Summary of QC Cloud Access Offerings: Scoping the Wide Range of QC Providers, Technology Options, and Pricing Schemes

According to a recent Hyperion Research study of 115 current and interested QC end-users from both HPC and enterprise IT organizations, the majority would consider a wide range of quantum computing (QC) technology and use-case options spanning new QC and QC-inspired applications, as well as speed-ups of existing applications delivered through a mix of QC or hybrid QC/classical systems. Likewise, these same QC buyers/users reported relatively modest expectations for realized performance gains from QC technology: 78% of respondents would see a performance boost of less than 250X as justification for using QC, and 42% would only need 50X or below. Such expectations bode well for the quantum computing sector writ large as QC developers and suppliers can explore a broad array of quantum technologies in both hardware and software with some assurance that end-users will be open to a span of QC use-case options with relatively modest near-term performance gains.

According to a recent Hyperion Research study of 135 US quantum computing (QC) technology developers across the academic, commercial, and government sectors, selected financial indicators in the QC commercial sector have yet to settle into any easily characterized profile. For example, Hyperion Research estimates that while more than one third of the reporting QC suppliers in the survey had revenues of five million dollars or more in 2019, almost half that supplied revenue figures had revenues of less than $500 thousand or no sales in 2019. Likewise, survey respondents indicated that the appropriateness of QC R&D funding differ greatly across the corporate, government, and VC spaces, citing a need for more government funding while expressing concern that current VC funding for the sector may be excessive. Finally, when asked about a potential quantum winter, QC suppliers were much more pessimistic than the base of current and potential QC users, with about half of QC suppliers believing a quantum winter is somewhat or highly likely in the next decade, twice that of counterpart QC end users.