Ally Explores Quantum Computing

• Dan Lemont, Adam Florence, Austin Rutherford, & Marcos Souza
• Apr 22, 2021
• 3 min read

As a leader in digital financial services, Ally has a long tradition of innovation with a relentless focus on our customers’ financial well-being. Providing industry-leading digital experiences that span three distinct models (B2B, B2C, and B2B2C) requires our teams to constantly innovate and push the boundaries of technology capabilities. It’s our responsibility to seek out new technologies that we can adopt to bring our customers the best products available.

To overcome the limits of traditional computing power, we have begun exploring the future use of quantum computing. Quantum computing has the potential to unlock new possibilities to solve problems beyond the reach of traditional computers.

Quantum Goals

While it is difficult to know how quantum computing innovations will evolve over the next ten years, we recognize the significant potential that lies ahead. With that in mind, we have started our quantum computing journey with three primary goals in mind:

1. Develop quantum skills

2. Explore potential use cases

3. Build relationships with an ecosystem of collaborators

It starts with a growth mindset. Quantum computing, while advancing rapidly, is still in its infancy. Quantum hardware has not reached a level of reliability and scale that is ready for large production workloads. While quantum hardware evolves, there are benefits from learning about algorithms, programming languages, and relevant use cases. Learning quantum computing can be accelerated through relationships with industry and academic partnerships.

Microsoft Azure Quantum

To that end, we are pleased to announce a strategic relationship between Ally and Microsoft to explore how quantum computing can transform the financial services industry. Together we are applying the latest research on quantum inspired algorithms to understand how it can be leveraged to solve complex challenges. Quantum inspired optimizers run on classical hardware, allowing us to explore quantum use cases today, while quantum hardware continues to develop towards broad commercial use.

Collaborating with Microsoft as part of their Enterprise Acceleration Program (EAP) has enabled us to explore potential use cases, start developing quantum subject matter expertise, and begin building relationships with an ecosystem of partners dedicated to realizing the potential of quantum.

We have been able to benefit from the deep experience of the Microsoft Quantum research team, learn about the types of problems quantum can help solve within the financial services industry, and begin developing quantum computing skills using Microsoft’s quantum development kit.

Microsoft provides us with accelerators that advance across all three of Ally’s quantum goals. Through this relationship, we are gaining the insight and experience from Microsoft’s leading researchers. Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure capabilities, Ally has access to the software languages, APIs, and infrastructure to build quantum skills. This will open many exciting opportunities and empower us to explore the use of quantum computing technology across the landscape of financial services use cases. These use cases can span a wide range of possibilities.

Preparing For A Quantum Future

Quantum inspired optimization can be applied to a vast range of business areas such as portfolio management, operational efficiency, and customer experience. Today, classical computing requires trade-offs be made between complexity and speed. With quantum algorithms, we will be able to solve problems considering many more variables while arriving at answers in much shorter times.

While quantum computing holds significant potential, it is important to recognize that it’s not a replacement for traditional computers. Rather, it’s better to consider it as a special-purpose co-processor, analogous to a GPU. Through experimentation we will learn what use cases are well suited for quantum algorithms and, just as importantly, which are not.

The Ally Quantum team is excited by the potential to use quantum computing technology to be (even) better for our customers, communities, and employees. We look forward to sharing our learnings with this community as we progress on our journey.