Introduction to QSI’s Post-Quantum Cryptography Series
Governments around the world are beginning to prepare themselves for the quantum threat. Even though quantum computers may not be prevalent in any commercial sense in years, national security requires for sensitive data and documents to be quantum proof well in advance. No one wants their opponents to get access to five-year-old, or even ten-year-old, sensitive material.
But how, exactly, are nations approaching post-quantum cryptography (PQC)?
Petra Söderling, Head of Government and Consortium Relations at the Quantum Strategy Institute (QSI).
Söderling is a Finnish American award-winning innovation leader who thinks that governments have an unrecognized role in creating new innovations, new industries even.
Söderling is currently an advisor with the World Bank on development and application of deep technologies. She is the author of Government and Innovation, a 2023 book that that looks at how local, regional, and national governments can use existing instruments to steer their economies to include more innovative industries that provide a higher economic value-add.
Danika Hannon
Danika Hannon, Deputy Head and International Quantum Strategy Day Chair of QSI.
In her role with QSI, Hannon writes thought leadership on quantum computing and business development, plus she leads International Quantum Strategy Day, which features a global strategy competition.
Hannon was in the top 10 Top Quantum Voices in the 2024 international thought leadership ranking from Barcelona bqb. In addition, Hannon’s earning a Cybersecurity Master’s degree and will be graduating from the University of North Dakota in December 2024.
Reactions to the idea of quantum computing breaking encryption range from uncertainty (at best) to fear (at worst). Given how harmful that is to businesses, QSI’s Report on Cryptography breaks down the quantum computing threat from a US standpoint and explores these critical questions:
What types of encryption are at risk?
Where will the attacks come from and what will the targets be?
What are the timelines for this threat arriving?
How can my business prepare for this?
A data-driven approach is used to explore each of those areas.
Because if you’re going to face the changing landscape with confidence, then you’ll need fact-based guidance.
Report Authored by Danika Hannon
Danika Hannon is the Deputy Head and International Quantum Strategy Day Chair of QSI.
In her role with QSI, Hannon writes thought leadership on quantum computing and business development, plus she leads International Quantum Strategy Day, which features a global strategy competition. In addition to her work with QSI, Hannon’s earning a Cybersecurity Master’s degree and will be graduating from the University of North Dakota in December 2024.
Hannon also focuses on giving back to the tech community as both a speaker and a mentor. In 2024, she’ll be speaking at the Quantum Innovation Summit and South by Southwest. She’s recently been nominated for a Femtum Leap Award in Quantum Leadership and in 2022, she was nominated for VentureBeat’s Women in AI Awards in the Mentorship category. Added to that, she’s served as a mentor with Women in Quantum and Girls in Quantum.
Afterword by Chuck Brooks
Chuck Brooks has been named the “Top Tech Person to Follow” by LinkedIn, Voted “Cybersecurity Person of the Year”, Cited Top 10 Global Tech & Cyber Expert & Influencer, Georgetown University Professor, Two Time Presidential Appointee, FORBES writer, 113k LinkedIn Followers.
Brooks is the President of Brooks Consulting International and a Consultant with over 25 years of experience in cybersecurity, emerging technologies, marketing, business development, and government relations. He helps Fortune 1000 clients, organizations, small businesses, and start-ups achieve their strategic goals and grow their market share.
Brooks also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches graduate courses on risk management, homeland security, and cybersecurity, and designed a certificate course on Blockchain technologies.
The Quantum Strategy Institute (QSI) is an international network of cross-domain experts with a rich and varied expertise. Tasked to accelerate the market adoption of quantum technologies, QSI looks at both enablers and hurdles businesses face in making these complex, forward looking decisions. We drive the exploration and further the understanding of the practical applications of quantum computing across industries and to help bridge the white space between potential and practicality.
For an industry that is on the verge of commercial expansion, this includes forming new industry consortiums, adding new working groups to existing consortiums, and forming interactive industry relationships with the policy making governments.
