by Doug Finke
The term “Quantum Advantage” is getting a lot of play these days, and it is indicative of the fact that quantum computers are providing ever increasing performance almost on a daily basis creating expectations on when they will surpass the capabilities of classical machines. But have you stopped to consider how one would define “Quantum Advantage” or the fact that different people might look at it differently.
A quantum scientist would define “Quantum Advantage” is when a quantum computer can solve a useful, real-world problem more effectively than any classical computer. “More effectively” can mean that it solves the problem faster, with greater accuracy, at a lower cost, or with less energy consumption. But there is a possible catch here. The quantum scientist would compare the quantum solution against the latest state-of-the-art classical computing algorithm running on a large classical computing HPC system developed by their most capable programmer or brilliant PhD student who might need a long period of time to develop the right approach.
End users are more pragmatic. End users generally don’t care if they obtain the solution on a classical or a quantum computer. Also, a CIO in a commercial organization may not have access to the most brilliant PhD student, the latest hardware, or the latest software packages containing state-of-the-art algorithms. They also may not have a large amount of time. They just want something that works as quickly as possible as easily as possible.
In addition, different end users may have different requirements about much better than classical solution a quantum solution needs to be in order to use it? I recently talked with a developer working at a large industrial company working on optimization software for one of their manufacturing plants. He had developed a quantum-based solution for scheduling production and created a solution that could provide a 10% efficiency advantage than the classical one his company was currently using. When I asked him when they were planning on putting this into production, he replied that a 10% improvement was not quite good enough for his management to approve changing the operation to install new software and train the employees on how to use it. His next step is to improve his solution to provide an even better performance advantage to make the transition worthwhile.
On the other hand, a quantum advantage of 10% in a financial application, could likely incentivize a financial company to make the switch to quantum, because small improvements could still be very significant when you are dealing with a large amount of money.
A final factor that could influence an end user’s choice between a quantum solution and a classical solution is the ease of use. In some cases, a quantum solution that is easier to use might win over a classical based solution that is harder to use, even if there isn’t much of a performance advantage.
The bottom line for quantum providers is to provide a strategic quantum advantage that provides value to the end users who use their services. And that is not quite the same as providing just a pure technical advantage. So, for a quantum provider, a focus on applications, customer support, and getting their users into production is what will bring in the revenue and help make the quantum provider more successful.
August 19, 2025
