The UK has everything it needs to lead the world in quantum computing. First-class scientific talent, a solid funding pipeline, groundbreaking companies and even a government industrial strategy, all that’s missing, according to Riverlane CEO Steve Brierley, is a sense of urgency.
Speaking to UKTN, Brierley – whose quantum company has raised $125m – celebrated the UK’s enviable position in the sector as “hugely impressive”.
“The numbers don’t lie,” Brierley said, pointing to the 1,300 people in the UK employed by the quantum sector – a 30% increase from last year – and to the billion pounds invested in British quantum in the last four years, as much as £300m of which was deployed last year.
Figures from the UK government in 2023 said Britain had 307 quantum patents, more than anywhere in Europe and fourth in the world behind Japan, China and the US.
“The UK is second only to the US in terms of number of quantum computing companies and in terms of private capital raised by the sector.”
Though these figures seem like cause for celebration, Brierley warned against complacency in a sector so driven by sudden change.
“Every month that you spend thinking about what you might do is a month you haven’t spent just doing it.”
Brierley’s message echoes his calls made to parliament earlier this week, when he was invited to provide evidence for the UK’s emerging technologies industrial strategy alongside figures from Vodafone, Arm and techUK.
The UK unveiled its 10-year quantum strategy in 2023 – backed by £2.5bn – under the premiership of Rishi Sunak.
While Brierley supports the strategy as a “noble effort”, he has warned that other countries can see the value of the strategy and will overtake Britain without fast action.
Though he believes the £2.5bn could be enough to complete the strategy – in what he described as a “surprisingly low amount of money given the stakes” – the pace of delivery will determine its success or failure.
The strategy stretches over a decade, but Brierley said “you want to do all of that upfront, because in five years’ time, the industry is going to be so big that that amount of money is going to be irrelevant”.
It may be irrelevant in five years but for the Riverlane chief executive, “front loading” that investment into quantum would generate returns in the “trillions”.
But the million, or trillion, dollar question for the quantum sector has for a long time been, when will there be actual returns?
Brierley was pretty confident about that as well, claiming three years (or a “max” of four) before the sector’s “ChatGPT moment”, which will come in the form of error corrected quantum computers thousands of times more powerful than the current standard.
If investors were presented with the opportunity to go back and invest in generative AI and its underlying infrastructure in 2019, many would be thrilled at the chance. According to Brierley, this is that chance.
Read more: Quantum generative AI: The next ChatGPT moment?
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