The future of quantum is coming fast

Much like the Lumière brothers’ train, quantum computing is rushing toward the public—and users aren’t likely anticipating the changes in store.

At this year’s CES, Murray Thom, VP of quantum technology evangelism at D-Wave Quantum, told IT Brew that he feels people overcomplicate their thinking about quantum computing: “It’s energy-efficient compute for very hard problems.”

For D-Wave’s customers, he added, the technology’s applications are already streamlining processes and boosting efficiency, saving manpower hours for Pattison Food Group and helping Japanese phone operator NTT Docomo reduce paging signals.

“Those are very real-world, tangible applications; they’re not research projects, we’re not doing abstract mathematical problems,” Thom said. “And it’s incorporated in their business.”

Fundamentals of time. The timeline for quantum mainstreaming is still in question. Quantum capabilities rely primarily on the vast computing power of using qubits, which allow multiple solutions and outputs to be analyzed simultaneously, for hyper-complex tasks. There are hurdles—energy demands, efficiency, and the volume of task demand chief among them—but the inexorable march toward a quantum future continues.

“There is a broad community in quantum computing, there’s a lot of research that gets published by academia, but also industry groups, including ourselves and others,” Sergio Boixo, Google’s director of quantum computing, told IT Brew last year. “So, the whole field is sort of marching forward, and we’re still competing mostly against nature.”

Commercial usage of quantum computing has been a goal for decades. Last October, Rigetti Computing CEO Subodh Kulkarni said that he was sure it’s a matter of when, not if.

“Almost all of us in the quantum computing field are absolutely convinced,” Kulkarni told us.

Capabilities. Quantum also has a role to play with AI, Thom said. Visionary applications of the technology in quantum chemistry, drug design, and fluid flow calculations, for example, are still about six to 14 years out from commercial application.

“There’s a spectrum between what we can do today with production applications and quantum optimization,” Thom said.

For all the capabilities and potential of quantum, it’s still another tool. Productivity and efficiency are the name of the game, not showing off research and hardware (those are good for sales, of course). But getting that message to consumers, be they companies, institutions, or eventually individuals, requires demystifying the technology.

“We want companies to be able to maintain productivity and efficiency while they’re agile, to be more competitive and more efficient in their user resources,” Thom said. “This is our opportunity to do that.”