The New Quantum Era - innovation in quantum computing, science and technology

Richard Entrup is unusual in quantum circles: he's not a physicist, and he doesn't pretend to be. He spent decades as a CIO, CTO, CDO, and CISO at organizations including Verizon, Christie's, Disney/ABC, Time Warner, and Tiffany & Company before joining KPMG to lead its Emerging Solutions practice. That background — deep operational experience on the client side — shapes everything about how he thinks about quantum. He's not selling a hardware roadmap; he's thinking about what it actually takes to get a large, complex organization to change its cryptographic infrastructure before a threat materializes.

The conversation matters now because the signals are accelerating. NIST has finalized its first post-quantum cryptography standards, executive orders in the US are pushing federal agencies toward PQC migration, and the algorithmic efficiency gains that reduce the qubit threshold for breaking RSA-2048 keep coming. Listeners who work in enterprise technology, cybersecurity, or quantum strategy — or who advise organizations that do — will find Entrup's practitioner perspective a useful counterweight to the more hardware-focused conversations that dominate the field.

What We Get Into

• Why Q-Day's exact date is the wrong question — and why the more important issue is how long it will take enterprises to even inventory their cryptographic exposure, let alone remediate it
• The scale of the cryptographic migration problem, including why a single laptop may contain hundreds of individual cryptographic components and why upstream/downstream API dependencies make this a supply-chain-wide challenge, not just an internal IT project
• Why "harvest now, decrypt later" creates urgency today, regardless of when fault-tolerant quantum computers arrive — and how compliance and regulatory timelines interact with that threat model
• What crypto agility actually means in practice — moving from a "set it and forget it" cryptographic posture to a dynamic, continuously monitored framework, including the pressure SSL certificate renewal windows are already creating
• How KPMG built its PQC practice, incubated it within the firm, and handed it off to the cybersecurity advisory team as a core service offering
• The "good quantum" side of the ledger — how KPMG's emerging research function is approaching quantum computing as a source of competitive advantage, not just risk, and what sectors are furthest along in exploring it
• The AI-quantum convergence, including Entrup's observation that AI is already being used to read and crack code — and what that means for the urgency of cryptographic modernization
• Why the enterprise quantum opportunity still has a long tail, and how the current moment compares to the early infrastructure phase of the internet — when everyone was talking about TCP/IP and DNS, not Uber or Netflix

Resources & Links

Guest & Organization

• Richard Entrup — Worth Magazine Profile — Career arc from CIO/CISO roles at major global brands to KPMG's Emerging Solutions practice
• KPMG Quantum Dawn (2025) — KPMG's enterprise quantum readiness hub, introducing the Q-PREP framework and PQC implementation services, with Entrup as named lead

Reports & Research

• KPMG — "The Quantum Threat Is No Longer Theoretical" (2026) — The threat brief discussed in this episode, charting the rapid decline in qubits needed to crack RSA-2048 and urging immediate PQC migration
• KPMG — "From Theory to Impact: Real-World Results in Quantum Machine Learning" (2026) — KPMG's joint report with IBM and Kipu Quantum on measurable quantum ML results on real hardware
• KPMG — "Prepare Now for Quantum Cyber Risk" — Board Leadership Article (2026) — C-suite and board-level guidance on integrating quantum risk into enterprise oversight
• arXiv — "Quantum-enhanced satellite image classification" (2026) — The underlying research paper behind the KPMG/IBM/Kipu Quantum ML results

Ecosystem & Events

• Chicago Quantum Exchange — KPMG Joins CQE (October 2024) — Announcement of KPMG's formal CQE membership, referenced in the episode as part of the firm's ecosystem-building strategy
• KPMG 2026 Quantum Consortium — The inaugural KPMG Quantum Consortium event (March 2026, Orlando) discussed in the episode

Independent Coverage

• Quantum Computing Report — KPMG joins Chicago Quantum Exchange (2024) — Independent coverage of KPMG's CQE partnership and enterprise quantum strategy
• Quantum Zeitgeist — Kipu Quantum satellite imagery coverage (Feb 2026) — Independent analysis of the KPMG/IBM/Kipu hybrid QML results

Key Quotes & Insights

> "It's not if but when. And it could be five years, could be three years, could be ten years. The fact is organizations are not gonna be ready. And that's the scary part." — Richard Entrup on Q-Day

> "This is not just the CISO. This is gonna be the software engineering app dev guys. This is gonna be all your partners, upstream and downstream, who have to also be compliant — because if you change your crypto and they don't, that stuff's gonna break." — On why PQC migration is an enterprise-wide, supply-chain-wide problem

Insight: Entrup draws a sharp distinction between the "bad quantum" (cryptographic risk requiring urgent defensive action) and the "good quantum" (competitive opportunity with a longer tail) — and argues that most organizations aren't adequately addressing either.

Insight: The analogy to the early internet is deliberate: just as the 1990s were consumed with TCP/IP and DNS rather than the applications those protocols would eventually enable, the current quantum moment is still largely an infrastructure conversation — and that's normal, not a sign of failure.

> "AI is expediting all of this. If AI is doing one thing, the use case is reading code and cracking it. That's pretty scary." — On the intersection of AI capability and cryptographic vulnerability

Related Episodes

• Ep. 81 — Quantum LDPC Error Correction with Larry Cohen and Paul Webster — Directly relevant: Cohen and Webster discuss how QLDPC error correction reduces the qubit overhead needed for RSA cryptanalysis, the technical underpinning of the threat timeline Entrup describes
• Ep. 38 — Quantum Machine Learning with Jessic...

Thaddeus Ladd has spent seventeen years at HRL as the theoretical anchor of its silicon spin qubit program — co-authoring the 2023 Nature paper that demonstrated universal logic with encoded spin qubits, and contributing to the 2026 QPU paper that integrated qubits, a cryo-CMOS controller, and a new superconducting ribbon cable into a single digitally controlled system. He is not a commentator on this acquisition; he is one of the people whose work made it happen.

The conversation is recorded eleven days after IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire HRL from Boeing and General Motors — a deal that has not yet closed. That timing makes this one of the few technically grounded, insider-adjacent conversations available about what IBM is actually buying, why the exchange-only spin qubit architecture is strategically distinctive, and what the combination of HRL's research culture with IBM's fabrication ambitions could produce. Listeners who follow quantum hardware, quantum computing strategy, or the evolution of industrial research labs will find this episode unusually substantive.

What We Get Into

• Why the 2026 QPU paper is a systems story, not just a fidelity story — the qubit chip, the cryo-CMOS controller operating at four Kelvin, and the new superconducting ribbon cable are all part of one integrated QPU, and that framing is central to understanding what IBM acquired.
• What "exchange-only" actually means — why using only voltage-controlled exchange interactions (no microwaves, no local oscillators, no phase tracking during idle) is both a technical constraint and a significant engineering advantage for scaling.
• Why the jump from six dots to fifty-four dots happened so fast — and what was happening in HRL's fabrication program that wasn't being published.
• What EUV lithography has to do with spin qubit scaling — and why the connection between HRL's process and IBM's Anderon 300 mm quantum foundry is one of the clearest pieces of strategic logic in the acquisition announcement.
• How HRL's cryo-CMOS work could benefit IBM's superconducting program — and why the control-and-interconnect bottleneck is a shared problem across modalities, not a spin-qubit-specific one.
• The "chandelier" reframe — Thaddeus's argument that the cables, filters, and control electronics surrounding a superconducting qubit chip are not overhead; they are part of the QPU, and understanding that changes how you read the HRL acquisition.
• Which modality Thaddeus thinks will reach commercially useful scale first — and why he still believes spin qubits are the long-term answer, using an analogy to vacuum tubes and silicon microprocessors that is worth hearing in full.
• What the acquisition means for HRL as an institution — the context of lost program funding, the December 2025 Q2B meeting, and what it means for a defense-oriented industrial research lab to find a commercial path through IBM.

Resources & Links

Guest

• Thaddeus D. Ladd — Personal Website & Publications — Self-curated, annotated bibliography; the best single source for his research arc across spin qubits and quantum communication.
• Thaddeus Ladd — Hertz Foundation Profile — Biographical overview of his career and role at HRL.
• Thaddeus D. Ladd — Google Scholar — Full citation record.

Papers & Articles

• A Digitally Controlled Silicon Quantum Processing Unit — arXiv (April 2026) — The QPU paper discussed at length in this episode: 54-dot device, cryo-CMOS controller at 4 K, superconducting ribbon cable, and error correction experiments — all working as one integrated system.
• Universal Logic with Encoded Spin Qubits in Silicon — Nature (2023) — The landmark result demonstrating universal logic with exchange-only encoded qubits; Ladd was co-author and lead theorist.
• Two-Dimensional Si Spin Qubit Arrays with Multilevel Interconnects — PRX Quantum (2025) — Scalable 2D spin-qubit arrays achieving greater than 99.9% single-qubit gate fidelity; the step between the 2023 and 2026 results.
• Silicon Encoded Spin Qubits Achieve Universality — HRL (2023) — HRL's public announcement of the Nature result; accessible summary for non-specialists.
• Semiconductor Spin Qubits: The Certainty of Progress — HRL (December 2025) — HRL's public framing of the platform's trajectory, published shortly before the Q2B meeting where Sebastian and Thaddeus first met.

Acquisition & IBM Strategy

• IBM to Acquire HRL Laboratories — IBM Newsroom (July 23, 2026) — The definitive transaction announcement; names the full scope of what IBM says it is acquiring.
• IBM to Acquire HRL Laboratories — HRL Laboratories (July 23, 2026) — HRL's concise confirmation of the deal and the beginning of regulatory review.
• What Are Spin Qubits? — IBM Quantum (July 23, 2026) — IBM's technical explanation of HRL's Si/SiGe exchange-only qubits and the shared silicon fabrication argument.
• A Brief History of HRL Laboratories — IBM Research (July 23, 2026) — IBM's institutional framing of HRL, including its history with the laser, self-aligned-gate MOS fabrication, and the 2026 spin-qubit QPU.
• IBM and U.S. Department of Commerce Announce Anderon Quantum Foundry (May 21, 2026) — The 300 mm quantum foundry announcement that Thaddeus identifies as one of the clearest pieces of strategic logic behind the HRL acquisition.
• IBM Commits More Than $10 Billion to Quantum Computing (June 2, 2026) — Capital context for the acquisition: R&D, manufacturing scale-up, M&A, and ecosystem investment over five years.

Tools & Platforms

• spinQICK — GitHub — HRL's open-source FPGA-based spin-qubit control toolkit; a concrete artifact of HRL's approach to open tooling.
• HRL Launches Open-Source spinQICK — HRL (July 2025) — Announcement and context for the spinQICK release.
• HRL Quantum — Collection of HRL quantum research, talks, and news.

Organizations

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Aaron Kemp sits at an unusual intersection. He holds a doctorate in cybersecurity, spent years in DoD classified environments running SCI and SAP facilities, and now leads KPMG's quantum research practice — where he's a co-author on a recent hybrid QML paper with Kipu Quantum and IBM. He's also the lead author of KPMG's Q-PREP framework, which pushes enterprises to treat post-quantum cryptography migration as an operational risk problem right now.

If you've wondered how quantum actually lands inside a Fortune 200 boardroom — not the hype cycle version, but the "what do you actually tell the CFO" version — this episode maps that territory honestly. It's also useful listening if you're trying to understand the emerging talent gap, why the quiet in enterprise research publications may itself be a signal, and how a firm known for audit and advisory ends up doing multispectral analysis of chestnut trees on IBM quantum processors.

