MegazoneCloud is South Korea’s largest cloud managed service provider (MSP), with a dedicated quantum team. It has developed a unified quantum cloud platform known as WAVE and is working towards providing Quantum-as-a-Service (QaaS).
On the sidelines of LEAP East in Hong Kong, we interviewed Dr. Brad Kim, who is MegazoneCloud’s Chief Quantum Officer and also Vice President of the Korea Quantum Industry Association (KQIA), and a member of the country’s National Quantum Strategy Committee. In Part 1 of the interview, he discussed Korea’s quantum ecosystem; in part 2 below, he elaborates on MegazoneCloud’s quantum strategy and explains why enterprises should prepare for quantum by developing the necessary expertise, infrastructure and understanding of potential applications.
Why enterprises should act now
“One of the biggest misconceptions about quantum computing is that companies should wait until the technology becomes fully mature before taking action,” Dr. Kim said. “History suggests exactly the opposite.” He pointed to the development of cloud computing and artificial intelligence as examples, arguing that organizations that began developing capabilities early were better positioned when those technologies reached mainstream adoption.
“The question is no longer, ‘When will quantum be ready?’ The real question is, ‘Will my organization be ready when practical quantum computing arrives?’” said Dr. Kim. His view is that preparing for quantum computing should begin before the hardware reaches maturity, particularly because enterprises will need time to develop expertise, identify suitable applications and integrate quantum processing into existing computational environments.
Preparing enterprises for quantum computing
“Preparing for quantum is not about purchasing a quantum computer. It is about preparing the enterprise,” explained Dr. Kim. That preparation involves understanding where quantum computing could potentially create value, identifying high-impact business problems, developing internal expertise and preparing data for quantum-related workflows.
He sees hybrid computing as an essential part of this process. “Building hybrid workflows that integrate AI, cloud, HPC, and quantum” is, in his view, part of preparing an enterprise for the technology, explaining that quantum computers are not general-purpose replacements for classical computing systems. Many potential applications, he argues, require classical processors to handle data preparation, orchestration, optimization and post-processing; quantum processors would instead form one component of a broader workflow.
This approach has influenced MegazoneCloud’s investment in quantum computing. “We do not view quantum as an isolated technology. We see it as the next evolution of enterprise computing,” a perspective that has led to the development of WAVE, which MegazoneCloud describes as its Quantum Transformation Platform.
According to Dr. Kim, WAVE is intended to cover multiple stages of an organization’s quantum adoption process. “Rather than simply providing access to quantum hardware, WAVE helps enterprises progress through every stage of their quantum journey—from executive awareness and workforce education to quantum readiness assessments, industrial use-case discovery, emulator validation, cloud execution, and enterprise-scale deployment.”
The emphasis on emulation and validation is significant for an industry in which quantum hardware remains limited and rapidly evolving. Enterprises can investigate potential applications and workflows before committing them to physical quantum processors. This creates a bridge between experimentation and deployment, while also allowing organizations to examine how quantum workloads might interact with their existing classical infrastructure.
MegazoneCloud’s approach also assumes that the quantum industry will remain multi-vendor. “Different quantum hardware platforms will excel at different workloads,” Dr. Kim argued, saying that customers should therefore not be tied permanently to one hardware ecosystem. “Customers should have the flexibility to select the best quantum resource for each business challenge.”
The goal of WAVE, said Dr. Kim, includes but is not limited to providing Quantum-as-a-Service, and aims to “build the execution layer that enables enterprises to transform quantum potential into measurable business outcomes.”
Quantum cloud computing versus on-premise systems
As to the question of whether quantum computers will ultimately be delivered through cloud services or on-pemises, Kim argues that the discussion should not be framed as a simple choice between the two models. “People often ask whether cloud or on-premise quantum computing will dominate the future. I believe that is the wrong question,” he said.
Instead, he said, the question is that of accessibility, especially during a period when quantum hardware and architectures are still developing. “The real question is: ‘How can we make quantum computing accessible to the largest number of innovators?’” For the current stage of the industry, he sees cloud computing as the most practical way to achieve that goal.
“Today, cloud is clearly the fastest path. It dramatically lowers barriers to entry and allows researchers, startups, universities, and enterprises to experiment without investing in expensive hardware and specialized infrastructure,” said Dr. Kim. He added that cloud-based quantum services also make it possible to experiment with multiple hardware platforms without requiring an organization to build and operate each system itself.
That flexibility has particular importance because the quantum computing industry has not yet settled on one dominant hardware architecture. “Cloud also enables customers to access multiple hardware modalities while the industry continues evolving. That flexibility is extremely valuable because no one yet knows which quantum architecture will ultimately become dominant for every application,” he said.
Dr. Kim nevertheless expects on-premise infrastructure to play an important role in some sectors. “At the same time, on-premise quantum infrastructure will become increasingly important for national laboratories, defense organizations, and highly regulated industries that require dedicated systems for security, latency, or specialized workloads.”
In the longer term, Dr. Kim expects the two models to coexist in a hybrid computing environment. He compares this prospective model with current enterprise infrastructure, where public cloud, private cloud, AI accelerators, HPC and edge computing are often used together.
“Just as enterprises today combine public cloud, private cloud, AI accelerators, HPC, and edge computing, quantum will become another component within this heterogeneous computing ecosystem.” In that environment, users would not necessarily need to know where a particular quantum processor is physically located. “Ultimately, customers should not have to think about where the quantum computer is located. They should simply be able to solve their business problems using the most appropriate computing architecture available,” he explained.
The convergence of quantum computing, AI and cloud
“I believe the answer is both,” said Dr. Kim, when asked whether AI would accelerate quantum computing or quantum computing would ultimately transform AI.
“Quantum computing has the potential to become one of AI’s future accelerators,” he explained. “As AI models continue growing larger, they demand exponentially increasing computational resources. Future quantum technologies may help address some of AI’s most computationally intensive challenges, including optimization, probabilistic reasoning, molecular modeling, sampling, and certain classes of machine learning algorithms.”
Dr. Kim described the broader computing landscape as having four foundational components. “Cloud provides scalable infrastructure. AI provides intelligence. High-performance computing delivers massive computational capability. Quantum computing expands the frontier of what becomes computationally possible.”
“The organizations that create the greatest value will not necessarily own the most advanced quantum computer. They will be the organizations that successfully integrate all four technologies into one intelligent enterprise computing platform.”
Where quantum is being tested for business applications
“Only a few years ago, almost every customer meeting began with the same question: ‘What exactly is quantum computing?’ Today, our conversations are very different. Customers ask: ‘Which business problem should we solve first?’” Dr. Kim regards this change in customer questions as evidence that some organizations are moving from general interest in quantum technology towards consideration of specific applications.
“That change may appear subtle, but it represents a fundamental shift in commercialization. It means enterprises are no longer evaluating quantum as an interesting scientific curiosity. They are beginning to evaluate it as a business capability,” he added.
According to Dr. Kim, MegazoneCloud is seeing interest across several industries, with organizations investigating quantum approaches to problems that are computationally demanding. An example is MegazoneCloud’s collaboration with PharmCADD. “One example is our collaboration with PharmCADD, where we are jointly exploring Quantum-AI approaches for drug discovery by combining AWS Braket, HPC, and AI-based molecular design workflows.” The project illustrates the use of quantum resources alongside established computational tools rather than attempting to build an end-to-end drug discovery process around quantum computing alone.
“Commercial success will not begin with one revolutionary quantum algorithm. It will begin with organizations developing internal capabilities, validating real business problems, and integrating quantum into their existing digital transformation strategy,” he concluded.
