A Quantum Guide for the Fortune 500
Overview
What does it take to persuade the biggest companies in the world to start exploring quantum technology? Twenty years in deep tech consulting is a great place to start. Jean-François Bobier is a partner and director at the Boston Consulting Group in Paris. He uses his expertise in identifying use cases, endless curiosity and computer science background to help Fortune 500 executives understand the quantum world. In this episode of “The Quantum Spin by HKA,” host Veronica Combs discusses story telling and technology with Jean-François.
00:00 Introduction to Quantum Spin Podcast
00:36 Interview with Jean-François Bobier
01:06 Challenges in Convincing Clients
02:07 Deep Tech and Quantum Innovations
03:21 Quantum Use Cases and Client Engagement
05:30 IBM’s Success in Quantum Computing
07:25 Factors for Success in Quantum Adoption
14:55 Global Quantum Computing Landscape
18:52 Future of Quantum Computing
20:14 Conclusion and Farewell
Transcript
[00:00:00] Veronica Combs: Hello, and welcome to the Quantum Spin by HKA. I’m Veronica Combs. I’m a writer and an editor here at the agency. I get to talk every day with really smart people working on really fascinating subjects, everything in the quantum industry, from hardware to software. On our podcast, we focus in on quantum communication.
[00:00:19] And by that, I don’t mean making networks safe from hacking or entangling photons over long distance, but talking about the technology. How do you explain these complicated concepts to people who don’t have a background in science and engineering but want to understand all the same? Today I am talking with Jean-François Bobier.
[00:00:38] He is a partner and director at the Boston Consulting Group in Paris. So thank you so much for joining us today, Jean-François.
[00:00:45] Jean-François Bobier: Thank you, Veronica. Thank you everyone for having me today.
[00:00:48] Veronica Combs: I was reading your LinkedIn as I always do before I’m getting ready to talk to someone. And you recently marked a pretty big anniversary with BCG, 20 years. I was reading through the comments and one of your colleagues said that it was your insatiable curiosity that has kept you so fresh and engaging all these years.
[00:01:06] How does that help you convince clients to take a chance on new technology? That’s not always an easy sell, at least in my experience.
[00:01:13] Jean-François Bobier: Well, we work typically at BCG for the large fortune 500 companies. Multinational big, big companies, multi-billion dollar revenues. And they tend to be conservative because they are actually quite good at what they do.
[00:01:27] And it’s difficult to ask them to change because they believe that the way they do things today is so good. And so change is hard. Change is really hard. And so we have to find ways to bring innovation in a positive way. One of the things we do well, as a consultant, is tell stories. We need to tell a positive story on how this innovation will help them sustain the success that they have.
[00:01:51] And another thing obviously is more like the financial part. They are still very ROI driven. That’s where as consultants we come in, we are able to look at both sides of the equation. So how much is the innovation is going to bring. And how much is it going to cost? We, I’m part of a bigger group at BCG called Deep Tech.
[00:02:10] Where we show technologies that are actually unproven or not at scale. And we could say quantum is still not at scale right now. It’s quite hard. It’s really hard, but it’s fun. I like hard problems, I guess.
[00:02:23] Veronica Combs: Well, you’re certainly in the right job then. How long has the Deep Tech group been around?
[00:02:26] Jean-François Bobier: It’s about six years. And so if you look at quantum, we’ve been for this long six years, we’ve been able to publish 15 research papers on bcg.com. We work with a lot of corporate clients, but also a lot of providers in the consumer space, also investors and governments, by the way, are actually one of the biggest players in when you look at the market today.
[00:02:48] And so that gives us a very unique position looking at the many different sides of the equation.
[00:02:54] Veronica Combs: I used to be a journalist and write about technology. And so the whole digital transformation idea was sort of enough of a change and upheaval, you know, changing all your processes and digitizing everything.
[00:03:04] But then when it comes to quantum, that’s yet another wave of change. I feel like quantum is one of the harder things to sell to people or to convince them to see the potential. How do you use all your experience in getting people to take that technology on?
[00:03:18] Jean-François Bobier: So there are different lenses we try to bring together.
[00:03:21] So one obviously is about what quantum can do. We talk more about the use cases and what technology at the end of the day, they don’t really care about qubits or superposition and entanglement. They care about what their business could do, but they cannot do it today. And so that’s why we did a lot of work on the use cases.
[00:03:43] So we have a library of 100 use cases that we have on a very regular basis, and that allows us to speak along way that they can understand. Of course, we also have like 101 scientific presentations where we explain super position, you know, entanglement. I also use real world analogies. So for example, color is quantum, it’s something you cannot explain with like Newton’s laws.
[00:04:08] There’s no way you can explain color. You see it every day. And that’s, of course, a difference between the excited state of a molecule and the ground state.
