Davos on Quantum Computing?
Debating the relevance of the World Economic Forum's "National Quantum Blueprint"
Hey Everyone,
While I’m not necessarily a fan of WEF, they frame some of the global issues in potentially a reasonably helpful way.
This year's meeting will take place between 16 to 20 January. Davos 2023 will be a return to the traditional January event, after the meeting was pushed to May in 2022 and held online in 2021.
Covering emerging tech, I need to be aware of things like qubit approaches (Neutral Atoms) to scalability, macro global risks and other things.
On January 17th, 2022 the World Economic Forum (WEF) released the National Quantum Blueprint (part of WEF’s Shaping the Future of Technology Governance: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Platform) to address the potential impact of the next digital divide, which industry insiders widely believe will be driven by advancements in quantum computing and AI.
Real Demand or Manufactured?
I noticed that SandboxAQ was a proud collaborator who closely worked with the WEF on the development of this important document. It attempts to address how the quantum divide will impact the world order and how leaders can leverage their existing innovation ecosystems to lead in this new area and to ensure that no country falls behind.
The document claims that it’s essential that governments, academia, startups, corporations, and other stakeholders come together to collaborate and cooperate.
I’m not sure if this is evidence but the WEF's National Quantum Blueprint does attempt to provide a roadmap for addressing this challenge and ensuring that the benefits of quantum computing and AI are shared equitably. Though the details, policy, regulation or actual framework appears absent.
With a few countries like the U.S. and China spending billions on quantum tech, some spending hundreds of millions, while other countries have not yet jumped on the quantum bandwagon, clearly a disparity between the "quantum haves" and the "quantum have-nots" is emerging.
It’s not clear to me how smaller countries, smaller Governments or small companies can keep up. Just as what we have witnessed with the rise of foundational LLM (large language models) in A.I.
Ideas on the Future
What is the NQB? It states:
Quantum technologies has the potential to drive transformational changes across digital society through breakthrough applications.
(Challenge #1) However, the growing global quantum divide between countries with established quantum programs and those without will lead to significant imbalances in core areas such as cybersecurity, defense, technology, healthcare, finance, manufacturing and more.
(Challenge #2) Many governments struggle with the breadth of how to navigate the development and use of dual-use quantum technologies, while aiming to maximize innovation and the need to align with the country's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
(Challenge #3) Certain additional factors further contribute to slower innovation like insufficiently skilled personnel, high complexity and cost inherent in the development of quantum technologies and cryptographic risks associated with fault-tolerant quantum computers amongst others.
(Opportunity #1) There are now several recognized initiatives globally to ramp up a quantum ecosystem at the national and regional level with the goal of promoting Quantum information science (QIS) to generate new knowledge and technologies.
(Opportunity #2) By following established best practices and global case studies and developments of Quantum technologies within partner nations, countries can ramp-up their quantum ecosystem, improve their industrial base, create jobs, and provide economic and national security benefits. By assessing the core building blocks required to develop a quantum ecosystem and outlining the role of business, academia, and governments in doing so, countries can catalyze their efforts in harnessing the potential of this technology.
(Opportunity #3) This initiative will create a roadmap across academia, industry, and government to help countries develop, support and commercialize their quantum tech initiatives, create new jobs and prosperity, and protect their national security, business integrity, and citizens’ privacy.
But honestly here are my actual thoughts:
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