What We Get Into

• Why KPMG split quantum into distinct practices — PQC, sensing, optimization, and research — and what that structural choice signals about market timing
• How a PBS documentary about the American chestnut tree led to a peer-reviewed quantum ML paper with Kipu Quantum and IBM
• The honest case for a 3% accuracy gain over classical ResNet-50 baselines — and why Aaron treats it as a positive-sum signal rather than a victory lap
• Why "what makes a good quantum problem" remains the most important question in the field, and how KPMG's client base shapes their answer
• The seven-step Q-PREP framework for post-quantum cryptography readiness, and why step one — knowing what you actually have — is the hardest step
• How data-centric thinking (not cryptography-centric thinking) reframes the PQC migration challenge
• Why the quiet in enterprise research publications from major financial institutions may itself be a market signal
• The talent bottleneck: ~16,500 quantum researchers on the planet against a coming wave of enterprise demand
• How AI tooling is compressing quantum research timelines, and what that means for who can enter the field
• Why the compute stack of the next decade will be heterogeneous — quantum, neuromorphic, thermodynamic, and mechanical computing all coexisting

Resources & Links

Guest & Organization

• Dr. Aaron Kemp — KPMG People Profile — Official bio covering Aaron's DoD/classified cybersecurity background and current role as US Quantum Leader.

Papers & Research

• arXiv:2602.18350 — Quantum-enhanced satellite image classification — The peer-reviewed KPMG/Kipu Quantum/IBM paper Aaron co-authored, demonstrating hybrid quantum-classical accuracy gains on IBM processors.
• From Theory to Impact: Real-World Results in Quantum Machine Learning — KPMG's editorial summary of the satellite imagery research, framed for enterprise readers.
• From Theory to Impact — Full Technical Report (PDF) — The detailed technical companion walking through the hybrid pipeline step by step.

PQC & Enterprise Frameworks

• Q-PREP: Seven Steps to Post-Quantum Cryptography Readiness (PDF) — KPMG's prescriptive PQC migration framework, with Aaron as lead author.
• The Quantum Threat Is No Longer Theoretical (PDF) — Aaron's board-level brief on Q-Day urgency.
• Prepare Now for Quantum Cyber Risk (KPMG Board Leadership Center) — Aaron's article for corporate directors, originally in NACD Directorship Online.

Related Coverage & Commentary

• Kipu Quantum: Quantum-Enhanced AI Deployable in Production — Announcement of the production framework that removes quantum hardware from the inference loop; Aaron quoted as enterprise champion.
• KPMG's Seven Steps Build Quantum Resilience for Businesses (Quantum Zeitgeist) — Third-party coverage of Q-PREP.
• A Framework Can Tell You What to Do. It Cannot Tell You What You Have. (Qtonic Substack) — A critical response arguing that advisory frameworks don't solve the underlying cryptographic inventory problem — useful counterpoint reading.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On the 3% accuracy gain: "It's a positive game… we did a 12–15 week sprint, and to at least meet classical was our goal when we started. So when we actually did get three percent, it was repeatable. That was, to me, okay — there's something there."
• On the real PQC problem: "We don't have a cryptographic problem. We have a data problem. None of these organizations know where their data flows."
• On cybersecurity as a discipline: "Cybersecurity is probably the worst career field ever because perfect cybersecurity has no ROI — because nothing happens."
• On enterprise timing: Insight: Aaron frames the quiet in financial services quantum research publications as a market signal — organizations may have stopped sharing because they're moving from research toward competitive advantage.
• On the talent gap: "There's 16,500 quantum researchers on the planet… Fortune 200 will hire 16,000." A single tier of enterprise demand could exhaust the global talent pool.

Related Episodes

• Episode 14: A Hybrid NISQ-Classical Solution Architecture with Harry Buhrman — Foundational thinking on hybrid quantum-classical architectures relevant to the Kipu/KPMG/IBM approach.
• Episode 38: Quantum Machine Learning with Jessica Pointing — A rigorous look at the tradeoffs and open questions in QML that frame Aaron's satellite imagery results.
• Episode 81: Quantum LDPC error correction with Larry Cohen and Paul Webster — Directly relevant to the compressing resource estimates for breaking RSA that shape PQC urgency.
• Episode 86: Quantum Advantage Achieved with Dominik Hangleiter — A theorist's careful framing of what advantage claims should and shouldn't mean.
• Episode 40: Integrating Quantum Computers and Classical Supercomputers with Martin Schultz — Useful context on the heterogeneous compute future Aaron and Sebastian discuss at the end of the episode.

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Barak Bussel is one of the few people operating simultaneously at three levels of the quantum stack: deploying private capital into hardware and software companies through 7i Capital, chairing the strategic board of a major university quantum center, and helping stand up the physical infrastructure — a 700,000 square foot research park on the site of the former Westside Pavilion — meant to convene academia, industry, national labs, and startups in one place. He is also a physicist by training, which changes the kind of diligence questions he asks.

We recorded this at the KPMG Tech and Innovation Symposium in Deer Valley, only weeks after the most consequential stretch of quantum news in years: Oratomic's $300M Series A (the largest first institutional round in quantum history, with 7i in the syndicate), a Google Quantum AI paper cutting Shor's algorithm resource estimates to around 500,000 physical qubits on superconducting hardware, and two June 2026 White House executive orders on quantum innovation and post-quantum cryptography. If you want to understand how a serious investor is actually pricing risk, timelines, and ecosystem-building in this moment, this is the conversation.

What We Get Into

• Why 7i backed Oratomic's aggressive "no intermediate product, straight to fault tolerance" strategy, and how Barak thinks about betting on teams versus theses in deep tech
• How recent architecture and QLDPC error correction advances have compressed physical-to-logical qubit ratios, and what that means for near-term resource estimates for Shor's algorithm
• Why a lesser-noticed April 2026 Google Quantum AI paper on quantum-assisted memory reduction for classical AI workloads may matter as much as the Shor's-focused headlines
• What "patient capital" actually looks like when a connector problem eats two years of a portfolio company's roadmap
• The Bell Labs template as a serious operating model for the UCLA Research Park: convening academia, industry, government, and startups in a single physical footprint
• The historical resonance of UCLA sending the first ARPANET packet in 1969 and what that suggests about where quantum networking work should be anchored
• How Kedma's error mitigation work with IBM's Heron II and RIKEN pushed a 51-qubit Ising model simulation to the edge of what's classically tractable
• How Barak reads the June 2026 executive orders and the federal role — enabling infrastructure rather than picking winners — against the scale of Chinese government funding

Resources & Links

Guest & Organizations

• Barak Bussel bio — UCLA CQSE Strategic Board — Official page covering Barak's role as Board Chair and his physics and venture background.
• 7i Capital — Barak's deep tech venture firm, investing across quantum, AI, semiconductors, cybersecurity, robotics, clean energy, and space.
• UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (CQSE) — The multidisciplinary center Barak chairs, spanning physics and engineering research.
• Barak Bussel on LinkedIn — Where Barak has publicly flagged the Oratomic investment and the June 2026 executive orders.

The Oratomic Round and Recent Breakthroughs

• Oratomic raises $300M Series A — The Quantum Insider — Confirms 7i Capital in the syndicate for the largest-ever first institutional round in quantum computing.
• Oratomic Series A deep dive — Quantum Computing Report — Technical breakdown of the reconfigurable neutral-atom architecture and full investor syndicate.
• Oratomic's "no intermediate product" strategy — MLQ.ai — Analysis of Oratomic's bet against the QuEra/Pasqal early-revenue playbook.
• QEDMA raises $26M Series A — Quantum Zeitgeist — 7i portfolio company Kedma's error mitigation round with IBM participation, referenced in Barak's Ising model results.

Policy and Market Context

• White House EO: "Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation" — One of the two June 22, 2026 executive orders Barak discusses.
• Sidley Austin analysis of the June 2026 quantum EOs — Legal explainer covering both the innovation EO and the post-quantum cryptography mandate.
• Cloudflare on the accelerated post-quantum timeline — Notes that Q-Day estimates have moved in response to Google and Oratomic breakthroughs.
• PitchBook Q2 2026 Quantum Computing Funding Report — Record 2025 VC totals and Q1 2026 liquidity data relevant to Barak's exit thesis.

UCLA Research Park and Regional Ecosystem

• UCLA launches SoCal Quantum Alliance — The regional coalition Barak references, with founding members including Caltech, JPL, Boeing, IBM, and Cisco.
• Quantum Innovation Hub at the UCLA Research Park — Preview of the 40,000 square foot lab space and the broader research park vision Barak describes.
• Quantum Innovation Hub Director appointment — Prof. Jason Petta named to lead the QIH, one of the founding anchors of the research park.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On patient capital in hardware: "You're producing a new chip… all of a sudden a year and a half has passed." Barak's example of a photonics company that spent two years solving a flex connector problem is a useful ground truth for anyone modeling quantum hardware timelines.
• On the role of universities: Industry has scale — the ability to throw 500 engineers at a problem. Academia brings "the quiet depth to think very deeply about a problem over an extended period of time, two or three generations ahead."
• On resource estimates: The gap between the original 20-million-qubit Shor's estimates and the recent Google Quantum AI paper suggesting ~500,000 physical qubits on superconducting hardware, plus Oratomic's neutral-atom approach at the ten-thousand-qubit scale, represents a genuine compression of the fault-tolerance horizon.
• On the underappreciated Google paper: An April 8 paper on using quantum processors to reduce memory requirements for massive classical data sets is, in Barak's view, the first rigorous demonstration that quantum could bend the exponential curve of AI compute demand.
• On government's role: "Typically in the U.S., government is not the best at picking the winners and losers in the marketplace. But it's great at enabling." The El Segund...

Kate Timmerman is the CEO of the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE), and she is arguably one of the most consequential ecosystem builders in quantum today. Under her leadership, the CQE has grown from three founding institutions in 2017 to a coalition of more than 50 industry and academic partners, and the region has secured designation as a top global quantum ecosystem through The Bloch Quantum U.S. EDA Tech Hub and an NSF Regional Innovation Engine development award.

If you care about how emerging deep-tech industries actually get built — the unglamorous work of coordinating universities, startups, national labs, small manufacturers, workforce agencies, and federal policy — this episode is a masterclass. It's especially valuable for listeners trying to understand how quantum moves from bespoke, hand-built prototypes to real industrial-scale production, and what that transition means for jobs, national security, and U.S. competitiveness.

