The Commercial Prospects for Quantum Computing Issue 1, December 2016 Rupesh Srivastava, Iris Choi, Tim Cook NQIT User Engagement Team Networked Quantum Information Technologies NQIT (Networked Quantum Information Technologies) is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and is a part of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme Authors: Rupesh Srivastava, Iris Choi, Tim Cook NQIT User Engagement Team Design & layout: Hannah Rowlands, based on a design by Hunts If you have relevant information that should be added to this report, or suggested corrections to its content, please contact the authors so we can include them in future editions:
[email protected] 2 Table of Contents 1: Overview of Quantum Computing 4 1.1 Quantum Computing – from the unthinkable to the inevitable 4 2: Current Commercial Activity 6 2.1 Commercial Investment 6 2.2 Open Source Activity 12 2.3 Patent Activity 14 3: Market Status 17 3.1 Introduction 17 3.2 Established Firms in the Quantum Computing Space 19 3.3 Strategic Partnerships and Initiatives 19 3.4 The Road Ahead 20 4: Research Status 21 5: Public Perceptions 25 5.1 Quantum Confusion 25 5.2 Unrealistic Expectations about Quantum Computing 26 5.3 Breaking Encryption 26 5.4 Responsible Innovation 27 6: Potential Market Segments 28 6.1 Health 28 6.2 Finance 30 6.3 Machine Learning 31 6.4 Simulation 32 6.5 Logistics 34 6.6 Software Verification & Validation 35 Appendix 36 Commercial Investment Timeline 36 Open Source Software 40 References 41 3 1: Overview of Quantum Computing 1.1 Quantum Computing – from the unthinkable to the inevitable With the promise of performing previously impossible computing tasks, quantum computing has gained substantial research momentum over the last decade in the race to realise the world’s first universal quantum computing machine.