In this series of papers under QSI’s Government and Consortium Relations pillar, we’ll explore the global landscape of these initiatives. This paper, third in the series, introduces Q-STAR, Quantum Strategic Industry Alliance for Revolution. Q-STAR gathers Japanese companies and academic organizations under one roof to steer Japanese quantum research, development, and commercialization of quantum technologies into the future.
History
The alliance for officially formed in September 2021 as a voluntary organization by members of the Japanese high-tech industry. The founding meeting included a Japanese all-star team of Canon, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, Mizuho Financial Group, NEC, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Sumitomo Corporation, Toshiba, and Toyota Motor Corporation.
Japan has a long, successful history in creating and launching technological inventions. Many of the founding companies of Q-STAR have developed high tech products and services for decades. It was time to ensure this Japanese tradition also carries forward in the quantum era. The anticipation and expectation for quantum-led, or quantum adjacent technologies also brings upon as the realization that we all need to work together to create a safe and secure living environment for countries around the world. Japan’s innovation thread is tightly woven into this international fabric, so the Japanese industry is a natural party to take leadership in developments in and around quantum.
The goal for the alliance from the get-go was to leverage Japan’s technological superiority in materials, devices, measurement technology, computers, communications, simulations, and so on, and to create new industries through the provision of services that take advantage of these enablers. With the help of the alliance, Japan aims to become a firmly established “quantum technology innovation nation” on a global scale.
By demonstrating global leadership and promoting activities that contribute to the development of science and technology, Q-STAR will contribute to the realization of this “quantum technology innovation nation,” while promoting Japanese industry and strengthening its international competitiveness.
Since its founding meeting in September 2021, Q-STAR held monthly executive committee meetings quickly ramping up the organization and operations. By February 2022, the Alliance already had over 50 members, and on the World Quantum Day in April 2022, Q-STAR joined a global announcement with its peer organizations Quantum Industry Canada (QIC), Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), and European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC). Q-STAR’s establishment was already internationally recognized, although it only became a general incorporated association in May 2022 with full scale activities.
As said Mr. Taro Shimada, Representative Director, Association for Creation of New Industries by Quantum Technology (President and CEO, Toshiba Corporation):
“We aim to build a society that can use quantum technology without being conscious of it. In addition, we will accelerate the transition to quantum technology through industry-government-academia integration. Furthermore, in line with economic globalization, we will promote the globalization of quantum technology in order to accelerate the progress and practical application of quantum technology through international cooperation. Q-STAR aims to be a council that can contribute to the development of society by actively promoting cooperation with quantum-related organizations not only in Japan but also overseas, for the development of quantum technology and future social implementation.”
Since the official incorporation, the alliance has held three board meetings, spoken in a number of conferences, webinars, given academic lectures, and participated in international activities.
Organizational Structure
As a voluntary industry association, Q-STAR operates with the principle of rotating responsibility.
The organizational structure includes a Chairman, Vice Chairman, Board of Directors, and Executive Officers. The Chairman is at the top of the structure and oversees the alliance’s operations and strategic direction. The Vice Chairman supports the Chairman and may assume their responsibilities when necessary. The Board of Directors is responsible for making key decisions and setting policies. Executive Officers manage specific functional areas and implement the alliance’s strategies.
Industry Focus
Objectives
The strategy of Q-STAR is organized around a number of activities that support Japan’s overarching goal to become a quantum technology innovation nation. The alliance is to investigate and research general trends in quantum technology, including devices and materials, and share information among top management within industry so they stay informed and can take appropriate action. Similarly, the alliance conducts research and proposes where quantum technology can be applied to other industries in multiple fields.
Q-STAR is also the Japanese industry’s top resource when it comes to studying and understanding the needs to develop human resources in the country in order to make the most of its quantum technology advancements. Equally, this group will study and suggest systems and principles for intellectual property and standardization, ethics and trust required for the implementation of quantum technology.
The alliance is also tasked to cooperate with other organizations, both domestic and overseas, working in quantum-related areas, in order to promote Q-STAR’s objectives, raise public awareness, and make policy recommendations.
Subcommittees and Working Groups
The work that supports Q-STAR’s objectives is divided into subcommittees and working groups. All technical work resides in one of the five subcommittees, and non-technical work is within one of the eight working groups.