What We Get Into

• Why the CQE started 18 months before the National Quantum Initiative Act — and how that head start translated into winning multiple NQI research centers (SQMS, Q-NEXT, HQAN, and Q-NEXT-adjacent efforts)
• What the $55M Bloch Tech Hub award actually funds in the next 12 months, and why the money targets manufacturing rather than more research
• The severity of U.S. dependence on foreign and single-sourced quantum components — from nano-positioners to optics, photonics, and vacuum systems — and why that's slowing product delivery today
• How small and mid-sized Midwest manufacturers (in states that already rank top-10 in U.S. manufacturing) can pivot into the quantum supply chain without full re-tooling
• Why the BCG projection of ~$80B in regional economic impact and up to 191,000 quantum jobs by 2035 is more credible when you understand the full supply-chain vision, not just quantum computer vendors
• The five pillars of the CQE's NSF-backed "Advancing Together" workforce strategy — awareness, preparation, mobility, employer leadership, and coordination — and why employers themselves often can't forecast their own hiring needs
• What the Quantum Law Navigator™ is actually for, who uses it, and why first-time quantum founders often don't know what "export control" means until it's too late
• Why Q2B is relocating its North America conference from Silicon Valley to Chicago in December 2026 — and what that signals about where the center of gravity is moving

Resources & Links

Guest & Organization

• Kate Waimey Timmerman — Chicago Quantum Exchange Profile
• Chicago Quantum Exchange — About — Overview of CQE's 2026 milestones, member institutions, and program portfolio

The Bloch Quantum Tech Hub ($55M EDA Award)

• UChicago News — CQE-led Bloch Quantum Tech Hub raises $55 million — Primary announcement of the July 2026 EDA award
• Quantum Computing Report — Bloch Quantum Tech Hub Secures $55M — Technical analysis of the award and its manufacturing focus
• The Quantum Insider — Bloch Raises $55M — Coverage including corporate commitments from IBM, IonQ, and Infleqtion
• The Quantum Insider — Bloch Advances in EDA Competition — Background on the tri-state coalition structure across Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana

Workforce & Economic Development

• HPCwire — CQE Releases Unified Strategy to Scale Midwest Quantum Workforce — Coverage of the NSF-backed "Advancing Together" report referenced in the conversation
• Argonne National Laboratory — Quantum Prairie Economic Symposium — Includes BCG's regional workforce and economic impact projections
• Illinois Economic Development Corporation — Kate Timmerman — Context on CQE's growth and Illinois' quantum strategy

Programs & Tools Mentioned

• UChicago PME — K1 joins CQE — Example of the Founders Platform bringing quantum-enabling startups into the ecosystem
• Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park (IQMP) — Context on the physical infrastructure supporting the Chicago quantum ecosystem
• Quantumzeitgeist — Bloch Drives $55M Quantum Prairie Expansion — Additional analysis on the domestic supply-chain focus

Key Quotes & Insights

• On the 18-month head start: "When we hear an anecdote once or twice, we realize, if we're hearing it once or twice today, that means in two years the U.S. government's gonna hear about it." Kate's argument for why nimble ecosystem organizations have to move before the market signal is obvious.
• On the supply chain problem: A significant portion of quantum components today are single-sourced and imported. That fragility, Kate argues, is quietly slowing every quantum company's ability to deliver products to customers — and it's the specific gap the Bloch award is designed to close.
• On the manufacturing pivot: The Midwest already has top-10 manufacturing states, but those small and mid-sized shops "tend to be more mom and pop type shops, and they don't have R&D budgets" to speculatively re-tool for quantum. Federal implementation funding is the mechanism to bridge that gap.
• On workforce reality: Employers "are so mission-focused on their tech development, they're not doing their own forecasts about what their jobs needs are gonna be in two and five years." Ecosystem organizations have to do that forecasting on behalf of the industry.
• On what universities quietly subsidize: "The universities end up doing a lot of stuff for free… a lot of the preparing for the future that is not maybe of incredible priority at the moment, but that fundamental work, yes, on the research side, but also on the workforce development side, is incredibly important."

Related Episodes

• Ep. 82 — The Illinois Quantum Ecosystem with Harley Johnson — The complementary conversation on IQMP, the physical infrastructure that Kate's ecosystem work plugs into.
• Ep. 75 — Regional quantum development with Alejandra Y. Castillo — Former EDA leadership on the policy logic behind Tech Hubs and inclusive regional innovation.

Ben Castanon became Unitary Foundation's first CEO in February 2026, after roughly four years with the organization as Chief of Staff and then COO. He came into quantum from an unusual direction — leadership roles at Pioneer Works, the Brooklyn arts-and-science center — and that background shows in how he thinks about scaffolding communities, funding public goods, and borrowing what works from other fields.

This conversation matters now because Unitary Foundation sits at an inflection point. It has scaled from a microgrant program (the "Unitary Fund") into a foundation with a global developer community, corporate members including NVIDIA and IBM, an active compiler collection, a benchmarking initiative, and an annual open-source survey that increasingly serves as the field's ground truth. If you care about how quantum computing actually gets built — not just who wins the hardware race — this episode lays out the infrastructure argument clearly.

What You'll Learn

• Why Ben argues quantum open source falls into a structural funding gap between academia (chasing novel papers) and venture capital (chasing profitable businesses), and what philanthropy has to do about it
• What "public goods" and "digital commons" actually look like in quantum — from benchmarking to compilation to error mitigation tooling
• How to interpret the 2025 QOSS Survey finding that ~40% of full-time quantum OSS contributors are unpaid, and why Ben sees it as both an opportunity and a warning
• How Unitary Foundation is experimenting with continuous compensation for contributors via bounty programs and pilots with Merit Systems
• Why corporate members like NVIDIA and IBM invest in a vendor-neutral nonprofit — and how governance keeps the "open" in open source
• What a healthy pipeline from first-time contributor to sustained open-source maintainer would look like, and why Ben wants an endowment behind it
• Why Ben resists top-down definitions of the "open substrate" and prefers to let the community surface bottlenecks
• The long-term vision: a "Linux moment" for quantum, and what it would take to install it before proprietary stacks lock in

Resources & Links

Guest & Organization

• Announcing Our New CEO — Unitary Foundation — The February 2026 announcement of Ben as UF's first CEO, with the full arc from Chief of Staff to COO to CEO.
• Ben Castanon on LinkedIn — Ben's professional history, including his Pioneer Works tenure and current UF work.
• Unitary Foundation — The organization's homepage and hub for grants, tools, membership, and community.

Papers & Reports

• 2025 Quantum Open Source Software Survey Results — The fourth annual QOSS survey, including the finding that ~40% of full-time contributors are unpaid.
• The Young and the Relentless — The Quantum Insider — Independent coverage of the QOSS survey's demographic findings.
• Celebrating Over 100 Microgrants — Impact report: 420+ citing papers, 3 startups, 1 nonprofit, and 400+ OSS contributors funded.

Tools & Programs

• Unitary Compiler Collection (UCC) — The frontend-agnostic quantum compiler collection Ben references as a candidate for the open substrate.
• UCC on GitHub — The active repo, supporting Qiskit, Cirq, PyTKET, and OpenQASM 2/3.
• unitaryHACK 2026 — The sixth annual bug-bounty hackathon, one of UF's core mechanisms for compensating open-source contributors.

Ecosystem

• NVIDIA Joins Unitary Foundation as Core Member — The May 2026 announcement referenced in the conversation.
• Announcing Unitary Foundation (Rebrand) — Context on why "Unitary Fund" became "Unitary Foundation."

Key Quotes & Insights

• On the structural gap: There are "third spaces" where projects don't fit the incentives of either a startup or an academic lab — but where the whole ecosystem benefits. Benchmarking is the clearest example.
• On unpaid contributors: "We've developed the field to a place where we're starting to hit up against the classic open source community issues." The volunteer surge is real — but so is the risk of losing those contributors to better-paying fields if UF can't convert enthusiasm into compensation.
• On why big companies join: A functional field needs people to hire. Ben's argument to corporate members is partly workforce development — thousands of developers getting on-the-job training on neutral, community-owned tools.
• On the substrate: Ben resists top-down definitions of what belongs in the open substrate. "It's much better to have all of the practitioners giving voice to what open tools they need."
• On his long-term ambition: Build a philanthropic endowment that funds the microgrant pipeline in perpetuity — because "I don't see that as ever becoming a resource that is not of use."

Related Episodes

• Quantum Open Source with Will Zeng and Ziyaad Bhorat — The direct companion to this episode, unpacking the white paper co-authored with Ben on why quantum OSS is structurally underfunded.
• Quantum Error Mitigation using Mitiq with Misty Wahl — A deeper look at Mitiq, one of UF's flagship open-source tools.
• Quantum Education and Community Building with Olivia Lanes — A parallel view on developer community and workforce development in quantum.
• Careers in Quantum with Anastasia Marchenkova — Relevant context on where quantum developers actually end up.

Stay in the Ecosystem

• Subscribe to The New Quantum Era on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or Amazon Music.
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• Follow along on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
• If you're building open-source quantum tools — or want to support the people who are — start at unitary.foundation.

Johannes Galatsanos occupies an unusual dual perch in the quantum ecosystem. As a co-author of the inaugural MIT Quantum Index Report, he's helped map the entire quantum landscape at altitude; as co-founder and CEO of Diffraqtion, he's staked his career on one of its most under-discussed corners: quantum imaging. The company spun out of Saikat Guha's lab at the University of Maryland after more than a decade of DARPA-funded research, emerged from stealth in January 2026 with $4.2M in pre-seed funding, and is now racing toward on-sky telescope demonstrations and a 2028 satellite launch.

This episode is for listeners who want a technically honest look at where the "quantum" label is doing real work in a sensor versus where it's shading into sophisticated photonics and analog computing. If you care about how quantum technologies actually reach the world — through markets, contracts, and hardware that ships — this conversation gives you a specific, concrete example to think with.

What You'll Learn

• Why a conventional camera can lose roughly 95% of the information a photon carries, and what quantum Fisher information theory says about recovering it
• How Diffraqtion's device processes light directly in the photonic domain before converting it to electronic information — and why that matters for shot noise
• The honest answer to "is this really quantum?" — including where the technology sits between quantum information theory, photonics, and analog computing
• Why a 6U CubeSat with a 10-centimeter aperture can plausibly compete with school-bus-sized observation satellites for specific tasks
• How a "diffractive neural network" runs image classification at the speed of light with negligible power consumption
• The difference between Diffraqtion's hard-coded Gen 1 camera and the reprogrammable Gen 2 that can swap algorithms in orbit (canopy detection over the Amazon, ship detection over the Atlantic)
• Why the Habitable Worlds Observatory needs a coronagraph capability — and how you can build one by processing light rather than blocking it
• What quantum sensing needs from policy, capital, and PR to escape the shadow of quantum computing

Resources & Links

Guest & Company

• Diffraqtion — Company homepage; describes the technology, NASA/DARPA lineage, and the "quantum eye" framing referenced in the conversation.
• Johannes Galatsanos on LinkedIn — Recent activity including SmallSat Europe, the NASA Space to Soil Challenge, and GQIG Summit talks on quantum imaging.

Papers & Reports

• Quantum Index Report 2025 (arXiv) — The preprint of the MIT QIR, co-authored by Galatsanos. Essential reading for anyone trying to see the quantum landscape as a whole.
• MIT Sloan — New MIT Report Captures State of Quantum Computing — Background on the QIR and Galatsanos's research role at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.
• MIT Sloan — Quantum Report Charts Growing Business Interest — Further QIR findings on the growth in corporate quantum mentions.

Press & Coverage

• Diffraqtion Pre-Seed Announcement (PR Newswire) — Official release covering the $4.2M raise, DARPA contract, and founding team.
• Breaking Defense — DARPA Backs Diffraqtion — The most in-depth interview on the DARPA SBIR contract and programmable light plates.
• The Quantum Insider — Diffraqtion $4.2M Raise — Investor context including quotes from Chad Rigetti; technical claims on resolution and processing.
• Payload Space — Diffraqtion Emerges from Stealth — Commercial framing around the 6U CubeSat cost model.
• Defense One — Quantum Cameras Could Remake Space-Based Intelligence — Policy and defense framing.

Sponsor

• Cisco Universal Quantum Switch — Outshift by Cisco — Cisco's incubation engine, building a scalable quantum network on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On quantum information loss: "When you do a direct image… you lose something like 95% of information from that photon. So you leave 95% on the table, and the question was: how do you extract that back?"
• On what "quantum" really means here: Galatsanos is refreshingly candid — the device uses quantum Fisher information theory to set the physical limit and configure the hardware, but the runtime processing is closer to analog photonic computing than to gate-based quantum computing. He describes it as sitting between "quantum 1.0" and quantum sensing.
• On the frog's-eye analogy: Retinal ganglion cells can process shapes and trajectories faster than the brain — which is why you can catch a baseball or a falling fork before you consciously see it. Diffraqtion is trying to give satellites and robots the same kind of reflex.
• On the JPEG as a historical artifact: "JPEG was a little bit of a logical step… but now the thought is, forget about it — you don't even need that. The light itself already will tell you." The machine, unlike a human operator, doesn't need an image.
• On why quantum sensing lags in the discourse: Insight — quantum computing benefits from a single unifying narrative that every vendor can pull on. Quantum sensing has to invent its own story from scratch for each modality, which is a structural PR disadvantage more than a technical one.

