To understand the challenges, achievements, and developments of the UK quantum ecosystem, its important to start with why quantum technologies are and will increasingly become so important.

The UK stands as a pivotal player within the quantum technologies landscape. Its start-ups, universities, and established private companies have demonstrated remarkable potential across the entire spectrum of quantum technologies.

These innovations span the domains of quantum computing, networking, sensing, and encryption, with notable entities like Universal Quantum and Oxford Quantum Circuits, two of the worlds most promising quantum computing start-ups, and Cerca Magnetics, a quantum start-up developing quantum sensing technologies for medical applications, calling the UK home. These companies wield substantial influence within the UK, Europe, and globally.

The UKs leading universities have birthed a cohort of high-quality quantum spinouts revolutionising their respective fields. The University of Birmingham recently spun out its first company, Delta g a quantum sensing company developing gravity sensors with wide-ranging applications in smart cities, infrastructure, climate change mitigation, and civil engineering.

Nottingham spinout Cerca Magnetics collaborates with esteemed institutions like Great Ormond Street to develop and test its quantum-enhanced brain scanner. This technology is proving invaluable for detecting and devising remedies for epilepsy, especially in the case of afflicted children.

When considering the challenges and achievements of the UK, or any nation, within the quantum ecosystem, its paramount to start with the why. Why invest in and cultivate a quantum ecosystem at all?

We can only engage in substantive conversations about the hurdles faced and the breakthroughs achieved by initially contemplating the stakes involved. These stakes are significant revolutionary advancements in medicine, the formulation of effective climate change policy options, the creation of secure, interconnected cities, and the future of national security. In essence, we are discussing developing a set of quantum technologies to tackle the major challenges in the health and sustainability of society and the planet, as the Novo Nordisk Foundations Challenge Programme puts it.

Undoubtedly, the UKs quantum start-up ecosystem is robust, and its growth has benefited significantly from a series of well-conceived strategic policies and incentives. However, certain legislative changes and challenges must be addressed head-on to sustain this momentum and ensure the prosperity of start-ups without undue reliance on restrictive parameters and institutions.

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A commitment to tax incentives for research and development (R&D) has the potential to bolster the start-up scene. However, in April this year, legislative changes impacted the amount UK companies can claim in R&D tax credits. As a result, start-ups developing new quantum technologies can now claim less tax relief, while larger businesses receive increased R&D support. The policy change has been felt across the tech ecosystem. Still, the ripples will be felt strongest for start-ups developing quantum technologies with a longer go-to-market strategy and timeline to returns. Stunting innovation at this early stage in the life cycle will have a long-standing impact on the tech economy and ecosystem.

Notwithstanding this policy change, there are many bodies, both within and without government, with initiatives that stand up as shining examples of how a nations legislative decisions can catalyse technological leaps.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a prime example. UKRI has laid a strong foundation for the quantum start-up landscape to flourish by pooling resources and integrating research and innovation efforts across various sectors. Innovate UKs, part of UKRI, role in funding and supporting early-stage ventures has been pivotal, fostering an environment where innovation is rewarded and risk-taking is encouraged.

Enacting policies that ensure sustainable growth and allow quantum start-ups to diversify their funding streams is also paramount, and this will happen not at an individual or fund level but at an institutional level. I was recently reminded that the UK made no money from the invention of the Erbium amplifier the enabler for long-distance internet and communication yet the UK funded the research. This attitude must be central to reforms and policies that impact disruptive technology development.

Pension fund reform

A visionary shift in the investment landscape requires pension fund restructuring to allow fund managers to invest in riskier asset classes like Deep Tech.

A report published earlier this year argued partly for the consolidation of the UKs highly fragmented pension scheme landscape. In the report, Tony Blair and William Hague pointed out that the UK has the second largest pensions market in the world, but despite this advantage, overseas pension funds invest 16 times more in venture capital and private equity in the UK than domestic public and private pensions do.

Steps are being made in this direction in the form of the Venture Capital Compact, as part of which nine pension providers have signed up to allocate at least 5% of default funds into unlisted equities by 2030.

Enticing institutional investors to participate in technologies will allow quantum start-ups to look closer to home when it comes to putting their foot on the gas and scaling up, something that many start-ups have felt prevented from doing traditionally because they cannot get the necessary cash injection from inside the UKs borders.

Should this trend with the VCC continue, turning from a sticking plaster into a genuinely innovative structural reform, then I think the future looks very exciting indeed for the UKs quantum investment landscape.

