Why quantum computing teams at JPMorgan and other banks are being outshined by AI - eFinancialCareers

Use your Google account to sign into efinancialcareers. It has been all quiet on the quantum front in banking since the summer, when multiple top quantum computing researchers in banking mysteriously left. Most notably, Marco Pistoia and Charles Lim, leaders of JPMorgan's quantum team (that accounted for two thirds of quantum jobs in banking as of March), both left the bank. Financial services firms still have quantum computing teams, but the allure of them is fading as AI firmly supplants quantum as the technology darling of the industry. It may be because the benefits of investing in quantum are a long way away. Click here to join the bubble by eFinancialCareers, our new anonymous community. ✍️ Robbie King, a PhD research scientist at Google, recently spoke on a podcast with ex-Tower Research quant and QFEX exchange founder Annanay Kapila about quantum computing. King said that there has been great progress in quantum in recent years and "we have a lot of cool ideas, but it's hard to produce anything useful from them." He expects that "it will be at least five years" until there's a tangible return on investment from quantum computing initiatives. Implementations of Shor's Algorithm, a means of factoring large numbers, "will definitely have an impact," King said, "but [it] will maybe be [in] like ten plus years." As banks look to relentlessly cut unnecessary costs, that must sound like an eternity. AI, meanwhile, seems to have much more immediate impact. Already, banks are referring to their agentic AI systems as "digital colleagues" for juniors to manage. There's also the unfortunate option that banking quantum teams might not be as good as those at Google and elsewhere. Kapila told us that "banking quantum teams are not really well regarded. The industry leaders are Silicon Valley based." King said on the podcast that, in addition to Big Tech firms, many startups are also highly regarded, even those outside of the Valley. One of the top firms is London-based Phasecraft which hired Goldman Sachs' head of quantum computing, Nikitas Stamatopolous, last October. King noted that the "talent is, right now, weighted towards the US," especially in California. There, Kapila said "startup companies, venture-backed companies and academic institutions work hand in hand." PsiQuantum is one of the leading quantum startups in San Francisco, and was valued at $7bn earlier this year. It's unlikely that banks will go off quantum computing entirely. After all, one of the most exciting potential use cases is making LLMs infinitely cheaper to train and operate by using quantum chips instead of GPUs. JPMorgan is still active, releasing multiple papers last week, partnering with $10bn quantum startup Quantinuum. After a previous period of "aggressive hiring," though, it's unlikely that the bank will hire too many more PhD graduates on $325k salaries. Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: WhatsApp: http://wa.me/442079977910 (+44 20 7997 7910), Telegram: @AlexMcMurray, Signal: @AlexMcMurrayEFC.88 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate. The essential daily roundup of news and analysis read by everyone from senior bankers and traders to new recruits. The essential daily roundup of news and analysis read by everyone from senior bankers and traders to new recruits.