Quantum Opportunities for Telcos at Mobile World Congress

Quantum computing will have a significant impact on the telecommunications industry and society as a whole. However, according to Ilana Wisby, a deep tech entrepreneur and the CEO of Oxford Quantum Circuits, the industry should learn lessons from the AI wave and get started now rather than get left behind.

Delivering a keynote at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Wisby said that while many predictions about quantum computing look years into the future – McKinsey predicts the market will be worth $1.3 trillion by 2035, for example – quantum computing is already a reality today.

Using the quantum nature of matter and the properties of superposition and entanglement, quantum computing can solve problems, such as multivariable optimization problems, that classical computers cannot. Wisby used the classic example of the traveling salesperson problem to illustrate optimization, known as a “max sat” or maximum satisfiability problem.

The traveling salesman problem becomes intractable to classical computers after optimizing routes between 16 cities. Once the number gets toward 22 cities, the time to solve it “would take longer than the entire amount of time known in the universe,” Wisby said.

“We can apply that to network optimization and use it as a use case for optimizing network efficiency, resource allocation and overall system performance,” she added.

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Wisby went on to discuss how to access and use quantum computers, typically via public cloud, private cloud or direct interconnect. She advised that businesses forge partnerships that can advise on the right applications to integrate.

“At the end of the day, my goal is to ensure that you don't even know that you're using quantum computing. You're just able to solve these types of problems in ways that you fundamentally couldn't do before,” she said.

As well as presenting an opportunity, once computers ramp up to 50 or 100 usable, error-corrected qubits, they risk breaking the RSA encryption used for secure data transmissions. Some of the technology securing against this threat and helping organizations get quantum-ready is quantum-enabled itself.

“This is why sovereign states from all around the world are also making sure that they are investing heavily in quantum to make sure that businesses are quantum ready so that we can make sure we're ready for that quantum future with post-quantum algorithms,” Wisby said.

Wisby concluded by advising that the time to start acting on quantum is today as it’s no longer 15 years away, it’s a rapidly growing market.

“Start having these early conversations about how quantum is going to impact your businesses, how quantum is going to be something which we need to be very careful about, considering we need to learn from AI,” she said.

“We recognize conversations were had too late for the rapid incline of AI and quantum is probably about five years behind where that was. If you think you came into AI too late, you should probably start engaging with quantum today.”