Quantum computing unlikely to see mass adoption for 10 years, says UK digital chief

Quantum computing is more than a decade away due to challenges around cooling and power supply, according to Ravinder Singh, who heads up the UK Cabinet Office’s digital and systems team.

“Generative AI came last year and took the world by storm, and everyone is now talking of quantum, but will it really change the world and how soon will it be?” asked Singh in his speech at The AI Summit in London.

Setting out his roadmap for quantum, Singh said the focus in the next one-to-five years would be on error mitigation techniques and small applications that leverage quantum algorithms.

Between five and ten years, he said there will likely be significant breakthroughs in error correction, while users will also see the realization of practical, mid-sized quantum computers. However, full-scale deployment is unlikely in the next decade.

“At the moment, it’s not possible to build that system and the challenge is because they operate at a sub-zero level,” said Singh, who has worked on AI and machine learning, Blockchain, cyber security and other tech projects across both the public and private sectors.

Running these supercomputers at near zero temperatures means they require dilution refrigerators, which have an average power consumption of 10 to 20 kilowatts, compared to an average classical computer server which uses one to two.

“It’s a huge jump,” said Singh. “We are not going to be carbon friendly if we are going to use quantum computing excessively.”

Alongside this, he said that specialised quantum computer data centres demand a lot more energy than the average data centre.

To ensure that quantum is environmentally friendly, research is being done to create more energy-efficient qubits and error-correction methods.

Singh also added that they are looking for renewable energy sources for data centres and alternative, more energy-efficient cooling technologies.

Industries that will see quantum solutions the soonest include finance, for security solutions, healthcare and pharmaceuticals for drug discovery, and the optimisation of energy grids and the use of quantum simulations for more efficient solar panels.

For other industries, “maybe after 2035.”