Related Episodes

• Ep. 65 — Quantum sensitivity breakthrough with Eli Levenson-Falk — On protocols that push measurements beyond conventional limits; a natural companion to the Fisher information discussion.
• Ep. 16 — Operating at the Quantum Limit with Dr. Dana Anderson — Infleqtion's CSO on quantum sensing alongside computing; useful context for why sensing is closer to deployment.
• Ep. 68 — Incubating quantum innovation with Vijoy Pandey of Outshift by Cisco — On quantum networks solving real problems today; a parallel to Diffraqtion's near-term deployment argument.
• Ep. 63 — A Programming Language for Quantum Simulations with Xiaodi Wu — Also from the University of...

This is the 100th episode of The New Quantum Era, and it arrives at a moment of convergence: the book is out, the Helgoland centennial documentary is in production, regional quantum ecosystems are scaling from ambition to construction, and the field is entering the transition from heroic-era qubit demos to the hard systems engineering that will determine whether quantum computing becomes a real industry. Bob Karr — who sits at the intersection of law, policy, and the quantum ecosystem as the person behind the Quantum Law Navigator and a convener across the Chicago quantum community — is the right person to conduct this retrospective, and Barnes & Thornburg, at the center of arguably the most sophisticated quantum ecosystem in the world, is the right place to do it.

The conversation is structured as a celebration and an examination: what has Sebastian actually learned by sitting with nearly 100 physicists, engineers, founders, and policymakers? How has the field changed since that first visit to TJ Watson in 2017? What do regional hubs like the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park and Quebec's DistriQ tell us about what it takes to move from science to industry? And what does the next era demand — not just from researchers and companies, but from everyone?

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What You'll Learn

• Why the Helgoland documentary matters: in June 2025, Sebastian and his wife traveled to the island where Heisenberg's 1925 insight gave birth to quantum mechanics, producing a documentary at a Yale–Max Planck centennial conference attended by multiple Nobel laureates — and what that experience distilled about the state of the field
• How Sebastian's journey into quantum began: arriving at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center in 2017 to help with Qiskit's open source strategy, encountering the 53-qubit milestone, and recognizing the earliest stages of an emerging technology that would become his life's work
• What the "Heroic Age of Qubits" was — and why it ended: the period of genius PIs racing to prove quantum advantage, culminating in Google's 2019 random circuit sampling claim, and why that finish line turned out to be a starting line
• What Harley Johnson and the IQMP reveal about ecosystem-building: why the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park is the world's leading example of building a quantum ecosystem, and what it takes to bridge deep science and economic development
• What Quebec's DistriQ teaches about sustainability: the 90% public / 10% private funding model designed to flip over ten years, and why that benchmark matters for every regional hub
• Why Alejandra Castillo's economic development lens changed the picture: how quantum's impact extends far beyond qubits into advanced manufacturing, supply chain, and the communities that get to participate in the upside
• What Nadya Mason's leadership model means for the field: the dean of UChicago's Pritzker School who wasn't a "math person" and sees leadership as service — and why the field needs every kind of creative mind, not just PhDs in physics
• What John Martinis's arc from the 1986 Josephson junction paper through the Nobel Prize to CoLab reveals: the transition from heroic-era physicist to systems thinker pursuing open architecture and consortium-based quantum computing
• Why the Monte Carlo algorithm is the key analogy for quantum's future: the technique that took 30 years to find its commercial application as a reminder that the most important uses of quantum computers haven't been imagined yet
• Where fault tolerance actually stands: why it's an emergent property of the whole system — not a single breakthrough — and why the classical-quantum feedback loop for mid-circuit measurement and syndrome correction is the thing to watch
• Why multiple qubit modalities will coexist: the case for neutral atoms in the near term, superconducting and spin qubits in the long term, and photonics as a dark horse — and why this isn't a winner-take-all race
• What Build Quantum Partners is building: a new venture to reduce friction for quantum companies entering the U.S. market, partner with regional ecosystems, and ultimately develop the quantum equivalent of biotech hub infrastructure

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Resources & Links

Guest & Host Links

• Robert W. Karr Jr. — Barnes & Thornburg Attorney Profile — Bob's firm bio covering his role as partner and QTI Group co-chair
• Robert W. Karr Jr. — LinkedIn — Recent activities including the Illinois–UK Quantum Partnerships Mission and Keidanren Next-Gen Salon
• Quantum Law Navigator — Chicago Quantum Exchange (PDF) — The ten-chapter resource Bob led, mapping the U.S. legal and regulatory landscape for quantum
• Barnes & Thornburg Quantum Technology Industry Group — The firm's quantum practice, host of the live recording

The Book & Documentary

• The New Quantum Era by Sebastian Hassinger — Released May 2026; the companion book tracing the people, science, and engineering behind quantum technology's emergence
• Helgoland Documentary — In production; shot over five days at the Yale–Max Planck centennial conference on the island where Heisenberg formulated matrix mechanics in 1925

Episodes & Guests Referenced

• Episode 82 — The Illinois Quantum Ecosystem with Harley Johnson — The IQMP's CEO on building the world's largest dedicated quantum technology park
• Episode 79 — Building a Quantum Ecosystem from Scratch with Martin Laforest — How Quebec built a $400M quantum ecosystem with a deliberate public-to-private capital transition
• Episode 75 — Regional Quantum Development with Alejandra Y. Castillo — Quantum through the economic development lens: jobs, supply chains, housing, and community participation
• Episode 77 — Quantum Leadership with Nadya Mason — The dean of UChicago's Pritzker School on the human and institutional side of building the quantum era
• Episodes 48, 67, 71 — John Martinis — From Josephson junctions to the Google quantum supremacy experiment to the open-architecture approach at CoLab
• Episode 96 — Funding the Quantum Middle with Kris Naudts and Zeynep Koruturk of Firgun Ventures — Why the Series A/B financing gap is the new bottleneck, and how specialist investors are stepping in

Key Institutions & Ecosystem

• Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park — Wikipedia — Overview of the $9B IQMP, its tenants,...

Daniel Faircloth, PhD is an unusual figure in the quantum ecosystem: a computational electromagnetics engineer who actually helped build trapped-ion hardware before pivoting to the software stack the field was missing. He's a co-author on the 2013 New Journal of Physics paper that demonstrated reliable ion transport through a microfabricated X-junction surface-electrode trap at Georgia Tech Research Institute, and he spent the years afterward inside a defense contractor, IERUS Technologies, building the electromagnetic simulation engine that has now spun out as Nullspace.

If you've been following the trapped-ion race — Quantinuum, IonQ, Oxford Ionics, AQT, and the academic groups feeding them — this episode fills in a layer of the story that rarely gets airtime. As the field moves from clever physics demonstrations toward genuinely scaled architectures, the design tools, the file formats, and the iteration loops start to matter as much as the qubits themselves. Listeners interested in quantum engineering, the analog of EDA in semiconductors, or how dual-use defense R&D translates into commercial quantum infrastructure will find a lot to chew on.

What We Get Into

• Why the standard "gapless approximation" for ion trap modeling — treating electrodes as polygons on an infinite metal sheet — breaks down well before you're ready to fabricate.
• How Faircloth's graduate-school question ("can better tools turn a good engineer into a super engineer?") became the design philosophy behind Nullspace ES.
• What turning an X-junction corner actually requires: two-stage optimization across trap geometry and control voltages, so the ion doesn't get heated out of the trap.
• Why general-purpose electrostatic solvers struggle with ion trap problems that demand nanometer ion-height precision and millivolt-level shuttling voltage accuracy.
• The technical leap in Nullspace ES 2025 R1: pairing high-order basis functions with a compression solver to cut memory usage roughly 5× while preserving accuracy.
• The awkward commercial reality of selling neutral simulation infrastructure to companies that are direct competitors with each other.
• The "build vs. buy" tension for hardware startups deciding whether to roll their own solver in Python or adopt a purpose-built commercial tool.
• How the dual-use defense / commercial-quantum positioning shapes Nullspace's roadmap — and where lessons flow in both directions.
• Where the roadmap might lead: multi-physics, tightly integrated workflows that eliminate the CAD-cleanup and file-format-exchange tax engineers pay today.

Resources & Links

Guest & Company

• Daniel Faircloth Bio — Nullspace, Inc. — Background on Daniel's path from GTRI and IERUS to co-founding Nullspace.
• Nullspace, Inc. — Company homepage covering the Nullspace EM and Nullspace ES product suites.
• Inside Nullspace: Rethinking Electromagnetic Simulation with Dr. Daniel Faircloth — A longer-form interview on why Daniel rebuilt EM simulation from scratch.

Product & Technical Resources

• Nullspace ES — Electrostatic Simulation for Quantum Computing — Product page detailing the ion-trap-specific capabilities discussed in the episode.
• Nullspace ES 2025 R1 Tech Brief — The release notes behind the high-order basis functions and 5× memory reduction Daniel describes.
• Precision Ion Trap Modeling and Simulation for Quantum Applications — Webinar featuring Oxford Ionics' Curtis Volin demonstrating Nullspace ES on a surface-electrode trap.

Papers & Background Reading

• Reliable Transport Through a Microfabricated X-Junction Surface-Electrode Ion Trap (NJP, 2013) — The GTRI paper Daniel co-authored, including the corner-turning ion transport work referenced in the episode.
• Daniel Faircloth — ResearchGate profile — Additional EM and ion trap publications from Daniel's GTRI/IERUS years.

Company & Funding Context

• Nullspace Raises $2.5M Seed Round (PR Newswire, Aug 2025) — The seed round led by Fathom Fund with Golden Seeds.
• Nullspace Raises $2.5M — The Quantum Insider — Quantum-sector framing of the dual-use RF/quantum positioning.
• Nullspace Inc. Launches as an Engineering Software Company (PR Newswire, Jun 2023) — The spin-out announcement and origin story.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On the original product question (paraphrase): If you give powerful EM and optimization tools to a well-trained engineer, can you effectively turn them into a "super engineer" and unlock the kind of creativity that textbook parameterizations can't reach? That question became the through-line from Daniel's graduate work to Nullspace.
• On why existing tools fall short (paraphrase): The community was trying to shoehorn ion trap design into solvers that were never built for it — gapless approximations, weak optimizers, and accuracy levels that simply don't hold up when you need nanometer ion heights and millivolt shuttling voltages.
• On corner-turning in an X-junction (Daniel, lightly edited): "If you think of an ion trap as a fancy train track system, the ions are being shuttled around — you need to be able to turn left and turn right as you grow and scale. How do you get the ion to turn but not get heated in that process and lose the ion?"
• On serving competing customers (paraphrase): A rising tide floats all boats. The better the underlying simulation tools, the more sophisticated the architectures every team can attempt — and the more chances the field has of someone breaking through.
• On the long-term vision (Daniel): "Being able to provide all of that in an appropriate fidelity, one-stop shop for the designers. I don't want them to have to go to a bunch of different tools and try to kind of piece together dealing with file format exchange issues."

Related Episodes

• Episode 91 — Hardware-Faithful Digital Twins for Quantum Computing with Izhar Medalsy — A complementary view of simulation infrastructure, focused on superconducting digital twins.
• Episode 17 — The Enchilada: Microfabricated Ion Trap Qubits with Daniel Stick — The Sandia pers...

EeroQ is unusual in two ways. It's the only company in the world commercializing electrons-on-helium qubits, a modality first proposed by Platzman and Dykman in Science in 1999. And it was founded by Nick Farina — a software entrepreneur, not a physicist — who got pulled into the field through a Chicago theater board where he met his future co-founder, then-PhD student Johannes Pollanen.

This conversation matters now because EeroQ has had an unusually productive twelve months: a Physical Review X paper demonstrating single-electron control above 1 Kelvin, a January 2026 result on controlling up to a million electrons with fewer than 50 control lines, and — published in Nature Physics on June 15, 2026 — the first demonstration of strong coupling between a microwave photon and a single electron on helium, the cavity-QED readout-and-control link the platform depends on. If you're trying to understand which "second-tier" modalities deserve serious attention — and how a small, capital-light team in Chicago is thinking about scale-first hardware design — this is a useful listen.

