Building the Quantum Workforce

In “Inviting Millions Into the Era of Quantum Technologies” (Issues, Fall 2023), Sean Dudley and Marisa Brazil convincingly argue that the lack of a qualified workforce is holding back this field from reaching its promising potential. We at IBM Quantum agree. Without intervention, the nation risks developing useful quantum computing alongside a scarcity of practitioners who are capable of using quantum computers. An IBM Institute for Business Value study found that inadequate skills is the top barrier to enterprises adopting quantum computing. The study identified a small subset of quantum-ready organizations that are talent nurturers with a greater understanding of the quantum skills gap, and that are nearly three times more effective than their cohorts at workforce development.

Quantum-ready organizations are nearly five times more effective at developing internal quantum skills, nearly twice as effective at attracting talented workers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and nearly three times more effective at running internship programs. At IBM Quantum, we have directly trained more than 400 interns at all levels of higher education and have seen over 8 million learner interactions with Qiskit, including a series of online seminars on using the open-source Qiskit tool kit for useful quantum computing. However, quantum-ready organizations represent only a small fraction of the organizations and industries that need to prepare for the growth of their quantum workforce.

As we enter the era of quantum utility, meaning the ability for quantum computers to solve problems at a scale beyond brute-force classical simulation, we need a focused workforce capable of discovering the problems quantum computing is best-suited to solve. As we move even further toward the age of quantum-centric supercomputing, we will need a larger workforce capable of orchestrating quantum and classical computational resources in order to address domain-specific problems.

Looking to academia, we need more quantum-ready institutions that are effective not only at teaching advanced mathematics, quantum physics, and quantum algorithms, but also are effective at teaching domain-specific skills such as machine learning, chemistry, materials, or optimization, along with teaching how to utilize quantum computing as a tool for scientific discovery.

Critically, it is imperative to invest in talent early on. The data on physics PhDs granted by race and ethnicity in the United States paint a stark picture. Industry cannot wait until students have graduated and are knocking on company doors to begin developing a talent pipeline. IBM Quantum has made a significant investment in the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center through which we collaborate with more than two dozen historically Black colleges and universities to prepare talent for the quantum future.

Academia needs to become more effective in supporting quantum research (including cultivating student contributions) and partnering with industry, in connecting students into internships and career opportunities, and in attracting students into the field of quantum. Quoting Charles Tahan, director of the National Quantum Coordination Office within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy: “We need to get quantum computing test beds that students can learn in at a thousand schools, not 20 schools.”

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and IBM broke ground on the first IBM Quantum System One on a university campus in October 2023. This presents the RPI community with an unprecedented opportunity to learn and conduct research on a system powered by a utility-scale 127-qubit processor capable of tackling problems beyond the capabilities of classical computers. And as lead organizers of the Quantum Collaborative, Arizona State University—using IBM and other industry quantum computing resources—is working with other academic institutions to provide training and educational pathways across high schools and community colleges through to undergraduate and graduate studies in the field of quantum.

Our hope is that these actions will prove to be only part of a broader effort to build the quantum workforce that science, industry, and the nation will need in years to come.

Bradley Holt

Sean Dudley and Marisa Brazil advocate for mounting a national workforce development effort to address the growing talent gap in the field. This effort, they argue, should include educating and training a range of learners, including K–12 students, community college students, and workers outside of science and technology fields, such as marketers and designers. As the field will require developers, advocates, and regulators—as well as users—with varying levels of quantum knowledge, the authors’ comprehensive and inclusive approach to building a competitive quantum workforce is refreshing and justified.

At Qubit by Qubit, founded by the Coding School and one of the largest quantum education initiatives, we have spent the past four years training over 25,000 K–12 and college students, educators, and members of the workforce in quantum information science and technology (QIST). In collaboration with school districts, community colleges and universities, and companies, we have found great excitement among all these stakeholders for QIST education. However, as Dudley and Brazil note, there is an urgent need for policymakers and funders to act now to turn this collective excitement into action.

The authors posit that the development of a robust quantum workforce will help position the United States as a leader of Quantum 2.0, the next iteration of the quantum revolution. Our work suggests that investing in quantum education will not only benefit the field of QIST, but will result in a much stronger workforce at large. With the interdisciplinary nature of QIST, learners gain exposure and skills in mathematics, computer science, physics, and engineering, among other fields. Thus, even for learners who choose not to pursue a career in quantum, they will have a broad set of highly sought skills that they can apply to another field offering a rewarding future.

With the complexity of quantum technologies, there are a number of challenges in building a diverse quantum workforce. Dudley and Brazil highlight several of these, including the concentration of training programs in highly resourced institutions, and the need to move beyond the current focus on physics and adopt a more interdisciplinary approach. There are several additional challenges that need to be considered and addressed if millions of Americans are to become quantum-literate, including:

• Funding efforts have been focused on supporting pilot educational programs instead of scaling already successful programs, meaning that educational opportunities are not accessible widely.
• Many educational programs are one-offs that leave students without clear next steps. Because of the complexity of the subject area, learning pathways need to be established for learners to continue developing critical skills.
• Diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts have been minimal and will require concerted work between industry, academia, and government.

Historically, the United States has begun conversations around workforce development for emerging and deep technologies too late, and thus has failed to ensure the workforce at large is equipped with the necessary technical knowledge and skills to move these fields forward quickly. We have the opportunity to get it right this time and ensure that the United States is leading the development of responsible quantum technologies.

