Quantum Computing and IS - Harnessing the Opportunities of Emerging Technologies

Emerging technologies have high potential for impact and are worthy of attention by the Information Systems (IS) community. To date, IS has not been able to lead 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 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 for IS to harness its opportunities. We propose that IS researchers may conduct rigorous research in emergent technologies through collaboration with researchers from other disciplines. We also see a role for IS researchers in the scholarship of emerging technologies that is of introducing emerging technology in IS curricula.