Willis Towers Watson has reached an exclusive deal with Microsoft to develop the potential of quantum computing for its risk management and insurance clients within the insurance, financial services, and investment space.

In a statement, Willis Towers Watson explained that it has a longstanding partnership with Microsoft, focused on the development of cutting-edge technology and bringing advanced modelling tools to insurers across the globe. Willis Towers Watson said that this latest announcement was a natural extension of that partnership and offered the potential to transform risk quantification and make the insurance value chain more efficient.

John Haley, the chief executive officer of Willis Towers Watson, said, “Willis Towers Watson provides advanced analytics tools to over 1,000 insurers around the world, allowing them to quantify risk and allocate capital efficiently. Current modelling techniques to quantify risk require a huge amount of computing power, using thousands of computers over many hours. The better the models, the more efficiently our clients can use their capital to manage risk. Quantum computing offers us the chance to look at our clients' problems in a different way. By focusing on how we would model the problems on quantum computers when they become available at scale, we are able to redefine the problems and speed up our solutions on existing hardware today.”