The current technology revolution has posed unexpected challenges for the software industry. In recent years, the field of quantum computing (QC) technologies has continued to grow in influence and maturity, and it is now poised to revolutionise software engineering. However, the evaluation and prioritisation of QC challenges in the software industry remain unexplored, relatively under-identified and fragmented. The purpose of this study is to identify, examine and prioritise the most critical challenges in the software industry by implementing a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP). First, to identify the key challenges, we conducted a systematic literature review by drawing data from the four relevant digital libraries and supplementing these efforts with a forward and backward snowballing search. Second, we followed the F-AHP approach to evaluate and rank the identified challenges, or barriers. The results show that the key barriers to QC adoption are the lack of technical expertise, information accuracy and organisational interest in adopting the new process. Another critical barrier is the lack of standards of secure communication techniques for implementing QC. By applying F-AHP, we identified institutional barriers as the highest and organisational barriers as the second highest global weight ranked categories among the main QC challenges facing the software industry. We observed that the highest-ranked local barriers facing the software technology industry are the lack of resources for design and initiative while the lack of organisational interest in adopting the new process is the most significant organisational barrier. Our findings, which entail implications for both academicians and practitioners, reveal the emergent nature of QC research and the increasing need for interdisciplinary research to address the identified challenges.
The current technology revolution has posed unexpected challenges for the software industry. In recent years, the field of quantum computing (QC) technologies has continued to grow in influence and maturity, and it is now poised to revolutionise software engineering. However, the evaluation and prioritisation of QC challenges in the software industry remain unexplored, relatively under-identified and fragmented. The purpose of this study is to identify, examine and prioritise the most critical challenges in the software industry by implementing a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP). First, to identify the key challenges, we conducted a systematic literature review by drawing data from the four relevant digital libraries and supplementing these efforts with a forward and backward snowballing search. Second, we followed the F-AHP approach to evaluate and rank the identified challenges, or barriers. The results show that the key barriers to QC adoption are the lack of technical expertise, information accuracy and organisational interest in adopting the new process. Another critical barrier is the lack of standards of secure communication techniques for implementing QC. By applying F-AHP, we identified institutional barriers as the highest and organisational barriers as the second highest global weight ranked categories among the main QC challenges facing the software industry. We observed that the highest-ranked local barriers facing the software technology industry are the lack of resources for design and initiative while the lack of organisational interest in adopting the new process is the most significant organisational barrier. Our findings, which entail implications for both academicians and practitioners, reveal the emergent nature of QC research and the increasing need for interdisciplinary research to address the identified challenges.
Context The current technology revolution has posed unexpected challenges for the software industry. In recent years, the field of quantum computing (QC) technologies has continued to grow in influence and maturity, and it is now poised to revolutionise software engineering. However, the evaluation and prioritisation of QC challenges in the software industry remain unexplored, relatively under-identified and fragmented. Objective The purpose of this study is to identify, examine and prioritise the most critical challenges in the software industry by implementing a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP). Method First, to identify the key challenges, we conducted a systematic literature review by drawing data from the four relevant digital libraries and supplementing these efforts with a forward and backward snowballing search. Second, we followed the F-AHP approach to evaluate and rank the identified challenges, or barriers. Results The results show that the key barriers to QC adoption are the lack of technical expertise, information accuracy and organisational interest in adopting the new process. Another critical barrier is the lack of standards of secure communication techniques for implementing QC. Conclusion By applying F-AHP, we identified institutional barriers as the highest and organisational barriers as the second highest global weight ranked categories among the main QC challenges facing the software industry. We observed that the highest-ranked local barriers facing the software technology industry are the lack of resources for design and initiative while the lack of organisational interest in adopting the new process is the most significant organisational barrier. Our findings, which entail implications for both academicians and practitioners, reveal the emergent nature of QC research and the increasing need for interdisciplinary research to address the identified challenges.
Abstract Quantum computing (QC) hinged upon the bedrock principles of quantum theory and holds promise for reforming a large number of industries. The researcher in this area aims to deliver a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the art and future trajectories of QC. The authors have discovered that most academic studies have concentrated upon dissecting specific aspects of QC. This discernment underscores the exigency of identifying challenges that might impede the seamless integration of QC within the software industry. Moreover, it becomes crucial to ascertain the panoply of solutions/practices required to overcome these barriers. A comprehensive multi‐vocal literature review was performed and culled a total of 49 academic papers for data extraction. A total of 13 challenges encountered by organisations were identified during the adoption of QC. Subsequently, these challenges were examined deeply and determined that five of them are the most critical, these are ‘Lack of quantum specific algorithms, dev and testing methodologies’, ‘Difficult compilation and debugging’, ‘Lack of development tools and technology’, ‘Lack of development guidelines & Quality Assurance Standards’ and ‘Lack of professional expert’, together founding over 30% of occurrences. These challenges from various perspectives were evaluated, including time frame, methodology, geographical region and publication platform. To address these barriers and implement the QC in software industry effectively, a total of 53 practices/solutions. This research aims to share valuable knowledge to simplify and amplify quantum application development.
