Could your company start benefiting today from quantum technology ?

Are we going to become a net producer or net consumer of possibly the greatest revolution in computing this century?

Quantum computing technology is making the transition from lab into industry. Some businesses are already working with early quantum computing companies to get ready for the inbound possibilities to come. Over the next ten years, these businesses will discover advantages that will set them apart from the competition. It will happen quietly as they learn how to use a technology that has exponential performance. For years, the outcomes will be unimpressive, but one day a tipping point will be reached and for certain types of problems, quantum computers will outperform classical computers, allowing business to deliver solutions that the world has not seen before. If you are in an industry that can benefit from quantum technology, we hope to convince you that now is the time to start getting ready.

Imagining the opportunity

It is hard to see technology leaps coming. In the 19th century, few people thought there were better means of production than people making things by hand and horses helping out when more power was needed. Then along came the steam engine and 100 years later, in Britain where it all began, GDP doubled per capita. Certainly the companies that made steam engines had created a new industry — an industry that sold machines. But that was nothing in comparison to the industries around them that were fuelled.

With steam engines, the world needed more metal to build them. Then factories could massively increase production. The new products needed to be moved more rapidly across the country and the world and these engines started to power trains and ships. The world started to move faster. It could get more done with less.

Quantum computing is going to drive a similar transformation. The CSIRO in “Growing Australia’s Quantum Technology Industry” predicts that quantum computing could deliver $2.5b per year to the Australian economy and 10,000 new jobs by 2040. But if we work together to build the industries that will rise around this new capability, then the opportunity to fuel the economic performance of Australian industry is far greater.

Why Australia?

The labs of Australia have been busily developing quantum capability for the past 25+ years and we are now a leading country in this field in terms of facilities and global talent. We have 22 quantum related research institutions including 2 centres of excellence dedicated to quantum technology and 3 more around quantum physics. These have made Australia an attractive destination for talent. As an industry emerges from the labs, we already have 14 quantum technology companies who have collectively raised more than $125m in the past 2 years.

Australian businesses have exceptional global talent and capability with both commercial pull and government incentives to catalyse engagement.

Can your industry be transformed by quantum technology?

Quantum computing will deliver new and different computing capabilities to industry. It won’t be used to add up numbers faster and play video games. We’ll still use classical machines for that. But when it comes to calculating large complex systems quantum will deliver new possibilities as the world needs computing to solve the next wave of problems and build the next solutions. If your business could reach new heights through calculating complex systems then it can probably benefit from quantum computing.

The common use case cited for quantum computing is for encryption systems — improving them and beating them. RSA encryption that protects our files and financial systems today is based on algorithms that assume factoring large numbers will always be intractable. In 1994 Peter Shor developed an algorithm that showed that this was no longer a safe assumption and that a very large quantum computer could do it.

Whilst the most famous example of quantum advantage, this is the furthest away — perhaps decades — because we need to develop quantum computers that are much more powerful that those we have built today.

But we need to get ready. We need a workforce that understands quantum systems and how to develop products on top of them. We need local hardware and software companies that build these products on our shores that local industry can collaborate with to be at the front of the discovery wave. We need to start now and build our capability as quantum advantage reveals itself.

Another known use case for quantum computing is the simulation of systems from nature. For example, simulation of proteins when developing new medicines, simulation of battery cells when developing batteries that age less, simulating electricity in cable to minimise energy loss, simulating new materials, sequencing genomes.

In autonomous systems, quantum computers will watch transport systems and supply chains, responding to thousands of events, finding optimal routes and flows that traditional computers can’ find.

Some of these use cases could reach commercial viability in the next 5–10 years and companies that have this capability will have an advantage over their peers.

How to Get Ready

In the sixties, no one could have imagined how we use computers in our lives today. The same is true of tomorrow’s quantum computers. We have not even begun to imagine how these systems will be used. We don’t know what we don’t know.

As businesses start to develop their quantum capability, they will discover unimagined new value. It is the matching of the new performance from these systems and the ingenuity of industry that will create new opportunities for our economy.

Business is already collaborating with our early quantum technology companies. The technology is breaking out of the lab into cloud services and hardware that Australian business can use. In most cases this work is not yet delivering commercial results, but it will. In the beginning these partnerships will be fumbling around buggy technology with no intuitive idea about how to apply it. But the capability of the people and the technology will grow, pathways will emerge and one day these companies will have ‘overnight’ power in their hands.

If you are a technology leader in finance, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, autonomy, defence I suspect it is time to have a look at Australia’s young and exciting quantum industry, and then go to say hello.