What industries will quantum computing matter the most? More importantly, what industries are poised for rapid disruption first? Will it be molecular simulation in healthcare and pharmaceuticals? Will it be complex routing in manufacturing? Or will it be a completely different industry altogether? There are many areas ripe for disruption where quantum can make previously impossible decisions possible. Let’s take a closer look.
If you haven’t been keeping up with our blog series last week, let me recap briefly. We unpacked the basics of quantum and if quantum is the next evolution of AI (artificial intelligence). While this might not be exactly the case, I did have a lot of fun drawing in readers with the over-hyped headline in LinkedIn and responding to the back and forth—honestly, we need more of this open exchange of ideas. But to be clear, quantum computing is a complementary layer to AI, not a replacement. And, if all goes like planned, it will ultimately help with optimization and speeding up the capabilities of classical computers.
For today’s blog, let’s turn our attention to various vertical markets. Let’s unravel the potential opportunities in a few key areas. Of course, this is just a sampling of what quantum is ramping up its capabilities in the very near future. Much like AI, the opportunities will inevitably touch every market in due course.
Quantum in Manufacturing
In 2024, supply-chain disruptions jumped 38% with extreme weather, geopolitical tensions, and increasing cyberattacks. These bad actors put industry on high alert, and everyone was looking for the next best technology as the saving grace to advance industry and move away from all these nefarious characters. Enter quantum. At the end of 2025, the World Economic Forum and Accenture, produced a whitepaper titled, Quantum Technologies: Key Opportunities for Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains. The research draws on early case studies and opportunities.
Here’s what manufacturers need to know. Quantum computing is poised to change the way the industry works. The technology can help:
- Accelerate production schedules
- Enable precise measurements
- Ensure mission-critical secure communications
- Heighten efficiency, accuracy, and resilience
Let’s consider a few manufacturing case studies:
Ford Otosan’s faster scheduling: The company faced complexity in producing more than 1,500 highly customizable vehicle variants of Ford Transit vehicles. Each change in specifications, such as roof height or wheelbase, required reprogramming welding robots across 250 stations, often leading to delays. Enter quantum. Ford Otosan adopted a new scheduling approach using quantum. This solution enabled the company to generate production schedules in under five minutes, even managing up to 16,000 constraints for a single production run. Impressive, right?
Port of Rotterdam’s quantum-secured network: The port handles nearly 500 million tons of cargo annually and contributes more than 8% to the Dutch GDP. It partnered with Dutch connectivity provider Eurofiber to pilot a quantum-secured fiber-optic network, which ensures sensitive digital infrastructure and maritime communications is visible, yet untappable.
Quantum in Medical
Medical offers many examples of quantum at work. Last year, Merck, Amgen, Deloitte, and QuEra Computing explored a new approach to handle small-data scenarios for molecular property prediction. Quantum reservoir computing can certainly be used in new drug discoveries, but also it can be used in broader applications in time-series analysis, missing-data imputation, and biomarker detection, as a few examples.
As another instance, Moderna and IBM partnered to use quantum computing to model mRNA structure. Together, the companies used quantum simulation to predict the secondary protein structure of a 60 nucleotide-long mRNA sequence, a long nucleotide folding pattern ever simulated on a quantum computer. This is critical for creating effective mRNA vaccines.
Using 80 qubits of an IBM Quantum Heron chip, the team employed CVaR-based VQA—a quantum optimization algorithm modeled after financial risk assessment techniques—to achieve a large demonstration of this algorithm’s utility.
Certainly, these are two examples. There are many opportunities for quantum to create new innovation in medical, healthcare, and the pharmaceutical space.
Quantum in Construction
If you want a closer look at quantum in the construction industry, head on over to my Constructech blogs this month. There I am diving into the deep end on the impact of quantum computing in the construction industry.
And, of course, there are many examples to come. Next time we will explore a few more vertical markets that are seeing early impacts in the world of quantum computing.
The bottomline is AI will only take us so far. Quantum computing will propel us even further. Once we tap into the true capabilities of quantum, what we can do with technology will exponentially speed up. Get ready for a wild quantum ride.
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