Standardization Roadmap on Quantum Applications

The revolutions in quantum physics and engineering have led to new and (previously) unthinkable applications. New applications are emerging every day despite limitations for the large-scale deployment of quantum-based technologies.

The proposed roadmap plays a vital role in indicating application-readiness and providing guidance for the stakeholders including investors, researchers, start-up founders, existing industries, policymakers, regulators, and the like.

Although numerous roadmap documents exist today with different scopes, purposes, and target audiences, their content and flow share many commonalities. They are open-ended, and they may not be closely related to the business problems of the respective prevailing technologies. As such, investors are unable to determine return-on-investment (RoI) potential. Researchers, start-up founders, and other stakeholders work in silos to preserve intellectual property and future earnings potential. Regulators and policymakers are often not specialized in the nuances required to realize an industry from the ground on up and therefore are forced to remain retroactive and unable to establish anything beyond a patchwork of overlapping rules and legislation that take years to harmonize internationally. Hence, there is a need to identify business cases, associated issues, and the relevant quantum-based technologies to realize the same. The goal is to link these business problems to prevailing technology and standardization roadmaps so that stakeholders are aligned in their preparedness.

This Industry Connections Activity serves the purpose of:

• Identifying use cases relevant to existing industries that are realizable with prevailing technologies at different points in time.
• Identifying limitations and shortcomings of existing technologies and their workarounds.
• Reformulating research problems with respect to anticipated technological and standardization adoption.
• Linking recommendations with existing technology roadmaps.
• Identifying standardization needs (e.g., supply chain management, reliability of systems and system infrastructure, norms for international distribution of products).
• Linking standardization to business problems and the associated technologies along the timeline being presented.

Essentially the proposal is for the development of a Roadmap addressing business problems at various points on the timeline.

• Representatives of quantum material suppliers
• Device and precision measuring equipment manufacturers
• Solution providers over quantum computers
• Quantum computing simulator developers
• Quantum communication protocol implementers
• Government defense and technologic innovation offices, and regulators.

To learn more about the activity and how to join, please express your interest by filling out the Standardization Roadmap on Quantum Applications interest form.