Streamlining trade export controls

The UKs quantum start-ups would benefit greatly from streamlined trade export controls. The US model of maintaining an Entity List of companies to which you cannot sell sets a precedent worth replicating.

In the UK, the process of obtaining licences for each potential trade partner is arduous and time-consuming. Simplifying trade export controls through a well-defined list of prohibited entities would reduce friction in international business collaborations while maintaining national security.

Accelerated medical certification process for non-invasive quantum devices and support for quantum-based medical applications

Improving the process by which a company can obtain medical certification is a specific example which speaks to wider policy changes needed to accelerate and protect innovation in technology in the UK.

Quantum technologies have the potential to revolutionise non-invasive medical procedures, offering precise diagnostics and treatments. Yet the bureaucratic hurdles companies face when seeking medical certification can stifle innovation in this space. A streamlined and efficient process for certifying non-invasive quantum medical technologies is essential to expedite their deployment, saving lives and driving economic growth.

The UK is still very traditional in its approach to developing quantum technologies for medical applications. Welcome Leap, for example, only exists in the USA and not the UK. We must endorse and support a real strategic view of quantum medical applications separate from quantum computing. It is more important than ever to foster collaboration in this space biologists and clinicians have a crucial role to play alongside quantum physicists.

For example, biologists need to calibrate the quantum results produced by quantum devices. We need to set up programmes which include their skills, not alienate them.

As we navigate the next phase of quantum technologies, the UK must maintain its position of strength by fostering a vibrant, self-sustaining ecosystem of start-ups.

shutterstock/Pixels Hunter

Inspired by successes and lessons from within and beyond our borders, legislative changes can be the foundation for this endeavour. By expanding funding sources, simplifying trade regulations, and accelerating medical certifications, we can empower quantum start-ups to reach their full potential, bringing forth ground-breaking technologies that redefine our world.

The UK has a remarkable legacy of technological innovation, and our quantum start-ups stand poised to continue this legacy into the future. As stakeholders in this transformation, our collective responsibility is to craft a legislative framework that propels innovation, nurtures entrepreneurship, and ensures quantum sovereignty for future generations.

We can unlock nascent quantum potential in the UK through strategic policies and visionary legislative changes.

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Navigating the UK's quantum start-ups landscape - Innovation News Network

CHICAGO, Sept. 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Infleqtion, the world's quantum information company, today announced the release of its flagship quantum software platform Superstaqinto open beta. Superstaq's device-physics-aware compilation techniques have led to remarkable performance enhancements, such as a 10x boost in standard benchmark applications like Bernstein-Vazirani. Various deep optimization techniquesparametric (fractional) gates, dynamical decoupling, swap mirroring, bring-your-own gateset, phased microwave decompositions, approximate synthesis, and qutrits contribute to this progress.

Quantum computers are noisy and error-prone, making optimized circuit compilation critical for obtaining useful results. With Superstaq's full-stack solution, application developers, researchers, quantum hardware providers, and users at national labs, accelerate their time-to-market and boost the computational power of their machines and applications. The platform integrates seamlessly with Qiskit Runtime, maximizing the efficiency of quantum computations.

"We're excited to introduce the Superstaq open beta, which signifies a pivotal juncture in the quantum computing landscape. Through its advanced features and user-focused design, Superstaq enables quantum enthusiasts, researchers, and industry leaders to fully unlock the potential of quantum applications," shared Dr. Pranav Gokhale, VP of Quantum Software at Infleqtion.

The open beta release of Superstaq introduces a host of user-centric enhancements. New tutorials and updated documentation ensure easier onboarding, making quantum computing accessible to a broader audience. The platform also offers improved error messaging and resolution channels, enhancing the overall user experience.

"Sandia National Laboratories' close collaboration with Infleqtion's Superstaq team has been invaluable in helping Sandia provide researchers around the world low-level access to our quantum computing testbed QSCOUT, a versatile, open, trapped-ion quantum computer. The team tailored compiler optimization techniques attuned to our hardware's specific performance and capabilities. These routines have focused on the advantages, challenges, and noise characteristics of QSCOUT's continuously parameterized two-qubit gateset, yielding exciting developments. Our productive endeavor is underscored by a deeply rooted, shared co-design philosophy that has improved both QSCOUT and Superstaq. As QSCOUT has evolved, the Superstaq team has been a valued, collaborative partner," said Christopher Yale, Experimental Team Lead on QSCOUT.

In addition to QSCOUT, users of Superstaq include other national laboratories, such as Argonne and the Advanced Quantum Testbed at Lawrence Berkeley; academic and educational institutions, such as Northwestern University and QuSTEAM; and financial companies, such as Morningstar, in addition to many others.