Each subcommittee is led by industry experts from that field.
Subcommittee on Quantum Wave and Quantum Probability Theory Applications
Tasked with exploring the creation of new industries using quantum amplitude estimation and optimization. The objective is to create industries with the potential to become mainstays in various areas while also spanning multiple industries, including the financial sector, which has a close affinity with these technologies.
Subcommittee on Quantum Superposition Applications
Tasked with taking a broad view of the systems, services, and businesses created by the application of quantum superposition, the most important capability of quantum computers. It will also examine changes in existing industries and industry structures that will result. By collaborating with users and vendors to draw a new image of society, the aim is to create new industries that will become future pillars and mainstays of industry, and that span multiple industries.
Subcommittee on Optimization and Combinatorial Problems
Tasked with using quantum-inspired computing technology (Ising Machine) that almost instantaneously selects the optimum solution from among an enormous number of combinations to solve diverse problems facing industry in areas including real-time prediction, efficiency, and optimization.
4. Subcommittee on Quantum Cryptography and Quantum Communications
Tasked with examining business use of quantum cryptography communication, a technology already available, and aim to open up a future pioneered by communications that guarantee information-theoretically security.
5. Quantum City Promotion Committee
This committee deepens use cases related to social infrastructure development that can be used to try the social implementation of quantum technology from various angles, create new industries through demonstration experiments, and aim for social implementation in Japan and overseas.
The supporting working groups are:
Policy Recommendation Working Group
Standardization Coordination and Proposal Working Group
Testbed Collaboration Working Group
R&D Collaboration Working Group
Overseas Industry Collaboration Working Group
Long-Term Roadmap Formulation Working Group
Legal and Compliance Working Group
Human Resource Development Working Group
International Collaboration
As the working language of Q-STAR is Japanese, there is a dedicated working group to ensure all members of the alliance will have a chance to network with their international colleagues. This is the Overseas Industry Collaboration Working Group.
Selling quantum computing proofs of concept is hard under good economic conditions. As the US (which is currently the largest market for quantum computing1) stares down a potential recession in quarter three or four of this year, the job of business development (BD) professionals in our industry is going to get harder.
But all things will pass with time. And while there are short-term headwinds facing the US market, long-term opportunities are already emerging.
We’ll explore both of those areas, starting with what’s near-term.
Short-Term Headwind One: Layoffs
The US tech sector has been hard-hit by layoffs in recent months. As of late June, 794 tech companies, including major employers like Google and Amazon, went through layoffs2.
The quantum computing industry can’t afford to ignore the impacts this will likely have on our industry. Because according to the New York Times, teams that are working on bleeding edge, non-revenue generating projects are the ones who are getting laid off first.
“The shifting economy and executive transitions away from founders have ushered in a new era, and employees wonder: Is their leader marching them to make their mark on the future, or right off a cliff?” – The Perils of Working on a C.E.O.’s Pet Project, New York Times3.
Image Credit: The New York Times
Getting laid off is a painful life event that’s linked to negative health outcomes4. In all likelihood, these lay-offs will have a chilling effect on the risk appetites of both the people who lead innovation efforts and those around them.
If you’re not sure if the company you’re targeting has been impacted by layoffs, check the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Tracker database5 to see if the company has reported that they’re going to layoff employees within the next two months or if they’ve already laid off employees. (Enacted in 1988, the WARN Act is a US, federal law6 mandating that businesses with more than 100 employees must notify the government 60 days before they’re going to have mass layoffs.)
Short-Term Headwind Two: Increased Interest in AI, which is Taking Resources Away from Quantum Computing
In a LinkedIn post from May7, Sergio Gago (Managing Director of AI/ML and Quantum at Moody’s Analytics) was one of the first people to call out how AI is getting increased attention compared to quantum computing.
In expanding on his LinkedIn post, Gago said:
“From our position in the financial industry we see how many corporates are switching their efforts to this new shiny toy, Generative AI. This is not a surprise since the vast majority of companies did not have relevant budgets for Quantum to start with as we found in our recent report, or they have not seen bottlenecks in their processes. Generative AI provides tangible results today so we see how innovation teams are pivoting towards that.