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.

Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.

Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for.

What We Get Into

• How a Chicago theater board led to one of the most unique qubit companies in the field
• Why electrons-on-helium failed in the early 2000s and why circuit QED, dry fridges, and CMOS now make it viable
• The physical picture: a thin superfluid helium film coating a CMOS chip, with electrons trapped a few nanometers above the surface by their own image charge
• Why EeroQ pivoted from motional states to spin qubits after Steve Lyon (Princeton) joined as CTO — and the predicted 10+ second coherence times that come with it
• The "build a quantum computer in reverse" philosophy: starting from a million-qubit architecture and working back toward two-qubit gates
• How the "Wonder Lake" chip controls 2,432 future qubit sites today, and why that's an engineering milestone rather than a qubit count
• Honest framing of where EeroQ actually is: no two-qubit gate demonstrated yet, with a tape-out target of ~10,000 qubits by late 2028
• Why dipole-dipole gates come first and exchange gates come later, borrowing from the spin qubit playbook
• The case that scaling — not qubit quality — has been the field's slowest-moving problem over the last decade

Resources & Links

Guest & Company

• EeroQ — Company site for the only commercial electron-on-helium quantum hardware effort.
• EeroQ Publications — Peer-reviewed papers and preprints from the team.
• Building a Quantum Computer in Reverse (EeroQ Blog, July 2023) — Farina's own articulation of the scale-first design philosophy discussed in the episode.

Key Papers

• Koolstra, Glen, Beysengulov et al., "Strong coupling of a microwave photon to an electron on helium," Nature Physics, June 2026 — First demonstration of strong coupling between a microwave photon and the quantized motional state of a single electron on helium, including observation of vacuum Rabi splitting — establishing the cavity-QED readout link at the heart of EeroQ's architecture. This result was under embargo when the episode was recorded.
• Castoria et al., "Sensing and Control of Single Trapped Electrons Above 1 Kelvin," Physical Review X (2025) — The 1 K result Nick references; demonstrates charge sensing but not yet coherent spin manipulation.
• Koolstra et al., "High-impedance Resonators for Strong Coupling to an Electron on Helium," Physical Review Applied (Feb 2025) — The resonator architecture underlying EeroQ's cQED control approach.
• Electron-on-helium qubit (Wikipedia) — Useful overview including the original 1999 Platzman & Dykman Science proposal and Steve Lyon's 2006 spin-qubit paper in Physical Review A.

Press & Context

• EeroQ Makes World-First Breakthrough in Electron Qubits Floating on Helium (EeroQ, June 2026) — Company announcement of the Nature Physics strong-coupling result.
• EeroQ Solves the "Wire Problem" (PRNewswire, Jan 2026) — The million-electrons / fewer-than-50-wires result Nick cites.
• Individual electrons trapped and controlled above 1 K (Phys.org) — Independent coverage of the PRX paper.
• EeroQ Achieves Tape-Out of "Wonder Lake" Chip (The Quantum Insider, July 2023) — Background on the 2,432-site CMOS chip discussed in the episode.

Ecosystem

• Chicago Quantum Exchange — The regional consortium EeroQ benefits from.
• Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park — The state-backed quantum park anchored in Chicago.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On the contrarian thesis: "Scaling is actually the hardest part of building a quantum computer." Nick argues the field has made real strides on gate fidelity, error correction, and algorithms over the last decade — but not nearly enough on the path to hundreds of thousands or millions of qubits.
• On building in reverse: Rather than starting from a two-qubit gate and "hoping and praying to find ways to scale," EeroQ started by asking what a million-qubit processor would have to look like — which forced the choice of CMOS as the only manufacturing technology humanity has ever used to build features at that scale.
• On honest status: "We d...

Why This Episode Matters

Sabrina Maniscalco is one of the few people in quantum who has lived the full arc: two decades of academic work on open quantum systems and non-Markovian noise at Palermo, Turku, Edinburgh, and Helsinki, followed by founding Algorithmiq with three of her former researchers after an early Qiskit Camp. That trajectory matters now because Algorithmiq just had a landmark stretch — sole winner of the $2M Wellcome Leap Q4Bio prize for a quantum-enabled cancer drug discovery workflow, an €18M Series B, a global HQ move to Milan, and its Tensor Network Error Mitigation (TEM) function landing in IBM's Qiskit Functions catalog.

If you're trying to make sense of where quantum software actually creates value before fault tolerance arrives — and what a credible "trajectory to advantage" looks like when paired with real clients in life sciences — this is a grounded, technically specific conversation with someone building it.

EPISODE SPONSOR

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.

Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.

Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for.

What We Get Into

• Why a background in open quantum systems and non-Markovian noise turned out to be unusually well-suited to running algorithms on noisy near-term hardware
• The actual science behind the Q4Bio winning workflow: simulating excited-state dynamics of a photosensitizer drug already in Phase II clinical trials, on up to 100 qubits
• How quantum-boosted DMRG works — and why it gives you a built-in benchmark against the best classical method via the bond dimension
• The tradeoff Sabrina would and wouldn't make between more qubits and lower noise, and why neutral atoms' slower sampling rates matter for chemistry
• Why even fault-tolerant algorithms like quantum phase estimation still depend on getting state initialization and measurement right
• Algorithmiq's two-product structure: the Digital Quantum Interface (hardware-agnostic infrastructure) and the life sciences application framework
• How methods built for chemistry are now opening doors into optimization and GenAI — and why that direction emerged from the work, not from a strategy deck
• What the move from Helsinki to Milan signals about the European quantum ecosystem and Algorithmiq's commercial scale-up
• How an active learning pipeline is already proposing novel drug variants for synthesis in Prof. Sherri McFarland's lab

Resources & Links

Guest & Company

• Algorithmiq — The company Sabrina co-founded with Guillermo García-Pérez, Matteo Rossi, and Boris Sokolov; quantum software for life sciences and chemistry.
• Sabrina Maniscalco — University of Helsinki Research Portal — Publication record covering open quantum systems, non-Markovian dynamics, and quantum information.
• Sabrina Maniscalco — AI for Good Bio — Consolidated bio covering academic roles and advisory positions, including IQOQI Austria and CERN's Quantum Technology Initiative.

The Q4Bio Win

• Algorithmiq Wins $2M Wellcome Leap Q4Bio Prize — Company announcement detailing the photodynamic therapy workflow.
• Wellcome Leap — Q4Bio Prize Announcement — Funder's perspective on finalists and criteria.
• IBM Quantum Blog — Q4Bio Finalists — IBM's account of the workflow and quantum-classical integration.

Funding & HQ Move

• Tech.eu — Algorithmiq's €18M Series B and Milan move — Coverage of Italy's largest quantum VC round to date.
• Quantum Computing Report — Algorithmiq Relocates to Milan — Strategic context including the Q4Bio win and IBM partnership.
• EU-Startups coverage — Investor lineup and Italy's National Quantum Strategy framing.

Quantum Advantage & Tooling

• IBM Quantum Blog — The Dawn of Quantum Advantage — Includes Algorithmiq's TEM (Tensor Network Error Mitigation) function in the Qiskit Functions catalog.
• Algorithmiq & IBM Quantum Advantage Tracker — The heterogeneous materials experiment Algorithmiq and IBM put forward as a community benchmark.
• Silicon Republic interview with Sabrina — Useful prior context on her philosophy of using quantum to simulate quantum systems.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On the foundation of the company's approach: "We learned very early what we thought were the bottlenecks of quantum computers — what you really need to worry about if you want to implement computation at scale." A direct line from Qiskit Camp Vermont to Algorithmiq's product strategy.
• On Q4Bio, in Sabrina's words: "This molecule is already in Phase II clinical trial. So it's not hydrogen. It's a real molecule." A useful counter to the common critique that quantum chemistry demos still live in toy-model land.
• On quantum-boosted DMRG (insight): In the worst case, the method matches the best classical technique; in the better case, it outperforms it — and the bond dimension tells you which regime you're in. Built-in benchmarking against the classical baseline.
• On the hardware tradeoff: Asked whether she'd prefer 100 higher-fidelity qubits or 200 noisier ones, Sabrina's answer is "it depends" — and the explanation about why neutral atoms' lower sampling rates limit chemistry use cases is one of the more concrete things you'll hear on platform tradeoffs.
• On strategy (insight): New verticals at Algorithmiq are ...

Why This Episode Matters

Firgun Ventures launched in late 2025 with a $70M first close anchored by the Qatar Investment Authority and a mandate that doesn't exist anywhere else in the market: lead Series A and B rounds in quantum scale-ups globally. Kris Naudts is a neuroscientist and former Culture Trip founder whose path to quantum runs through a near-fatal medical misdiagnosis. Zeynep Koruturk spent over a decade building the Goldman Sachs Tech Initiative and meeting more than a thousand founders. Both were early angels in what became Quantinuum.

If you're trying to understand how quantum companies actually get financed between the lab and the IPO window — or why a specialist fund needed to exist at all — this conversation is one of the clearest views available. It's also a useful frame for founders thinking about what an informed institutional investor actually does in a round.

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.

Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.

Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for.

What We Get Into

• Why Kris's ALS misdiagnosis became the conviction event that pulled him from media entrepreneurship into quantum investing
• How Zeynep's decade at Goldman Sachs Tech Initiative shaped her pattern-matching for deep tech, and where that pattern-matching breaks down in quantum
• The structural reason Series A/B is the real bottleneck in quantum financing — and why precede and seed capital is no longer the gap people assume it is
• How Firgun underwrites engineering and execution risk after the scientific risk is largely retired
• Why a quantum-specialist fund unlocks soft commitments from larger institutions that otherwise stay on the sidelines
• The role of Firgun's "scientific co-founder" Professor Mete Atatüre and the need for sub-specialist diligence across modalities
• How Firgun thinks about portfolio construction across silicon-spin/photonic (Photonic Inc.), silicon CMOS (Quantum Motion), and other architectures without picking a qubit winner
• Why a truly global mandate is a feature, not a focus problem, given how concentrated quantum talent is in roughly a dozen ecosystems
• How sovereign capital, US equity-stake announcements, and geopolitical fragmentation are starting to reshape who can invest in what
• Why the binary "fault-tolerant or bust" framing of quantum investing misses the gradient of capability that drives near-term value

Resources & Links

Guest & Firm

• Firgun Ventures — The fund's homepage, with the team and "Time to Talk Quantum" podcast featuring the founders' own framing of the market.
• Firgun Ventures on Crunchbase — Confirms London HQ, global mandate, and Series A/B focus.

Fund Launch & Thesis

• Firgun Ventures Launches $250M VC Fund to Invest in Quantum — The Quantum Insider — Launch details, QIA anchor commitment, and founder backgrounds.
• Firgun Ventures Launches With $70M for Quantum Tech Innovation — TechFundingNews — Deeper breakdown of the LP roster and market rationale.
• Firgun Ventures: Scaling Quantum Beyond the Early Stages — Future of Computing — Extended interview with Kris and Zeynep on the Series A/B bottleneck.

Portfolio Companies Mentioned

• Firgun Invests in Photonic Inc. — The Quantum Insider — Firgun's first portfolio investment in DARPA-validated Photonic Inc.
• Photonic Inc.'s World-First Quantum Teleportation — QC Report — Technical context on the "Entanglement First" silicon-spin/photonic architecture.
• Photonic Inc. Closes $200M+ Round — The Quantum Insider — Final close at a $2B valuation.
• Quantum Motion Raises $160M Series C — The Quantum Insider — Firgun's first European investment in silicon CMOS quantum computing.
• Quantum Motion's Silicon CMOS Approach — Technologies.org — Technical analysis of the CMOS scalability thesis.