Ji Liu, a postdoctoral appointee at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, shared, "Superstaq's low-level quantum programming primitives unlock significant advances in performance for applications such as Toffoli gates and Hamiltonian simulation algorithms. The access to native gates and pulse-level controls is important for optimizing execution on quantum hardware."

"Superstaq has been a fantastic resource," said Bennett Brown, Executive Director of QuSTEAM. "I'm excited about what's next for the platform and leveraging this power and their team's expertise to advance undergraduate education with project-based course modules, further growing our quantum community."

Dr. Gokhale will participate as a panelist at IEEE Quantum Week, "From the Capitol to the Laboratory: How Industry and Academia Can Leverage National Policy for Funding of QIS," on September 20th at 3:00 Pacific Time (PDT). The event will also feature a paper presentation on arXiv. Further details about Superstaq can be found online at https://www.infleqtion.com/superstaq, and interested users can join the Superstaq open beta at https://superstaq.infleqtion.com.

About Infleqtion

Infleqtion delivers high-value quantum information precisely where it is needed. By operating at the Edge, our software-configured, quantum-enabled products deliver unmatched levels of precision and power, generating streams of high-value information for commercial organizations, the United States, and allied governments. With 16 years of ColdQuanta's pioneering quantum research as our foundation, our hardware products and AI-powered solutions address critical market needs in PNT, global communication security and efficiency, resilient energy distribution, and accelerated quantum computing. Headquartered in Austin, TX, with offices in Boulder, CO; Chicago, IL; Madison, WI; Melbourne, AU; and Oxford, UK. Learn how Infleqtion is revolutionizing how we communicate, navigate, and discover at http://www.Infleqtion.com.

The names Infleqtion, Super.tech, Superstaq, ColdQuanta, and the Infleqtion logo are registered trademarks of Infleqtion, Inc.

SOURCE Infleqtion

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Infleqtion Unveils Open Beta Release of Superstaq: Accelerating ... - PR Newswire

In the ever-evolving realm of technology, one concept stands out as the harbinger of the future: quantum computing. Its a revolutionary field that is reshaping the boundaries of whats possible in computation.

Market watchers and tech leaders widely believe that quantum technology has the potential to revolutionize industries, akin to the transformative impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, ushering in a new era of unparalleled computational capabilities.

Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave Quantum (NYSE: QBTS), reiterated those views, in his September 11 interview with Bloomberg Technology.

Notably, Baratz believes quantum technology is going to fundamentally transform the way businesses operate and have a huge impact on the social and economic environment.

Due to its immense potential, the US must accelerate investments in the development of quantum computing, he added, as its biggest economic rival China continues to make progress in this area.

While its potential remains unquestionable, commercial quantum computing is still early, Baratz said when Bloomberg Technology co-host Ed Ludlow asked him why D-Wave continues to generate low revenues despite having 60 commercial customers.

Baratz acknowledged that his company was also not commercial until more than a year ago, but nevertheless, the company has seen its bookings accelerate quarter-over-quarter for five quarters now, thanks to its unusual approach.

Additionally, D-Wave has witnessed its average deal size grow substantially from tens of thousands of dollars to well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Having said that, Baratz said he is really excited about the companys future prospects, even though the company, and the broader quantum tech space, are still in their early days.

The firms CEO stated that D-Wave has developed its technology entirely by ourselves. Today, the company has more than 200 US-granted patents, and an additional 100 in process worldwide.

At the time of writing, D-Wave stock was standing at $1.07, after soaring more than 17% in the past 24 hours.

Over the past week, QBTS remains down more than 5% and over 25% on the month.

The stock reached a 2023 high of $2.91 in mid-July, but the share price declined significantly after the company reported weak Q2 earnings and forward guidance, despite robust bookings growth.

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D-Wave CEO: Quantum computing will 'fundamentally transform' the ... - Finbold - Finance in Bold

Will Oliver, a professor at MIT, and Steve Suarez, an innovation advisor and CEO of HorizonX Consulting. are interviewed by Yuval Boger. Will elaborates on the challenges and opportunities in quantum computing, particularly the need for 3D integration to efficiently control large arrays of qubits. Steve shares his journey into quantum computing and his advice to innovation leaders. They then discuss quantums current state and future prospects, the intersection of quantum computing with AI, the role of cloud-based quantum services, and much more.

Yuval Boger: Hello Will, hello Steve. Thank you for joining me today.

Steve Suarez: Thank you.

