The Zhitong Finance App learned that Huatai Securities released a research report stating that under the premise of Moore's Law, the evolution of silicon-based integrated circuit technology is close to the physical limit, and quantum computing is expected to become one of the important solutions for the leapfrog development of computing power in the post-Moore era. Quantum computing uses qubits as the basic unit and can provide exponential acceleration for some computationally difficult problems. Currently, the international academic community generally believes that it is expected that quantum computing will be commercialized one after another in the next 5-10 years. With the launch of the IBM superconducting quantum chip Condor in December 2023, quantum computing has achieved a breakthrough of 1000+ qubits. According to ICV estimates, the quantum computing industry will enter a period of rapid growth after 2027, and the world is expected to reach 100 billion US dollars by 2030.

Companies related to the domestic quantum industry mainly include: Guodian Quantum (688027.SH), Genyuan Quantum, Guoyi Quantum, etc.

The main views of Huatai Securities are as follows:

How is quantum computing progressing: the prototype of the industry is gradually emerging, and overseas technology leaders are taking the lead

Currently, this market is still in the early stages of exploration. Overseas, it is mainly led by major companies such as IBM, Google, and Nvidia, and startups listed through SPAC acquisitions, such as IONQ, Rigetti, and D-Wave, have also sprung up. The technology of domestic quantum startups mainly originates from university laboratories. Representative companies include Guodian Quantum, Genyuan Quantum, Guoyi Quantum, etc.

Currently, we see three major trends in the development of quantum computing: 1) From the perspective of technical architecture, hybrid quantum computing or quantitative superfusion may become a new trend in the future. 2) Judging from the competitive landscape, IBM, Google, IONQ, Rigetti, and Quantinuum are currently in a leading position in the industry, which lays out superconducting technology and ion trap technology. In addition, Nvidia, which lays out quantum computing systems, has also launched CUDAQuantum. 3) The industry is still in its early stages, but quantum computing companies and research institutes are actively exploring their own business models, including providing quantum computing chips/machines, providing quantum solutions for the industry, and developing cloud platform services.

How much will quantum computing need to invest: the world will need to invest at least a total of 16.4 billion US dollars by 2027

Judging from the development of the industry, according to ICV forecasts, the entire industry in the NISQ era (until 2027) will need to invest at least 16.4 billion US dollars in quantum computing. The long period of technological breakthroughs and poor cash flow conditions will challenge the quantum computing industry. The R&D investment for a 400-bit quantum computer also includes hardware software, algorithm development, maintenance, and operation costs. According to Huatai Securities estimates, it will cost about 15.45 million US dollars, and the corresponding sales price is 51.5 million US dollars based on 70% gross margin. Among the hardware components, diluted refrigerants and microwave controllers are the core equipment for computers with superconducting or silicon qubit technology. In addition, quantum cloud platforms are also expected to become the main form of quantum computing power output. Adopters' choices are shifting from Q-SaaS to Q-PaaS and Q-IaaS. Participants include companies such as IBM, Google, and Amazon.

Where are quantum computing applications developing: chemicals, finance, and pharmaceuticals are expected to take the lead

Quantum computing is good at solving fields that cannot be covered by classical computation, such as simulating large molecules and finding large qualitative factors. Application exploration focuses on the three major directions of quantum simulation, quantum combinatorial optimization, and quantum linear algebra. Currently, it is mainly used in the chemical, financial, pharmaceutical and other industries:

1) Quantum computing has broad prospects in chemical synthesis, material design, energy development, etc., and can help the chemical industry accelerate R&D, reduce costs and increase efficiency. 2) The financial sector will innovate capabilities such as portfolio optimization, quantitative trading, simulated pricing, risk prediction, and fraud detection. 3) The pharmaceutical field can enable all aspects of target identification, molecular design, and clinical trials to improve efficiency and accuracy. Exploring practical application scenarios based on NISQ prototypes has become the core research direction of the industry. ICV anticipates that quantum computing will begin to unleash industry application value from around 2025.

Risk warning: The development of quantum technology falls short of expectations, industry competition intensifies, and downstream scenarios are difficult to implement.