At the same time, the question arises whether Quantum can do anything with Generative AI. We believe the answer is NO. These two technologies are in two completely separate horizons, and while it is possible that in the far future they could complement each other, today they belong to different fields.”
Note: Gagos’ quote referred to the Moody’s Analytics report on “Quantum Computing in Financial Services: A Business Leader’s Guide,” which you can download here8.
In digging into the data, Gago’s right.
For instance, take a look at findings from Google Trends9 and IOT Analytics10:
Here’s data from Google9 comparing interest in quantum computing vs. AI between April and June of this year.
Image Credit: Google Trends
Among the US population, interest in AI surged in April and, even though it’s cycled up and down since then, the interest in AI is far higher than quantum computing. From a business leader standpoint, right now it makes more sense to invest in less risky projects, which gives AI an edge over quantum computing.
And in looking at data from a C-Suite perspective, IOT Analytics found a similar theme. After analyzing roughly 5,800 earnings calls and 3,000 public companies in Q4 2022 and Q1 2023, IOT Analytics found that quantum computing isn’t being talked about by CEOs10.
Image Credit: IOT Analytics Research
Short-Term Headwind Three: The Likelihood of a Recession in 2023
The Federal Reserve sets economic policy for the US and they’re intentional about what they say and how they say it, because the language Fed officials use has an immediate impact on markets. And they’re aware of their impact – in fact, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas wrote a report about how communications from the Federal Open Markets Committee are analyzed with natural language processing11.
With that in mind, ING looked at guidance from the Federal Reserve and their prediction is that, “recessionary forces are building rapidly, which will lead to rising unemployment and inflation falling quickly through late 2023 into 2024.”12
The short-term outlook is bumpy, yet at the same time, layoffs and increasing interest in AI could create opportunities for quantum in the long-run.
Long-Term Opportunity One: Talent is Getting Redistributed
In an article from April, the Wall Street Journal reported that laid-off workers from large companies are changing their priorities; instead of looking for jobs with prestigious, brand-name businesses, those workers are now finding jobs with small to medium-sized companies because they offer more stability14.
The redistribution of highly skilled workers in new areas will mean that, as demand for quantum computing eventually grows, there’ll be more companies who have the in-house talent needed to tackle a quantum computing proof of concept.
Image Credit: The Wall Street Journal
Long-Term Opportunity Two: AI Will Open Doors for Quantum
In the World Economic Forum’s most recent Future of Jobs Report, one of their top five key findings was: “Within technology adoption, big data, cloud computing and AI feature highly on the likelihood of adoption.”15
Powered by AI chips, quantum-inspired algorithms are gaining consumer interest because of how they deliver increased performance without needing to be run on a quantum computer.
In a recent article for Reuters, industry leaders from SandBoxAQ and QCWare commented on how they’re using quantum-inspired algorithms to tackle chemistry problems on classical computers. In doing this, they’re bridging the gap between the promise of scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computers and the performance that’s available today18.
Moving Through the Changing BD Landscape
Closing a deal in the quantum computing industry has never been easy. In the coming months, it’s likely going to get harder and finding deals to close will be like finding diamonds in the rough: it can be done, but an even more thoughtful approach will be needed to close sales opportunities.
As a parting thought, how can the health of the industry be measured?
From a BD standpoint, the best way to gauge how companies are responding is to look at their financials.
Take financial reporting from Quantinuum19, Rigetti20, 21, and IonQ22, 23, for instance. All three companies have publicly available financial information, as shown in the graph below where all the figures are in the millions.
Between 2021 and 2022, all three companies had steady or increasing revenues. With that baseline data in mind, the most successful companies will refine their go-forward strategies to optimize resources, while finding short-term, revenue opportunities to weather impending storms. When quarterly reports for Q3 and Q4 2023 and annual reports for 2023 come out, quantitative and qualitative analysis can be done to see how each company has navigated the uncertainty of 2023 and how they’re positioning themselves to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the years to come.