Will Oliver: Yep, good morning.

Yuval: So Will, who are you and what do you do?

Will: Yeah, Yuval, thanks a lot for inviting me to your program. Im Will Oliver. Im a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and a professor of physics at MIT. Ive been working for twenty-plus years on quantum computing, in particular with superconducting qubits, but I also work on high-performance cryogenic technologies and 3D integration that were going to need to bring these one day to reality, and I enjoy it very much.

Yuval: And Steve, who are you and what do you do?

Steve: Ah, Yuval. Thank you for having me and good afternoon Im calling in from London Ive got varied positions: Im an external advisor at Bain and Company joining them to help them really push the innovation agenda. And one of those topics happened to be quantum computing so Im excited to be here with you to talk about that. Im also sitting on a couple of company boards and one of those companies is a quantum computing company out of Israel called Classiq. And lastly and actually its got me really excited right now, Im launching a new consulting company. On September 5 Im launching a company called Horizon X. where were going to help companies work in all three horizons of innovation and really help drive innovation at scale.

Yuval: So wonderful. Will, you mentioned 3D and that got me curious. Is that about qubit connectivity a 3D arrangement of qubits or is it something else?

Will: Well, it is all of the above. But, where we start is basically if you think about a large array of qubits, you know hundreds of thousands and more, the question is how do I bring in all the control signals to address those qubits. Today, mostly people are bringing them in from the sides laterally, because were not at very large qubit processor sizes yet. But of course, thats a losing battle, because the wires take up more and more room. And the only way to get the wires there is to spread the qubits further and further apart and thats not an extensible solution. But what is an extensible solution is to bring those signals in from the third dimension, and so this is literally 3D fabrication integration of the wiring and the control technologies needed to address qubits. You could think of the wiring on the ground floor and the qubits upstairs and the stairways are bringing the signals up and down and that is a much more space-efficient way to do it. And then maybe the last comment would be that once you have that, then, of course, you could start thinking about: maybe Ill put qubits on the second floor and the third floor, and maybe Ill bring signals also down from the roof, and so there are lots of opportunities to expand this. But where it starts is with bringing the control signals in from the third dimension.

Yuval: So that would be like vias or blind vias on a PCB thats on a multilayer PCB thats done today?

Will: Yeah, thats right, Thats exactly right.

Yuval: What do you think about qubit connectivity? I mean superconducting qubits have all these advantages speed and so on but connectivity and requirements for cooling (putting aside LK99) how do you think thats going to progress in the future?

Will: Yeah, well great question. I mean you know each of these qubit modalities whether were talking superconducting, trapped ions, you know two of the leaders today, up and coming is neutral atoms, semiconductor qubits, and others today you know each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses. And, you mentioned many of the strengths of superconducting qubits, and of course, that is one of the reasons that theyre in the lead today. But, one of their challenges is going to be connectivity. Currently, superconducting qubits talk very well to their nearest neighbors. So north, south, east, and west. But if I wanted to go two towns away or three towns away, thats quite challenging. And so one of our challenges is going to be how do we go beyond simply nearest neighbor connectivity. And, why is it important to do that? Well, we dont have to, but algorithms can become much more efficient in a hardware sense as well as in a software sense if we can achieve something beyond nearest-neighbor connectivity. And of course, the Holy Grail would be full connectivity, where any one qubit could directly talk to any other qubit in the processor. We probably wont get there. But I think we can get beyond nearest-neighbor connectivity for some advantage.

Yuval: So Steve you and I are probably the only two people in the quantum industry without a Ph.D. in physics. How did you get into quantum?

Steve: it was really interesting because I had the title of innovation. A lot of people were approaching me and saying: Steve, you got to look at this new technology and quantum computing and it was so far out there. And it wasnt until Nature magazine published that they reached quantum supremacy, and then there was this conversation in the news about RSAs security broken. Then it really piqued the attention of a lot of boards within the bank and by nature since I had the title head of innovation they were saying: were going to get Steve to come to our boards all around the world and Steves going to explain what it is and how were protected and whats going on. All of a sudden I had to really quickly first understand what it is and how it works and and then be able to explain to a board why we should be concerned or why we shouldnt be concerned and I was happy that I was. Explaining why we shouldnt be concerned at this time and that you know what are the efforts that were going to make to look for it. II spent a lot of time educating myself and I could tell you at the beginning I was really like oh is this really going to work? But as I studied it more I got more involved, I became a believer in this technology and I saw the power that this technology can have and so that caused me throughout the years to invest my time to learn the technology and be able to speak to it and look for opportunities both near term and long term. I got involved in quantum computing which was kind of what brought me to meet Will many years ago at MIT and then I became one of his students really learning around Will and Wills always been an inspiration to me. Ever since then, Ive just kind of dived in deeper and gone down the the rabbit hole.

