“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.
In this third blog I approach why one pitfall is that we are looking for the wrong solution to our daily pains due, and why that happens.
In Richard Dawkins book ‘Climbing Mount Improbable’ the title represents a metaphor that is used to exemplify how probability is used to explain the creationists argument against evolution. I can highly recommend the original lecture from ‘growing up in the universe’, but for now we’ll use this same metaphor to explain why we stick to sub-optimal solutions.
We take a stand from the bottom of a ravine, alongside us there are mountains as far as the eye can see, some visible, some invisible. And for now imagine that it is the dawn of the computer age, somewhere in the 50s and 60s. You, and your band of collaborators are pioneers that will be building computing solutions for your industries, analogues to climbing the mountains. Around you, each mountain is a different computing technology, there is a bunch of AI peaks in the distance, an obscure FPGA peak, a relatively warm looking GPU mountain range, and somewhere in the distance in the fog is quantum, but you can’t quite make out what it is. So, you start with the only mountain you can climb: binary classical computing a.k.a. ‘Mount Moore’.
And as you climb, the higher you get, the more powerful your digital solutions become, the more impact they make. And as you climb your mountain, some of your colleagues diverge to other mountains and start their climb anew after a long descent and hike to get there. But you continue onwards, and as you climb up, your mountain becomes more unique, and your solutions more to the point, sometimes even reaching as far as you can reach. But you are noticing that mount Moore isn’t climbing as fast as in the past, and you are struggling to make the bigger progression as you did in the past. In the distance is Mount Quantum, but it is still poorly visible from this distance, it is a long way down, and your are skeptical as you cannot see the peak in the clouds… Is that mountain really higher? You have no way to compare as you cannot see the peak of Mount Moore as you are climbing it. And will mount Quantum provide the same solutions as the success we’ve made here? Your team doesn’t know.
So, what do you do? Change mountains to climb higher? Do you think the descent from Mount Moore will be equally tricky as its ascent? And will the climbing gear and experience I have even work on the other mountain? Worse, can my victories, the solution I built on this mountain, even run on the other one?
These questions, very relevant questions, are similar to what I hear many people say about quantum technologies, and in particular quantum computing. They seek to run their solutions more optimally using quantum, rather than realize that that is not the purpose of why we run solutions. We run solutions to add value in resolving real business pain. In our metaphor, we want to climb as high as possible, the means of how to do so are irrelevant for a business. And sometimes other peaks will take us higher, and come at a cost from switching peaks.
This is a tough problem, most POC’s are driven by data scientists or IT people. Who have seen a cool technology and want to expand upon it. But these people are ‘stuck’ on their mountains already. They forget that the current landscape they are in is a result of decades of solving optimizing for binary computing. When the original business pain has long been forgotten, and we are doomed to optimize a solution upon an already existing solution.
Once you’ve revised your original business pain, it is time to start a new climb, unencumbered by past methods but strengthened by past experiences. Try asking the questions anew and keeping an open mind that not everything is either true of false, but that everything in between is a datapoint too. Make new quantum solutions, using quantum programmers and quantum software specialists, answering only to the business people who understand the impact of such solutions.
It won’t be easy, you’ll constantly have to challenge yourself whether or not experiences from Mount Moore will serve you or hamper you in your ascent of Mount quantum. But take an agile start-up approach and you’ll be adding value with new solutions in no time.
And yes, nobody knows how high mount quantum really is, but if one mountain’s peak is invisible in the clouds, whereas the other’s peak isn’t, it is safe to assume that it is at least higher.
“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.
“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.
