The Future of Quantum Computing

The Future of Quantum Computing

A mid-2022 perspective.

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The more I research quantum computing from a non-technical background, the more hype and optimism I feel about the space. While I always found hype-culture around blockchain, Web3 and virtual reality a bit ridiculous, I think quantum computing is more about the computing technology.

It’s not a cultural, ideological, social-media amplified space based on FOMO, it’s about the science.

When I am studying QC startups, I’m mostly studying academics, engineers and people with PhDs with a very specialized skill set. These aren’t evangelists or celebrities on Twitter. They are people of science and pioneers of technology. That’s a very different context.

We know the TAM (total addressable market) of quantum computing is likely far bigger than is currently known because of how wide-reaching the impacts with new kinds of machine learning and simulations will be.

I wanted to convey a brief overview which could lead us to further study together.

Clearly the Future of QC Isn’t Just Hype

However it is a fact that Venture Capital and global Governments are getting more serious about the potential of quantum computing. It’s getting more mainstream knowledge that QC will intersect in the evolution of artificial intelligence one day in a tangible way.

• From?Memristors?to the?Quantum Gold rush?in VC money and funding, this is happening.
• From a Quantum singularity?Arms race, to countries like Japan, Israel and others building their first functional quantum computer, the realization is here among many levels of leadership.
• Partnerships?between startups, academic institutions and major corporations in the QC space are at an all-time high in 2022. Every week there are several announcements.
• Then there is Beijing?and Washington realizing?the immense potential of the industry.

I cannot overstate this.?Quantum computing is booming?everywhere as a nascent field of computing. What it can do today vs. what it will achieve in 2030, 2040 or 2050 really will be quite a paradigm shift for the future of technology as a whole.

• Venture capital acceleration of inflow of funding in QC
• National governments building their own working quantum computers.
• Startup and academic partnerships accelerating to justify new niches of the industry.
• Major world powers investing more into the nascent technology.
• Cloud computing giants developing the technology in-house, partnering with the top global startups in QC.

Meanwhile QC is starting to get more mainstream news attention.

• Deloitte Global predicts?that the multiple companies making quantum computers (QCs) will double their QCs’ quantum volume—the number and reliability of the quantum bits (qubits) available for computation—from what it was in 2021.

The Quantum Promise in Industry and Engineering

Quantum computing is so abstract and yet so concrete in its application.

Quantum computing is being heralded by academics as a potential game-changer in fields such as cryptography, chemistry, material science, agriculture and pharmaceuticals once the technology is more mature.

It will likely transform finance, climate change modeling, cosmology modeling and simulations of many kinds related to the use of synthetic A.I., biotechnology and engineering that relates to space technology. This is not even to mention the military applications which are numerable and which I have spoken about before.

VCs invested more than US$1 billion into the sector in 2021, and one company even went public with a multibillion dollar valuation.1?Further, investment in quantum by governments, including China, India, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Canada and the United States, will likely bring the total to more than US$5 billion for the year.2

There are also many QC startups still likely in stealth. QC startups are tackling niches but also going for the long game. That makes it difficult to ascertain who the real early adaptor leaders in the space are. This won’t be clear until around 2025. A lot can happen in a nascent field in just a few years.

Join me as I venture though topics, startup and possibilities around quantum computing.

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My approach to covering Quantum computing is to cover the latest news and trends to the best of my ability. I’m exploring to get?more contributors?(writers) to get a more balanced viewpoint. If you want to see one here comment on this post or send me a DM on LinkedIn or Twitter.

I’m also expanding this Newsletter into a new “journal” called?Immortalis, which will aim to cover longevity startups, genomics and biotechnology. As you can imagine there will be significant applications of QC in those fields over the course of the decades ahead.

By the start of 2019, according to an analysis by?Nature, private investors had funded at least 52 quantum-technology companies globally since 2012. In the years since 2019, there has been an explosion of startups in the space. The 2020s are among the most exciting decades in human history for the future of technology. This is because there is a great convergence of new fields, new kinds of engineering and new companies to lead us in the future.

The Great Convergence

With the current pace of new startups, VC funds and so forth, the future of QC looks bright. There is some indication, Quantum computing could reach scalability around the same time as Web3, Metaverse and genomics, as well as more widespread applications of artificial intelligence in society like healthcare, education and governance.

What will be the?role of quantum computing?in this singularity of innovation and convergence of machine learning, software and new industries like biotechnology, space technology, sustainable energy and in the great automation?

Memristors

Detailing the creation of the first prototype of such a device in the journal Nature Photonics,?Experimental photonic quantum memristor | Nature Photonics, scientists say the breakthrough could help combine quantum computing with artificial intelligence and the development of quantum neuromorphic computers.

I think the scalability problems of Quantum computing are more practical to solve than the scalability of blockchain and Web3. Too many startups are working on this and new PhDs are going to be tackling this problem in the decades ahead for us as a civilization not to make paradigm shifting progress on this challenge. There are several off shoots of this that could lead to life-alerting artificial intelligence systems.

Cloud Computing and Playing the Long Game

Quantum computing could also become an indispensable part in the evolution of the Cloud (Cloud computing), and how quickly companies like AWS and Azure are growing their offering. It’s truly undervalued how much R&D the richest companies in the world are throwing at these problems.

As you can see?with Microsoft Azure, they are playing an extremely long game. The Azure Quantum team has also been able to produce what is known as a topological phase and to measure the topological gap which quantifies the stability of the phase.

Building on?two decades of scientific research?and recent investments in simulation and fabrication, the Azure Quantum team has engineered devices that allow them to induce a topological phase of matter bookended by a pair of Majorana zero modes.

