How do we develop quantum awareness?
Quantum technologies are central to the UK’s innovation strategy and the UK can be proud of its world class quantum reputation to date. However, the competition is growing rapidly and we need to capitalise on our early strength and accelerate commercialisation as we move from research to deployment. We still have a lot to do in educating and incentivising a broad range of potential investors, and also talent, to help deliver.
Usually with emerging technology there is widespread discussion of where it sits on Gartner’s hype cycle. Arguably quantum technologies are under hyped and verging on being a well-kept secret, possibly because it is still wrapped in mystery for many. What level of awareness is there of the work of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme, the Quantum Technology Hubs[1] and the National Quantum Computing Centre? Or of the 300 Quantum Hub collaborating partners, 40 UK based companies active in the quantum supply chain and what is apparently the world’s largest integrated quantum computing company, Quantinuum, a Cambridge business and product of the successful Quantum programme.
Sometimes with emerging technology, the expert community addresses issues of understanding at an early stage and moves on, assuming the basics of education are done. However, this risks leaving behind the many who are just waking up to the fact that it is time to engage or who found it “too hard” or “too far off”? More needs to be done to facilitate accelerated learning about the potential of quantum technologies, where we are now, what the roadmap is and where are the investment opportunities are. Material should be tiered or targeted to different target audiences. The Ada Lovelace Institution outputs excel in signposting what content is relevant to whom.
There is a striking comparison to be made with the growing understanding around AI. Wendy Hall’s and Jerome Pesenti’s “Growing the AI Industry in the UK” Report was published in 2017. The volume of material produced by industry, regulators and consultants since then has been astonishing. By contrast the £1 billion quantum programme started back in 2013/2014, yet the level of awareness and understanding is nowhere near the same. Is this because the roadmap to increased AI adoption and commercialisation was a shorter one, or is it because quantum appears harder to fathom for non-physicists than AI does to non-computer scientists? The language of superposition; entanglement, noise, annealing, quantum circuit born machines, phenomenology; matter waves; gravimetry, trapped ions, superconducting etc can put people off. People fear what they can’t understand. What we need is the equivalent to PETRAS’ highly successful Little Books of Internet of Things. DSTL’s Biscuit Book - It takes two to entangle.is a good place to start. For the more advanced audience there are IET’s six quantum webinars. As well as understanding the technological progress and potential, we also need to raise awareness of the need for responsible innovation, building on, not reinventing, all the work done on AI and ethics[2] and focus on applying the appropriate principles in a meaningful, practical way to quantum technology’s specific contexts.
Let’s have another go at shouting from the roof tops the UK’s progress since the first generation lasers and semi conducting, current activities by businesses such as Quantinuum, Riverlane and DWave, and look ahead to the roadmap towards the transformational opportunities for financial services, supply chain and logistics, health diagnostics etc.
[1] UK’s Quantum Hubs are Communications (University of York), Sensors and Timing (University of Birmingham), Enhanced Imaging (University of Glasgow), Computing (University of Oxford)
Laura Foster
Laura is techUK’s Associate Director for Technology and Innovation.