Yuval: You mentioned boards, and I think the shiny new object in boards these days is generative AI and GPT. What do you tell boards when they say, oh, were gonna take away budget from quantum and were gonna move it to this shiny new object.

Steve: Yeah, unfortunately, its happening a lot. And I can tell you that in companies that Im consulting and working with, theyre actually redirecting those employees and saying, okay, youre gonna spend half your time on quantum and the other half on AI. And the response I get from a lot of the resources is, Im not an AI expert, thats not what I do. Ive been doing quantum and this is, But I think that theres this misconception that because Im smart and I know quantum physics, I can go ahead and now be an AI expert and to drive it.

So I think this whole rise about AI and a lot of boards and senior management getting this sense of a FOMO, the fear that Im missing out because everybodys talking about it and there are these amazing things is really driving everybody to say, Okay, lets just put all of our resources there. I dont think its the right approach. I think we have to be sensible and see what we can do. I think that there is an intersection between AI and quantum that we should be looking at. But I dont think we should be retooling quantum physicists to be going towards AI. I think we should focus the people who do that on the experiments on you know, what are the things that we can derive near term, and then we have really good people in the analytics space in that space that can drive that. But right now it seems like everything is being diverted to Gen AI and thats what everybody wants to talk about.

Yuval: And Will, people have been talking about quantum and AI as Steve mentioned, but AI models have billions of parameters and dont look like sort of quantum machine learning with todays qubits in terms of quantity and fidelity is going to get anywhere near that. In your mind Is quantum AI just a new buzzword to get some more budgets into quantum or is there substance behind it?

Will: Well, theres been work in quantum/AI for about 15 or 20 years and, in fact, folks here at MIT, including Eddie Farhi along with Seth Lloyd and others, have done a lot of work in this area. You raise a good point, and you know 10-12 years ago, Professor John Preskill from Caltech coined a term called NISQ, which stands for noisy intermediate scale quantum, and the idea at the time that he coined it was: lets try to find an algorithm with the hardware that we have today that will do a useful and hopefully even commercially useful task, which we can do in the interim while were working towards doing full error correction to enable these larger systems that you mentioned with millions or even billions of qubits.

So a lot of work has gone into that and theres been some back and forth between the quantum and the AI or conventional computing scientists saying, okay, Ive got an algorithm that seems to run a little better than yours. And then they (the conventional computer scientists) band together, and come up with an even better algorithm, and its gone back and forth. And its currently, I would say, in the classical computer scientists camp. Theyve come up with algorithms that they show are pretty darn efficient. And its looking more and more like we really do need to get to an error-corrected machine to really see the commercial advantage of quantum computers. Now, I may be wrong on that. It may go back in the other direction, But a lot of really smart people have been thinking about this for a while, and this is where it stands today.

Now, if you think about billions of parameters for an AI, say machine learning, then one challenge that people are thinking about is, how do I get all of that information into a quantum computer?, because quantum computers are run or operated by conventional classical computers. And so theres, as of yet, no quantum speed up on getting a lot of information into a quantum computer, because its classical information. We gather it from the world around us and then we stick it into a quantum computer. So thats called the data loading problem. And thats something that a lot of people are thinking about how to address it, or how to work with it because we may not be able to work around it.

Yuval: Youve both been in quantum for quite a few years and Im curious, you know, like a physicist, I wanna look at the derivative. What do you know today that you didnt know six months ago? Whats new in your mind, new and exciting in quantum?

Steve: I think its not so much that I didnt know, but I think all the time Im talking to new people, Im really understanding the different modalities and how the modalities are progressing. And at a certain point I was giving a presentation and a lot of the education that I received was on superconducting. And Im talking about, youre never gonna have a quantum computer in your room and all this other stuff. And in the room, theres a guy having a modality where hes actually trying to do quantum through diamonds. And so its very interesting to me seeing how all of these people are approaching the problem, trying to get to the same solution using these different modalities. How theyre progressing, how theyre driving forward, and how many people in the world are trying to get this done.

From my end, I find that interesting, but then better yet, finding the commercial uses for it and how people find the advantages or the opportunities today. And Im really excited about that because I think theres a lot of creativity, a lot of work being done where we can start finding some near-term ways to apply this technology where we can benefit now, were not talking about five, 10, 20 years down the line. And thats kind of where I like coming in from because if I can find that ability to find that value, it gives more investment into this industry that I believe in, and we can keep growing to see how we can benefit the industry. To see how we can benefit the industry.

