Commercializing quantum for business

Dr. Heiki Riel, IBM Fellow, Lead Quantum, IBM Research Europe, talked about the quantum advantage we will in the next decade. It is a new type of computing where we use the laws of quantum mechanics for computation. Here, we are using quantum bits. Quantum computer uses entanglement, super position, inference, etc., to utilize a much bigger computational space. It has the potential to solve problems that classical computers cannot solve. These are problems that exponentially increase in complexity. These are problems that classical computers cannot solve today.

Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems in the future. That is why we are heavily involved in their development. These are problems that appear in physics, chemistry, etc., in the development of materials, and also in optimization problems. Such problems are seen everywhere across the industries. There will be the utilization of much bigger computational space. The potential to solve problems that classical computers cannot solve is the real case for quantum computers. 

We have learnt to solve these problems via approximations. For some of these use cases, the approximations are not working well. This is where we want to apply quantum computers in the future. Some of them are ML, etc. This is coming up in many different areas. There are optimization issues, such as routing problems. You can do traffic routing and parcel routing. These are very mathematical problems that quantum computing can solve better.

Materials development is another key area. Here, materials form the core of a lot of industries. Materials development brings lot of market and business potential in the future. Today, developing new materials takes really long time. Quantum computing can help in making these kinds of calculations much faster, more energy-efficient, and bring more precise results in the future.

One specific use case is in battery materials. There are challenges in improving the batteries and making them longer lasting, with higher capacity. You can drive much more km using that battery. You can also charge batteries much faster. We need to gather lot of insights, which are difficult to get due to characterization of materials. If you can accurately do the calculations of the processes that are happening within the batteries, then you can get a better battery, along with better materials. We are working with companies such as Daimler, Exxon, Mitubishi, etc., in order to improve the batteries.

Next, there is manufacturing defect identification. There is ML-type defect analysis. Fraud detection in finance area is another use case for improved ML. By mixing ML with quantum computers, we can get better accuracy of the models. Prediction of the chemical properties of the materials is very important. We can also use quantum computing for drug discovery, and make it much faster for personalized medication. In finance, there is option financing. You can go to many different industries to solve problems and find use cases.

We need to be collaborating and have the network up and running. For quantum computing we need them to be able to demonstrate the quantum advantage in the future, compared to classical systems. We can also do this with partners. IBM is the technical expert. Quantum computers can be applied to different industries. You also have to understand that those companies also need to have industry knowledge and industry domain expertise to identify the pain points in the industry. So, they would need to understand the pain points and how quantum computers can help in future. Collaborating and bringing technical problems on the table has been very beneficial.

People need to understand about quantum computers and infer what they can do with it. They can learn from us: what are the problems to go after, and they can gain in expertise. They need to learn how to use and program quantum computers. They also need to solve problems using quantum computers. IBM does education in the industry to raise the awareness and understanding of quantum computers.

A challenge is that quantum computing is new, and there are not many experts that are available to tell you how to use them, and for what. We need to create more awareness about how quantum computers work. There has to be education and training so that the industry can build up expertise. There should be teams that can be studying the benefits to extract from quantum computing, and how to develop them into industry workflows. Besides hardware, we also look at software. We need to make every software developers use quantum computing. We are developing the software stack for this. You can use the same code and same language. It is coming soon. It is very important that you have quantum computing experts within the company to determine use cases.

Sunil Gupta, Co-founder and CEO, QNu Labs, talked about quantum cryptography and how it can be useful for the future. Demonetization was an important event. It also meant that India was going to move from a cash-based economy to a digital economy. It meant almost one billion people would be using more of online and digital systems than using cash. A recent PayTM IPO is evidence of that. 

We are going to see six key technologies that are going to converge simultaneously. These are 5G, quantum computing, IoT, AI,  blockchain, and robotics. We are now talking about a hyper-connected digital world. It is also a scary world, as there are no boundaries, no parameters for security, apps on cloud, data being accessed on the mobiles, very large bandwidth, etc. All of that poses a very significant challenge and limitation of trust on current systems. There is no digital economy without digital trust. India needs to build that, along with the world. QNu Labs has been built around quantum-safe security. Today, quantum computers are already going to be there, and you also have quantum security. 

Quantum cryptography is a major change. In quantum computing, we have had large amount of VC investment. We have also seen major breakthroughs in this space. We have seen the acceleration of quantum computing in the pandemic. D-Wave Systems offered their quantum computing to the drug discovery companies. Customers are building quantum apps for problems such as portfolio optimization, drug discovery, logistics, materials sciences, scheduling, fault detection, traffic congestion, and supply chain management. That's the kind of power that we will see in the future. 

We have seen huge acceleration in quantum computing. With that, there is huge acceleration in quantum security. We are seeing high adoption by Indian defense and intelligence agencies, and also the world. We also have corporates coming to us with questions such as: we want to use quantum, so, tell us the right use cases. We are ready to do pilots. We are implementing cyber security across 5G networks, VPN security for remote workforce, Wi-Fi security as quantum security, etc. Data is also stored and they are quantum encrypted to prevent cyber attacks. Digital and mobile wallets are also being protected from attacks. In the next two years, it will become huge with large enterprises leading the way.

Looking at quantum computer hiring, he said the core team should be 20-25 years experience. They have chosen this job. They are glued to their mission and want to get the job done. We also have a second level with entrepreneurial skills. They came and wanted to learn things. We also brought in young people, through interns, with quantum physics, targeting IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras, etc. We are the only company in this space. Two, we didn't believe in head-hunting. We also used our network to hire people. In deeptech, it is important to have worked for 3-4 years before joining. 

There is an academia and industry gap that we should try and fill. We have already tied up with 3-4 universities. We are also going to announce a partnership soon. We have projects that can be outsourced to the academia and universities.