Have you ever attended a quantum computing conference and noticed that the vendor pitches sound … similar?
Broadly speaking, quantum computing companies with software offerings have the same business model of creating a solution to a challenging R&D problem that’s focused on quantum machine learning, optimization, or quantum chemistry.
Overall, this works well.
But put yourself in a consumer’s shoes and imagine that you’re at a quantum computing conference talking to vendors for the first time. If each vendor walked you through the same business model, it wouldn’t take long for them to start blurring together.
I speak from experience here. At one of my first quantum computing conferences, I made a point to talk with as many quantum computing vendors as I could and (even though I worked for a quantum computing company at the time) I had the gut-sinking realization that we all sounded the same.
As a vendor, you have two chances to stand out from the crowd when you’re talking to a new prospect. You can either already have a great product-market fit that’s uniquely suited for your prospect, or you can listen to your prospect’s ideas and turn them into products.
One Company, in Particular, is Excelling in this Area: D-Wave
Granted, their Launch Program business model follows the same key steps that many other software vendors do.
But since their launch in 1999, they’ve made 250+ early quantum applications for their clients. Essentially, each use case is a separate product that they offer.
When asked about what sets D-Wave’s products apart, they shared that:
“We bring a relentless customer focus to everything we do,” said Murray Thom, vice president of quantum business innovation at D-Wave. “Our motivation stems from the opportunity to harness powerful quantum computing technology to help customers find solutions to problems they’ve been unable to address. We’re not creating quantum products simply for the sake of innovation. We’re building quantum solutions that have real enterprise applicability and impact today. Together with our customers, we’ve produced quantum-hybrid applications that address a multitude of optimization challenges that cut across industries, including cost reduction, revenue growth, and operational effectiveness. Our quantum technology is being used to optimize supply chains, employee scheduling, e-commerce delivery, protein folding, fraud detection, and industrial manufacturing, just to name a few.”
To better understand D-Wave’s approach, look at their work with Save on Foods. It’s particularly striking because it’s clear that they deeply understood the challenges of the grocery industry, what mattered to the Save on Foods team, and how to prioritize what they cared about.
On YouTube, there’s a 15-minute video where an executive from Save on Foods, plus one of their data scientists, talked about what made this application so impactful for them. It’s an excellent guide on how to build a product from consumer insights and well-worth watching.
Building Your Own Product Expertise
To get a subject matter expert’s perspective on how to build products, I interviewed Tina Nguyễn, Senior Vice President, Director of Digital Transformation at Truist.
Her immediate advice was that innovators should follow the CIRCLES Method™ of product creation. While the online example walks through how to use this process during an interview, anyone can use this to bring a new product to market. And, as shown in the graphic below, this is an iterative process that’s entirely focused on your end customer.
Image Source: the Impact Interview website
During this seven step process, you should:
Comprehend the situation – what are the hardest problems to solve? How much does that problem cost on an annual basis? How is it affecting other areas of the business?
Identify your customer – look for one customer segment that your product would impact. Put yourself in their shoes, learn about what’s most important to them and how they view their business.
Report customer needs – after you’ve spoken to your customer segment, take your voice of the customer notes and boil them down into a single sentence user story. A template you can follow is: “As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>.
Cut, through prioritization – tease out what’s a “must have” vs. a “nice to have” for your customer.
List solutions – as tempting as it may be to build a product based on your first idea, get creative and list at least two to three ideas.
Evaluate tradeoffs – consider what your product needs to address and what matters to your end user. For instance, it’d take more resources to develop, but would your client be willing to pay more if your product had a seamless user interface?
Summarize recommendations – analyze what you’ve learned, then get ready to go through the process again. As you continue learning about your end customer and the industry you’re serving, keep using the CIRCLES MethodTM to guide your roadmap.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid on Your Journey
Tina shared three, common mistakes that are made with the CIRCLES MethodTM.
People have a tendency to be too focused on what they’re good at because they spent so much time building those skills. By committing to one path, they restrict themselves from innovation.
Inventors who don’t empathize with their end users. A sign of this is when something amazing is built, but it doesn’t have much market adoption.
