Seeking to help its client provide improved coverage at better rates while also enhancing business value, Accenture assembled a global team with diverse perspectives on ways to put the quantum algorithm to work.
The team was able to work quickly because of client’s strategy to be in the forefront of R&D and Accenture's longtime investments in quantum information science. This includes partnering with universities, vendors and consortiums, as well as developing an extensive asset and patent library and integration solutions. Accenture now offers more than 30 Amazon Web Services-enabled, quantum ready, industry specific applications running custom formulations on premier quantum hardware in areas such as portfolio & currency optimization, credit scoring and derivative pricing.
One major goal was to reduce the risk of insurance loses leveraging quantum computing algorithms. This led to a joint proof-of-concept solution designed to perform the extensive calculations and optimizations necessary to protect the client against rare but large risks.
To accomplish this, both client and Accenture had to determine which insurance portfolios (business lines) should be reinsured by third parties to minimize risks—thus helping the company to protect its customers while maximizing value for all stakeholders. This is a highly complex problem shared by insurers across the industry.
Design Thinking methodologies enabled the teams to identify the business problem, determine desired outcomes, gather the information needed to create the quantum algorithm and design a suitable data model.
To make sure the outcomes of the project were as accurate as possible, both client and Accenture designed the proof of concept based on complex real-world data and created seamless links to quantum resources around the world. In addition, the client team closely shadowed Accenture's quantum information scientists and system integrators in order to learn the process of transforming a classical problem into one that can be run on a quantum computer.
