The EY organization and IBM recently announced that EY Global Services Limited will be joining the IBM Quantum Network, further enabling EY teams to explore solutions with IBM that could help resolve some of today’s most complex business and global challenges.
The EY organization established its own Global Quantum Lab last year with a mission to “harness quantum value in the domains of trust, transformation, and sustainability.” Under the new alliance, EY will gain access to IBM’s fleet of quantum computers over the cloud and will become part of the IBM Quantum Network’s community of organizations working to advance quantum computing.
Quantum computing is a rapidly emerging technology that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that even today’s most powerful supercomputers cannot solve. EY teams will leverage their access to the world’s largest fleet of quantum computers to explore solutions to enterprise challenges across finance, oil and gas, healthcare, and government.
Leveraging IBM’s quantum technology, EY teams plan to conduct leading-class research to uncover transformative use cases, including but not limited to the reduction of CO2 emissions from classical computing, the improvement of safety and accuracy of self-driving cars, and most critically, integrate quantum benefits into organizations’ mainstream systems for data processing and enterprise decision making.
In a press release announcing the EY/IBM alliance Andy Baldwin, EY Global Managing Partner, said, “Quantum, in terms of importance to business, society, and the EY organization, is akin to what AI represented years ago. This alliance puts the EY organization at the forefront of technology. As we invest in this level of quantum computing access, we accelerate our own position and depth of knowledge and capabilities in this space and deepen our rich relationship with our IBM alliance teams.”
Jay Gambetta, Vice President IBM Quantum, added, “IBM’s vision is to deliver useful quantum computing to the world. We value partners like the EY organization that can introduce emerging technology to a wide ecosystem of public and private industry. This will help EY facilitate the exploration of quantum computing’s potential for use cases that matter in their industry.”
How is This Alliance Relevant to AI?
If the is any limit at all on what AI can achieve to improve healthcare, education, research, the economy, and society as a whole, it is the processing power of conventional computers. The marriage of AI and quantum computing will help AI fulfill all of its potential promise, and alliances like this one will help get us there.
Membership in the IBM Quantum Network is part of a broader effort by the EY organization to invest and develop robust capabilities in emerging technologies, which already include artificial intelligence.
How Big Rio Can Help
Quantum computing is still very much an emerging technology with large-scale and practical applications still a way off. However, the technology is steadily graduating from the lab and heading for the marketplace. In 2019, Google announced that it had achieved “quantum supremacy,” IBM, as can be seen in this venture with EY, is fulfilling on its commitment to doubling the power of its quantum computers every year, and numerous other companies and academic institutions are investing billions toward making quantum computing a commercial reality.
Quantum computing will take artificial intelligence and machine learning to the next level. The symbiosis between the two is an area to pay very close attention to for startups as well as for where Big Tech will be going over the next five to ten years, and where ever this road can take use BigRio will be there to help get startups and society as a whole to its ultimate destination.
You can read much more about how quantum computing will redefine AI and machine learning in my new book Quantum Care: A Deep Dive into AI for Health Delivery and Research. It’s a comprehensive look at how AI is being used to improve healthcare and society as a whole. There is an entire chapter devoted to quantum computing and AI.
Rohit Mahajan is a Managing Partner with BigRio. He has a particular expertise in the development and design of innovative solutions for clients in Healthcare, Financial Services, Retail, Automotive, Manufacturing, and other industry segments.
BigRio is a technology consulting firm empowering data to drive innovation and advanced AI. We specialize in cutting-edge Big Data, Machine Learning, and Custom Software strategy, analysis, architecture, and implementation solutions. If you would like to benefit from our expertise in these areas or if you have further questions on the content of this article, please do not hesitate to contact us.
