Research Finds Expectation Gap Between Quantum Vendors and Adopters

Vendors face significant scientific and technical challenges over the next decade to bring increasingly fault-tolerant quantum computers to the market that show a meaningful advantage over classical computers for commercially relevant applications.

Succeeding will require close alignment with the needs and preferences of their customers. These early quantum computing adopters are investing now to experiment and prepare for a “quantum advantage” that may only come five to 10 years from now.

Surveys with adopters and vendors by specialist technology research company Omdia, part of Informa Tech, have found significant gaps in perceptions and preferences between these two groups.

Vendors located in the regions of North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania, and the Middle East and Africa responded to Omdia's Quantum Computing Vendor Survey. They stated that adopters were most interested in optimization as a primary use case, ranking physical simulation second and quantum machine learning third.

However, respondents to Omdia's Quantum Computing Adopter Survey, located in the U.S., China, and Germany, said that quantum machine learning was their top use case at 64%, compared with 19% for physical simulation and 18% for complex optimization.

This difference could lead to the misallocation of resources and missed opportunities to engage with adopters in the ways that adopters most need.

Vendors and adopters both agreed that “insufficient internal expertise” was the top adopter challenge and “futureproofed as quantum computing technology evolves” was the leading necessary vendor characteristic.

However, on virtually every other choice to these two questions, the two groups diverged widely. Vendor respondents ranked “won't integrate with existing systems” last as an adopter challenge, while adopter respondents ranked it third in importance. These types of disconnects also pose a risk to market development as vendors plan their product strategies.

“Vendors already face a steep path ahead to deliver on the promises of quantum computing. Ensuring that they are aligned with the needs and preferences of the adopters who are spending money today to experiment and learn will be crucial for the smooth development of this market over the next decade,” said Omdia chief analyst for quantum computing Sam Lucero.