Industry
TCS Pace
TCS Pace™: Speedier Digital Transformation & Innovation in Business
Highlights
- Quantum computers with 1,000 quantum bits, or qubits, are expected to debut by the end of 2023, steadily closing the gap in processing power for commercial viability.
- From multidimensional optimizations to forecasts and predictions, quantum computing will enable highly complex problem-solving capabilities at unprecedented speed and scale.
- Along with these computational leaps, today’s classical encryption algorithms are vulnerable to being broken in the quantum era, driving a need to move to enhanced cryptographic protocols.
- Applying a structured and collaborative approach, businesses can start experimenting with quantum on a smaller, practical scale now and prepare to lead their industries tomorrow.
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The power of quantum quantified
Quantum computing promises to be a seismic disruptor to all industries due to its power to solve multidimensional problems in a fraction of the time possible today.
Solving the biggest, most complex business problems is about to get a whole lot easier and faster. Problems with multiple variables to be solved, requiring numerous calculations that could take anywhere from hours to years to perform in a classical computing scenario, will be done in a matter of minutes. While classical computers are still more practical and best suited to serving everyday data processing needs, quantum computers will excel in processing highly complex scenarios with the utmost efficiency.
The industry anticipates the arrival of 1,000-plus qubits of processing power—a major milestone in the evolution of quantum—by the end of 2023, demonstrating significant progress in the journey toward practical use of quantum computers for solving specific types of multidimensional problems. By 2029, the industry expects to reach 1 million qubits, far surpassing other milestones this decade.
With quantum machines made available as a cloud service, we believe it’s an opportune time to experiment with this promising technology.
“Researching and working in quantum computing for over six years now, we see several tech players, including hyperscalers, semiconductor companies, and niche startups, placing bigger bets, as well as marquee businesses across industries increasing their investments,” says Vidyut Navelkar, Head, Quantum Computing Incubation, TCS. “With quantum machines made available as a cloud service, we believe it’s an opportune time to experiment with this promising technology.“
Figure 1: Window of opportunity to seize quantum advantage
According to TCS’ Global Cloud Study, the cloud is the core pillar for supporting data-intensive computing technologies like quantum. A catalyst for innovation and the foundation that brings together ecosystem players to enable a connected future, the cloud is integral to a long-game strategy for driving enterprise growth and transformation and optimizing investment returns1. Combining quantum with other data-intensive computing technologies in the cloud, like artificial intelligence (AI) which includes machine learning and generative AI, will further amplify the potential computing benefits of power, speed, and accuracy.
“Given how quickly the roadmap for quantum computing is progressing, we anticipate it will likely become possible to solve some practical business use cases sometime between 2025 and 2030. That leaves a limited window of a few years to seize competitive advantage, train your workforce to think differently, and model problems on quantum machines,” says Godfrey Mathais, Technical Consultant, Quantum Computing Incubation, TCS.
Quantum ready and resilient
As quantum computing advances steadily toward the inflection point when it will demonstrate a clear advantage for commercial use, it’s time to get focused.
Businesses should focus on how to exploit opportunities to drive transformative value with the processing capabilities enabled by quantum computing. On the flip side, encryptions that are considered hard to break today may be broken in a matter of minutes once sufficiently powerful quantum computers become available. All the current encryptions in use would therefore need to be migrated to quantum-resistant forms as the technology becomes mainstream.
Being ready to seize the moment when that quantum opportunity arrives and getting the necessary protections in place to help ensure business resilience will require adequate time and preparation—that begins now.
An overall structured and collaborative approach to quantum value discovery and specific steps businesses can take are covered below.
Figure 2: Four key areas of focus
Broadly, the four key areas on which quantum computing is expected to have the greatest impact and where businesses should focus their efforts accordingly are:
Accelerating AI, machine learning, and deep learning
Solving computationally complex business optimization problems faster at scale
Running simulations with possible exponential speedups
Keeping information safe through quantum cryptography
Tap a burgeoning ecosystem
As governments shift more focus to quantum computing and launch initiatives with incentives, the market is taking off and prospering through collaboration.
With the software ecosystem coming together around quantum technology, more startups are entering the space, building quantum machines, and developing related technologies. Based on activity at the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office, the number of quantum technology patents granted annually has increased nearly tenfold over a 20-year period, according to IIC – International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law.2
Moreover, a forecast published recently by International Data Corporation (IDC) anticipates, “customer spend for quantum computing to grow from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2027. This represents a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1%.” IDC further estimates that “investments in the quantum computing market will grow at a CAGR of 11.5% over the 2023-2027 forecast period, reaching nearly $16.4 billion by the end of 2027.”3
By working with partners and sharing knowledge across a collaborative ecosystem, businesses can navigate through the technology faster and explore potential opportunities while reducing individual costs and risks.
