Why is the Quantum Race Moving Faster?

Quantum breakthroughs are picking up the pace. 

In mid-June, IBM released its quantum roadmap, outlining a path to “IBM Quantum Starling,” what the company expects to be the “first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer,” by 2029. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, meanwhile, said during his keynote speech at the GTC Paris developer conference last week that quantum computing is “reaching an inflection point” and that applicable quantum computers are “within reach.” 

The announcements add to a deluge of breakthroughs from tech firms throughout the past six months, including quantum computing chips from giants like Google, Amazon and Microsoft. With so much weight behind the movement, the future of quantum is looking less murky by the day, said John Levy, CEO of quantum computing architecture firm SEEQC.

“The large companies working in quantum, nearly all of them are focused on building better (quantum bits),” said Levy. “The better the quality of the qubit, the better the quality of the system.” 

Emerging from ‘Deep R&D’

For a long time, quantum has been stuck in “deep R&D,” confined to labs and theory rather than considered for practical applications, said Levy. Interest from the trendsetters and decision-makers of tech, however, has brought development out of the shadows:

• Developers’ questions aren’t focused on whether quantum is possible, but rather how it can scale, said Levy.
• “A whole bunch of fundamental risk has been taken off the table,” Levy said. “Now we have new risks.” 

Barriers to scaling still exist, he noted, including energy efficiency, error correction and running algorithms that actually bring value. At SEEQC, Levy’s team is seeking to tackle the problem of quantum’s complicated infrastructure, using its single flux quantum processors to allow for control over quantum systems without excessive hardware or energy usage. 

The company recently announced a partnership with IBM as part of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking initiative, which would use SEEQC’s processors within IBM’s large-scale quantum computer in development. “This is all about scaling quantum computers,” Levy said. “And scaling doesn’t just mean adding more qubits.” 

Though overcoming some barriers simply reveals more, the interest in developing quantum technology is only growing. As the timeline for scalable quantum computers grows shorter and shorter, enterprise leaders shouldn’t write the tech off as fringe, Levy said. For now, CIOs and tech leaders should keep an eye on road maps like IBM’s, seeing how it intersects with their own ideas of quantum and how it applies to their businesses. 

Quantum may eventually catch enterprises that keep their heads in the sand off-guard, Levy said, just as the initial AI wave threw many unprepared companies into a tailspin. 

“I don’t think we can think of this as business as usual,” he said. “ One step at a time, we’re doing it as an industry. And those steps are coming faster.”