Quantum computing commercial progress survey early adopters of quantum computing, what is happening to the organizations
Recently, D-Wave commissioned Hyperion Research to conduct a study [1] to better understand the challenges and opportunities facing commercial early adopters of quantum computing (QC). The study analyzed the behaviors, perceptions, and experiences of today's commercial quantum computing users, asking the 300 organizations surveyed that are currently engaged in some form of quantum computing.
Vertical layout in the study. Participation in the survey was limited to organizations with an estimated total revenue of at least $15 million in 2022 and an overall IT budget of $5 million or more.
Ultimately, the results of this study present a clear path forward that provides the best possible outcomes for quantum computing vendors and end users: an emphasis on developing full-stack quantum computing capabilities that can be easily integrated into existing advanced computing user sites, applications that can clearly demonstrate significant performance improvements, and compelling reasons for key value drivers such as stimulating R&D, increasing revenue and enabling innovation.
Core Findings
The survey results show that QC early adopters have a wide range of perceptions of their ongoing QC activities, including expectations of value and organizational advantage, critical workloads, vendor selection criteria, barriers to QC adoption, and future plans related to QC.
1) The majority of organizations surveyed are engaged in QC early adoption activities, and they are involved in a range of QC-related development activities.
2) QC influencers play a critical role in organizations that are early adopters of QC, but they are not always residents of the C-suite. QC influencers, those who see themselves as a significant force in driving QC adoption in commercial end-user organizations, often cannot be identified simply by their position, especially for emerging technologies like QC that can transcend normal organizational structures.
3) Self-identified QC influencers spend approximately two to three days per week researching new and/or emerging technologies, such as quantum or other advanced computing technologies, and they weigh in on relevant organization-level decisions approximately 3-4 times per year.
4) QC early adopters have a range of value and organizational drivers. the primary value drivers for QC early adopters include increased efficiency of business processes, increased revenue, and increased research capabilities. In contrast, QC adoption was not seen as an effective way to drive down costs or reduce time to market.
5) Early adopters of QC see the promise of QC for a wide range of computing workloads. Machine learning applications and finance-oriented optimization were most frequently cited, while logistics/supply chain management and modeling/simulation were also selected by more than four in ten respondents.
6) QC early adopters are very satisfied with their most important QC development activities.
7) Barriers to QC adoption are largely unrelated to QC techniques. When asked about the biggest barriers to exploration, testing, and investment within their organizations, the most selected responses were the complexity of integrating into existing IT infrastructure, concerns about proving ROI, and facing limited QC vendor choices. Such findings imply that QC end-users may rely on full-stack QC vendors to provide and support fully functional, self-contained QC systems, limiting the QC end-user's responsibility to managing the existing classic infrastructure in the newly consolidated environment.
8) QC vendor selection criteria consider high levels of computational performance to be paramount, while specific quantum hardware capabilities are considered less important.
9) Most QC early adopters plan to continue exploring QC capabilities, but at a cautious pace. About half plan to continue to move forward, but with a modest increase in funding and internal resource investment. About one-third want to aggressively move forward with integrating quantum computing into their overall computing environment.
01A large number of commercial organizations have laid out quantum computing
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
QC end-user activities, n=300
When asked to identify the most significant quantum computing-related activities currently underway in their organizations, the majority of respondents indicated that their organizations are exploring options and monitoring technology developments (34%), followed by performing quantum use case analysis and prioritization (26%). About one in seven respondents indicated that their organization's primary QC activity is a current proof-of-concept research project or some form of use of quantum computing in one or more business processes.
The small number of fully funded research efforts (7%) compared to the level of activity for production use of quantum computing (14%) may be the result of selected QC end-user organizations pushing limited experimental or pilot production work into cloud-based QC infrastructures as a way to explore the commercial potential of the technology without the initial investment of significant internal R&D resources.
02The Role of QC End-User Influencers in the Organization
One of the goals of the study was to define and identify the essential roles of key QC influencers in their organizations, particularly in roles that may not be apparent from their current job titles or professional assignments. As part of the overall screening process, respondents were asked to self-identify as key influencers, defined as those who drive the process of new technology adoption within their organizations, including QC; only those who responded affirmatively were included in the survey.
Time spent exploring new technologies, n=300
The chart above shows the results when respondents were asked how much time they spend each week on new and/or emerging technologies, such as quantum or other advanced computing technologies. The most frequently selected response was 8 hours to less than 16 hours per week (23%), followed by 16 hours to less than 24 hours per week (22%). About 30 percent spend three or more days per week, while about one in eleven respondents indicated that such technology exploration is their full-time job.
Key influencer marker, n=300
The chart above shows how respondents chose to play an active role in suggesting, recommending or otherwise influencing the adoption of new or emerging computing technologies (including but not limited to QC) in their organization's overall computing capabilities when asked. The majority of influencers (about 40%) said they play an ongoing role, while the second largest group (30%) participates three to four times a year, about every quarter, and only about 14% said they participate once or twice a year.
When asked about their official job title, about half of the respondents said they were C-word executives: CIO or CTO. however, the other half represented a wide range of job titles, including director of innovation, quantum computing specialist and project manager. One indication that quantum computing has not yet become a widely recognized career within the QC end-use community is that only a small percentage (12 percent) of respondents have titles that explicitly state any QC responsibilities. In contrast, the titles of many of the QC influencers who participated in the survey are more common throughout the classical computing environment. Therefore, identifying these key influencers by job title alone may not be the best way to identify non-C-word influencers within QC end-user organizations.
