Quantum Computing Demystified – What Every Executive Needs to Know

Key Takeaways

• Current public-key encryption (RSA and similar systems) will become obsolete and must be replaced by 2030-2035.
• Quantum computing will revolutionise specific business problems – such as optimisation, simulation, cryptography, and machine learning.
• Organisations that begin quantum adoption now will gain permanent competitive advantages over those who wait.

The Basic Absurdity

Your computer, that faithful digital servant that manages your calendar and plays your cat videos, operates with unwavering application. It checks each possibility individually, one after another, with persistence and crushing inefficiency. A quantum computer, by contrast, appears to have read too much Douglas Adams and decided that the sensible approach is to explore all possible realities simultaneously.

The technical explanation involves something called ‘qubits’ — quantum bits that exist in what physicists cheerfully describe as ‘superposition’ — meaning they can be both 0 and 1 at the same time. That is: they are Schrödinger’s data, neither dead nor alive until you peek inside the box. It’s the sort of thing that makes perfect sense to people who spend their days thinking about particles and utterly no sense to anyone trying to run a business.

But the practical effects are surprisingly clear. Consider UPS, which must somehow optimise 100,000 delivery routes daily — a problem that would take your current computer the next few decades to solve properly. A quantum computer could manage it over lunch.

Your Cryptographic Chickens Come Home to Roost

Here’s where things become rather more pressing, though. Every credit card transaction you’ve ever made, every ‘secure’ email you’ve sent, every login to your banking app — all of it protected by mathematical problems that are fiendishly difficult for normal computers but laughably simple for quantum ones.

The RSA, or other public-key, encryption that guards your financial data? A quantum computer will crack it in hours. And this isn’t some distant theoretical threat — IBM recently announced that it plans to build ‘Starling’  — a large-scale quantum computer by 2028, with cloud access expected by 2029.

The timeline is short: experts expect that quantum computers capable of breaking current encryption will arrive between 2030 and 2035. That’s not ‘someday’ — that’s just around the corner. Companies must complete their transition to quantum-safe encryption by 2030, which means starting the process now (see previous blog here).

The most unsettling part? Criminals and government agencies are already collecting encrypted data under a ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ strategy. Your private communications from today might be perfectly readable to anyone with a quantum computer in 2030. It’s rather like writing in invisible ink while someone videotapes you doing it.

The Business Applications: From Sublime to Ridiculous

The transformations promised by quantum computing occupy that peculiar space where technical breakthroughs mix with everyday usefulness..

In financial services, risk calculations that currently require hours of number-crunching will finish in seconds — imagine high-frequency trading that operates at quantum speeds. Portfolio optimisation across millions of assets becomes not just possible but routine. It’s the sort of thing that sounds like science fiction until you realise that the infrastructure already exists.

Pharmaceutical companies could compress drug discovery from the current 10-15 year slog to 2-3 years through quantum simulation of molecular interactions. The same technology enables materials simulation that could revolutionise everything from battery chemistry to concrete composition. Personalised medicine stops being economically unviable when you can model individual genetic responses in real-time.

Even logistics — that most routine of business functions — transforms into something resembling air traffic control for the entire global economy, with supply chains that optimise themselves instantaneously as conditions change.

But cybersecurity still presents the starkest choice: current public-key encryption becomes not just vulnerable but obsolete, while quantum encryption becomes theoretically unbreakable. Companies still relying on today’s security measures will become sitting ducks.

The Global Game of Chicken

The geopolitical dimensions of this are rather extraordinary, though. According to Spherical Insights, a reputed market research and industry consulting firm, the US will spend over $470 billion on AI in 2025, China over $100 billion, and the UK over $28 billion. It’s a technological arms race that is very real.

Meanwhile, IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon already offer quantum cloud services — you can experiment with quantum computing today using the same web browser you use to check your email. Startups are raising hundreds of millions, and quantum physicists are now a rare, and expensive, resource.

Your competitors are already experimenting. The question isn’t whether quantum computing will matter — it’s whether you’ll be ready when it does.

An Action Plan

Have a plan. Don’t get left watching from the sidelines as entire industries transform without you.

• The next 12 months: Get educated, though not in the way management consultants usually mean it. Bring in someone who actually understands quantum mechanics to brief your leadership team. Start small with a pilot project using IBM’s or Amazon’s quantum cloud services, say. Audit your current encryption infrastructure and try not to panic at what you discover.
• Years 2-3: Build genuine expertise — hire quantum talent or, better still, train existing staff. Map your encryption upgrade timeline before the deadline approaches. Scale your pilot projects from interesting experiments to actual business applications.
• Years 3-5: Deploy quantum solutions for competitive advantage while completing your security infrastructure overhaul. Apply quantum computing to your most challenging optimisation problems and hope your competitors are still figuring out what a qubit is.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Quantum computing won’t solve every problem, replace every computer, or usher in a technological utopia — but it will solve specific problems that matter enormously to business: optimisation, simulation, cryptography, and machine learning. Companies that master these applications will have permanent advantages over those that don’t.

It’s rather like the early days of the internet, when perceptive executives invested in web capabilities before they could prove ROI, while their competitors demanded immediate evidence of profitability. We know how that ended.

The companies that understand quantum computing today will lead their industries tomorrow. The companies that wait will spend the next decade watching their competitors solve problems they didn’t even know were solvable.

Start now. Preferably before someone else does.

If you’d like more background on Quantum Computing and AI, here is a report that I co-authored with my good friends Mercedes Cangueiro, Miriam Fernández,  and Sudeep Kesh (with the excellent design and editorial skills of Cat VanVliet and Paul Whitfield) while working at S&P Global.