Quantum as a Service (QaaS). Today is showing an automobile industry flavor of quantum computing. With the nascent quantum systems in development, size, complexity, and cost are keeping many entrepreneurs and established companies from taking the dip. Those that are getting involved are, in part, creating an industry we are all familiar with: [Something] as a Service. Quantum computing is not an exception. Because quantum is coming. Qubit.
Excerpts and salient points:
Quantum Software as a Service
With qSaaS, the user will gain instant access to off-the-shelf, ready-to-use mobile and web-based applications for specific services. The quantum software and user data are provided online – “on the cloud” – and hosted on a server. The most favorable pricing option for qSaaS might be a tiered subscription with payment plans that are based on the number of available services. As an example, three payment plans might be established with a platinum tier as the full-blown version with advanced control features and capabilities, comprising of hotspot demand prediction as well as vehicle, route and speed limit assignment. The two lower plans, namely a silver and base tier, might include a limited set of services and features. In addition, pay-per-update or -upgrade options can be offered. Of course, updates and upgrades will be complimentary for the platinum tier alongside with a 24/7 customer support.
Quantum Platform as a Service
The qPaaS offering will provide a cloud-based platform with scalable, highly available applications, or middleware (APIs), that are built into the platform with special software components. This platform would include an operating system, a programming language execution environment, a database, web servers, etc. Developers can customize the pre-coded quantum algorithms and quantum computing models and test, manage, and deploy them on the platform over the cloud. The qPaaS offering might be priced based upon data consumption either in the form of a tiered subscription with pre-defined tiers for compute instances, data storage, and outbound network traffic or simply as a pay-per-use option.
Quantum-assisted Traffic Flow Optimization
Of course, the entire business model for quantum-assisted traffic flow optimization is only an imaginary one and, hence, full of assumptions such as the revenue streams for qSaaS and qPaaS, which are only options (of many) at this point. All the assumptions around the value propositions and pricing must be validated. This can only be accomplished through an iterative process in close collaboration with the prospective customers to test assumptions and hypotheses for the identification of the customers’ willingness to pay for the quantum-enhanced, cloud-based service offerings
Source: BUSINESSMODELSINC. Tobias Strobl, Solving real-world problems with quantum computing…
