International Data Corporation (IDC) published its first forecast for the worldwide quantum computing market, projecting customer spend for quantum computing to grow from $412 million in 2020 to $8.6 billion in 2027. This represents a 6-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50.9% over the 2021-2027 forecast period. The forecast includes core quantum computing as a service as well as enabling and adjacent quantum computing as a service.
IDC also expects investments in the quantum computing market will grow at a 6-year CAGR (2021-2027) of 11.3% and reach nearly $16.4 billion by the end of 2027. This includes investments made by public and privately funded institutions, government spending worldwide, internal allocation (R&D spend) from technology and services vendors, and external funding from venture capitalists and private equity firms.
"For many critical problems, classical computing will run out of steam in the next decade and we will see quantum computing take over as the next generation of performance-intensive computing.", said Peter Rutten, global research lead for performance intensive computing at IDC.
"Advances in quantum computing will be a drumbeat over time with the most distant advances being most relevant to the most complex problems. Organizations should start experimenting now using quantum road maps to guide their quantum journey," added Heather West, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group at IDC.
The IDC report is part of IDC's quantum computing research program, which also includes qualitative and quantitative research focusing on end-user adoption trends, vendor insights and strategies, and quantum computing use cases. IDC's quantum computing research provides insight into the demand-side of cloud-based quantum computing, including preferred technologies and end-user investment, implementation, and adoption strategies, vendor insights, and quantum computing use cases.
