The $2 trillion question: what quantum computing does to every industry
McKinsey's 2024 quantum technology report projects $1.3 to $2 trillion in total value at stake by 2035. BCG estimates $450–850 billion in net economic value for end users. These numbers are large enough to be dismissed as speculative — until you examine where the value actually comes from.
Pharmaceuticals: $300B+ in R&D efficiency
Drug discovery costs an average of $2.6 billion and 12+ years per approved drug. Most of that cost is failure — 90% of drug candidates fail clinical trials. Quantum simulation of molecular interactions can identify failures earlier, predict binding affinities more accurately, and model protein folding with quantum-native precision. A 20% improvement in preclinical success rates saves the pharmaceutical industry hundreds of billions per decade.
Materials science: the next industrial revolution
Quantum simulation enables the design of materials from first principles. High-temperature superconductors. Room-temperature catalysts for carbon capture. Battery chemistries that don't exist yet. Every material breakthrough in history has been discovered by accident or by exhaustive trial-and-error. Quantum simulation makes it systematic.
Finance: $100B+ in optimization value
Portfolio optimization, derivatives pricing, and risk modeling are all NP-hard or NP-complete problems that classical computers approximate. Quantum processors solve them natively. A hedge fund with quantum optimization capabilities has a structural advantage over every fund that doesn't. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Barclays have all launched quantum computing programs for exactly this reason.
Logistics and supply chain: global-scale optimization
Amazon ships 1.6 million packages per day. FedEx operates 700+ aircraft. Global supply chains involve billions of routing decisions per hour. Classical optimization algorithms handle this with approximations. Quantum optimization handles it with exact solutions to combinatorial problems that classical computers can't solve in practical time.
The room-temperature multiplier
All of these applications are technically possible with cryogenic quantum computers. But the deployment model — centralized facilities, cloud-only access, $1M+ per unit — limits adoption to the largest enterprises. Room-temperature quantum processors democratize access. A pharmaceutical startup can run quantum molecular simulations on a benchtop device. A logistics company can deploy quantum optimizers in every distribution center. A bank can run quantum risk models on premises.
The $2 trillion isn't speculative. It's the natural consequence of making quantum computing as deployable as classical computing. QLT's chip is the hardware that makes that deployment possible.
The value isn't in the quantum computer. It's in what every industry does differently when quantum computing is as accessible as a GPU.