To progress the use of the technology, “Leaders are taking a regional alliance or industry consortium approach in exploring quantum computing,” says Sridhar CV, Head, Alliances, Incubation, Research and Innovation, TCS. “By working with partners and sharing knowledge across a collaborative ecosystem, businesses can navigate through the technology faster and explore potential opportunities while reducing individual costs and risks.”
Evolving toward mainstream
The advanced computing realm looks exciting for today's data-driven businesses as quantum computing gains momentum and takes shape with innovative use cases.
Current quantum computers are severely constrained by their limited number of qubits, and their sensitivity to temperature and other “noise” leading to decoherence. Different technologies and approaches are being tried, with tremendous progress made on multiple fronts.
Research-heavy industries are prime candidates for quantum computing. Looking across the many opportunities in automotive manufacturing, for instance, quantum computing can be used to help optimize everything from vehicle design and test configuration scenarios, structural analysis, hydrodynamics, or aerodynamics to forecasting, product placement, or traffic routing. Some of the more innovative areas may include autonomous driving and how a vehicle should react in various scenarios. It could also reference battery material and fuel cell simulations for electric vehicles.
Other applications may include predictive analytics and portfolio optimization for banking, financial services, and insurance; clean power sources and smart grids for energy, resources, and utilities; better patient access and medical imaging for healthcare; pharmaceutical drug discovery and molecular analysis for life sciences; and new materials discovery, such as nanomaterials, for use across industries. To help industry leaders visualize the many possibilities and evolve their business models, TCS is creating a set of use case demonstrators.
Figure 3: Examples of use cases being created for demonstration
A case in point
To further illustrate the potential of quantum computing, portfolio optimization for wealth management is a major area in the banking and financial services industry that stands to realize substantial benefits.
Asset managers rely on computationally complex, time-consuming models, like a Monte Carlo simulation, for processing numerous variables and large sets of market data which may be historical and tenuous in nature. Processing available market data against a set of variables fed into a quantum algorithm can deliver a much faster and more accurate decision. Such improvements are made possible due to the quantum phenomenon of “superposition and entanglement.”4
Superpositioning, in which a qubit can exist in multiple states, effectively enables the modeling of multiple optimization scenarios for exploration all at once. Speedups are achieved through the entanglement of qubits. When two qubits are entangled, any change made to the state of one of the entangled qubits has a ripple effect on the state of the other. This strong non-classical correlation can also extend to multiple qubits. The implications are huge in quantum computing—every quantum algorithm which demonstrates an "exponential speedup" compared to classical algorithms must exploit entanglement.
Value discovery in four steps
Businesses can keep their discovery costs low while gaining hands-on quantum experience with a structured and collaborative approach today.
A variety of factors must be considered when embarking on the quantum value discovery journey—from pinpointing the most worthwhile opportunities and addressing security concerns to gaining practical access to quantum machines, minimizing experimentation costs, and estimating resources based on computing needs versus available capacity. Moreover, an entirely different approach and set of technical skills are required to model business problems on quantum computers.
That said, businesses can start with small-scale experiments that solve problems on both classical and quantum machines for comparison while continuously benchmarking the results. By implementing a structured approach based on low-cost and low-risk models developed through TCS’ research and innovation unit, they can advance their journey through four key steps:
- Evangelizing the potential for using the technology across their organizations through awareness training and skill building.
- Analyzing options for gaining cost-effective access to quantum machines and experimenting with the technology.
- Co-innovating with business and technology partners on opportunities wherever possible for economies of scale.
- Showcasing and scaling opportunities from proof of technology and concept through solution development.
While we don’t expect quantum computing to totally replace classical computers, quantum will extend classical capabilities with both forms coexisting in a hybrid technology architecture. Early adopters can gain an advantage and lead their industries tomorrow by getting up-to-speed today.
1 TCS Global Cloud Study 2023; Connected future: How cloud drives business innovation; Aug 18, 2023; https://www.tcs.com/insights/global-studies/tcs-global-cloud-study; Accessed Sep 20, 2023
2 Aboy, M., Minssen, T., and Kop, M.; Mapping the Patent Landscape of Quantum Technologies: Patenting Trends, Innovation and Policy Implications; Jul 6, 2022; International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC); volume 53, 853–882; https://doi.org/10.1007/s40319-022-01209-3; Accessed Sep 19, 2023
3 International Data Corporation (IDC); Press Release: IDC Forecasts Worldwide Quantum Computing Market to Grow to $7.6 Billion in 2027; Aug 17, 2023; https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51160823; Accessed Oct 20, 2023
4 TCS; Banking podcast: Quantum computing and its potential in banking and finance; Oct 10, 2022; https://www.tcs.com/what-we-do/industries/banking/podcast/quantum-computing-potential-in-banking-and-finance; Accessed Sep 19, 2023
