The race to quantum advantage

While boardrooms debate AI strategies, technology teams wrangle with RAM shortages and operations teams look for their next automation opportunity, the race towards quantum advantage aggressively continues. 

Quantum computing is a new approach to compute that processes information in a fundamentally different way than classical compute (CPUs, GPUs). Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex problems far faster than classical compute, and while the technology is still developing there are now use cases which will greatly benefit from the use of quantum compute.

Early movers

Early movers are quietly working out which parts of their workloads are suitable for optimisation using quantum, experimenting, and preparing for quantum compute powerful enough to realise advantage as early as 2026 with large scale fault tolerance by 2029.  

When large language models started to gain traction and adoption, those who had invested the time and effort into building them well understood, clean data estates were best positioned for what came next. These investments were not made over months, but years and has allowed these organisations to take advantage of the next shift in computational power.

What does quantum demand from organisations?

Unlike the data preparation required to get the most from large language models, quantum demands something different:

• A laser focus on problems and pain points
• An understanding of the organisation's challenges suited for using quantum computers
• A clear view of the specific advantages it will bring to an organisation

This technology is on the bleeding edge, where results are not guaranteed. However, the upside of success is efficiency, performance and market differentiation at a scale that far outweighs that of the small failures you will experience along the way. Teams experimenting with this new technology must have an openness to failure and iterative improvements, as well as have the ability to pivot.

Early adoption comes with advantages

The failures and the risks can be minimised. Quantum computers and the software that allows you to run code on them are built by some of the smartest people in the world, working for global organisations. These experts and companies are working with the early movers to help them take advantage of this new type of compute. Not only will these movers be rewarded with quantum advantage (when a quantum computer can run a computation more accurately, cheaply, or efficiently than a classical computer), but the early expertise to choose, build and scale workloads and their workforce expertise long before their competitors.

New levels of power, new security risks

Quantum advantage is only one part of the movement - but with quantum's progress also comes the dawn of new security risks. Future, “cryptographically relevant” quantum computers will be powerful enough to break today’s encryption standards. While such quantum computers don’t exist yet, mitigating this risk is something to start planning for now regardless of your usage of quantum to gain advantage. The good news? Quantum-safe cryptography exists now. Governments around the world are already requiring departments and agencies move to quantum-safe solutions. And it’s very likely that heavily regulated industries will mandate that products and services are quantum safe, in the bid to protect businesses and consumers from the risk of what comes next.

Some of the organisations building quantum computers are also developing the quantum-safe standards and solutions to protect classical data and systems from these future, more powerful quantum computers, and the conversations around becoming ‘quantum safe’ will increase in importance exponentially in the run up to the point when they are powerful enough to crack existing encryption standards.

Taking the leap into quantum with Softcat and IBM

Now is the time to prepare to take advantage of the next shift in compute power, whilst preparing defences against those who want to use it maliciously. Click here to find out more about Softcat and IBM’s partnership, and how it can support your organisation.