Key Quotes & Insights

• Kris on the conviction event: "If you're expecting to die and then you're told you're going to live, you have to rethink it yet again… You can go in the direction of enjoy every day, or you can go in the direction of let's try to do something meaningful with whatever time I have left."
• Zeynep on the real bottleneck: Pre-seed and seed capital in quantum is no longer the gap — the A and B rounds are. Roughly 40% of companies in the space need that bridge to unlock larger institutional capital, and almost no one is set up to lead it.
• Kris on diligence limits: No one person can underwrite the full quantum stack. Firgun pairs a "scientific co-founder" with sub-specialists for each modality, because in quantum "no propositions sound stupid" — and that's exactly the problem.
• Zeynep on the asymmetric bet: Quantum is one of the few areas where geopolitical reality creates a floor under the downside. The West can't afford to lose, which means funding will be there long enough for the right companies to mature.
• Kris on willing the timeline: "You cannot will it into being. The space will evolve at the pace it is set to evolve with the capital and the talent in it." A useful corrective for anyone pitching a five-year cure-for-Parkinson's roadmap.

Related Episodes

Why This Episode Matters

Yuval has a rare profile in the quantum industry: an M.Sc. in physics from Tel Aviv University, an MBA from Kellogg, two decades as a CEO and CMO in deep tech before quantum, and now the commercial lead at QuEra — the company whose neutral-atom architecture is colocated with NVIDIA H100s inside Japan's ABCI-Q supercomputer and just demonstrated 96 logical qubits from 448 physical atoms in Nature. He also hosts The Superposition Guy's Podcast and has just published Quantum Bits, a comic-book guide to quantum computing.

This is a crossover conversation — Sebastian's book A New Quantum Era came out the same week — so the episode reads as two practitioners comparing their explanatory strategies, their reading of the modality race, and their honest forecasts for when a quantum computer becomes genuinely non-simulatable. If you want a candid look at how the commercial side of quantum thinks about hardware timelines, error-correction overhead, and the work of translating physics into procurement, this is the episode.

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It's time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.

Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.

Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for.

What We Get Into

• Why Vladan Vuletić's confidence horizon for neutral atoms expanded from 5 years to 10 years in a single 18-month window — and what changed
• The honest case for neutral atoms when wall-clock speed is the obvious weakness: parallelism, algorithmic fault tolerance, and a 2:1 physical-to-logical ratio for quantum memory
• Why "time to solution" — not gate speed — is the metric Yuval thinks the industry should be arguing about
• How Shor's algorithm went from requiring a million qubits to roughly 30,000, and what that compression means for cryptographically relevant timelines
• The craft problem of explaining quantum without saying "zero and one at the same time" — and why both Yuval and Sebastian refused to use it
• What it took to make a quantum comic funny in German (the German is perfect, the joke is not)
• Sebastian's read on the modality race: neutral atoms short-term, superconducting mid-term, spin and photonics long-term — and Yuval's pushback
• Why Yuval thinks Sebastian's five-year forecast for a non-simulatable machine is pessimistic
• The shift inside QuEra from "95% science, 5% everything else" to a company that has to ship serviceable systems and uptime
• How podcasting becomes a business development tool once the microphone is off

Resources & Links

Guest Links

• The Superposition Guy's Podcast — Yuval's interview show with quantum CEOs and technical leaders across computing, sensing, and communications.
• Quantum Bits Comics — Yuval's comic-book guide to quantum computing, including custom editions and multilingual versions.
• QuEra Computing — The neutral-atom quantum computing company where Yuval serves as Chief Commercial Officer.
• Yuval's published writing — Aggregated Forbes, HPCwire, and Built In bylines on quantum ROI, workforce, and commercialization.

Papers & Articles

• QuEra and collaborators on Algorithmic Fault Tolerance (Nature, 2025) — The paper behind the claim that syndrome measurements can happen per algorithmic block rather than per operation.
• HPCwire coverage of the AFT result — Independent take on the 10–100x runtime overhead reduction.
• IEEE Spectrum on neutral-atom quantum computing in 2026 — Context for the AIST Gemini deployment and Yuval's time-to-solution argument.
• 2026 Quantum Readiness Report, Part 2 — The survey of 291 stakeholders behind Yuval's "show-me phase" framing of the market.

Books

• A New Quantum Era by Sebastian Hassinger — Sebastian's outsider's introduction to quantum computing, referenced throughout the conversation.
• Quantum Bits: A Comic Book Guide to Quantum Computing by Yuval Boger — Yuval's illustrated explainer, with a glossary covering terms from superposition to QLDPC codes.

Background Reading Mentioned

• The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder — Sebastian's inspiration for the working title of his next book.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On the magic of neutral atoms: "We've got this rubidium atoms, we hold them in place using tiny lasers, they're four microns apart, we shoot lasers, and then we take a photograph and see how they're doing. It's science fiction until it isn't."
• On the modality timeline (Yuval, paraphrasing Vladan Vuletić): Eighteen months ago Vladan was confident about neutral atoms for the next five years. Six months ago, after recent results, that confidence horizon stretched to ten.
• On what actually matters: "Obviously what matters is time to solution and not clock speed." Yuval's core rebuttal to the standard critique that neutral-atom gates are slow.
• On the error-correction compression: A recent Harvard result showed the physical-to-logical qubit ratio for quantum memory dropping toward roughly 2:1 — not the thousand-to-one figure that dominates most public discourse.
• On the takeaway from his book (Yuval): "Quantum is magical, but it's not magic."

Related Episodes

• Episode 18 — Neutral atom arrays with Alex Keesling of QuEra Computing — Sebastian's earlier conversation with QuEra's CEO on the foundational technology.

Fault Tolerance for Quantum Inputs and Outputs with Matthias Christandl

Why This Episode Matters

Most discussions of fault tolerance quietly assume a classical-in, classical-out picture: you feed in bits, the noisy quantum machine does its work, and a stable classical answer comes out the other side. Christandl — a mathematically trained quantum information theorist who also leads a Novo Nordisk Foundation–funded life sciences center — argues that this framing is too narrow for the era we are actually entering, where multi-core processors, networked QPUs, and quantum communication links all need to exchange quantum information between noisy machines.

If you care about how quantum networks, distributed quantum computers, and quantum simulation workflows for chemistry and biology actually get built, this episode lays out a foundational way of thinking about the problem and connects it directly to current hardware and algorithm co-design.

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It’s time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power. Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.

Go deeper with the blog post.

What We Get Into

• Why the fault tolerance theorem as usually stated leaves out the case that matters most for networking: quantum inputs and quantum outputs.
• How Christandl's group shows you can still prepare arbitrarily complex quantum states on a noisy machine, paying only one final layer of physical noise rather than collapsing the whole computation.
• What this means for restoring meaning to quantum channel capacity results in the presence of noisy encoders and decoders.
• Why distributed quantum computing — multi-core QPUs talking to each other in quantum, not classical, information — is the natural setting for this work.
• How recent quantum LDPC code work fits in, and why the team is now focused on making encoders and decoders more space-efficient.
• Christandl's debate with Gil Kalai: which skeptical assumptions are worth taking seriously, and which he thinks the fault tolerance machinery is robust against.
• The Quantum for Life workflow: zooming in on the quantum-relevant region of a protein–ligand interaction, running a small quantum simulation, and feeding the result into a classical machine-learning pipeline that needs many such small computations.
• Why "co-design" has replaced "bridging the gap" as the right metaphor for where quantum hardware and quantum software meet.
• How quantum sensing — for example, magnetic-field sensing with atomic clouds — could one day deliver genuine quantum inputs into a fault-tolerant quantum computer.

Resources & Links

Guest Links

• Matthias Christandl — University of Copenhagen Research Portal — Official institutional profile with publications and affiliations.
• Quantum for Life Center — University of Copenhagen — The Novo Nordisk Foundation–funded center Christandl leads, focused on quantum algorithms for the life sciences.
• UCPH Quantum Hub launch — The cross-faculty quantum community Christandl helped found at the University of Copenhagen.
• Christandl appointed 2024 Turing Chair — CWI/QuSoft — Background on his honorary visiting chair at QuSoft and CWI in Amsterdam.

Papers & Articles

• Fault-Tolerant Coding for Quantum Communication (arXiv:2009.07161) — The foundational paper (IEEE TIT 2024, with Müller-Hermes) that motivates the episode: channel coding when the encoder and decoder circuits themselves are noisy.
• Fundamental Limit on the Power of Entanglement Assistance in Quantum Communication (arXiv:2408.17290) — Christandl and collaborators settle a 2002 conjecture of Bennett et al. on entanglement-assisted capacity (PRL 2025).
• Asymptotic tensor rank is characterized by polynomials (arXiv:2411.15789) — STOC 2025 result connecting tensor theory to the matrix multiplication exponent.
• How to Use Quantum Computers for Biomolecular Free Energies (2026)
• More Quantum Chemistry with Fewer Qubits — Physical Review Research (2024) — The Quantum for Life paper underlying the protein–ligand workflow discussed in the episode.
• A Cornerstone of Entanglement Theory Restored — Nature Physics (2025) — Christandl's News & Views on the re-proof of the generalized quantum Stein's lemma.
• Quantum Duel: Matthias Christandl x Gil Kalai 

Key Quotes & Insights

• On reframing fault tolerance: Christandl argues that the fault tolerance theorem, as usually stated, assumes classical inputs and outputs — but the most important near-term use cases, from networked QPUs to multi-core processors, need quantum inputs and quantum outputs.
• On the unavoidable final layer of noise: "There will always be a final layer of noise being applied" when a noisy machine prepares a quantum state — and that single layer, not the whole computation, is the real price you pay.
• On the new metaphor: "A few years back, I would have told you the really important thing is bridging the gap between the hardware and the software. Now it's not anymore about bridging the gap. It's about working together."
• On Kalai's skepticism: Christandl finds the debate clarifying rather than threatening — the fault tolerance techniques look robust to the noise-model perturbations skeptics raise, and the engineering question is which code, not whether codes work at all.
• On what quantum advantage in life sciences might actually look like: Not one heroic simulation, but many small, exact quantum computations feeding training data into a much larger classical machine-learning workflow that predicts protein–ligand interactions.

Related Episodes

Philosophy of Physics Meets Quantum Engineering with Elise Crull

Why This Episode Matters

Elise Crull is Associate Professor of Philosophy at CCNY and the CUNY Graduate Center, co-author with Guido Bacciagaluppi of The Einstein Paradox (Cambridge, 2024), and was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2025 for her archival work recovering voices like Grete Hermann from the foundations of quantum mechanics. She was also one of the speakers on Helgoland in June 2025 for the centenary of quantum mechanics — opening, as Sebastian notes, by thanking the organizers for the courage to invite a philosopher.

This conversation matters because the truce between physicists and philosophers of physics is over. Quantum computing has turned interpretive questions — what counts as entanglement, what decoherence really is, whether causal order can be put in superposition — into engineering questions with budget consequences. If you build, fund, or write about quantum hardware, this episode will sharpen how you hear the words being used around you.

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It’s time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power. Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.

Go deeper with the blog post.

What We Get Into

• Why "decoherence" and "noise" are not interchangeable, and why error correction strategy depends on telling them apart
• The six-plus working definitions of entanglement currently circulating in physics — and why "classical entanglement" makes a philosopher's eye twitch
• What Einstein actually objected to in EPR (hint: it wasn't really determinism), drawn from Schrödinger's "Einstein-Paradoxon" correspondence folder
• Indefinite causal ordering: whether the experimental speedups reflect genuinely acausal physics or our stubbornly classical definitions of "cause" and "signal"
• How monogamy of entanglement is only monogamous with respect to a single degree of freedom — and why that nuance is already being exploited in entanglement harvesting
• Why "it's just a tool" is the most insidious thing an engineer can say about quantum or AI technology
• How the standard heroic-origin story of quantum mechanics structurally erased experimentalists — many of them women like Hertha Sponer — and what that pattern predicts about quantum computing's own emerging origin story
• What Grete Hermann did to von Neumann's impossibility proof forty years before anyone listened
• Why Crull thinks the next physical theory, whatever succeeds quantum field theory, is likely to be stranger, not tamer

Resources & Links

Guest Links

• Elise Crull — CCNY Faculty Profile — Her institutional home, with current research interests and talks.
• Elise Crull — CUNY Graduate Center Profile — Full publications list including forthcoming work.
• Elise Crull — Academia.edu — Preprint archive, including her 2024 Leggett–Garg/Feyerabend paper and earlier decoherence work.

