Enterprise Professionals Surveyed on Understanding of Quantum Computing

(TechRepublic) TechRepublic Premium recently surveyed 598 professionals to learn what they know about quantum computing and what they don’t.

The survey asked the following questions:
How would you describe your understanding of quantum computing?
What company do you think is furthest along with quantum computing?
What kind of impact will quantum computing have on your industry?
Which industry will benefit most from quantum computing?
Would your company have a use for quantum computing as a service?

Quantum computing is unknown territory for almost all of the survey respondents, as 90% stated that they had little to no understanding of the topic. In fact, only 11% of the 598 respondents said they had an “excellent” understanding of quantum computing.
Further, 36% of respondents said they were not sure which company was leading the race to develop a quantum computer. IBM got 28% of the votes, and Google got 18%. 1QBit and D-Wave each got 6% of votes. Honeywell came in at 3%.
In terms of industry impact, more than half of the respondents (58%) said that quantum computing will have either a significant impact or somewhat of an impact on the enterprise. While all industries will benefit through different use cases because quantum computing allows data to be consumed and processed faster while using less energy, 42% of survey respondents said IT would benefit the most. The pharmaceutical and finance sectors followed at 14% and 12%, respectfully.