Yuval: And Will, whats your viewpoint?

Will: Yeah, well, Im very fortunate to be working at a place like MIT where we have just really fantastic students, post-docs, and research scientists. I mean, Im learning something almost every day thats new. And yeah, its one of the reasons that Im in this field.

Im trained as an electrical engineer, by the way. And I was thinking, when I was taking those classes at college that, okay, Im learning about transistors, but transistors are pretty mature and I could make them yet a little bit better, but gee whiz, wouldnt it have been awesome to live in the 50s and really do this at the very beginning, at the dawn of classical computing?

And thats exactly what were doing right now in quantum. So I get that excitement every day. Just to answer your question, I think there are things that were learning at the fundamental level about quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement that we suspected were true, but we didnt really know. So, for example, quantum mechanics describes the very small like electrons and protons, thats where it started. But, can it work with macroscopic objects that you can see, like electrical circuits? Thats really what a superconducting qubit is.

And the answer from 20 years ago is, yeah, it looks like it works. And then you could ask, well, will it work for 10 of those or a hundred of those? Does it work with something I can see with my eye? And the point is that we are entangling larger and larger systems, they behave quantum mechanically, and thats very interesting.

The question of what happens when you get to many, many bodies entangled, is it different? If so, how is it different? And that can be quite interesting from an intellectual standpoint. From an engineering standpoint, part of the work that Ive been doing and contributing to is how are we going to think of this as a system how are we going to build a larger scale and useful quantum computer? It really draws from many disciplines, not just physics and not just electrical engineering, but much broader material science, fabrication engineering, et cetera, to really build something of a complexity that may be one of the most complex objects that humankind has ever built.

Yuval: If you think about it from a systems approach, as you were starting to describe, I think many people believe that the quantum processor is not gonna be a standalone processor, but its gonna coexist with CPUs and GPUs, and maybe every processor is gonna do something else. Were unlikely to run Zoom on a quantum computer anytime soon, I believe. Do you think its too early to start thinking about that integration? In theory and in practice, do you think HPC managers would say, Hey, quantum is coming, what do I do about it?

Will: You know, it is early, and technical development evolves over time. And so if, to use an analogy, if people in the 50s had said, look, these computers are really wimpy, what we really wanna do is run Zoom, whatever Zoom was in the 1950s, why dont we wait until we have that technology and then well do it? And if you think that way, of course, you never developed the technology, because its the journey, not the endpoint, that is what gets you there. The endpoint motivates us, but its the journey that takes us there.

And so with quantum, itll be the same thing. So my answer is yes, we should absolutely be thinking about this, but we should also be aware that engineering is hard. This is hardware and it takes time. And so we dont want to over-hype this or we could end up in a quantum winter, whether its, you know, a dark cold winter or even a shallow one, I think we want to manage expectations properly. But at the same time, we dont want to come across as wet blankets and say, this is never gonna work and its gonna be 20 or 30 years, because I dont believe that thats true either. We need to be highly engaged, we should work towards the applications that we want and solve the problems. And if we do that, we will get to a quantum future.

The other part of your question was about the necessity of having quantum computers operate in tandem with conventional computers. And that is absolutely true the way that we understand it today. If for no other reason, quantum computers will need error correction. So quantum computers run on qubits, those are the logical elements and theyre quantum mechanical, so theyre faulty. And even though were quite proud of ourselves as a community for getting them to error rates of one part in a thousand or one part in 10,000, a transistor in our computers today has an error rate of one part in 10 to the 20th power. So orders and orders of magnitude better.

You could also ask, what do we need? We need error rates of something like one part in a billion to one part in a trillion. And so to make up that difference, we will use quantum error correcting codes. Those codes are operated and implemented by conventional classical computers. And so they will always run in tandem.

Beyond that, there are ideas where a classical computer would run an algorithm, maybe 80, 90% of it, but then poll the quantum computer periodically for some advantage to get an answer back quickly. And lastly, of course, were not quantum mechanical objects, we sit down at a computer terminal, and type in a program. So of course a classical computer has to be interfaced with a quantum computer in some way.

Yuval: Steve I wanted to ask you, youre calling from London, I know youre a world traveler, you advise many boards in many countries. And one of the things that many countries are doing is starting up these national quantum programs where they say, We want a computer in country as a way to jumpstart the local quantum ecosystem. Do you think thats the right strategy or do you think today quantum computers should still remain on the cloud because their useful lifetime is relatively short, they get obsolete fairly quickly, and so on?

