Circuits, Rigetti and Pasqal devices, while AWS allows for using D-Wave, IonQ, OQC, QuEra, Rigetti and Xanadu. The drawback of this approach is that you are limited to quantum hardware vendors supported the selected cloud provider. There is also a risk that the latest quantum hardware will not be available there as soon as in the quantum vendor’s cloud.

If you’re interested in the costs, you can find examples on the AWS Bracket page. Running your project on a quantum computer can be very cheap, depending on the devices you want to use:

  • D-Wave — solving a problem on a quantum annealer that contains 2,000 result samples of the same annealing problem will cost you just $0.68
  • Rigetti M-2 — running 10,000 repeated shots of the same circuit design on a quantum gate computer will cost you just $3.80.
  • Rigetti and Amazon EC2 P3 — running quantum machine learning algorithm in a hybrid way. The running job’s estimated cost, which includes 50 iterations, each with 2 tasks that have 100 shots, is $39,86.

Those numbers are minimal when compared to the mentioned cost of adding quantum capabilities to your data centre. That being said, please remember that the cost of running your quantum application can be higher for more extensive problems.

Rapid Increase of Quantum Processing Unit Performance

During 2021, there was a rapid increase in QPU performance. It should be noted that past roadmaps published by quantum vendors have been delivered successfully. It’s reasonable to believe that this trend will remain true. Most quantum vendors predict an increasing number of qubits and improved quality of their processors in the following years.

To see an example of that, let’s take a look the IBM Quantum Computing Development roadmap:

Source: IBM Quantum Roadmap

As you can see, they are predicting that, in the next year, they will be able to increase the number of available qubits by 2.5 times. IBM believes that with the Condor QPU will significantly increase the number of computations that can be done quicker, cheaper and more efficiently on a quantum computer versus on an ordinary computer. Moreover, they believe that by 2030, we will see widespread adoption.

You can see similar predictions made by other vendors. Christian Weedbrook, the CEO of Xanadu Quantum, claims, “there is no doubt that quantum computing technology will be ready for business this decade. There will be multiple million-qubit quantum machines by 2030.”

Interconnectivity on Quantum Chips 

The last reason I would like to mention is the changing way QPUs are being built. Scaling quantum computers is challenging; simply increasing the size of the chip comes at the cost of a higher likelihood of failure and a lower manufacturing yield. The solution is to build a QPU out of multiple interconnected chips. It will allow you to tackle much larger-scale business problems.

Please take another look at the IBM roadmap above. Condor is the last single-chip QPU included there. The following year, IBM will change the architecture to multi-chip units. This step will open the way to building QPUs with 100k+ qubits by 2026.

Other quantum vendors are adopting the same approach. On Rigetti’s roadmap for this year, you will find Aspen-M 80Q. This QPU is assembled from two 40-qubit chips and uses Rigetti’s multi-chip technology. The same approach is planned for the Ankaa 84Q and Lyra 336Q chips that will be released in the following years.

Interconnectivity is essential to the rapid growth of quantum computing.

Have You Decided to Try Quantum Computing? 

Do you remember your first computers and what processors they had inside? My first computer was a Commodore 64 with a 1 MHz processor, then a laptop with an Intel i386 12MHz. The next ones were: Intel 486 33Mhz, Pentium 133MHz, Pentium II 350MHz. The last one mentioned was the last single-chip processor that I had. It is the last device that I remember the specifications of. Each subsequent one used the multi-core technology. The speed increase was so significant that I only thought about the CPU when buying a new device.

I’m mentioning this situation because quantum put us in a similar position. The pace of change is even faster, and shortly we will be able to stop thinking about the number of qubits in a QPU and focus on business implications instead.

Based on that, I would advise you to explore quantum computing technology in your organisation.

Check it:

Building energy security with quantum computing How do benchmark quantum computing solutions? Chrome 116 and the Kyber Connection: A New Era of Quantum-Safe Browsing How do you prioritize emerging technologies that should be on-boarded to your organisation?