The Good of 2020, Quantumly Speaking, and on to 2021

Interesting perspectives from author John Russell.  Recommend reading from the source, below.  Because Quantum is Coming.  Qubit

Farewell 2020: Bleak, Yes. But a Lot of Good Happened Too

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+  It’s tempting to omit quantum computing this year. Too much happened to summarize easily and the overall feel is of steady carry-on progress from 2019. There was, perhaps, a stronger pivot – at least by press release count – towards seeking early applications for near-term noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) computers. Ion trap qubit technology got another important player in Honeywell which formally rolled out its effort and first system. Intel also stepped out from the shadows a bit in terms of showcasing its efforts. D-Wave launched a giant 5000-qubit machine (Advantage), again using a quantum annealing approach that’s different from universal gate-based quantum system. IBM announced a stretch goal of achieving one million qubits!

Calling quantum computing a market is probably premature but monies are being spent. The Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) and Hyperion Research issued a forecast (see slide) that projects the global quantum computing (QC) market – worth an estimated $320 million in 2020 – to grow 27% CAGR between 2020 and 2024. That would reach approximately $830 million by 2024. Chump change? Perhaps but real activity.

 

+  Calling quantum computing a market is probably premature but monies are being spent. The Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) and Hyperion Research issued a forecast (see slide) that projects the global quantum computing (QC) market – worth an estimated $320 million in 2020 – to grow 27% CAGR between 2020 and 2024. That would reach approximately $830 million by 2024. Chump change? Perhaps but real activity.

+  Next year seems likely to bring more benchmarking activity around system quality, qubit technology, and performance on specific problem sets. Several qubit technologies still vie for sway – superconducting, trapped ion, optical, quantum dots, cold atoms, et al. The need to operate at near-zero (K) temps complicates everything. Google claimed achieving Quantum Supremacy last year. This year a group of China researchers also did so. The groups used different qubit technologies (superconducting v. optical) and China’s effort tried to skirt criticisms that were lobbed at Google’s effort. Frankly, both efforts were impressive. Russia reported early last year it would invest $790 million in quantum with achieving quantum supremacy as one goal.

Source:  HPCwire.  John Russell,  Farewell 2020: Bleak, Yes. But a Lot of Good Happened Too…

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