PsiQuantum

Startups like?PsiQuantum?are also playing the long-game. When you have managed to?raise almost $700 million, you?might just be?on to something!

We don’t really know all the startups in China commissioned by Beijing, in addition to regular VC channels, to work on this. We know that China likely prioritizes bleeding edge R&D like Quantum computing more so than the majority of other nations, perhaps with the exception of Israel and the United States. China has a unique ability to pump out more PhDs in a specialized field if it chooses to do so in the decades ahead.

So all this being said, all this I barely fully comprehend. I think even just scratching the surface,?we can safely say, with a certain amount of confidence, that the future of quantum computing is bright. It does not matter either if any particular approaches in QC fail, since there are so many approaches currently being explored. The talent factor has never favored the bold so much.

Important Quantum Startups will be founded in 2023

Even with more mainstream coverage, the VC funds are still minimal and the leading startups are just a few dozens scattered over the globe. It’s truly early days. There were?about 90?quantum investments in 2021, which is quite close to 2020. The amount of funding is also small compared to other venture-backed industries: $1.4B in 2021 and $0.7B in 2020. However the YOY growth since 2019 truly is impressive.

There’s room enough for everyone as more sub-fields are explored by startups, in-house innovation teams and?national R&D DARPA=like entities.

Do note that Softbank?has partnered with IonQ. How long before someone like an Andreessen Horowitz, who have invested so heavily in Web3 and the Creator Economy, need to realize the potential of?quantum computing startups?

How Can You Invest in the Meta Trend?

If you believed in Quantum computing’s future, this would not be a terrible time to invest in $RGTI or $IONQ if you understood clearly what they are trying to do and believe in their approach. With so few QC startups going IPO yet (SPAC mostly), there’s limited ability for most of us to gain early exposure. We can only hope a more strict era of antitrust regulation prevents a Microsoft, Nvidia or Amazon from acquiring the early leaders too early.?Just remember?to buy at the bottom when growth-stocks are most discounted when the Fed really boosts interest-rates.

While many countries plan to build Quantum computers for bragging rights, other countries are significantly behind in R&D - like Canada. While we produce talent, they mostly work for U.S. companies. Canada, where I’m from, recently?announced a new innovation agency. It will be called Canada Advanced Research Projects Agency (CARPA) and will act as a public-private bridge for research that helps develop and maintain Canadian-led technology and capabilities in high-impact areas.

Instead of modeling itself on DARPA, CARPA will instead mimic Finnish and Israeli agencies. The Canadian government has announced that it will invest Can$1 billion (about US$780 million) over the next five years to create a funding agency focused on innovation in science and technology.?The moral of the story??Small countries won’t be able to keep up. Although never discount innovation by per capita leaders like Israel or South Korea.

In typical fashion of the times, expect American BigTech, China and the top 5% of startups in QC to reap most of the rewards. Will QC usher in a winner-takes-all era in the intersection of A.I. and quantum computing??It’s at least 50% probable?that this will be the case. Venture capital in its current form, is also highly centralized. Consolidation could also be accelerated if the world enters a global recession due to stagflationary supply-chain disruption and geopolitical discord reasons.

What do you think about the prospects of Quantum computing and its future?

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Future Prospects

We should be quantum computing optimists. Even as Bitcoin and Web3 have benefited the top 1% owners of those ecosystems and tokens, QC could benefit multiple industries in a more distributed fashion.

If you believe the hype, we may now be on the brink of a second quantum revolution as we attempt to harness even more of the power of the quantum world (in the next 30 years). Quantum computing and quantum communication could impact many sectors, including healthcare, energy, finance, security and entertainment.

We don’t even know what the full benefits might be. It’s my ideological belief that it could impact how artificial intelligence and our civilization as a space-curious group evolves. I probably won’t be alive to witness the full manifestation of this. But as an amateur futurist, the dogma of technological progress isn’t about an individual or a company, but that which benefits the entire species.

Current QCs are roughly where heavier-than-air flight was on December 17, 1903. Nobody doubted that there were multiple uses for airplanes, and everyone was excited that powered flight had been achieved, but there were hard problems to solve that meant most of the world was skeptical.

As I never bought into the Metaverse hype of early 2022, or the Web3 hype of the second half of 2022, I decided to cover A.I. and quantum computing instead. I hope you will follow me on this journey.

How Much Will Quantum Computing Sector Be Worth in 2030?

Honeywell?anticipates that quantum computing will form a $1 trillion industry in the decades ahead. The reality is it’s likely to far exceed these initial projections.

The global enterprise quantum computing market size was valued at $ 1,370.82 Million in 2020, and is projected to reach?$ 18,336.45 Million?by 2030,?growing at a CAGR of 29.7%?from 2021 to 2030.

A quantum computer is fundamentally different from conventional & supercomputers and uses the technology based on quantum phenomena. Its intersection with machine learning to solve real problems is pretty cutting-edge. The rapid adoption of pilots in 2021 and 2022 leads me to the conclusion that this movement will grow very fast in the 2020s.

How do you see it growing?

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In 2023, when the going gets rough for the global economy, we should see new startups in very defined niches of Quantum computing begin their journey. I want to tell their stories. I want to cover how the sector as a whole is evolving.

If you want to support me so I can keep writing, please don’t hesitate to give me tips, a paid subscription or some donation. With a conversion rate of less than two percent, this Newsletter exists mostly by the grace of my goodwill (passion for A.I. and the future of tech) & my experience with poverty while I pivot into the Creator Economy.

Anyways I hope you enjoyed the topic. That’s all for today. Have a good week guys!

I've started a Newsletter for quantum computing news, if this field interests you, you can subscribe?here. I cannot continue to write without tips, sponsorship and community support. (follow the link below).

https://ipotimes.substack.com/subscribe