Books & Papers

• The Einstein Paradox (Bacciagaluppi & Crull, Cambridge UP, 2024) — The archival reconstruction of the debate EPR unleashed; the centerpiece of the conversation.
• Ryckman's BJPS review of The Einstein Paradox (2025) — A scholarly assessment of what the book changes about how we read 1935.
• "Realism with Quantum Faces: The Leggett–Garg Inequalities as a Case Study for Feyerabend's Views" (Crull, 2024) — Her most recent standalone article on macroscopic realism.
• "Physics Scratches a Philosopher's Itch" — APS Physics (2022) — A feature on her work on indefinite causal ordering and causation.

Helgoland & History

• Physics World: Helgoland 2025 — the Inside Story — Post-event report on the centenary where Sebastian and Elise first met.
• AIP: "What Happened on Helgoland" — Historiographical pushback on the Heisenberg origin myth.
• AIP: Crull on Hertha Sponer and the path to wave/particle duality (2026) — Her most recent piece on how standard histories minimize experimentalists.

For General Audiences

• StarTalk: "The Philosophy of Physics with Elise Crull" (June 2025) — Crull with Neil deGrasse Tyson, kicking off the Einstein Paradox promotion cycle.
• StarTalk: "How Quantum Physics Complicates Objective Truth" (April 2026) — A complementary, more recent treatment of the same themes.

Key Quotes & Insights

• On what philosophy is for: "Every aspect of science we do requires interpretation, because the world isn't just out there. We make choices about how to encounter it."
• On decoherence vs. noise: Crull notes the question physicists at Duke recently raised with her — how do you tell the difference between decoherence and noise? — and stresses that one is something you shield against, the other is something else entirely. Error correction strategy depends on the distinction.
• On what really bothered Einstein: Despite the popular story, "He wasn't as concerned about determinism as you would think." What Einstein wanted was a theory whose mathematics had a one-to-one mapping to individual systems with their own states — and entanglement broke that.
• On indefinite causal order: Experimentalists often equate causation with signaling constraints, but "those are very different things." The superposition-of-causal-orders results may reveal less about causation than about the fact that temporal ordering itself remains defined in irreducibly classical ways.

Why This Episode Matters

Niels Bultink earned his PhD at QuTech under Leonardo DiCarlo, where he performed some of the first real-time feedback experiments on solid-state qubits — the foundational primitive behind quantum error correction. He spun Qblox out of TU Delft in 2018, and has grown it to roughly 140 people serving 150+ customers worldwide, mostly on revenue rather than venture capital, before raising a $26M Series A in 2024.

This conversation matters now because the goalposts for useful quantum computing have moved closer in the last 12 months. Recent estimates suggest breaking RSA may need ~10,000–100,000 qubits, not tens of millions — and at that scale, the control stack is no longer a lab afterthought. It is a strategic supply chain question, which is why the DOE just picked Qblox to manufacture Fermilab's QICK platform domestically. If you care about how quantum computers actually get built — the layer between the qubit and the software — this is the episode for you.

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It’s time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.
Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com.

Go deeper with the blog post.

What We Get Into

• Why the IBM Quantum Experience originally needed a meter of rack equipment per qubit, and what had to change architecturally to scale past that
• How a quantum control stack can be genuinely qubit-agnostic — and where modality differences actually live (mostly in the analog front end, not the digital core)
• Why pre-compiled pulse sequences hit a wall, and how dynamic, adaptive control is a prerequisite for fault tolerance, not a nice-to-have
• The role of Qblox's SYNQ and LINQ protocols in achieving picosecond-level synchronization and low-latency feedback across hundreds of cores
• Why FPGAs are the right substrate today, and why the field will need to move toward ASICs as production volumes grow
• The strategic logic behind manufacturing Fermilab's open-source QICK platform — and how it complements rather than cannibalizes the Qblox Cluster
• What the Quantum Utility Block partnership with QuantWare and Q-CTRL actually delivers, including a full-stack demo built in a weekend at APS March Meeting
• Why Qblox opened a Boston HQ and started U.S. manufacturing in Canton, Massachusetts in 2026, and how geopolitics is reshaping quantum supply chains
• Niels's read on which qubit modalities are gaining ground fastest right now — including a notable jump in spin qubits and neutral atoms
• What's special about the Dutch quantum ecosystem, and why a value-chain culture produced multiple revenue-driven hardware companies

Resources & Links

Guest & Company

• Qblox — Delft-based control stack company at the center of this episode
• Niels Bultink on Google Scholar — Niels's research record from his QuTech years, useful background on his feedback control work
• Qblox North America HQ announcement — Context for the Boston expansion discussed in the episode
• Qblox "Made in America" manufacturing announcement — Background on the Canton, MA manufacturing milestone

Partnerships Discussed

• Fermilab × Qblox QICK partnership announcement — The DOE-backed deal for Qblox to manufacture and distribute QICK
• Quantum Utility Block press release — Joint reference system with QuantWare and Q-CTRL referenced in the episode
• APS 2024 full-stack demo recap — The 48-hour conference-floor build Niels mentions

Foundational Paper

• "Feedback Control of a Solid-State Qubit Using High-Fidelity Projective Measurement" — Ristè, Bultink et al., the 2012 work that grounds Niels's perspective on real-time control

Funding & Market Context

• Qblox Series A announcement — Context for the revenue-first growth story discussed
• The Quantum Insider on the Series A — Independent coverage with quotes from Quantonation

Key Quotes & Insights

• On why the control stack is more than picks and shovels: "Sometimes companies like us are called picks and shovels. It's a nice analogy, but it doesn't hold entirely. The qubits are just the bottom layer of the stack — and all the other layers are also crucial to develop."
• On flexibility as a requirement, not a feature: Pre-compiled, rigid sequences can't support quantum error correction. Adaptive, real-time control flows aren't a performance upgrade — they're "a basic need for this new era of quantum fault tolerance."
• On the moving goalposts for useful quantum computing: A year ago, breaking RSA looked like tens of millions of qubits. Recent estimates put it at 10,000–100,000 — "a factor hundred smaller what we now think we need versus a year ago."
• On the future of FPGAs: FPGAs are the right substrate for today's flexibility, but already at current production volumes, "it makes more sense to put things in chips, in ASICs."
• On the Dutch ecosystem: What sets Delft apart isn't a slogan about ecosystems but a value-chain culture — companies that focus on one layer, work together, and grow on customer revenue rather than venture rounds.

Stay in the Ecosystem

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Hardware-Faithful Digital Twins for Quantum Computing with Izhar Medalsy

Izhar Medalsy is not a career qubit theorist. His path runs from a physical chemistry PhD and an ETH Zurich postdoc in atomic force microscopy and ternary nanoscale logic, through productizing scientific instruments at Bruker, through building one of the fastest resin 3D printers on the market, into co-founding Quantum Elements in 2023 with Daniel Lidar (USC) and Amir Yacoby (Harvard). That arc — nanoscale measurement scientist turned deep-tech operator — shapes how he thinks about the simulation gap in quantum computing.

The conversation lands at a specific moment. In April 2026, Quantum Elements published a joint result with AWS, USC, and Harvard simulating a distance-7 rotated surface code with 97 physical qubits using full quantum master equations on AWS HPC7a, and announced a deeper collaboration with Rigetti Computing on next-generation superconducting processors. If you care about how error correction strategies, decoders, and pulse-level controls actually get developed before they ever touch hardware, this episode is for you.

EPISODE SPONSOR

This episode is brought to you by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine. The need for computational power is rapidly increasing in every sector. From drug discovery to material innovation to complex financial modeling, classical systems are reaching their absolute limits. It’s time for a paradigm shift. The answer is a scalable quantum network, built on open standards and vendor-agnostic architecture. By uniting distributed quantum devices, you unlock limitless computational power.

Learn more about the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch at Outshift.com
Go deeper with the blog post The switch that quantum networking has been waiting for

====================================================================================================

What We Get Into

• Why generic noise models fall short and what "hardware-faithful" actually means when two nominally identical QPUs have different noise fingerprints
• How Quantum Elements scaled open-system master-equation simulation from a brute-force ceiling around 16 qubits to 97 qubits using stochastic compression on top of Quantum Monte Carlo
• The compute reality of the distance-7 surface code run on AWS HPC7a — only 96 vCPUs and a few hundred gigabytes of memory, not the thousands of vCPUs they initially feared
• Why decoders are the invisible bottleneck in fault tolerance, and where AI-trained decoders fed by digital twin data could plausibly run inside the real-time quantum-classical loop
• Extending error suppression from physical qubits up to logical qubits — the IBM Eagle work where digital-twin-guided strategies reportedly took entangled logical qubit fidelity from 43% to 95%
• How the same digital twin approach extends to neutral atoms (live today) and ion traps (on the roadmap)
• What Rigetti gets out of the partnership, what it means to have Chad Rigetti on the board, and how Constellation fits alongside real hardware time
• Izhar's "wooden models in the air tunnel" critique of how the quantum industry currently iterates — and what a parallel virtual development track buys you

Resources & Links

Guest & Company

• Izhar Medalsy — Quantum Elements team page — Background and role at Quantum Elements.
• Izhar Medalsy on LinkedIn — Full career arc from ETH biophysics through 3D printing to quantum.
• Quantum Elements — Constellation platform, where listeners can build their own virtual QPU and run circuits, error suppression, and QEC experiments.

Papers & Articles

• AWS Quantum Computing Blog: Decoding realistic QEC syndrome with Quantum Elements digital twins — Primary technical reference for the 97-qubit distance-7 result discussed in the episode.
• The Next Platform: How HPC and AI Digital Twins Accelerate Quantum Error Correction (Apr 17, 2026) — Independent reporting on the AWS/USC/Harvard simulation.
• The Quantum Insider: Quantum Elements & Rigetti collaboration (Apr 21, 2026) — Details on the partnership Izhar describes.
• Guest post: Quantum Digital Twins — The Missing Acceleration Layer — Izhar's own framing of the thesis.
• The Next Platform: Startup Profile of Quantum Elements (Jan 2026) — Background on the company.
• arXiv 2603.14607 — Calibration-Based Digital Twins for IBM Quantum Hardware — Useful independent context on the limits and promise of calibration-based twins.

Key Quotes & Insights

• "Sometimes when I look at the quantum industry, there are instances where you think, well, it's almost like building the next fighter jet with wooden models in the air tunnel." — Izhar's framing for why the field needs a real simulation layer.
• On hardware awareness: each modality, each QPU, sometimes each calibration cycle has its own pulses, its own noise processes, and its own failure modes. You cannot build the control stack without modeling where you are starting from and where you are trying to get to.
• Insight: The brute-force ceiling for open-system master-equation simulation is roughly 16 qubits. Stochastic compression layered on Quantum Monte Carlo is what let Quantum Elements reach distance-7 surface code at 97 qubits — exploiting sparsity rather than enumerating the full state space.
• On logical qubits: "We cannot assume that logical qubits will be noise-free." Error suppression strategies developed at the physical level need to be re-derived at the logical level, and digital twins are how you train and test those strategies before hardware.
• Insight: The most interesting downstream story may not be simulation itself but AI decoders trained on digital-twin-generated data — small enough to run at the edge, fast enough to live inside the real-time quantum-classical loop.