[00:04:17] Veronica Combs: Are there any common stumbling blocks? Like, do you have to answer the same questions over and over when you’re introducing quantum to someone?
[00:04:23] Jean-François Bobier: Well, it really depends on the audience.
[00:04:25] So if you think about our clients, their main question will always be the same. Should I really bother? Because it seems to me that, you know, it’s going to take forever to get there. One of the questions is the timing that I get very often, when will I see something useful for me? And so this is where we go back to the roadmaps of the different quantum providers and when we believe we’ll see some value.
[00:04:50] They rarely ask about anything else right now. Right. And
[00:04:55] Veronica Combs: So we’ve talked about quantum advantage, quantum utility, quantum supremacy. What do you think about that tipping point? Is there a phrase that you like to use? I know things come and go out of favor and I think we’re moving away from quantum supremacy.
[00:05:07] Thank goodness. But how do you talk about that tipping point?
[00:05:11] Jean-François Bobier: Look, I like the word quantum advantage because advantage speaks to value and our customers, they want ROI. So I like ROI advantage, but the one I use quite often, I would say. Your right supremacy is not very good. Utility is hard to get right.
[00:05:30] Veronica Combs: You worked for IBM early on in your career as a software engineer, I think.
[00:05:34] Jean-François Bobier: I did.
[00:05:35] Veronica Combs: Makes them so successful at quantum? I don’t know if it’s getting their message out or the technology, you know, everyone always. Uses them as sort of the yardstick when it comes to getting attention or getting lumped into that category of the top companies.
[00:05:46] Why do you think they’ve been so successful at quantum?
[00:05:48] Jean-François Bobier: So I think it’s a combination of factors. So factually, I mean, they were very early adopters, true believers. So they had processors. The first ones, I think around, 2016 or something like that. They have the IBM name. When I used to work at IBM, there was a phrase, but I still remember, which is right.
[00:06:08] You can’t get fired for hiring IBM, right? Of course, a lot of things have changed, but they still have this huge credibility and this huge debt with their customers. I can’t share data, but we believe that they have a significant share of the market today in terms of revenues. Based on our estimates, they are probably the number one vendor right now.
[00:06:30] I would say even by far. So there are a lot of factors and also, obviously, their technology is great. Jay is a great leader. I like that he’s both a manager, but also he has a PhD and he knows work. And he’s quite rare in our industry. But it’s like this dual skillset. And then of course, what I like about them is that their roadmap is quite ambitious.
[00:06:53] And so far, everything they said they would deliver, they are delivering. So IBM is not the only one, but they did a lot of things that are positive for the industry also that we have the IBM Q network, the Qiskit framework is open. They did a lot of things that I think are good.
[00:07:14] Jean-François Bobier: To be clear, I don’t have stock with them.
[00:07:16] I sold everything and I joined BCG. So I can say good things.
[00:07:23] Veronica Combs: Without guilt. Yes. Good to know. When you’re talking with clients and customers, are there markers that you look for that make you think a company or a team would be successful with something new? I wonder if you’ve learned to spot a company that’s more likely to be successful than one that might not.
[00:07:39] Jean-François Bobier: Yeah, there are a few factors that matter. So first of all, if you step back and you look at the Fortune 500, you will see that there are about 50 companies that do have a quantum program leader. So we are talking about 10 percent of the Fortune 500. The first factor is obvious. You need to be in an industry that is impacted by control.
[00:08:00] So I would say that, for example, if you’re in financial services, in pharma, in material science, yes, you’ll be impacted in the short term. Let’s say you’re in retail, for example, you’re at Walmart, not so much. I’m not saying, well, you shouldn’t, but, I think we can wait a little bit. So the sector is one important thing.
[00:08:22] And then I think the pattern that I’ve seen is that leaders in an industry, they tend to invest in quantum. So when I say 10 percent of the Fortune 500, they tend to be the leaders in their industry. So for example, if you take commercial services, you’ve got Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan, both of them have very sizable quantum programs in place, right?
[00:08:43] BMW in Germany, they are the leader in luxury cars, as you know, they also have a very, very good quantum program. So I would say that you will find it at leading companies that have a long term view. So the key success factor is to have executive sponsorship. And we believe also another thing, but usually it comes with the executive sponsorship to have a budget of at least one million dollars to play with every year so that you can sustain the research and you can see it through.
[00:09:18] You need at least a million dollars every year.
[00:09:20] Veronica Combs: Right, right. What do you think is the most valuable support that you provide?
[00:09:24] Jean-François Bobier: So, as I said, now we have four different customers. So for the Fortune 500 customers, I would say that our value is really bringing the use cases that are specific to their context. What they do through their operations, their products and everything to show them what value we could get out of quantum when and what they should do.
