“Adding Quantum Value” is a series of blog posts that explain why adding value to your business with quantum computing is so difficult. It is intended to help the reader understand the different subtleties, and to pinpoint where their own pain points might lie. If you have such pain points, reach out and see how we might be able to help you.
Why answering this question is hard
A common mistake is to view quantum technologies as similar to other disruptive technologies like blockchain or artificial intelligence. Starting any quantum related project with such a viewpoint will greatly reduce the probability of success. Unlike with AI and blockchain, there is a lack of standards and best practices, no real consensus over good methods and technologies, and an extremely divergent field of development over multiple modalities and multiple countries. This gives any project with quantum technologies a high knowledge threshold that cannot easily be overcome through trial and error during the project.
In that sense, making a successful value adding project, isn’t alike navigating a maze in a busy city without a map, but rather driving to an unknown destination in a city that co-exists in 4 countries simultaneously with each a different driving direction. If you think that a city with 4 uniquely different driving directions simultaneously on a single street is a ridiculous metaphor, then maybe the quantum technologies are not really for you.
In the end, we want to add value to our organizations. Whether we are a country that wants to stimulate innovation or the development of local knowledge and startups, whether we are a company that wants to capitalize on the technology and expand its core business activities ahead of competition, or whether we are in the quantum field ourselves and struggle to find our place in it.
What makes adding business value with quantum technologies hard?
To answer that, let’s start at the end-result and backtrack our steps all the way down to hardcore physics. By doing so we can confront ourselves with the challenges one pain-point-layer at a time. Not all these challenges in each layer need to be present for your specific situation. However, evaluating each challenge by itself can produce present-day value simply by the change of mindset in addressing the challenge. The evaluation itself often adds unexpected value to your organization. Challenges listed below compound and a silly mistake in one might seep through into others.
The business pain
The businesses we run are built upon decades of experience and changing best practices. As challenges changed, we’ve adapted our solutions accordingly. But we are used to finding digital solutions. The “impossible”, defined a generation ago, might no longer be the case with modern technologies. Might there be business pains in our core industry, taken for granted, that warrant a review?
Looking for the wrong solution
Sometimes solutions develop in a certain way, and stagnate once we reach the peak of our computational capacity. But if we’d see our peaks in solutions like literal mountain peaks, how do we know that we are in fact on the right peak? Do we get bogged down running our solution in one specific way whereas a different technology, and a different formulation, might lead to a different solution formulation?
Implementation failures
We have grown accustomed to the cloud, to people, and automated processes working hand in hand. Our working environments today are complex IT systems. Quantum technologies are not yet standardized and won’t be for at least another 5 years. Integrating them in existing environments and information system comes with a plethora of challenges and pains, killing what value quantum might deliver.
Algorithm unclarity
Quantum computations do not yet come from standard libraries, there is no GitHub with business applications. Discerning what algorithm is best, how to program or copy it, can be a simple programming job, or a specialist project. The pain is unavoidable, but knowing which one you’ll get and how to resolve them is one altogether.
Inefficient compilations
We are used that our code works at the press of a button. But how do you compile a code when you are unsure which modality of technology you even need? How to ensure that your added value of your solution is delivered as soon as possible? How do you match your error correction needs to a specific modality? In short, how do you tackle the many challenges that come from code compilation?
Quantum control challenges
Even if you have the best quantum processor, in the best fridge, and you have the optimal code, how do you ensure that that is controlled? Making a quantum computer and its hardware run and keep running optimally is a specialist job. It is the major time and costs expenditure when it comes to running certain modalities. Running an open system can be challenging, getting help with it is unavoidable.
The right modality
How and where do I get the right hardware? How do I know hype from fact? What do I even need to make my solution work, and what modality is ideal for that? What do I need inhouse, what not? Do I go for a full-stack system, or an open quantum system, and why? There are many basic questions here for organizations wanting to implement a quantum solution.
Each of these challenges are entire broad layers that will be a separate blog in this series. Stay tuned for the next one!
