Quantum Computing and IS - Harnessing the Opportunities of Emerging Technologies

Abstract

Emerging technologies have a high potential for impact and are worthy of attention by the Information Systems (IS) community. To date, the IS discipline has not been able to be a leader in the research and teaching of emerging technologies in their early stages arguably because: (1) IS researchers often lack knowledge of the foundational principles of such emerging technologies, and (2) during the emerging phase, there is insufficient data on the adoption, use, and impact of these technologies. To overcome these challenges, the IS discipline must be willing to break its own disciplinary research boundaries to go beyond software applications and their related management issues and start studying emerging technologies before they are massively adopted by industry. In this paper, we use quantum computing as an exemplar emerging technology and outline a research and education agenda that will help IS harness the opportunities quantum computing offers. We propose that IS researchers rigorously investigate emergent technologies through collaboration with researchers from other disciplines. We also see a role for IS researchers in the scholarship of emerging technologies and in the process of introducing emerging technologies into IS curricula.