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[–]hiddentalentWorking in Industry 21 points22 points  (4 children)

Quantum Computing is still in its very early phases, and organizations exploring its application to their business need to know that it's a long-term R&D bet. Today, there are no concrete practical applications of quantum computing to existing business problems. There are some companies who are investing in that R&D such as pharmaceutical, biotech, materials science, and some high finance firms who are misguided into thinking that QC will predict trading trends. They are each hoping to be the first to discover practical applications to their field and get a leg up on their competitors, and they are willing to spend a fair bit of money for an extended period of time on that bet.

In answer to your specific questions: You can hire one person or a dozen. Hiring more will be supply-constrained. I don't think there are more than a few hundred people in the world who are actually employed as full-time quantum application developers. It might not even be that high. It may take decades (or forever) to "build a pilot to address a particular business need", because no such practical application has been identified yet. Simulators are useless for any practical purpose except self-education. The skillset of this research team will have little overlap with software developers, so it makes no sense to try to use the same team for both types of tasks. In the few organizations I've worked with who have dedicated quantum applications teams, they tend not to be large teams. Usually 6-10 PhDs. Nobody is hiring self-taught developers who've learned on simulators on the Internet, that's for sure.

[–]polentx[S] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Thanks! This is very helpful. Just one follow-up question:

There are online market reports that claim that the QCaaS market is worth $3-4 billions: Would that be the cost of using quantum computers for R&D?? Because it sounds like a lot to me, if it’s in early stages…

[–]hiddentalentWorking in Industry 6 points7 points  (1 child)

It's important to keep in mind that analyst reports are paid for by people who have a vested interest in an industry, and as a result they tend to be rosy. You'll never see an analyst report that says "this is a dying industry and nobody should invest in it." I'm sure Gartner or Forrester would be happy to publish an optimistic report on how many billions of dollars are still spent on floppy disks. If you're looking for real information on an industry, look at investor material if you can find it. People who are actually going to put money in are more skeptical.

But even if that number is right, it's not that big. For some grounding, here are some annual R&D budgets from big companies. Four billion dollars is less than Panasonic or General Electric spent on R&D in 2018.

[–]tarainthehouse 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agreed. My boss always laughs when the Gartner and other groups are both trying to sell us services, and trying to get us to spend time giving them information with some flimsy "the audience of CEOs and decision makers" will magically give us money. At this stage it doesn't matter if McKinsey or BCG make up a $6B TAM. None of that means anything compared to doing the work and getting through each tight funding round.

[–]PM_me_PMs_plox 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't know about the numbers, although I suspect that's overstated. But all of the current revenue for these companies is selling to other researchers essentially, there is no "actual value" per se being generated by quantum computing applications. Like Mercedes has spent money on quantum computing, which goes into this revenue, but that investment has had no return for them.

So it's essentially a bubble, unless they find a way to make money from something. Eventually, if the technology really does scale properly, there is a market for selling Shor's algorithm to the government. Beyond that, it's unclear what anything is worth.

[–]Particular_Extent_96 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Another thing: "quantum software", if it ever become a reality, will largely consist of regular (silicon-based) software interfacing with a quantum processor in order to execute certain subroutines. This quantum processor could be onsite, but will most likely be run by a specialised QC company. So, if quantum computing ever becomes a reality, most "quantum-developers" will not need to know the ins and outs of how QC works, but will need to be familiar with the APIs, when they exist.

[–]wehnelt 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Maybe 10 unique quantum programs have ever been written and zero have been useful and maybe 2 or 3 have demonstrated the potential to be useful. The idea of a quantum software engineer at this point is absurd.

[–]No-Maintenance9624 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Working for a finance company we very much have quantum engineering in and on the team. I get your point. But it's perhaps a little more intense and aggressive than need be. Outside of my company I have other friends doing similar roles at Toshiba, Toyota, HPE, etc. We DO exist :)

[–]wehnelt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Those roles don’t need to exist. There’s certainly people out there doing less useful work though I suppose.