Kiera Peltz

To create an exceptional quantum workforce and give all Americans a chance to discover the beauty of quantum information science and technology, to contribute meaningfully to the nation’s economic and national security, and to create much-needed bridges with other like-minded nations across the world as a counterbalance to the balkanization of science, we have to change how we are teaching quantum. Even today, five years after the National Quantum Initiative Act became law, the word “entanglement”—the key to the way quantum particles interact that makes quantum computing possible—does not appear in physics courses at many US universities. And there are perhaps only 10 to 20 schools offering quantum engineering education at any level, from undergraduate to graduate. Imagine the howls if this were the case with computer science.

The imminence of quantum technologies has motivated physicists—at least in some places—to reinvent their teaching, listening to and working with their engineering, computer science, materials science, chemistry, and mathematics colleagues to create a new kind of course. In 2020, these early experiments in retooling led to a convening of 500 quantum scientists and engineers to debate undergraduate quantum education. Building on success stories such as the quantum concepts course at Virginia Tech, we laid out a plan, published in IEEE Transactions on Education in 2022, to bridge the gap between the excitement around quantum computing generated in high school and the kind of advanced graduate research in quantum information that is really so astounding. The good news is that as Virginia Tech showed, quantum information can be taught with pictures and a little algebra to first-year college students. It’s also true at the community college level, which means the massive cohort of diverse engineers who start their careers there have a shot at inventing tomorrow’s quantum technologies.

However, there are significant missing pieces. For one, there are almost no community college opportunities to learn quantum anything because such efforts are not funded at any significant level. For another, although we know how to teach the most speculative area of quantum information, namely quantum computing, to engineers, and even to new students, we really don’t know how to do that for quantum sensing, which allows us to do position, navigation, and timing without resorting to our fragile GPS system, and to measure new space-time scales in the brain without MRI, to name two of many applications. It is the most advanced area of quantum information, with successful field tests and products on the market now, yet we are currently implementing quantum engineering courses focused on a quantum computing outcome that may be a decade or more away.

How can we solve the dearth of quantum engineers? First, universities and industry can play a major role by working together—and several such collective efforts are showing the way. Arizona State University’s Quantum Collaborative is one such example. The Quantum consortium in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming recently received a preliminary grant from the US Economic Development Administration to help advance both quantum development and education programs, including at community colleges, in their regions. Such efforts should be funded and expanded and the lessons they provide should be promulgated nationwide. Second, we need to teach engineers what actually works. This means incorporating quantum sensing from the outset in all budding quantum engineering education systems, building on already deployed technologies. And third, we need to recognize that much of the nation’s quantum physics education is badly out of date and start modernizing it, just as we are now modernizing engineering and computer science education with quantum content.

Lincoln D. Carr

Preparing a skilled workforce for emerging technologies can be challenging. Training moves at the scale of years while technology development can proceed much faster or slower, creating timing issues. Thus, Sean Dudley and Marisa Brazil deserve credit for addressing the difficult topic of preparing a future quantum workforce.

At the heart of these discussions are the current efforts to move beyond Quantum 1.0 technologies that make use of quantum mechanical properties (e.g., lasers, semiconductors, and magnetic resonance imaging) to Quantum 2.0 technologies that more actively manipulate quantum states and effects (e.g., quantum computers and quantum sensors). With this focus on ramping up a skilled workforce, it is useful to pause and look at the underlying assumption that the quantum workforce requires active management.

In their analysis, Dudley and Brazil cite a report by McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, which found that three quantum technology jobs exist for every qualified candidate. While this seems like a major talent shortage, the statistic is less concerning when presented in absolute numbers. Because the field is still small, the difference is less than 600 workers. And the shortage exists only when considering graduates with explicit Quantum 2.0 degrees as qualified potential employees.

McKinsey recommended closing this gap by upskilling graduates in related disciplines. Considering that 600 workers is about 33% of physics PhDs, 2% of electrical engineers, or 1% of mechanical engineers graduated annually in the United States, this seems a reasonable solution. However, employers tend to be rather conservative in their hiring and often ignore otherwise capable applicants who haven’t already demonstrated proficiency in desired skills. Thus, hiring “close-enough” candidates tends to occur only when employers feel substantial pressure to fill positions. Based on anecdotal quantum computing discussions, this probably isn’t happening yet, which suggests employers can still afford to be selective. As Ron Hira notes in “Is There Really a STEM Workforce Shortage?” (Issues, Summer 2022), shortages are best measured by wage growth. And if such price signals exist, one should expect that students and workers will respond accordingly.

If the current quantum workforce shortage is uncertain, the future is even more uncertain. The exact size of the needed future quantum workforce depends on how Quantum 2.0 technologies develop. For example, semiconductors and MRI machines are both mature Quantum 1.0 technologies. The global semiconductor industry is a more than $500 billion business (measured in US dollars), while the global MRI business is about 100 times smaller. If Quantum 2.0 technologies follow the specialized, lab-oriented MRI model, then the workforce requirements could be more modest than many projections. More likely is a mix of market potential where technologies such as quantum sensors, which have many applications and are closer to commercialization, have a larger near-term market while quantum computers remain a complex niche technology for many years. The details are difficult to predict but will dictate workforce needs.

When we assume that rapid expansion of the quantum workforce is essential for preventing an innovation bottleneck, we are left with the common call to actively expand diversity and training opportunities outside of elite institutions—a great idea, but maybe the right answer to the wrong question. And misreading technological trends is not without consequences. Overproducing STEM workers benefits industry and academia, but not necessarily the workers themselves. If we prematurely attempt to put quantum computer labs in every high school and college, we may be setting up less-privileged students to pursue jobs that may not develop, equipped with skills that may not be easily transferred to other fields.

Daniel J. Rozell