How to position your brand when tech’s Next Big Thing changes everything (again)
If quantum computing isn’t on your radar, it should be. Like AI, it’s been stealthily drawing closer for years. And, just as AI did, it’s set to arrive with the suddenness of a jump scare, shaking up entire industries.
So at Beneath, we thought it was about time someone put together a guide for everyone who’ll need to market this weird, wonderful, world-changing tech:
We’ll explore the opportunities that quantum computers are unlocking, industry by industry, and share our thoughts on how to position quantum solutions to your customers.
But first, we’ll give you a quick grounding in the technology itself. If you can already chat qubits over your pre-conference croissants, go ahead and skip to the practical advice.
A classical computer processes information in the form of bits. Any given bit, at any given time, can exist in either of two states: a one or a zero.
A quantum computer, however, processes “qubits”. Any given qubit, at any given time, can be a one, a zero, or it can be in “superposition”: neither of those states.
When a qubit is in superposition, it’s like a flipped coin spinning in midair. (No, you’re right – it’s not like that. But trust us, unless you’ve time to dive much deeper, the analogy’s helpful.) There’s some probability the qubit/coin will land on one/heads, and some probability it’ll land on zero/tails.
Now, imagine a labyrinth with one entrance and one exit. To find the quickest path through, a classical computer would have to explore each in turn by making a choice – heads or tails, one or zero – every time the path divides.
You can think of a quantum computer as placing a spinning qubit/coin at every junction of the maze. While the qubits are in this state, they can be carefully manipulated to increase the likelihood that, when they’re measured – when the coins land – the correct path is revealed.
Suffice to say, this opens some powerful computational doors. Questions that a classical supercomputer would need trillions years to chew over could, in theory, be answered by a quantum computer in a matter of days.
(If you do want to plunge deep into the technology’s fundamental principles, check out our quantum computing bookshelf at the end of this guide.)
Like so many new tech trends, quantum computing has been knocking around for a very long time.
One of the people we have to thank is Richard Feynman, AKA the quantum physicist who said, “nobody understands quantum mechanics”. Presumably he didn’t include himself in that by 1981, when he joined fellow science and tech luminaries at an MIT conference (squad pic below) to do what science and tech luminaries do best: nerd it out over how to engineer dazzling technological breakthroughs.
Over three days, they thrashed out how to apply the principles of quantum physics to create the most efficient computers ever seen.
MIT and conference co-host IBM both became heavily invested in the field, but it was another tech titan that, almost forty years later, finally proved quantum computers could handle problems way beyond their classical counterparts.
In late 2019, Google announced its 54-qubit quantum computer had solved a test calculation that would have kept the next best supercomputer occupied for ten millennia. Google’s quantum computer had cracked it in all of 200 seconds.
Why was quantum’s gestation so painfully slow? The short answer is: building a quantum computer is incredibly hard.
Qubits lose the information they’re holding at the drop of a hat. Or anything else that causes a tiny vibration, or temperature change, or other fluctuation in the surrounding environment. As a result, quantum computers need to be kept very, very cold, and ideally, in a vacuum.
To make matters worse, even when you satisfy all their high-maintenance demands, a quantum computer will produce a lot of errors. You can mitigate this by adding many more qubits to the computer, but simply building and controlling qubits, at scale, is an immense technical challenge in itself.
We’re now seeing breakthroughs in quantum error correction, from companies like AWS, but also from quantum computing start-ups, like Alice & Bob. The latter has designed a [checks notes] “cat qubit” with built-in correction for a big chunk of common errors.
At the same time, both Google and IBM are rapidly upping the number of qubits in their processors. IBM recently unveiled Heron, its most performant processor to date, less than a year after passing the 1,000-qubit mark with its similarly groundbreaking Condor.
There’s even a glimmer of good news concerning quantum computers’ extravagant cooling needs. Recent developments in spin wave technology are bringing us closer to replacing the electron flows that produce so much heat as they transmit information. (This may also lead to smartphones that don’t gently warm your thigh.)
