Here is an excerpt from an article by Francesco Bova, Avi Goldfarb, and Roger Melko for the MIT Sloan Management Review. To read the complete article, check out others, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Credit: Andy Potts
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Quantum computers may deliver an economic advantage to business, even on tasks that classical computers can perform.
Imagine that a pharmaceutical company was able to cut the research time for innovative drugs by an order of magnitude. It could expand its development pipeline, hit fewer dead ends, and bring cures and treatments to market much faster, to the benefit of millions of people around the world.
Or imagine that a logistics company could dynamically manage the routes for its fleet of thousands of trucks. It could not only take a mind-numbing range of variables into account and adjust quickly as opportunities or constraints arose; it could also get fresher products to store shelves faster and prevent tons of carbon emissions every year.
Quantum computing has the potential to transform these and many more visions into reality — which is why technology companies, private investors, and governments are investing billions of dollars in supporting ecosystems of quantum startups.1 Much of the quantum research community is focused on showing quantum advantage, which means that a quantum computer can perform a calculation, no matter how arbitrary, that is impossible on a classical, or binary, computer. (See “A Quantum Glossary.”) Running a calculation thousands of times faster could create enormous economic value if the calculation itself is useful to some stakeholder in the market.
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.
Francesco Bova is an associate professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Avi Goldfarb is the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare at the Rotman School of Management. Roger Melko is a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and an associate faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.