Steve: I mean, I think you said it yourself. I think the capex of buying quantum computing and putting it where you, theyre just in my mind doesnt really necessitate that cost and that investment to do it. And as technology gets better, why dont you buy it or use it as a service? And I think thats where using some of these clouds, and today you might be plugging into 433 qubits. tomorrow, it might be 1000 qubits. And if youre buying it, youre still stuck with what you bought and the value of that.

So I think being smart about it and leveraging it and using some of these different technologies. Also, if you buy a certain type of computer, youre stuck to that modality. And Im really big on being able to understand all the different modalities and seeing how you use the strengths of each one of those modalities to help you process what youre trying to process. And there might be better strengths on one for photonics or, you know, trapped ions versus, you know, superconducting. So I definitely wouldnt, again, Im not trying to rain on any hardware providers that wanna sell their machines, but if Im sitting there starting up and this is what we do in innovation, is I want to play around and I wanna try it out without making those big investments. And I think using the cloud and being able to access these technologies through that is a good first step to get engaged.

Yuval: Will, you are a superconducting expert and a quantum expert in general. So other than superconducting, what modality are you excited about?

Will: Well, there are many that Im excited about because its clear that, you know, if we think of this as a marathon, were in the first five or 10 miles. Theres still quite a ways to go. And whos leading today likely will not win the race or may not win the race. I shouldnt try to guess whats gonna happen.

But again, if we look back at technologies from the last century, we started with vacuum tubes, and they evolved into bipolar junction transmitters, emitter-coupled logic, CMOS, Technology evolves over time and I would expect the same to happen in quantum.

So the two that seem to be leading today are superconducting qubits and trapped ions. Theyre both quite exciting. Superconducting qubits are electrical circuits controlled by microwaves. And trapped ions, generally speaking, are atoms where theyve had the outermost electron ripped off, an ion, and theyre trapped using electromagnetic fields on a chip, and then theyre controlled generally by lasers. So different technologies, completely different technologies. But both are doing very, very well today, both in the academic as well as the commercial space.

Some other up-and-coming technologies that are quite exciting include neutral atoms. And those again are based on atoms, and theyre trapped with two counter-propagating lasers.

And theyre very good at quantum simulations and some of the largest quantum computers today have been built using neutral atoms. You know, were talking maybe 300 qubits at this point.

Photonic approaches, so using photons, the carriers of light, in integrated circuits looks very promising because, you know, they can rely and do rely very heavily on the existing fabrication infrastructure we have for CMOS, because those foundries are also making integrated photonics. And so with a little tweaking, you can just update it. Now youve got a photonic chip.

Semiconductor qubits are also quite interesting because they natively exist in those technologies from the foundries. So built from CMOS or silicon or silicon germanium. And so they right out of the box can leverage the last 50 years of fabrication technology.

So all of these different approaches have pros and cons, which we can go through in more detail if youd like to, but because they each have problems to address, its not clear yet whos going to be the first winner. But the two that are in the lead are trapped ions and superconducting qubits.

Yuval: Steve, youre coming off a fantastic tenure as a head of innovation in a very large financial services company. And I wanted to ask you two questions about that. First, if you have a friend whos now starting to be head of innovation at a large company, what advice would you give him? And two, your new company, Horizon XC, I believe, what is that going to do?

Steve: I think if I were to give advice to anyone running innovation at a large multinational organization, Number one is to make sure you have the right support and engagement from senior management. Thats number one at the top of the house. If you dont have that, dont waste your time because youre not going to be able to do it.

Everybody loves innovation because they think its a nice shiny job. And you wouldnt imagine the amount of times people have told me, Steve, youre the luckiest man on earth. Youve got the best job kind of running innovation. And innovation is, its a hard job, but its very satisfying for people that love to drive through it. And youre gonna hear a lot, theres gonna be a lot of obstacles, a lot of reasons why you cant do things.

So I think number one is to make sure you have the engagement and the support from senior management because it will be difficult. Make sure you have the budget that youre gonna need to drive it. So if senior management says, yes, we love innovation, we drive innovation, they have to commit to it. And to commit to it, which means were gonna give you the budget and the room you need to be able to innovate, which means you have to be okay with failure. Because if youre not failing, youre not truly innovating. And you have to be able to kind of create that culture to where Im gonna experiment, Im gonna try to do it very fast, cheap, and frictionless. And if you give me that opportunity, I can bring new things and really do innovation and bring new things to life. And I would say those are probably the main advice I would give to anybody looking to do this.

