Technical Section Editorial JPT’s Technical Section Editorial series features insights from committee members across SPE’s technical sections. Articles examine technical priorities, key activities, and emerging challenges within specific disciplines, providing SPE members with clear insight into how industry experts and volunteers are helping define SPE’s technical direction. Collectively, the series reflects the depth of SPE’s technical community and its continued commitment to advancing knowledge-sharing across the upstream energy sector. Learn more about the SPE Research and Development Technical Section (RDTS) on the RDTS SPE Connect Page. The rapid emergence of the disruptive technology of quantum computing (QC) opens up new opportunities for oil and gas computational problems. In response, the SPE Research and Development Technical Section (RDTS), in partnership with the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), held a symposium at Rice University in May to identify the most prospective quantum computing use cases for oil and gas. Sponsored by QED-C, IBM, and SLB, the event brought together participants with a balanced mix of energy and QC expertise. Quantum computing industry representatives reviewed the current state and outlook for emerging hardware and software. Participants then examined how these technologies could be applied to oil and gas challenges. Quantum computing is not yet ready to replace high-performance computing in oil and gas workflows, but the industry needs to begin identifying where it may matter first. We identified the following use cases, which present long-standing challenges for the industry. - Seismic imaging: elastic waveform simulation - Simulation and modeling: new materials design and reservoir simulation - Production optimization: hydraulic fracture optimization and well intervention strategy Background For the past several decades, a fundamentally new and powerful computing technology has been emerging from laboratories across the world—QC. While quantum mechanics is fundamental to the behavior of semiconductors that are the physical basis of modern