Quantum computing is one of the long-term trends that CIOs should take action on in 2023, otherwise “you will miss this technology wave,” Dell Technologies Global CTO John Roese argued.

Roese saw patterns forming this year “where we're starting to see some very long trends culminating with something that needs to be done.” For CIOs and IT decision-makers, “it's not okay to just be aware anymore, there are certain things that you actually have to act on,” he told SDxCentral.

And quantum computing is a good example. This year, organizations should invest in quantum talent, simulations, and security.

Roese noted industrial quantum computing use cases started to emerge two years ago, including battery development, material science, drug discovery, and seismic research. “We have hundreds of examples where people have done the early work to figure out how they would apply quantum mathematics to solve some really hard problems that would make specific industries better.”

Additionally, quantum computing tools are available for users to explore the technology and start to learn the necessary programming languages and logic.

To this end, Dell released a hybrid classical-quantum computing package that offers a quantum emulation platform and access to IonQ’s quantum computers that can enable both on-premise and cloud-based quantum acceleration last November.

“In almost every industry, we can find examples where people know what they're going to use a quantum computer for, and then if they can apply it to these problems, mostly optimization problems, they would get an advantage and they're starting to experiment,” Roese said.

That’s why he recommends organizations build a team or identify a point person for quantum computing implementation.

“It turns out that 2023 is the year that for the first time, most enterprises are going to be able to start to deploy quantum-shaped protocols,” Roese said.

“Investing in quantum simulation and enabling your data science and artificial intelligence (AI) teams to learn the new languages and capability of quantum is critical in 2023,” he wrote in a post.

Determine quantum-safe crypto risks

To earn a better position for quantum computing, organizations should also draw a clear picture for post-quantum cryptography, Roese noted.

“With the rise of quantum computing comes the need to better understand post-quantum cryptography, the development of cryptographic systems for classical computers that are able to prevent attacks launched by quantum computers,” he warned. “Bad actors globally are actively trying to capture and archive encrypted traffic on the assumption that sufficiently powerful quantum computers will eventually be able to decrypt that data.”

To mitigate those risks, organizations can identify their cryptography inventory and catalog their crypto assets, and then assess their high-risk public interfaces including identifying which encrypted data is most exposed to the public networks -- especially those in the hybrid and multi-cloud environments, according to Roese.

Last year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) selected the first few viable post-quantum algorithms, “and in 2023 these tools will start to emerge,” he noted. “Over time they will be needed everywhere, but in 2023, knowing where to use them first is a critical step.”