How banks will reap the rewards of Google's quantum chip revolution

Yesterday, Google announced a landmark innovation in quantum computing with its Willow chip. It supposedly takes five minutes to solve a calculation that would take the world's fastest supercomputer 10 septillion years to solve. The firms perhaps best poised to take advantage of this major innovation are banks.

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Speaking at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2024 last month, Georgios Korpas, a senior quantum research scientist at HSBC, said investment banks have been "preparing," for such an innovation "because we know there are numerous amounts of use cases." He said HSBC has been looking at use cases that could be improved through quantum computing, but taking a "quantum inspired" approach instead. With the new chip, things might change.

Implementations won't be instant. Korpas says banks will first look to experiment with 'sandboxes', which will keep proprietary data "very well protected." There, quantum models can be tested so that CEOs or "people who don’t necessarily have the education or the background" can understand. Korpas said that sandbox tests should help them "debunk noise from true value."

Google's new chip seems to lend itself well to explainability. A key pain-point of quantum computing is the increased number of errors as you use more qubits for more complex calculations. Google says the new chip will reduce errors "exponentially" the more qubits are used, making outcomes more reliable and thus easier to explain to stakeholders. LLMs, the technology in-vogue today, often behave in ways that are infamously hard to explain, limiting potential use cases; quantum computing may not have that problem.

Fellow panelist Patrick Rebentrost, a principal investigator for the centre for quantum technologies, says that, "on the algorithm side, there have been quite a few developments" in recent years. Areas of promise include portfolio optimization and the pricing of financial derivatives; quantum computing may be able to exponentially speed up Monte Carlo simulations, a key aspect of some pricing strategies.

Now is the best time to get into quantum if you're a student. Mayda Lim, an MD at OCBC, said on the panel that "there is not much quantum talent in the marketplace, that is the reality and the challenge." Banks are rectifying this by training talent in house, relying on bright young graduates.

We can see this happening at JPMorgan, one of the top banks for quantum hiring which had 28 open roles in quantum this summer. In November, it hired Junhyung Kim, a PhD computer science graduate from Rice University, who was previously a research intern in its quantum team. Taylor Shields, a 2022 PhD graduate, joined the quantum team that same month, joining from space engineering firm Craft Prospect.

It's not just graduates being hired. Charles Lim joined in late 2022 from the National University of Singapore, where he was an associate professor. He joined as an executive director and head of quantum communications, then was made MD within two years. Goldman Sachs' head of quantum Nikitas Stamatopoulos was a former quantitative researcher at JPMorgan, but he's since left the firm.

Working in quantum can be lucrative. Salaries in quantum job listings at JPMorgan this year have ranged from $137k for associates to $325k for executive directors. Perhaps Google's new chip might make them even more valuable.

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