Official job title, n=300
03Drivers and Motivations of Early Adopters of Quantum Computing
One of the main goals of this work is to better understand some of the key influences and motivations of early adopters of QC.
Key Influencing Factors and Motivations of QC Adopters
As the table shows, when asked about the biggest value drivers for QC adoption, the most selected responses were improved business process efficiency (26%), increased revenue (19%), and improved research capabilities (17%). In contrast, QC adoption was not seen as an effective way to drive cost reduction or time to market. European respondents are almost twice as interested in driving competitive advantage as U.S. respondents, while U.S. respondents see improving research capabilities as an important value driver at almost twice the rate of their EU counterparts.
Largest organizational driver, n=300
As shown in the table, when asked about the largest organizational driver responsible for building QC efforts, the most selected response was potential performance improvements to existing critical workloads (50%), followed closely by potential access to new quantum-specific applications (48%).
The importance QC end-users place on improving the performance of existing classical code may be directly related to the high priority and concern they place on being able to effectively integrate new QC computing capabilities into existing classical system software and related applications.
Only about a quarter said their organizations were traditional early adopters of new technologies, and 14% cited fear of missing out as a motivation to explore QC's potential.
Most Promising QC Application Areas, n=300
As the table shows, when asked about the most promising computational workloads that quantum computing could successfully address in their organizations, the two most selected answers were machine learning applications (49%) and finance-oriented optimization (48%). However, logistics/supply chain management and modeling/simulation were also selected by more than four in ten respondents, indicating that early adopters of QC see the promise of QC for a wide range of computational workloads. In fact, each survey option was selected by nearly 30% or more of respondents.
04End-User Perspectives
The following sections provide an overview of the various end-user perspectives on QC adoption, including perceptions of the success of the most important QC-based work they are doing, the biggest obstacles encountered, key selection criteria, and plans for the future.
Progress to date on most important QC work, n=300
As the chart shows, when asked how successful their most important QC-related activities were in meeting their calculation requirements, respondents were overwhelmingly positive, with 49% indicating very successful progress to date and 48% indicating somewhat successful progress. Only a minority of QC early adopters felt that it was too early to judge the success of their ongoing activities. These results suggest that regardless of the ultimate outcome of QC-related activities, QC early adopters set realistic expectations for QC that are closely related to the current level of QC complexity and capability.
In general, organizations located in the United States were more positive about the success of their most important QC efforts than those located in Europe.
Top Barriers to QC Adoption, n=300
As the table shows, when asked about the biggest barriers to exploration, testing and investment within their organizations, the most selected responses were the complexity of integrating into existing IT infrastructure (39%) and concerns about proving ROI (31%). Respondents expressed concern about the limited QC vendor options (28%), which may be a reaction to the nascent state of the QC space, which currently lacks the typical range of classic counterparts that can often span many price/performance configurations.
In the U.S., 31% of respondents expressed concern about the near-term outlook for the QC industry as a whole, while only 18% of European companies expressed similar concerns.
Only one in ten respondents said they currently have no requirement for new computing power.
Perhaps equally illuminating is the fact that the barriers perceived by most respondents are generally non-existent.
Overall, U.S.-based organizations are more concerned about the complexity of integrating QC into their existing IT infrastructure (46%) than their European counterparts (32%), as well as concerns about ROI. This compares to 41% in the US and 21% in Europe.
QC Vendor Selection Criteria, n=300
The table above shows the results when survey respondents were asked to identify the most important criteria for their organization when selecting a commercial QC vendor/solution.
Software products, including industry-specific software products, and the associated use case capabilities and performance benefits, were considered more important than those selection criteria that were specific to hardware functionality.
The broad range of selection criteria considered by the surveyed organizations suggests that early adopters of QC have not fully honed in on the key parameters that matter, but rather have taken a broader and more comprehensive approach when considering the various types and nature of QC systems they eventually select.
QC hardware specifications, especially at the quantum bit level, do not appear to be a significant driver of vendor selection.
Commercial considerations, such as vendor market share and low cost, were not highly considered criteria, chosen by 17% and 13% of respondents, respectively.
QC Early Adopters' Future Plans, n=300
The table above shows the plans of the surveyed organizations for their internal quantum computing capabilities over the next two to three years, with more than 80% of them looking to invest more in quantum computing. Specifically, about half plan to move forward with a modest increase in funding and internal resource investment, while about one-third want to aggressively move forward with integrating quantum computing into their overall computing environment.
Expected annual budget for QC end users, n=300
The chart above details respondents' annual budgets for building and maintaining production-grade quantum computing capabilities within their organizations, with the expected budget range varying widely, with some commitment in almost every price range.
The top choice was $1 million to $5 million, although only 16% of respondents thought so.
About one-third of respondents expect annual budgets to exceed $15 million, and one-fifth expect to exceed $25 million.
Looking Ahead: Continued Expansion of Quantum Exploration
Early adopters of quantum computing cover nearly every major vertical across the advanced computing landscape, looking to quantum computing to solve some of their toughest computational problems, expecting to accelerate their existing classical-based problems, or expand to new quantum-enabled counterparts. A large number of QC early adopters are already exploring the potential of quantum computing, and most consider their current efforts to be successful. The continued and long-term success of the field will depend on how easily QC can be integrated into existing advanced computing centers to provide significant performance gains in critical end uses.
The results of this particular study show a clear path to the best possible outcome for quantum computing vendors and end users.
Original report:
https://www.dwavesys.com/media/yfohvw1r/hyperion_report_23_final.pdf
Reference Link:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221206005158/en/
