1.

Summary

- The report is centered on “exploring how business leaders’ readiness for quantum
technology varies across key geographies and industries”.

- The report believes that “businesses now have an opportunity to be prepared for all
the opportunities that quantum technologies have to offer.” That means that it
believes that businesses could be missing out on something utterly revolutionary.

- The method used is a survey conducted by an external company (TQI). The company
only works on quantum industries, which raises questions about their bias.

2. Key Takeaways

- The report states that there is a “fundamental gap” between quantum technologies and
businesses' readiness to them. In other words, the report thinks that businesses are
falling behind.

- The survey “asked how, if at all, they are preparing for quantum and what their
expectations are for their business. Questions investigated patterns of investment,
organizational structure (especially issues of talent and training) and real use cases.”

- The survey extends to 174 businesses from different geographies and industries.

- The report presents several main conclusions:

a) Investment figures in quantum have risen in the last few years, growing the quantum
ecosystem. Yet, commercialisation is expected to come in the next decade.
b) A Chief Quantum Officer will become essential to businesses.
c) Current shortcomings are due to lack of “focused leadership”, and will be remedied
by it.
 d) A high proportion of industry leaders believe that quantum technologies have a future
place in their areas.
e) Yet, there is a need for backing in further technological research, since quantum
hardware is currently too expensive to be sustainable.

- Some key figures:

a) 64% believe that the CQO will become as essential as the CIO.
b) 58% believe that their workforce is too undertrained to understand or operate quantum
technologies.
c) 63% believe that quantum computing will hit the market in the next 5 years, and 83%
in the next 10 years.
d) 61% are planning to invest at least 1 million in quantum computing for the next 3
years. Yet, the next page states that 91% are investing or planning to invest, raising
the question if they want to play the numbers game.
e) 61% state that quantum hardware is too costly to be a factor.

3. Introductions

- Again, the report states that “It is now up to the quantum industry to listen to this state
of quantum, and take action. Customer interest and appetite to invest in quantum is
high.”
- Investment in quantum is up from $0.4 billion in 2017 to $2.2 billion in 2021.
- Some areas that could see quantum applications are drug discovery, climate change
prevention and the energy field.
- Again, the report stresses on the need to “scale” quantum technologies to the
customer's needs.

4. Quantum Industry Perspective. by Terra Quantum

 - The report believes that quantum technologies will solve the world's biggest
problems. Such as climate change.
- “The issue remains how to execute on the technology”.
- “It is crucial to double down on the commercialization of quantum now.” The
report’s authors have a direct interest in the success of quantum technologies, since
they provide quantum services to several businesses.
- “One of the biggest challenges we have as an industry is winning over the
unconvinced.” The key to it is to make them understand that quantum technologies
are beneficial to their businesses’ performance.

5. The Big Picture: Trends In Adoption & Strategic Planning

- “70% said they are using and developing real life use cases for QT.”
- “77% of respondents said they were confident that their organization was prepared to
use quantum computing.” Yet, 58% believe that the workforce is not prepared to do
so.
- “83% of companies are devoting at least 10% of their R&D budgets to quantum.” Is it
much, enough, not enough…
- The five countries with the most investment are China (at 5 billion), Germany, USA,
UK and the EU. Figures are estimates.
- More than two thirds of the surveyed think that quantum computing will not be
limited to “application-specific usefulness”.
- The three main problematic areas are R&D, shortages of skilled professionals and
investment.

5. The Journey to the Quantum Era, an OpenOcean Perspective

- They have directly invested in quantum technologies.

- “A key issue is the stability of qubits that are sensitive to noise and suffer from
imperfections across the system which today results in a tedious manual process
 requiring highly-skilled scientists.” Could these qubits ever be stabilized in a cheap
and efficient manner or rather their constitution makes it impossible?

- “It is at this level [software level] that we will need to see significant investment over
the coming years for a smooth journey to the quantum era.” How significant are we
talking about? In other words, is it justified by the end product?

6. The Benefits and Opportunities of Quantum

- 66% consider software development to be a main priority for quantum investment.

