Accenture: Trust, Use-Cases, and the Race to Post-Quantum Readiness
Accenture’s Edy Liongosari calls for public engagement, real applications, and pragmatic timelines to scale quantum responsibly
On the Main Stage at Quantum World Congress 2025, Edy Liongosari, Accenture’s Chief Research Scientist and Managing Director, offered a clear-eyed tour of where quantum stands—and what it will actually take to move from breakthroughs to broad impact.
Liongosari anchored his talk in three themes: trust, applications, and readiness. First, trust. A national survey his team ran last October found that roughly 40% of U.S. respondents have little to no familiarity with quantum. If the field wants durable funding, sound policy, and a skilled workforce, he argued, it must earn broad public confidence—not just excitement in insider circles. That means getting beyond technical briefings to sustained engagement with journalists, students, and civic audiences.
Second, applications. Liongosari previewed the Quantum Index Report, a 100-page, data-driven landscape study Accenture produced with MIT’s Digital Economy team, tracking activity from patents to corporate communications (which saw a notable spike over the past year). He paired it with momentum from the World Economic Forum’s Quantum Application Hub, where hands-on demos now span finance, supply chain, and materials discovery. One case he highlighted: AXA Insurance exploring quantum-assisted tail-risk optimization—a combinatorial problem where rare, catastrophic events (e.g., major hurricanes) drive outsized losses and complex reinsurance decisions. The point wasn’t hype; it was touching real business pain points and inviting executives to test-drive emerging tools.
Third, readiness. Liongosari walked through a pragmatic technology view: the QPU landscape by modality and qubit counts; a chemistry deep dive indicating ~a decade to clear, high-accuracy quantum advantage for small-to-medium molecules (with classical methods remaining competitive for larger systems); and a symbiotic quantum–AI roadmap where today’s AI pipelines prepare organizations to slot in quantum subroutines when (and where) they truly help.
He then shifted to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Using the MITRE readiness heat map and website adoption scans by sector, Liongosari underscored how far most enterprises still have to go—many protocols aren’t yet widely deployed, and enterprise rollout remains low double-digits in some consumer-facing categories. His advice: start the migration now, inventory cryptographic assets, and “practice what we preach” by enabling PQC in public-facing services.
“Be in the room—not just the quantum room. Bring quantum into AI and enterprise conversations so it plugs into real workflows.”
Policy, he added, is part of the architecture: quantum symbolizes scientific leadership, economic competitiveness, and national security. Countries are investing heavily and, at times, setting divergent standards. Liongosari pointed to the EU’s coordinated framework as one model for balancing security and cross-border collaboration—critical if we want innovation to compound rather than fragment.
He closed with four calls to action:
Build public trust through outreach and education.
Show your work—publish use cases and let leaders try them (e.g., via the WEF Application Hub).
Accelerate PQC—treat it as a near-term modernization program, not a future nice-to-have.
Be in the room—not only at quantum events, but in AI and enterprise forums where quantum can plug into real workflows.
The throughline: progress will come from evidence, not slogans—from practical pilots, measurable readiness, and a bigger tent that welcomes the public into the conversation.