[00:09:44] Now to get started, we work for quantum providers and we have the other side of the equation. So we help them make their roadmap, scale their operations so that they can meet the demand from our corporate users because we know what they’re looking for. Governments, we help them calibrate their investments. As I said, they have multi-billion dollar programs.
[00:10:06] So they are big contributors to the quantum industry, and they have a problem that a lot of people would like to have: billions to spend, but they would like to know where and how. And so we help them navigate where are the bottlenecks in quantum so that they can invest in the part that will be useful for the development of industry and investors. Mostly it’s helping them navigate around
[00:10:32] what are the different modalities, what are the pros and cons, what are the use cases that are better for one modality versus another, what type of things that we do. We are not technical, but we need to be knowledgeable enough so we can have a good conversation.
[00:10:47] Veronica Combs: So you mentioned bottlenecks. I know that IBM had its first quantum software developer conference this week, I think in New York, and there’s been some conversation about algorithm development being the next bottleneck in the industry.
[00:10:59] What do you think of that assessment?
[00:11:01] Jean-François Bobier: Yeah, the short answer is yes. However, what they have to do in hardware is still very hard. Now we have to deliver the roadmap that they have promised us, right? With error correction and everything, right? But we shouldn’t underestimate how hard it is. They still have a lot of hard things to do.
[00:11:19] But it’s true that now, thanks to the progress we have made in hardware, now we have a new science called resource estimation that has been brought forward by Meta and Microsoft and others. And now we are able to quantify algorithms in terms of gates and the number of operations for certain problems.
[00:11:40] Veronica Combs: Error correction is another really important component of all of this. What do you think about the accomplishments we’ve seen this year in that area?
[00:11:48] Jean-François Bobier: So, take a graphic card, a GPU. So basically, it runs a set of instructions that are predetermined in advance, and it’s very fast at that, because it just runs them.
[00:11:58] And the way quantum computers are designed today, it’s exactly that. You’ve got a program, you send it to a computer, it will run every step. One by one and so on. Because of error correction, we need to read a quantum state while the quantum computer is running. Today, we don’t need to do that because we only read at the end, but because of error correction, we need to be able to read in the middle.
[00:12:18] And there are people, for example, like Quantinuum, but rather who figure out, oh, could I do a branch instruction, right? So could I have a program that, in the middle of the algorithm, I read a value, and based on if it’s one, I do something, or if it’s something else, I do something else. So I change my program, so it’s no longer a fixed pipeline.
[00:12:39] It’s a program that I can change over time while I’m doing the computation. And I think it’s a very interesting idea because that opens another part of computer science, which is branches, right? There are techniques like that that are very exciting, but we didn’t explore yet. That could be quite interesting.
[00:12:56] And think about the fact, the amazing fact that three years ago, we were still thinking, oh, will error correction be even possible? Now it’s over behind us, I think, again, a lot of work, but the cool thing I think is in software. So you’re right. We need a lot of breakthroughs. But the cool thing is that there are a few ideas out there that just need to be tested.
[00:13:17] I’m quite optimistic about the fact that we’ll see people coming up with cool ideas.
[00:13:22] Veronica Combs: Well, I read your July report and it was very balanced between optimism and reality. How do those reports get done? Do you set those priorities and write the first draft?
[00:13:33] Jean-François Bobier: Every year I try to write at least one or two just because, also, I have a lot of fun doing that.
[00:13:38] The BCG gives me time to research. So typically, I go to conferences. I talk to people and I, basically the way it works is more organic. I see topics emerge as I talk to people and also. For example, for next year, we’re going to write about, we’re going to run our quantum adoption survey again.
[00:13:56] We’ll do another one on resource estimation and actually the software problem that we just talked about, because I believe the next topic as you rightly pointed out.
[00:14:06] Veronica Combs: And I also read the report from last year about the 100 active proof of concept projects going on among Fortune 500 companies.
[00:14:15] Is that 100 number the same this year or going up?
[00:14:18] Jean-François Bobier: We are still running the survey as we speak. But if you look at the early results, I would say that it’s steady, at least, or even increasing because the good news is there are also new people coming to Quantum. So the existing one, they are still investing, and some new people have joined.
[00:14:38] So for example, in the Middle East, we have quite a few active companies, for example, like Saudi Aramco that was not going to, and Asia in general, but I’m sure more companies. So far, I think we can be on the optimistic side of things.
[00:14:55] Veronica Combs: So obviously BCG is a global company and you work with organizations around the world, like you said, governments and providers and clients, but I know you’re based in Paris and I like to ask about the local scene.
[00:15:06] I’m curious, what’s your perspective and what should the rest of us know about France?
[00:15:11] Jean-François Bobier: Yeah. So it’s a good question. Thank you for asking. We have a very vibrant quantum computing scene. We have all modalities except ion traps. So we have a Pascal. I think one of the leaders in neutral atoms. Obviously, to look at our market, yet they are probably still the number one European company.
