In July 2018 the Israeli government has made a decision to allocate $80 Million for development of quantum computing technology in Israel. It’s easy to see that Israel, being already a technology powerhouse with vast VC ecosystem and a bustling entrepreneurial and startup culture, is on its way to becoming the next quantum computing superpower. While the initial government funding of $80 Million may seem modest, one should not underestimate Israel’s propensity of doing more with less. Most likely the government initiative will spur investments from industry, venture capital firms and other sources to the tune of $250 Million in 2018.
At one of the recent CyberTech conferences the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu pronounced Israel “one of the world’s cybersecurity superpowers” and called on business community to invest in Israeli cybersecurity startups – “there is a lot of money to make on cybersecurity here and now, with talent, expertise and infrastructure already in place”, loosely quoting. The connection between cybersecurity and quantum computing is undeniable, the latter being “make or break” technology for the former.
“In a meeting held a few months ago with the heads of the high tech industry in Israel, Netanyahu officially announced the decision to promote quantum computing research with government support.”, Source: Globes. In practical terms Netanyahu is saying to Israel’s enemies by this decision: “Make no mistake, in our hands, quantum computing will become a powerful weapon”, imaginable but very plausible quote.
The report estimates the Israeli quantum computing market to grow exponentially in the next five years to reach the landmark of $1 billion by 2024. Being a niche player Israel will invest more in quantum computing software tools and applications rather than in the costly development of quantum computing processor. We should expect new partnerships between Israeli quantum computing community and leading quantum computing vendors such as IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Google.
The report provides year-by-year estimates and covers the following segments:
quantum cryptography;
quantum computing in the cloud;
quantum simulation;
error correction algorithms;
cybersecurity applications;
and more.
