Projective measurements

Tracing out the impact of Quantum Technology in 2040

Scarlett Gauthier and Brennan Undseth (MSc. Applied Physics, TU Delft)

Presently, the field of quantum computing is rapidly growing and is the subject of an intensive effort of engineering, design and innovation. Yet, the field is still in the early stages – will there be a powerful quantum computer advancing science, technology and society in 2040? Or will the scientists of 2040 look back on the efforts of today as a naïve dream that was doomed to fail?
We believe that the path of quantum technological development will have a lasting positive impact on society – regardless of whether or not disruptive quantum computation is achieved by 2040. In the next two decades, we expect that quantum technology will remove divisions in science, inspire a new generation of students, and incubate a new era of innovation.

Already today, quantum computing has raised interest in many scientific disciplines due to its potential to advance progress in myriad fields. For example, molecular modeling by a quantum computer may be a boon to pharmacology, advanced quantum machine learning might detect patterns in scattering events from particle colliders, and a quantum network could improve the sensitivity of astronomers’ telescopes. The breadth of applications offers an incentive for specialists to not only be aware of quantum computing, but to speak its language. As a result, scientific problems of many flavors will be distilled into a common framework, intelligible to scientists across different disciplines. By interconnecting people and their expertise, the benefits to humanity will extend beyond unlocking computational power.

In fact, there is a precedent of a similar development in the second half of the 20th century: the space race motivated an entire generation of young people to strive towards technical pursuits. Today, discussion of quantum technology pervades popular culture and a similar opportunity to recruit young minds exists. Embracing of this opportunity can be seen in the forging of industrial partnerships, global press coverage of developments in quantum technology, and an active dialogue between the research community and governments around the world. The large pool of researchers attracted by these initiatives will bring the fresh perspectives needed to examine enduring problems from new and creative angles. As teams working within the field expand, there is impetus to address and combat existing inequalities in social issues such as gender balance and cultural diversity. To this end, it is important that community leaders from under-represented groups remain visible and initiatives such as mentorship programmes are taken seriously.

Forecasting the impact of technology is often foolhardy. With the space race came not only an increased focus on technology, but also the expectation of humanity expanding to the stars. Yet more than 60 years later we do not inhabit other planets or cohabitate with sentient AI. However, technological progress manifests in ways we least suspect. If the COVID-19 pandemic occurred 30 years ago, a socially-distanced society would have had to sustain itself on telephone, fax, and mail. Yet in 2020, the world surprised itself by embracing a digitized lifestyle – not even a far cry from the sci-fi-esque predictions of the 1950s. The science fiction author William Gibson says “the future is already here – it’s just unevenly distributed”. So perhaps the allure of Shor’s algorithm suddenly breaking RSA encryption of communication is never realized, or perhaps it occurs and the post-quantum-cryptographic future collectively shrugs. In 2040 “quantum” – whichever form it takes – will have happened. And it will be the legacy of how it came to be that defines the quantum future.