- 54% place application development as the second priority.
- 49% in expanding the company’s internal talent pool.

- Gate based computers are more expensive but more powerful than annealers.

- In 2022, in the matrix of Germany’s Forschungszentrum Jülich, “the first example of

a commercial quantum system in Europe” was set, since “if successful, this would
have direct commercial applications.”

- “Cloud computing provides companies with affordable access to the processing power
of quantum, trainings and the ability to explore proof of concept.” In other words, it
promises to solve every major issue with quantum.
 - Notice that investments are directed towards the same company, rather than trying to
unite the efforts with other companies to create a proper quantum ecosystem.

7. Fastlane to Quantum Advantage - IQM Quantum Computers

- “Fitting more transistors onto a microchip will become extremely hard and expensive
in the next decade and will ultimately become impossible.” They think that quantum
computing will become essential to technological progress.

8. Building a Quantum ready Workforce of the Future

- “There is a disagreement surrounding the most important roles within these teams.”
- “45% of firms primarily rely on in-house specialists to deliver quantum training to
their workforces.” Aside from the obvious fact that it distracts them from other tasks,
we must ask why there aren’t any other training centers or initiatives.
 - Notice that lack of training surpasses software and funding problems.

9. The Way Ahead: Business Adoption of Quantum Computing

- “44% think that the current software available are not sufficiently advanced to deliver
real-world applications on quantum, compared to 44% who thought they are
sufficiently advanced.” Yet, of the last 44%, why has nobody taken advantage of its
readiness?
 - “The top 3 sectors ripe for quantum transformation are healthcare (58%),
cybersecurity (58%), and finance (55%).”

- Businesses like Allianz, Banco Santander, HSBC or Biogen are investing in quantum.

- To build a quantum computer for general purposes should not be the priority, the
research should focus on specific applications first.

- “It is worth noting that commercialized quantum computing is already

happening if defined as winning big partnerships and consulting contracts, often
with the support of the government. On the other hand, if we mean mature
enterprise use cases relevant for many verticals and generating billions of
dollars, that is where more progress needs to be made.” Maybe the most clear
statement about the relation between quantum tech and business.

10. Lakestar’s View on the Quantum Software Puzzle

- “73% of quantum investments since 2018 have been in hardware startups.” It is

interesting to note how businesses complain about hardware’s shortcomings, yet
demand investment in software.

- The firsts quantum businesses “are likely to be iterations of existing [business] models
that are quantum-enhanced, and this is ultimately where we expect to see the first
commercial use cases offering real value.”
- For example, the report cites quantum enhancements to Wolksvagen’s assembly lines
as a real case use.

- The report stresses that, rather than expect a full change from traditional to quantum
hardware, research should focus on adapting quantum software to traditional
hardware. Thus overcoming the need for rentable hardware and workforce training.
Yet, the question of how to do that (and even if it is possible at all) arises.
11. Methods

- The survey was conducted between September to November 2022.

- They worked with a sector specialist. We should consider that.

- Respondents were incentivized to complete the survey through a combination of raffle

prizes and pay-per-response. Does it really guarantee thought out responses?

- The quality of answers was guaranteed through a myriad of methods such as time
taken or targeted screening questions.

- Only 16% of the surveyed individuals were from APAC (Asia and Australia),
compared to 38% from Americas and 44% from EMEA (Europe, Middle East and
Africa).

- More than two thirds of those surveyed had less than 10 years of experience in
quantum computing technologies. This could be due to its relative recentness, but
also speaks of the lack of readiness upon the workforce.

- Only 21% of those surveyed were the primary decision makers in planning for
quantum technologies. Which could throw out all of the statements about businesses’
wanting quantum tech.

- 59% of those surveyed worked in private industries, while government or education

ones amounted for only 15%. That points out the lack of a unified effort in
development and adoption of quantum technologies.

- 55% of businesses surveyed had fewer than 1.000 employees, while only 6% had
more than 10.000. That should raise some concerns about the adoption of quantum
tech amongst the sector industry leaders, since it could be that quantum tech could be
applied only to really specific use cases, rather than revolutionizing whole sectors.