Yuval: And your new company. What is it going to do and how can it help others?

Steve: Horizon X Consulting, and the reason I called it Horizon X is that I look at it at the three horizons of innovation. Horizon one is core innovation. Horizon two is new products or things that exist in the world, but youre bringing in new to your organization. And then horizon three is your moonshots.

This is really the disruptive innovation, new business models. And Im looking to help organizations make sure theyve got the right balance between the three horizons and get results out of their innovation agenda. A lot of people have innovation teams. And theyre doing what I call innovation, theater or innovation, cheerleading, but theyre not really driving the value from that type of activity. And what I want to do is help organizations truly drive value out of their innovation agendas. Because were constantly driving to find new things, new products, new entrances. And either your organization is standing still, its going backward, or its moving forward, and you cant do that without innovating.

Yuval: As we get closer to the end of our conversation today, I wanted to ask you a brief question about ethics and quantum ethics. And Will, you work at MIT, you know, in the name, it says Institute of Technology. Do you guys deal with ethical aspects of quantum or other new technologies?

Will: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have a school of humanities and many people therein think very hard about these types of problems, whether, you know, for quantum is the new kid on the block, but for a long time, the ethics of AI, for example, or the ethics going back even further with the recent movie Oppenheimer, right? I think, you know, thinking of the ethics of nuclear power and nuclear weapons and therein. So, absolutely we are thinking very hard about it at MIT, and I know people around the world also. And not just the, you know, the technology ethics, but also maybe related to that is the access to these technologies, the potential for disparity that it may create, e.g., economic disparity. And ideas for how we can avoid the negative consequences of technologies as we develop them.

Yuval: And Steve, you talk with a lot of boards and Im sure the issue of ethics comes up from time to time. Is quantum ethics any different than AI ethics or is it really just, you know, another one of the same?

Steve: I think its another aspect of it. I think ethics should apply to everything from business-technology processes. So from us, its nothing new. And I think its just understanding the technology and making sure that you can use it for a force of good.

And I think I could tell you the reason Im personally really interested in this technology is that I think it can have, if done right, a significant impact on things like climate change. Ive got three boys. I want them to live in a better world than Ive lived. And if I can say, look, Im getting engaged in something that could have an impact on this world, I think thats kind of what excites me of people like Will allowing me to kind of get into this industry, allowing me to kind of help push quantum forward to me excites me and looking at how we make things more secure.

I know Will was talking about NISQ with a Q and looking at what NIST with a T, so the National Institute of Standards and Technology is doing around creating security, I think is key. And I think thats where quantum comes in. So Im actually really interested in kind of how quantum AI and cyber may come together and have an impact and be able to get into that early enough where I can add value.

Yuval: The last question I like to ask my guests is a hypothetical about if you could have dinner with one of the quantum greats dead or alive, who would that be? Now I know Will for you its a little bit of a tricky question because I think that some of my listeners would like to have dinner with you. But putting that aside, who would you want to have dinner with?

Will: Oh boy, thats a really interesting question and one that I havent really thought about before. But you know, off the cuff, I think it would be very interesting to me to have dinner with Niels Bohr, and the reason is that he formed many of the foundations for the intuition of how we think about quantum and quantum measurement. And I think it would be very interesting to have dinner and pick his brain and hear his thoughts on the subject.

Yuval: And Steve how about you?

Steve: I am going to maybe go boring. Id go with Albert Einstein. And I think when he talks about quantum, I think he described it as spooky science at a distance, or something like that. And I might not be quoting it perfectly. But the fact that Albert Einstein, this great mind that understood so many things, called it spooky science at a distance. Even him, he had a hard time conceptualizing or understanding, and putting this together. And Id love to maybe pick his brains to understand why you think it was spooky science or, you know, what are, I dont know. Thatd be great. I think Id probably just enjoy listening to whatever Albert Einstein said. I dont think Id understand it, but just to be in his presence, would be pretty cool on my side.

Yuval: I think so too. Steve, Will thank you so much for joining me today.

Will: Thank you.

Steve: Thank you.

Yuval Boger is the chief marketing officer for QuEra, the leader in neutral-atom quantum computers. Known as the Superposition Guy as well as the original Qubit Guy, he can be reached on LinkedIn or at this email.

September 12, 2023

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Podcast with Will Oliver, a Professor at MIT, and Steve Suarez, an Innovation Advisor and CEO of HorizonX Consulting - Quantum Computing Report