The Quantum Landscape

In total, quantum computing ranked fourth on our list of impactful new tech, behind only AI for security operations (58.7%), private 5G networking (53.9%) and generative AI (52.6%). In all, 79% of survey respondents believe quantum computing will have a notable impact on their organization within the next three years.

Barriers, roadmaps and next steps

While quantum computing has come a long way in the past decade, the technology is still developing. Quantum computers are in a noisy, intermediate state that International Business Machines Corp. has dubbed the « era of quantum utility. » This is in contrast with the long-anticipated « era of quantum advantage, » in which quantum computers and their associated systems are powerful enough to consistently surpass classical computation techniques.

To reach this stage, quantum computers need to address two key barriers: scale and consistency. Because of the constraints of quantum computing, scaling up the size of a quantum computer can be incredibly difficult. Some only operate at super-cold temperatures, while other architectures rely on complex systems of lasers to hold individual atoms in place, making larger systems exponentially more difficult to build.

Although some architectures may be better suited to scaling up quantum computers in an efficient way, today’s largest computers are currently operating at around 1,000 qubits — much smaller than will be needed for the computational powerhouses of the future. Many vendors have published timelines for the anticipated scale-up of their quantum systems, with IBM anticipating the rollout of a 100,000-qubit system in 2033. In the interim, there has been a substantial push to develop hybrid computation techniques, where early quantum computers collaborate with classical computing systems to solve certain algorithms.

Size is not the only issue that must be overcome. In quantum computing, atomic particles must be held in place long enough for calculations to be run. Coherence time, the length of time that a qubit can be manipulated, matters substantially in the overall effectiveness of a quantum system. Other considerations, including system noisiness and faulty gates or measurements, will necessitate quantum error correction — essentially the ability to account for and overcome errors while running an algorithm on a quantum computer. Error correction is included on most quantum computing roadmaps, with IBM planning to introduce an intermediary error mitigation technique in its 2024 system and aiming to solve error correction by 2029.

Beyond the improvements in hardware, there is also work to be done in the buildout of developer tools designed to democratize access to quantum computing. Interacting with a quantum computer requires working with quantum-specific programming languages (Q#, Cirq, Qiskit), and given the current shortage of quantum computing experts, there will likely need to be an upswing in software platforms built to make quantum computing accessible to a wider range of programmers.

As with any new technology, more growth is expected and more innovation is yet to come. The quantum landscape today looks markedly different from that seen 10, or even five, years ago. While it is impossible to predict the future, the next five years should see the quantum landscape continue to evolve out of early commercialization into a robust and powerful market.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.
451 Research is a technology research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence. For more about 451 Research, please contact.

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