Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
Korea is latecomer in quantum technology, but not too late: IonQ CTO
Jungsang Kim, co-founder and CTO of IonQ, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of IonQ
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Korea was late to join the quantum computing race, but the sector, which is expected to be a game-changer like the internet and AI, is still in the early stages of development and the country can still get ahead of the curve if it gets the jump on applications that will be used in the next few years, the co-founder of a U.S.-based quantum computing company said Wednesday.
“Korea was definitely a late starter to the basic R&D of quantum computing technology. The United States and Europe started to begin their R&D in the mid-90s while Korea started seven or eight years ago,” Jungsang Kim, co-founder and chief technology officer of IonQ, told The Korea Times during an interview in Seoul.
“However, what's more important is to have a proactive vision of the services we'll be using in a few years, when people aren't even thinking about it yet. If Korean companies and researchers think about whether they can be ahead in a few years, I think they can be ahead if they do it with this mindset.”
Kim is a prominent figure in quantum computing technology. While working as a computer science professor at Duke University, he became one of the founders of IonQ in 2015. The CTO visited Korea to join the Quantum Korea event held at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, an event shedding light on the country's quantum computing and technology.
The CEO cited Hyundai Motor as an example of a Korean company that is making good use of quantum computing.
Since last year, IonQ and Hyundai Motor have been collaborating on using quantum computing to design autonomous driving systems more accurately and develop batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
“EVs rely on the catalysis of batteries. The battery is powered by a lithium-based chemical reaction, which is very complicated to calculate. This is where quantum computers come in. The field of autonomous driving is also utilizing quantum computing to make image recognition more accurate,” Kim said.
“In an era of ever-increasing data processing speeds, quantum computing's ability to process unimaginable amounts of data could lead to endless applications.”