New coding languages are also being developed to harness quantum algorithms, although old staples like Python have proven themselves capable of being used in a quantum context.
Crucially, today, we’re also living on the right side of the cloud computing revolution.
Given the size and sensitive nature of quantum computers, and the cost of building and running them, few businesses will be keeping a quantum machine “on prem”.
But with a cloud model, that problem evaporates. Any organization can tap into as much quantum computing power as they need, whenever they need it. (That’s right – get ready to worry that you’re mispronouncing “QaaS”.)
Amazon, IBM, Google, and Microsoft are among the companies that have already launched commercial quantum-computing cloud services. Quantum computer operating systems like ParityOS will run in the cloud, too.
Private tech companies may be leading the charge, but governments worldwide are also heavily invested in quantum computing. The US, Russia, China – all have earmarked billions (in USD terms) to help advance the technology.
The UK, through its National Quantum Strategy, is aiming to equip itself with accessible quantum computers by 2035. And in Denmark, public and private spending commitments have helped the nation to lead the world on per capita investment in quantum technology, building on a scientific heritage that stretches right back to quantum theory pioneer Niels Bohr.
There’s little benefit to using a quantum computer for the relatively straightforward processes involved in everyday web-browsing or graphic-rendering. The same goes for emailing, messaging and video-calling.
Classical computers can handle all these simpler tasks and calculations just fine. In some instances, a quantum computer might achieve a negligible increase in speed, but it’d be like slicing a loaf with a saw instead of a bread knife.
While we aren’t about to start carrying quantum computers around with us, we will certainly feel their presence as we use our favourite devices.
Quantum computers will sit behind the scenes (i.e. in a data centre) processing massive amounts of data and solving complex computational problems. Thanks to their efforts, we’ll use more accurate, more predictive search engines, and arrive on webpages that respond and adapt to us in ways that go far beyond swapping the odd component in and out.
Quantum computers will also deliver a major upgrade to our favourite AI tools. Backed by their immense data-processing power, AI will be able to provide smarter, faster, more sophisticated responses to our queries. Indeed, Dr. Théau Peronnin, Alice & Bob’s cofounder, believes quantum computing could propel AIs towards the feted “human-level intelligence” they’ve so far failed to achieve.
Even when we put our phones, tablets, laptops and smart everything-elses away, quantum computing will continue to shape our days. It’ll shorten our commutes. Help with our personal finances. And maybe even save our lives.
That’s because quantum computing is huge news for any industry that crunches numbers using complex formulae, advanced algorithms, predictive analytics and modelling. Industries like logistics, financial services, and healthcare and pharma.
Download our bluffer’s guide to quantum computing
Was that way too much quantum information for your human brain to compute? Don’t worry – just grab a copy of our bluffer’s guide.
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The reassuring thing about positioning your brand through even the wildest tech hype cycles is that, amid all the change – indeed, precisely because of all those head-spinning predictions, false-starts, red herrings and legitimate developments – the best plan of action is to stick to the unchanging fundamentals of positioning.
When we help B2B tech companies with their positioning at Beneath, we distil the inputs down into six foundational questions. Depending on the nature of your quantum offering, your answers to some of these questions may be more important than others.
A B2B brand narrative should be digestible and memorable for company stakeholders, but have enough detail to make sense. Between 150 and 400 words is a good range to shoot for. It’s not necessarily a customer-facing message. But often brand narratives can be used as a company manifesto, appearing on website About pages.
The brand narrative’s ultimate (and probably most important) expression is the headline or tagline that distils your message down to a concise phrase and prioritises clarity over cleverness (but a mixture of both is always nice).
Sometimes you might have two or several taglines (for example, one that articulates a change-in-the-world story, and one that describes the product in more straightforward terms. Again these can be customer-facing or not. Taglines don’t have to appear on website homepages, but often they are the perfect H1 headline.
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