[00:15:30] Just by that metric, if you look at, we have superconducting, we have Alice and Bob. So the pioneer, the new type of qubit, as you know, the CAT qubit, which corrects one type of error, which is quite exciting. We have Quandella on the photonic side. We have C12, but they do string qubits. And we have another string qubit in silicon startup.
[00:15:54] That is called Quobly. They succeed in school because they use silicone so that it scales very nicely. The only problem with silicone is that at small scale, it’s very expensive. So we have a very vibrant scene. We also have the Nobel Prize for physics, two years ago was Alain Aspect. He trained a lot of researchers and professors in France.
[00:16:18] So the only thing we lack is investment. That’s more like a European problem. We can talk about this at length, but the two words for you are: pension funds. In the US, 10 percent of the pension fund money goes to startups. And that makes a huge difference in terms of financing startups. So in Europe, it’s cool to create a startup and you will get a lot of state support.
[00:16:41] You won’t pay tax. They will give you money. We see it’s actually easy to start a company, but it’s more difficult to scale. So most of the time you need to go and look for money abroad, U. S. and elsewhere to get additional funding.
[00:16:56] Veronica Combs: Right, right. Yes. We’ve talked with several of our clients about the state of European funding.
[00:17:01] So how do you think about how the different regions of the world are doing with quantum?
[00:17:06] We wrote a report about that two years ago, and we came up with some kind of ranking dimensions. I would say clearly the U. S. is number one without a doubt because not only there are startups to go to, there are these large tech companies, like obviously we just talked about IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and they invest heavily in quantum and they are super good.
[00:17:31] In Europe, we have a fair chance to be number two, and we can try to be number one in specific technologies or components. So that’s probably what we should aim to do. And I think a lot of European companies will be acquired by Google or IBM or whatever. And in China, you’re right, it’s a big question mark.
[00:17:51] It’s very interesting because in China, since COVID, we don’t see them anymore. They were coming to conferences before actually. And the last time I saw them was at a conference in Dubai. There were European, U. S. and Chinese startups in the same place. So I could see what they were doing. I mean, we shouldn’t ever underestimate China.
[00:18:12] They went on, in the 80s, they were like a very small country, just more than a few. And so now we own like something close to 50 percent of the world manufacturing output. So nobody should underestimate China at all. I think the Western model of innovation is probably still more efficient than the closed model of state support.
[00:18:32] But my personal opinion, I think it’s better to have our model where we have a lot of, you know, competition, but also a lot of sharing, a lot of exchange of ideas. I think it’s a shame actually that the Chinese are not involved on both sides, right? They are still involved in some papers. But for the benefit of humanity, it would have been better if we had more global collaboration on quantum.
[00:18:52] Veronica Combs: You mentioned the July report, a long term forecast for quantum computing still looks bright and that I make sure to read all your reports when they come out because they are very accessible and comprehensive. And you put the quantum use cases into four categories, which are pretty standard these days.
[00:19:08] s, optimization, machine learning, and cryptography. If you were able to leap ahead however many years that might be to a fully fault tolerant quantum computer, is there a particular use case that you would like to take on with that scalable quantum computer?
[00:19:21] Jean-François Bobier: The use cases that I’m more excited about are in the simulation category for a lot of reasons, because this is why Richard Feynman proposed quantum computing the first place, to simulate nature.
[00:19:33] And with that, we could really, and I’m not joking here, we could really change the world. With simulation, we could come up with better drugs, better materials. We could not solve, but we could help with climate. So from that standpoint, I think those are really the use cases of finding new materials.
[00:19:48] For example, superconducting materials at room temperature or new types of concrete, better batteries, solar cells, nuclear fusion. Those are the cool things we could do. I mean, don’t get me wrong, our optimization will have financial benefits, but it will not be as changing the world as simulation, I think it would be more incremental.
[00:20:11] So I’m more into things that would truly change the world.
[00:20:15] Veronica Combs: Well, thank you so much for your time today. It’s been really great to talk with you. I always appreciate when I talk to folks who are really deeply embedded in the industry and seeing so much from the government perspective and private industry and startups too.
[00:20:25] So thank you so much for your time.
[00:20:27] Jean-François Bobier: Thank you. I wish you a great day. Thank you so much.
Host Veronica Combs is a quantum tech editor, writer and PR professional. She manages public relations for quantum computing and tech clients as an account manager with HKA Marketing Communications, the #1 agency in quantum tech PR. You can find them on X, formerly known as Twitter, @HKA_PR. Veronica joined HKA from TechRepublic, where she was a senior writer. She has covered technology, healthcare and business strategy for more than 10 years. If you’d like to be on the podcast yourself, you can reach her on LinkedIn, Veronica Combs, or you can go to the HKA website and share your suggestion via the Contact Us page.
December 18, 2024
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