Immense computing power on the cloud may not be far off, says IonQ COO.

Look at the vast machines being developed by IBM and Google, and it’s hard to imagine that quantum computing will ever be available to companies beyond FTSE 500s with multi-million-dollar budgets.

But, while it’s unlikely your server room will feature a superconductor quantum computer within the next three years, a world where medium and large businesses may have access to infinitely more powerful machines may not be far off.

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According to Allied Market Research, a demand for quantum computing could drive a market worth US$5.8 billion by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate of more than 30 percent.

But for Stewart Allen, COO of quantum computing startup IonQ, that figure may be an underestimation.

“What I would say is that in the next 18 to 24 months, when someone hits upon a real problem that they’re solving with real results from QC, then that could open the floodgates that makes [that figure] look small.

“In the next 12 months, it will be select groups [with access to quantum computers],” Allen told TechHQ. “12 months out from that, it will be ‘broad brush’, with everyone rushing out to train themselves– [access] will be across all industries.”

Smaller quantum contenders

Founded in 2015, IonQ has been built with “modest budgets”. But its technology– based on the use of ‘natural’ qubits– is attracting the interest of world-leading organizations.

Other ‘close’ rivals– or quantum computing companies of IonQ’s size– tend to use manufactured qubits made from silicon. IonQ is one of very few employing the method of ion trapping where qubits are made of natural particles such as atoms, electrons or protons.

 

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[Originally posted by T_HQ — July 23, 2019]


About IonQ

We’re building the world’s best quantum computers to solve the world’s hardest problems.

We believe useful quantum computers will look as different from the laptops and smartphones we use every day as classical computers appear next to an abacus. And we believe the best way to build a quantum computer is by starting with nature’s qubit: the atom. Accurate, powerful, and flexible, ionized atoms are the heart of our quantum systems.

After decades of research, IonQ was founded in 2015 by Chris Monroe and Jungsang Kim with $2 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates, a license to core technology from the University of Maryland and Duke University, and the goal of taking trapped ion quantum computing out of the lab and into the market. The next year, we raised an additional $20 million from GV, Amazon Web Services, and NEA, and built two of the world’s most accurate quantum computers.