Four Recent Market Surveys Point the Way for Continued Quantum Growth in 2023 and Beyond

The four quantum market surveys have been announced in the past month that show similar indications of quantum growth in the coming years. These include surveys from Hyperion Research and sponsored by QED-C, Q2B, Q-STAR and others; another one from OpenOcean, IQM Quantum Computers, and Lakestar; a third one released by D-Wave; and a fourth one from Classiq. Although the participants surveyed, the questions asked, and the geographic focus differ between these surveys, the results were remarkably consistent and showed optimism that growth in the quantum industry will continue in 2023 and beyond.

The Hyperion survey was the third annual survey it performed with results presented at the annual Q2B Conference in Silicon Valley. The survey included 145 respondents from 108 quantum computing suppliers from 18 different countries. It did not survey any end users and was only focused on quantum computing and did not attempt to cover quantum communication or quantum sensing. The survey estimated that quantum computing revenue will be at about $614 million in 2022 and will continue to grow at a 25.3% growth rate reaching roughly $1.2 billion in 2025. The survey found that one firm has achieved over $50 million in QC revenue in 2022, one firm achieving somewhere between $25 million and $50 million, seventeen firms achieved revenue between $5 and $25 million, and sixteen firms between $1 million and $16 million. However, overall, a total of 81% of the firms polled has achieve either less than $500 thousand of revenue or even none at all. Cloud or Hybrid (On-Premise/Cloud) access is estimated to represent 67% of the hardware access in 2025, with the three most promising end users segments being Financial, Quantum Technology R&D, and Cybersecurity. Other important conclusions from this survey include an observation that non-U.S. participation in quantum computing is on the rise and that there is growing optimism that the industry will avoid a "Quantum Winter". A full presentation showing additional results can be downloaded from the QED-C website here.

The OpenOcean/IQM/Lakestar survey was different in that it surveyed 174 business leaders who would be potential end users of quantum technology. It was also more heavily focused outside the U.S. with 44% of the respondents based in EMEA, 16% in APAC, 38% in the U.S. and 2% in other geographies. 91% of the business leaders were already investing or plan to invest in quantum computing with 61% planning to invest over $1 million in the next three years. 63% of the respondents expressed the belief that there will be some applications showing quantum advantage within the next five years. Other important conclusions were that a majority of respondents felt that a lack of personnel with the necessary skills will slow down innovation and that the current costs of running programs on quantum computers are not sustainable and will need to decrease. IQM has issued a press release showing a summary of the results that you can find here and you can also download the full report from a their webpage here.

D-Wave has also released a report of a survey in conducted with Hyperion Research that obtained responses from 300 US and European early adopter end users that were already developing QC applications or had some end use already in place. This also appears to be an update of a study performed in 2021. In the 2022 survey, 80% of the respondents plan on increasing with budget for quantum computing activities within the next three years with over 33% expecting to have a budget that exceeds $15 million per year. The three most promising QC workloads included machine learning applications, finance oriented optimization, and logistics/supply chain management. The respondents were quite positive about their progress so far with 49% saying their activities have been very successful with another 48% rating them as somewhat successful. The three biggest hurdles for adoption include the complexity of integrating quantum with their existing IT infrastructure, concerns about demonstrating ROI, and limited QC vendor options. A press release from D-Wave summarizing a few of the findings from this study is available here and the full study can be downloaded from their web page here.

Classiq has also issued a press release with the results of a survey it performed with Propeller Insights in September 2022. It also appears to be a follow-on of a similar one they made in 2021. The new survey was an online poll of over 500 potential end users at medium or large sized companies (100 or more employees) over many different industry sectors. It showed that 83% of those surveyed indicated they were already investing in quantum research. The top three sectors evaluating the use of quantum technology include finance, accounting, and medtech. 72% of the companies felt that quantum would be involved in their daily decision-making within the next five years and 86% indicated that were actively hiring quantum computing talent. Other conclusions from the survey were that respondents felt that quantum computing should be included in various STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curricula and that building a quantum intellectual property portfolio was important. Although a full report showing all the details of the study has not yet been published yet, Classiq has issued a press release with a summary of the key results here.

December 17, 2022