The development of quantum computers, which leverage quantum effects, has faced significant challenges, hindering technological progress due to a lack of clarity on how to harness these phenomena to improve computing performance. It wasn't until Peter Shor made a groundbreaking announcement in 1994, introducing a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for integer factorization, that the field of quantum computing gained momentum. Shor's factorization method utilizes this innovative concept, while Grover's search algorithm employs a technique that modifies the quantum state to increase the probability of obtaining the desired output. This study provides comprehensive explanations of quantum parallelism and strategies for its application. The objective of the research was to identify and evaluate the challenges within the software sector using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP). A thorough analysis was conducted to explore the obstacles associated with quantum computing. In line with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, we executed a systematic literature review (SLR) to present our findings. An SLR enables researchers to critically assess the existing literature on a given topic, identify relationships among investigated phenomena, uncover limitations of current studies, and suggest pathways for advancing academic inquiries. Through our review, we filtered out 0.37% of papers on software modeling and 0.63% of articles regarding quantum algorithms and various technical perspectives after removing duplicates and applying specific criteria to the remaining 478 articles. We employed the F-AHP method (illustrated in Fig. 1) to prioritize the key elements and their categories, facilitating a thorough understanding of decision-making issues across multiple criteria. As noted in the previous section, a focus on management capabilities essential for expediting the development of algorithms necessary for rapid digitization represents a promising area for future research in quantum computing literature. Our findings reveal that the consistency ratio (CR) for the specified criteria falls within the acceptable threshold of 0.10, indicating a collective agreement among respondents regarding group decisions. Employing the outlined methodology, we assessed the provided CR. Our results underscore the complex challenges associated with adopting quantum computing, many of which are tied to existing practices and expectations, such as the importance of scalability and evaluating resource performance. We encourage researchers to investigate the potential for technological integration processes to alleviate the organizational challenges and support the acceptance of new technologies, as the adoption of quantum computing remains a persistent obstacle for various sectors.
The introduction of quantum computing has transformed the setting of information technology, bringing both unprecedented opportunities and significant challenges. As quantum technologies continue to evolve, addressing their implications for software security has become an essential area of research. This paradigm change provides an unprecedented chance to strengthen software security from the start, presenting a plethora of novel alternatives. We use a multi-criteria decision-making methodology in this work to evaluate the efficacy of quantum computing approaches in improving software security. As the number of electronic applications grows, software developers strive to produce more sophisticated and user-friendly alternatives. However, in the pursuit of complexity, vulnerabilities may be introduced inadvertently, posing a substantial danger to software security. Our study addresses five major components of the quantum method to overcome these challenges: lattice-based cryptography, fully homomorphic algorithms, quantum key distribution, quantum hash functions, and blind quantum algorithms. The rapid development of quantum bits (qubits) regarded as basic quantum entities adds complexity and risk to the software security landscape. As a result, in the age of quantum computing, evaluating software security becomes not only necessary but also critical. To accomplish this objective, we propose the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (F-AHP), a soft computing method, as a reliable tool for accomplishing this goal. Our research aims to prioritise security variables using quantum security criteria, providing an innovative viewpoint on software security evaluation in the quantum computing era.
Abstract Quantum computing systems harness the power of quantum mechanics to execute computationally demanding tasks more effectively than their classical counterparts. This has led to the emergence of Quantum Software Engineering (QSE), which focuses on unlocking the full potential of quantum computing systems. As QSE gains prominence, it seeks to address the evolving challenges of quantum software development by offering comprehensive concepts, principles, and guidelines. This paper aims to identify, prioritize, and develop a systematic decision-making framework of the challenging factors associated with QSE process execution. We conducted a literature survey to identify the challenging factors associated with QSE process and mapped them into 7 core categories. Additionally, we used a questionnaire survey to collect insights from practitioners regarding these challenges. To examine the relationships between core categories of challenging factors, we applied Interpretive Structure Modeling (ISM). Lastly, we applied fuzzy TOPSIS to rank the identified challenging factors concerning to their criticality for QSE process. We have identified 22 challenging factors of QSE process and mapped them to 7 core categories. The ISM results indicate that the ‘resources’ category has the most decisive influence on the other six core categories of the identified challenging factors. Moreover, the fuzzy TOPSIS indicates that ‘complex programming’, ‘limited software libraries’, ‘maintenance complexity’, ‘lack of training and workshops’, and ‘data encoding issues’ are the highest priority challenging factor for QSE process execution. Organizations using QSE could consider the identified challenging factors and their prioritization to improve their QSE process.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses an unprecedented and existential threat to the cryptographic foundations underpinning modern software systems. Classical asymmetric cryptographic primitives — including RSA, Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange — are provably vulnerable to Shor's algorithm, executable on sufficiently powerful quantum hardware. This data analysis study presents a comprehensive investigation of quantum computing security threats across the software design lifecycle, employing a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) to systematically quantify and prioritize eight critical security dimensions: confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, non-repudiation, key management, side-channel resistance, and forward secrecy. Data were collected through structured expert surveys involving 47 domain specialists, supplemented by empirical performance benchmarks of six post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms standardized or under consideration by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2024. Our Fuzzy-AHP analysis yields a global Consistency Ratio (CR) of 0.047, well within the acceptable threshold of 0.10, validating the reliability of expert judgments. Results demonstrate that confidentiality (weight: 0.920) and integrity (weight: 0.880) are the highest-priority security dimensions in the quantum threat context. Comparative data analysis of classical, hybrid, and full post-quantum deployments reveals that quantum attack resistance improves by 9,300% under full PQC adoption relative to classical cryptography alone, while introducing a 663% increase in key exchange latency. A five-phase quantum-safe software design framework is proposed and validated against the SDLC. The study concludes with actionable guidance for software architects, security engineers, and organizational decision-makers navigating the transition to quantum-resilient software infrastructure.