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The emerging commercial landscape of quantum computing

Nature Reviews Physics volume 2, pages 596–598 (2020)Cite this article

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Quantum computing technologies are advancing, and the class of addressable problems is expanding. Together with the emergence of new ventures and government-sponsored partnerships, these trends will help to lower the barrier for adoption of new technology and provide stability in an uncertain market. Until then, quantum computing presents an exciting testbed for different strategies in an emerging market.

Despite scientific advances and a wave of investment, the emerging quantum computing (QC) commercial market still faces a high level of both technological and market uncertainty. The opportunity present in this technological uncertainty has led to a rapid growth in the number of active QC ventures, and as research intensity increases to address outstanding technical challenges, various business strategies have also emerged to tackle the market uncertainty. We examine the recent growth in the commercial QC market through the lens of dominant product design1, and we contrast emerging strategies for developing the QC market.

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Fig. 1: Trends in commercial quantum computing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Evan R. MacQuarrie & Stephanie Simmons

  2. Photonic Inc., Vancouver, Canada

    Evan R. MacQuarrie & Stephanie Simmons

  3. Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Evan R. MacQuarrie & Elicia Maine

  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Christoph Simon

  5. Institute for Quantum Science and Technology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Christoph Simon

Authors
  1. Evan R. MacQuarrie
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  2. Christoph Simon
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  3. Stephanie Simmons
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  4. Elicia Maine
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Evan R. MacQuarrie.

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Competing interests

S.S. and E.R.M. are employees of the quantum computing start-up company Photonic Inc.

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Related links

Amazon announces partnership with Caltech: https://eas.caltech.edu/engenious/16/chair_message

Archer signs agreement with IBM: https://archerx.com.au//src/uploads/2020/05/20200505_Quantum-computing-agreement-with-IBM-ASX-Release.pdf

Becoming a quantum developer with Microsoft Quantum: https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/quantum/2020/05/19/azure-quantum-preview-new-developer-training-learning-tools/

Enabling Quantum Computing Platform Access for National Science Foundation Researchers with Amazon Web Services, IBM, and Microsoft Quantum: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2020/nsf20073/nsf20073.jsp

PsiQuantum joins Microsoft’s M12: https://medium.com/m12vc/welcoming-psiquantum-to-the-m12-portfolio-56926b455a8f

US investment in future technologies: https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/trump-administration-investing-1-billion-research-institutes-advance-industries-future/

Where Will Quantum Computers Create Value — and When? https://www.bcg.com/en-ca/publications/2019/quantum-computers-create-value-when.aspx

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MacQuarrie, E.R., Simon, C., Simmons, S. et al. The emerging commercial landscape of quantum computing. Nat Rev Phys 2, 596–598 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-020-00247-5

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