EY strides into quantum computing with IBM

EY has taken a stride into advanced technology by joining IBM’s Quantum Network, which will give it access to cutting-edge computer capability. 

EY’s global managing partner of client service, Andy Baldwin, said quantum computing has now become what artificial intelligence (AI) was several years ago — the next frontier. 

“Quantum, in terms of importance to business, society and the EY organisation, is akin to what AI represented years ago,” said Mr Baldwin. 

“This alliance puts the EY organisation at the forefront of technology. As we invest in this level of quantum computing access, we accelerate our own position and depth of knowledge and capabilities in this space and deepen the rich relationship with our IBM alliance teams.”

EY said joining the IBM Quantum Network would further enable its teams to explore possible answers to some of the most complex business challenges. 

The firm said it would gain access to IBM’s fleet of quantum computers over the cloud and would be a part of the community of organisations working to advance quantum computing.

EY established its own Global Quantum Lab last year to harness its value in the domains of trust, transformation and sustainability, and it said it planned to continue its mission with the addition of IBM technology. 

EY’s global chief innovation officer, Jeff Wong, said the collaboration would benefit both parties and assist in the advancement of quantum computing.

“As we navigate this period of technology-led change, which is accelerating at unprecedented speed, companies must have a full understanding of how to maximise breakthrough innovations in order to keep pace,” said Mr Wong. 

“Through this collaboration with IBM, the EY organisation will now have the ability to take advantage of quantum computing to propel its innovation journey.”

As part of its exploration into quantum computing, EY said it had planned to conduct practice research to uncover transformative use cases such as the reduction of CO2 emissions from classical computing, the improvement of safety and accuracy of self-driving cars, and the integration of quantum benefits into mainstream systems, such as data processing and enterprise decision making.

Vice president of IBM Quantum, Jay Gambetta, said the partnership with EY had lined up as both organisations held similar values when it came to the exploration of the technology. 

“IBM’s vision is to deliver useful quantum computing to the world. We value partners like the EY organisation that can introduce the emerging technology to a wide ecosystem of public and private industry,” said Mr Gambetta.

“This will help EY facilitate the exploration of quantum computing’s potential for use cases that matter in its industry.”

The firm said the alliance between itself and IBM was just one step in its $10 billion investment in technology initiatives over three years, including further investment in the firm’s own quantum function.

EY’s focus on quantum computing comes after the government was warned earlier this year to follow the US lead and bring in their own Quantum Computing Cyber Security Preparedness Act. 

The act put in place several new laws and regulations which mandated the migration of federal agencies to quantum-resistant cyber security and IT systems. 

The concern was that quantum computing could crack traditional encryption in days rather than years, prompting governments, businesses, and eventually individuals to invest in greater security known as quantum-resistant cryptography. 

Cyber security firm Cloudflare’s global co-founder and chief executive, Matthew Prince, said the threat of quantum computing was growing.

Mr Prince said that while businesses were right to be concerned about the possibility of quantum computing being used by cyber terrorists, his firm, which had Atlassian and Canva as clients, would provide post-quantum cryptography for free by default and called on others to do the same. 

“We believe that privacy should be a human right and that post-quantum security should be the new baseline for the internet,” Mr Prince told The Australian. 

“We think it should be free, and we’re calling on the rest of the industry to follow our lead and make their latest cryptography technology free.” 

“We’re also committing to making any of the research we do or the technologies we develop open source in a royalty-free way because anyone who wants to use them should be able to.” 

Writing for Accounting Times’ sister brand, Cyber Security Connect, CEO of global cyber security firm Senetas, Andrew Wilson, said the government must act soon or risk leaving its agencies and businesses exposed. 

“The reason the first quantum computers are so worrisome is that traditional encryption methods — public encryption key infrastructure — that are used to protect sensitive information are based on classical mathematical algorithms that are vulnerable to being broken by quantum computers,” said Mr Wilson. 

“This means that sensitive information, such as personal data and national security information, is at serious risk when quantum computers fall into bad actors’ hands.” 

A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena, it uses both particles and waves by utilising specialised hardware which could enable it to perform calculations exponentially faster than any modern computer.