Not speaking the same language as your end customer. If you can’t put things into layman’s terms, in a way that your customer will understand, that shows you don’t understand the business impact.
Here’s a Challenge for You
Have you ever heard the joke about how to get to Carnegie music hall?
The joke is, “a fellow goes to New York to attend a concert, but gets lost. He spots a musician who’s carrying a violin case and asks, ‘Sir, can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?’ The musician smiles and says, ‘Practice, man, practice.'”
Just like you’d need to practice to become an expert musician, it’ll take practice to become an expert product builder.
To get started, try this: re-watch D-Wave’s Save On Foods case study and identify which parts of the video fit in the CIRCLE MethodTM framework. (Hint: timestamps 0:00-3:07 in the video will give you the information you’ll need for step one.)
While you won’t be an expert from doing that alone, it’ll be a step in the right direction. And even though it may take a while, remember that this process will make it easier for you to stand out from your competition and be relevant to your prospective clients, which will grab their attention and make you memorable.
It doesn’t end there, though. Once you’ve started to figure out your product, you’ll need to decide how you’ll price, place, and promote it.
Over the coming months, I’ll put out more thought leadership on those topics because everyone at the Quantum Strategy Institute wants to see the consumer adoption of quantum computing grow. And a key driver of that growth will be quantum computing vendors who can meet their customers’ needs.
1. Tell us about the first time you heard about quantum? The first time I heard about Quantum was in 1995, when I read a book by American Physicist and Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Man called the Quark and the Jaguar. It completely disrupted my paradigm of what reality is and anchored in a curiosity and passion for “quantum” that burns bright to this very day. (Please see this online review of the Quark and the Jaguar from Physics Today in 1994.)
2. What made you interested in this space? My desire to understand how everything in the universe operates at the most minute level, which informs the fabric of reality, inspired this interest.
3. What are you excited to see happening with quantum? Biology was my best subject in high school and it prompted me to study Pre-Med for a year before I became obsessed with Linguistics, so I would have to say advances in quantum biology and discoveries in the domain of quantum consciousness. I am excited to see how quantum computing, quantum sensors, and nanotechnology can cast a brighter light on the nature of consciousness and its connections to neurobiology.
4. What do you think everyone should know about this industry? Besides programming eye tracking experiments as an undergrad and graduating cum Laude in Psycholinguistics, much of my life was spent in the Arts before I moved into mentoring on High Performance and Innovation, so I strongly think anyone who is curious should explore quantum full out because quantum is for EVERYONE!
In addition, I feel with my background in Humanities (as opposed to traditional STEM education) that it is my role as a quantum adoption strategist to lower the barrier to learning about Quantum computing and quantum technologies by directing the curious to the experts I most admire and closely follow.
Post-quantum cryptography’s concept is to make use of encryption algorithms that are proven to be too complex to break for both classical and quantum computers.
Roadmaps offer an invaluable structure to the evolution of technology and technology deployment. Incorporating a complex technology such as quantum requires even greater diligence through roadmaps. In this article, we cover five types of roadmap: security, simulation, communication, standards and sensing.
Security Roadmap
With the maturity of quantum technology, and the approach of Y2Q, where can CxO’s look for information to build out their own #quantum security roadmaps? Below are some of the key players with updated links:
*CEOs should increase their engagement with post-quantum standards developing organizations.
* Organizations should inventory the most sensitive and critical datasets that must be secured for an extended amount of time.
* Organizations should conduct an inventory of all the systems using cryptographic technologies for any function to facilitate a smooth transition in the future.
* Cybersecurity officials within organizations should identify acquisition, cybersecurity, and data security standards that will require updating to reflect post-quantum requirements.
*Organizations should identify where and for what purpose public key cryptography is being used and mark those systems as quantum vulnerable.
*Prioritize one system over another for cryptographic transition based on the organization’s functions, goals, and needs.
* Using the inventory and prioritization information, organizations should develop a plan for systems transitions upon publication of the new post-quantum cryptographic standard.
