Energy cost is increasingly crucial in the modern computing industry with the wide deployment of large-scale machine learning models and language models. For the firms that provide computing services, low energy consumption is important both from the perspective of their own market growth and the government's regulations. In this paper, we study the energy benefits of quantum computing vis-a-vis classical computing. Deviating from the conventional notion of quantum advantage based solely on computational complexity, we redefine advantage in an energy efficiency context. Through a Cournot competition model constrained by energy usage, we demonstrate quantum computing firms can outperform classical counterparts in both profitability and energy efficiency at Nash equilibrium. Therefore quantum computing may represent a more sustainable pathway for the computing industry. Moreover, we discover that the energy benefits of quantum computing economies are contingent on large-scale computation. Based on real physical parameters, we further illustrate the scale of operation necessary for realizing this energy efficiency advantage.

翻译：随着大规模机器学习模型和语言模型的广泛部署，能源成本在现代计算行业中日益关键。对于提供计算服务的企业而言，低能耗既关乎自身市场增长，也受到政府监管要求的制约。本文研究量子计算相对于经典计算在能源方面的优势。我们摒弃了单纯基于计算复杂性的传统量子优势概念，重新在能源效率语境下定义优势。通过构建基于能耗约束的Cournot竞争模型，我们证明量子计算企业在纳什均衡下的盈利能力和能源效率均优于经典同类企业。因此，量子计算或可为计算行业提供更具可持续性的发展路径。此外，我们发现量子计算经济的能源优势依赖于大规模计算。基于实际物理参数，我们进一步阐明了实现这种能源效率优势所需的最小运营规模。