Today, quan­tum com­put­ing is a mys­te­ri­ous type of emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy that inspires us to ask these ques­tions: What is quan­tum com­put­ing in the first place? How will it affect what SAP does in the com­ing years? And how will these com­bined fac­tors influ­ence future deci­sions for ASUG mem­bers?

Let’s start with the basics first to demys­ti­fy what we mean by quan­tum computing.

Quan­tum Com­put­ing 101: Bits Ver­sus Qubits

In com­par­i­son to bina­ry com­put­ing, quan­tum com­put­ing is a light-year leap. Where bina­ry machines use bits (bina­ry dig­its), quan­tum machines run on data in the shape of qubits (quan­tum bits).

We know that a bit only can have one of two val­ues, 0 or 1. But in quan­tum com­put­ing, a qubit’s val­ue (referred to as its quan­tum state) can be made up of two or more val­ues simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Adding even more com­plex­i­ty (quan­tum engi­neers would pre­fer you say pow­er), a qubit’s val­ue is also dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed depend­ing on the direc­tion from which it is viewed.

Where bina­ry bits have a defined posi­tion in the data­base, quan­tum qubits have what we call a super­po­si­tion. The super­po­si­tion or quan­tum state of any giv­en qubit is high­ly com­plex, and that com­plex­i­ty cre­ates fragili­ty. Errors can eas­i­ly arise, but are dif­fi­cult to measure.

So back to our orig­i­nal ques­tion: How will quan­tum com­put­ing affect what SAP does in the com­ing years? And when will ASUG Mem­bers need to start pay­ing atten­tion to this advance?

The Quan­tum Chill Factor

SAP, like every oth­er heavy­weight IT ven­dor out there, is posi­tioned for quan­tum when it comes. Key man­u­fac­tur­ers in the quan­tum space includ­ing D‑Wave Sys­tems and SAP part­ner IBM have already made a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment in deliv­er­ing machine inno­va­tions as this space con­tin­ues to evolve. But the nod to the ​“when” fac­tor is because quan­tum com­put­ing is still very much in development.

Quan­tum machines run at such mas­sive speeds that they must be kept extreme­ly cold. The micro­proces­sor cores of quan­tum com­put­ers must be kept at ‑460 F in order not to over­heat. The cold­est tem­per­a­ture ever record­ed on Earth was ‑128.6 F in Antarc­ti­ca. So, you could say that this plan­et is not cold enough for quan­tum com­put­ing in its nat­ur­al state.

Quan­tum SAP

While SAP and ASUG Mem­bers wait for the quan­tum spe­cial­ists to per­fect the art of the quan­tum machine build, we can make a few fair­ly con­fi­dent pre­dic­tions about the impact of quan­tum when it comes.

Pre­dic­tion 1: You prob­a­bly won’t be buy­ing your own quan­tum machine unless you’re also think­ing about invest­ing in a space-age nanofridge. It’s far more like­ly ASUG Mem­bers and SAP will buy cloud-based com­put­ing ser­vices run­ning on a quan­tum back end held in a quan­tum data cen­ter. Some ear­ly pro­to­types of this for­mat already exist.

Pre­dic­tion 2: Secu­ri­ty is a key area of oppor­tu­ni­ty because quan­tum machines can avoid the ​“brute forc­ing” of math­e­mat­i­cal prob­lems to crack cryp­to­graph­ic codes.

“Quan­tum entan­gle­ment is the basis for gen­er­at­ing an alert to phys­i­cal intru­sion or eaves­drop­ping on com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels involv­ing entan­gled pho­tons,” said Bindu Mad­ha­van, vice pres­i­dent of sys­tems engi­neer­ing and head of the Explore for SAP Inno­va­tion Cen­ter Net­work in Palo Alto. ​“Based on what we know today, there’s no way for any­one to beat this fun­da­men­tal mech­a­nism that would pre­vent com­mu­ni­cat­ing par­ties from being alert­ed to intruders.”

Naysay­ers argue that if the same pow­er gets into the hands of the hack­ers, then we won’t have moved for­ward too far. But gen­er­al­ly, the indus­try agrees that quan­tum cyber­se­cu­ri­ty is a good thing.

Blockchain, Infin­i­ty, and Beyond

ASUG Mem­bers might start think­ing about the areas of their busi­ness that could expe­ri­ence the effects of quan­tum com­put­ing over the next five years. Quan­tum pow­er will like­ly change most aspects of com­put­ing over the next decade and beyond. Research and devel­op­ment could ben­e­fit from quan­tum pow­er, and tech­nolo­gies like blockchain could become indus­try stan­dards if we engi­neer intel­li­gent­ly and take care­ful steps forward.

“Now is the time for com­pa­nies to begin explor­ing quan­tum tech­nol­o­gy with their part­ners and oth­er experts,” Mad­ha­van said. ​“For exam­ple, SAP cus­tomers want to solve increas­ing­ly com­plex prob­lems and gen­er­ate results faster. We’re bench­mark­ing clas­si­cal ver­sus quan­tum com­put­ers, while look­ing at solv­ing tar­get­ed busi­ness prob­lems in areas like logis­tics, sup­ply chain, and ware­house man­age­ment. While pre­lim­i­nary results haven’t gen­er­at­ed major out­comes, it’s the ide­al time frame to col­lab­o­rate on poten­tial use cas­es, lay­ing the ground­work for impor­tant future busi­ness opportunities.”

It’s 2019 and SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence is just around the cor­ner. There won’t be a quan­tum devel­op­er work­shop this year. But who knows, that might just change after 2020.