Simulation Roadmaps
A 2022 quantum simulation roadmap paper in Nature led by researchers from University of Strathclyde, “explores near- and medium-term possibilities for quantum simulation on analog and digital platforms to help evaluate the potential of this area.”
Quantum simulation occurs where problems not tractable for classical computers, model the quantum properties of microscopic particles.
Quantum simulation promises to be an important part of organizational research efforts and roadmaps going forward.
Communications Roadmaps
The field of applied quantum physics closely related to quantum information processing and quantum teleportation, quantum communication is most often associated with protecting information channels against eavesdropping via quantum cryptography.
Establishing roadmaps is one activity participants in this field are aggressively addressing. In 2018, QuTech researchers introduced a roadmap for quantum internet development in six phases. The first phase included “simple networks of qubits that could already enable secure quantum communications” – today’s reality – ending with networks of fully quantum-connected quantum computers. Check out QuTech‘s website for the latest updates including QuTech, Eurofiber and Juniper Networks partnering to deploy a Quantum testbed in The Netherlands.
Mohsen Rasavi from the University of Leeds School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering issued a roadmap document in 2021 “to address this subject from the viewpoint of deploying quantum key distribution (QKD) systems across our communications networks.”
The roadmap to a quantum communications future is uncertain yet compelling in its possibilities.
Standards Roadmaps
Today’s quantum standards, compliance and regulatory environment is often referred to as the ‘Wild West’ of technology for its lack of documentation and enforcement. Not surprising given the maturity of the technology, and lack of convergence as of 2022. If you lead an organization – with old and new devices – you need to think about this environment for your organizational roadmap in at least the following ways:
Internal – developing internal (inside organization) standards is far from new, yet applying an immature technology set such as quantum can be daunting to those expecting certainty. By ring-fencing quantum (via pilots, siloed units, POC’s, low-risk applications), standard-bearers and compliance leaders can monitor the opportunities and implications of #quantumtechnologies. Jack Hidary and the SandboxAQ team discuss standards for organizations to consider in their July 2022 in Nature titled Transitioning Organizations to Post-Quantum Cryptography.
National – New requirements are being generated. The US government now requires each agency to address the quantum threat and protection measures for example. How soon before individual organizations take the same stance?
International – With so many #quantum modalities (photonics, superconducting, ion trap, etc) in the market today, what are the implications for #quantumhardware, software, services and their international standards? Organizations like IEEE, and European Information Technologies Certification Institute are addressing such global quantum standards evolution.
The field of quantum has a long runway ahead in terms of #standards so it remains important for organizations to monitor their internal efforts in generating quantum standards #roadmaps as national and international standards evolve.
Sensing Roadmaps
Visual imaging for vehicles, quantum clocks, gravity surveys, navigation, analyzing the human body or searching for lost treasure or oil & gas – #quantumsensing will be part of the toolkit in the future. For example, vehicles depend increasingly on being able to visualize their environment accurately. Quantum Computing, Inc. (QCI) recently competed in the BMW Group Sensor Challenge engaging their Entropy Quantum Computer. Here’s a video link for QC’s solution – I recommend watching all the way to the end. QCI’s quantum roadmap can be found here.
#Quantumsensing promises to be one of the leading uses of #quantumtechnologies given the diversity of applications and their roadmaps will be compelling guideposts we watch over time.
The 5-Part Quantum Roadmap Series is copyright (c) Aquitaine Innovation Advisors
In this series of papers under QSI’s Government and Consortium Relations pillar, we’ll explore the global landscape of these initiatives. This paper, second in the series, discusses the European QuIC, the European Quantum Industry Consortium.
In our quest to accelerate the market adoption of quantum technologies, the Quantum Strategy Institute (QSI) looks at both enablers and hurdles businesses face in making these complex, forward looking decisions.
For an industry that is on the verge of commercial expansion, this includes forming new industry consortiums, adding new working groups to existing consortiums, and forming an interactive industry relationship with the policy making governments.
In this series of papers under QSI’s Government and Consortium Relations pillar, we’ll explore the global landscape of these initiatives. This paper, first in the series, discusses the US-based Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C).
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