The transition to quantum computing is no longer a distant theoretical change, but an immediate strategic and commercial reality.
Boston Consulting Group points out that quantum technology has a potential market opportunity of $2 trillion, with an estimated 90% of that value accruing to early adopters. Similarly, IBM's 2025 Readiness Report highlights that quantum-enabled organizations are already outpacing their peers in innovation.
As a result, more than half of companies expect to integrate quantum computing within the next two years. Walmart, Pfizer and Honeywell already have strong quantum teams, and big banks are experimenting with it for trading and risk. Companies use it for everything from optimizing vehicle body designs to solving large-scale resource allocation challenges to identifying the next life-saving drug molecule. In the financial services space, leading institutions are exploring high-impact applications such as liquidity optimization, derivatives pricing, risk simulation, and anomaly detection with machine learning.
However, many companies still believe that investing in quantum technology is too risky to justify.
But as with today's AI adoption, the reality is that companies that delay foundational investments will be left scrambling to catch up while companies that get ahead of the curve secure talent and intellectual property. Companies waiting for the “perfect” quantum hardware risk being left behind by competitors who are already learning and using today's systems to solve complex challenges.
To successfully integrate quantum computing into strategic roadmaps, company leaders must prioritize developing quantum talent, explore different access routes, and foster experimentation to determine the most effective solutions for their businesses.
education makes progress possible
The most important element of a company's quantum strategy is not necessarily having the most advanced quantum technology, but increasing employee understanding of it.
Innovation with new technology can only occur when workers understand the technology well enough to integrate it into their own creative problem-solving. Quantum is no exception.
But building a quantum-ready workforce doesn't require hiring a ton of PhD physicists. Instead, the most effective strategy is to improve the skills of existing domain experts. By designing and implementing educational programs that highlight concrete ways these professionals can harness the power of quantum computing in their work, everyone from corporate engineers to analysts can become quantum literate enough to make a real difference.
This approach allows those who already understand the core business challenges to pinpoint where quantum algorithms can provide a competitive advantage, allowing them to apply the technology to high-value problems rather than theoretical concepts.
Forward-thinking organizations are already using this educational approach to proactively build a “quantum-ready” workforce. Companies like KPMG and Accenture Federal Services use hands-on, hands-on assessments and training to build teams of experts and prepare cyber operations for emerging threats. Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and the UK's National Quantum Computing Center (NQCC) have adopted an educational platform to expand the global “Quantum Guild” and establish national training standards. Meanwhile, JPMorgan has invested heavily in training its own quants, engineers and researchers in quantum algorithms to tackle complex financial problems.
This talent development, combined with immediate technology validation, gives these companies a decisive first-mover advantage in the quantum space.
Expanded access fosters experimentation
As companies upskill their employees, it is important to provide them with access to interact with quantum technology itself. Deploying on-premises computing hardware costs millions of dollars, so it's understandable that most businesses are hesitant to take the plunge.
Instead, organizations today can leverage cloud-based access to quantum computers or gain limited shared access to on-premises hubs. This enables teams to run real-world workloads on today's devices without the immediate burden of large initial investments.
Additionally, by establishing cloud partnerships and experimentation workflows now, companies can secure their place in the queue and avoid future roadblocks that can slow innovation for companies that have been late to the table.
In Colorado, for example, Elevate Quantum is accelerating this regional ecosystem through its Quantum Commons campus. This first commercially deployable open architecture quantum system in the United States is the fastest path to establishing an operational quantum infrastructure without the need for multi-year development cycles and is available for immediate procurement.
Right now, it's all about first-mover advantage, and that comes from solid experimentation. This requires companies to explore multiple quantum workflows, architectures (how the technology stack is designed), and modalities (the different physical design possibilities of the computer itself). It's important not to commit to a single vendor or decide on an approach too early.
Companies can begin a structured approach to quantum experimentation by identifying high-impact, domain-specific use cases, such as complex optimizations and simulations, and use quantum computing to address those use cases. A critical first step is to translate your company's business challenges into quantum-enabled problems, and this is where education on how to apply quantum to your workflows comes in handy.
For example, risk professionals calculating value at risk move from running classical Monte Carlo simulations, where improving accuracy by one decimal place requires an expensive 100x increase in samples, to encoding market variables into quantum states. By using quantum Monte Carlo algorithms optimized for current hardware, the system can achieve quadratic sample reduction, requiring only 10 times more samples to achieve exactly the same accuracy gain.
For maximum impact, leaders should partner with quantum experts to assess the relevance of their challenges to quantum computing and design programs that prioritize rapid learning over immediate success to continually build momentum.
The key to starting a quantum program is to start with: comparatively A small computing problem. It helps teams test problems that can be solved by high-performance classical computers to get a feel for translating ideas into the quantum realm. For accounting or finance, these initial exercises might include optimizing a small asset portfolio or selecting an audit sample. For every experiment, teams must rigorously benchmark their test cases against classical approaches to determine what advantages quantum offers, such as time and resource efficiency.
By driving small-scale proofs of concept now, leaders can validate the technical feasibility of quantum and find the best tools for long-term use.
Quantum is available today
Industry leaders are already making gains by experimenting with use cases on real quantum systems to maximize industry-relevant value.
In the energy sector, E.ON has used quantum computing to increase the efficiency and stability of power systems by improving the way energy is converted and delivered. Meanwhile, Qubit Pharmaceuticals recently demonstrated the effectiveness of classical drug discovery techniques using only a practical-scale quantum computer.
At the same time, Mitsubishi Chemical and SoftBank are setting world records in algorithmic performance and overcoming traditional computational bottlenecks in chemical modeling and system stability.
Meanwhile, in the financial sector, industry leaders like HSBC are exploring quantum applications to increase the efficiency of algorithmic bond trading, while Vanguard is exploring quantum capabilities to optimize complex multi-asset portfolios.
Finally, Airbus used quantum computing to solve computationally intractable supply chain problems. The company expects these solutions to be widely implemented to optimize industrial workloads by 2028.
These near-term use cases demonstrate that quantum technology is ready to handle high-impact, real-world business workloads. By providing industry-specific quantum education to employees, providing access to quantum technologies, and encouraging early experimentation, executives can ensure their companies are ready to lead the next computational revolution.