Related Episodes

• Episode 52 — Quantum noise with Daniel Lidar — Quantum Elements' co-founder and CSO on the noise suppression and error correction foundat...

Are We Computing Quantum in the Wrong Base? with Ivan Deutsch

Ivan Deutsch is Distinguished Regents' Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico and the founding director of CQuIC, the Center for Quantum Information and Control. Along with his longtime collaborator Poul Jessen, Ivan helped lay the theoretical foundations for neutral-atom quantum computing in the 1990s: trapping individual atoms in optical lattices, cooling them to near absolute zero, and shuttling them in parallel to perform quantum logic. The companies commercializing those ideas today — QuEra, Pasqal, Atom Computing, Infleqtion, and the newly announced Aurora out of Caltech — are building on architectural concepts that trace directly to his group's early papers. His 9,600+ citations across quantum information, atomic physics, and quantum control place him among the most-cited theorists in the field.

The reason to talk to Ivan now is that he has been making a quietly heterodox argument: every one of those commercial platforms encodes information in two energy levels of an atom that has ten or sixteen, and Ivan thinks the field should be asking whether that's the right choice — not for information density, which is only a logarithmic gain, but for fault tolerance. This conversation goes deep on qudits, spin cat codes, and the co-design philosophy that has shaped Ivan's career at the interface between theory and experiment, ions and neutral atoms, and academia and industry. If you are following neutral-atom hardware, fault-tolerant quantum error correction, or the emergence of regional quantum ecosystems, this episode is essential.

What You'll Learn

• Why neutral atoms were the "underdog cousins" of trapped ions — and the precise trade-off at the heart of a 30-year rivalry: ions are great and terrible because they're charged; neutral atoms are great and terrible because they're neutral
• What the original neutral-atom quantum computing paper actually got right: the parallel atom-movement architecture now central to QuEra, Atom Computing, and Infleqtion's roadmaps was already there — even if the Rydberg blockade's full power wasn't appreciated until later
• What qudits are and why fault tolerance, not information density, is the compelling argument: the information gain from base-2 to base-10 is only logarithmic, but co-designing error-correcting codes with the physical structure of the hardware may be transformative
• How spin cat codes work: using the extra energy levels inside a single atom for error redundancy, directly analogous to bosonic cat codes in microwave cavities, with fault-tolerant thresholds that may surpass standard qubit surface codes
• Why biased error correction matters: real physical errors in neutral atoms aren't arbitrary, and codes designed around the dominant error channels — including leakage and erasure — can dramatically outperform worst-case generic schemes
• How leakage becomes an asset: when population escapes the qubit subspace into other levels, detecting that escape converts it from an unknown error into an erasure error, which is far easier to correct
• Why working at interfaces is where the creative work happens: Ivan's career has been built at the boundary between theory and experiment, between ion-trap and neutral-atom communities, and now between research and industry
• How New Mexico became a quantum hub: the founding of QNM-I, the partnership with Colorado, and the Elevate Quantum Tech Hub — turning decades of national-lab and university strength into an actual industrial ecosystem

Resources & Links

Guest Links

• Ivan Deutsch — CQuIC Faculty Page — Research profile and publication list at the Center for Quantum Information and Control at UNM
• Google Scholar Profile — 9,600+ citations across quantum information, atomic physics, quantum optics, and quantum control
• NSF Q-SEnSE Research Profile — Ivan's role in the NSF quantum sensing and engineering center

Key Papers

• Quantum optimal control of ten-level nuclear spin qudits in Sr-87 (LANL/CQuIC) — The theoretical demonstration of arbitrary SU(10) maps in strontium-87 with average fidelity ~0.9992; the core technical result behind the qudit computing program discussed in the episode
• Spin-cat code paper (ResearchGate) — The fault-tolerant encoding proposal that embeds a qubit in a large-spin qudit, analogous to bosonic cat codes; fault-tolerant thresholds that surpass standard qubit-based encodings

Talks & Context

• IMSI Talk — "Neutral Atom Quantum Computing with Nuclear Spin Qudits" — Ivan's accessible lecture-format talk on the full qudit computing research program; a good companion to the episode
• Quanta Magazine Q&A with Ivan Deutsch (2015) — Still the most accessible public articulation of his philosophy on qudits and computation

Ecosystem

• Quantum New Mexico Institute Launch (Jan 2024) — The founding of the joint UNM/Sandia/LANL institute Ivan established
• UNM/QNM-I Ecosystem Update (Feb 2026) — The current state of the New Mexico quantum industrial ecosystem, including Quantinuum, QuEra, and QNet presence in Albuquerque
• Elevate Quantum profile — Background on the only quantum-focused EDA Tech Hub in the country

Field Context

• Nature (Jan 2026) — Harvard/QuEra fault-tolerant neutral-atom paper — Up to 448 neutral atoms demonstrating below-threshold fault-tolerant QEC; the hardware milestone Ivan's theoretical work is designed to exploit

Key Quotes & Insights

"I don't want to be an evangelist, because I don't really feel I've studied this well enough to say we really should do quantum computation base-10 rather than base-two. But I think it's an important question." — Ivan Deutsch, on qudits — a carefully calibrated position from a theorist making a strong technical bet

"We just wanted to make the whole thing faster." — Steve Rolston (Ivan's co-author), on the mindset behind the Rydberg blockade paper, which ultimately unlocked the entire commercial neutral-atom industry

Insight: The spin cat code ...

Your host, Sebastian Hassinger, is joined on this episode by Garnet Chan, the Bren Professor of Chemistry at Caltech, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and among the most cited computational chemists in the world (34,000+ Google Scholar citations). Garnet is neither a quantum computing booster nor a dismissive skeptic. He's a theorist who works at the exact boundary between what classical algorithms can and cannot do — and who keeps finding that boundary further out than the quantum computing community has claimed. The FeMo-cofactor has been a flagship quantum computing use case for nearly a decade: a catalytic core of the enzyme that fixes atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, and a molecule widely described as "beyond classical reach." Chan's January 2026 paper challenges that framing directly. This conversation explains what was actually solved, what wasn't, and what it would genuinely take for quantum computers to contribute to the chemistry of nitrogen fixation. This episode is for researchers, engineers, and informed observers who want an honest, technically grounded view of where quantum computers genuinely help in chemistry — and where classical methods are more capable than the field has admitted. 

What You'll Learn

• Why the FeMo-cofactor became one of the quantum computing community's favorite benchmark — and why the framing around energy savings from nitrogen fixation is less accurate than it sounds
• What "chemical accuracy" (~1 kcal/mol) actually means as a precision target, and why hitting it classically undermines a decade of quantum resource estimates
• Why real chemical systems are only "slightly entangled" — and what that means for the general argument that quantum computers are the natural tool for quantum chemistry
• The difference between a problem being hard and a problem being exponentially hard — and why that distinction matters enormously for quantum advantage claims
• Where the genuine classical wall might be: bridging 15 orders of magnitude in timescale to simulate an enzyme's full catalytic mechanism — and whether quantum computers have anything to say about that
• Why Chan wrote a public blog post explaining his own paper — and what that reveals about the state of discourse in quantum chemistry and the quantum computing industry
• The broader impact of quantum information science on chemistry — beyond hardware, the conceptual tools of quantum information have genuinely reshaped how chemists think about many-body states
• What Chan is actually working toward: a full computational understanding of the nitrogenase reaction mechanism, using machine learning to bridge timescales classically — a decade-long journey he finds genuinely exciting

Resources & Links

The Central Paper & Commentary

• Zhai et al. (2026) — "Classical Solution of the FeMo-Cofactor Model to Chemical Accuracy and Its Implications" arXiv:2601.04621 — The January 2026 preprint at the heart of this episode; the classical solution of the standard 76-orbital/152-qubit FeMo-co benchmark.
• Chan — Quantum Frontiers Blog Post (March 2026) The FeMo-Cofactor and Classical and Quantum Computing — Chan's own accessible commentary on the paper, written in response to widespread misinterpretation; essential reading alongside the paper.

Key Papers for Context

• Chan (2024) — "Spiers Memorial Lecture: Quantum Chemistry, Classical Heuristics, and Quantum Advantage" Faraday Discussions, 254, 11–52 — The formal theoretical framework behind Chan's thinking, including the "classical heuristic cost conjecture"; the deep-dive companion to this episode.
• Lee et al. (2023) — "Evaluating the Evidence for Exponential Quantum Advantage in Ground-State Quantum Chemistry" Nature Communications — Chan group's landmark 2023 paper concluding that evidence for exponential quantum advantage across chemical space has yet to be found.
• Begušić & Chan (2023/2024) — "Fast Classical Simulation of Evidence for the Utility of Quantum Computing Before Fault Tolerance" Science Advances — The paper showing classical simulation on a single laptop core could reproduce and exceed IBM's 127-qubit "utility" experiment.
• Bauer, Bravyi, Motta & Chan (2020) — "Quantum Algorithms for Quantum Chemistry and Quantum Materials Science" arXiv:2001.03685 — A balanced review by Chan and colleagues showing he takes quantum algorithms seriously; useful counterpoint to the skeptical framing.
• Babbush et al. (2025) — "The Grand Challenge of Quantum Applications" arXiv:2511.09124 — Google Quantum AI's direct engagement with Chan's skeptical position; argues polynomial speedups may still be practically decisive.
• Computational Chemistry Highlights — Review of FeMo-co Paper compchemhighlights.org — Third-party commentary from Jan Jensen (University of Copenhagen).

Tools & Software

• PySCF — Python-based Simulations of Chemistry Framework https://pyscf.org — The open-source quantum chemistry package co-stewarded by Chan's group; widely used for electronic structure calculations.
• BLOCK — DMRG and Matrix Product State Algorithms https://github.com/sanshar/Block — Chan group's open-source implementation of density matrix renormalization group methods; the tensor network engine underlying much of this work.

Guest Links

• Chan Lab at Caltech chan-lab.caltech.edu — Research group homepage with publications, software, and group members.
• Garnet Chan — Caltech Faculty Profile cce.caltech.edu/people/garnet-k-chan — Official Caltech Division of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering page.
• Google Scholar Profile scholar.google.com — 34,000+ citations across theoretical chemistry and condensed matter physics.
• Caltech Science Exchange — Ask a Caltech Expert: Quantum Chemistry scienceexchange.caltech.edu — Accessible overview of Chan's perspective for a general science audience.

Key Quotes

Quantum Open Source with Will Zeng and Ziyaad Bhorat

In this special live-streamed discussion, Will Zeng, co-founder of the Unitary Foundation, and Ziyaad Bhorat, VP at the Mozilla Foundation, join host Sebastian Hassinger to unpack their co-authored white paper, The Open Foundation Quantum Technology Needs. The paper argues that open source quantum software is structurally underfunded — too applied for academic grants, too public-good for venture capital — and that philanthropic organizations need to step in before the window closes.

This conversation arrives at a pivotal moment. Google recently published a paper showing Shor's algorithm could break ECDLP-256 with roughly 500,000 physical qubits — a 20x improvement over prior estimates — while Oratomic launched claiming 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits may be sufficient for cryptographically relevant computation. The timelines are compressing. The question is whether the software ecosystem can keep pace with the hardware.
The video of our conversation can be viewed on YouTube.

What you'll learn

• Why open source quantum software falls into a structural funding gap between academic grants and venture capital — and what that means for the field's trajectory
• How Mozilla Foundation evaluates emerging technology fields for philanthropic intervention, and what specifically convinced them quantum was ripe for engagement
• What Google's 20x efficiency gain for Shor's algorithm and the Oratomic launch mean for Q-Day timelines and post-quantum migration urgency
• Why the "quantum Linux" analogy is useful but incomplete — and what the real risk is (fragmentation, not monopoly)
• How Unitary Foundation's microgrant program ($4,000, six months) has become a faster on-ramp to quantum careers than traditional academic pathways
• What PyMatching, PyZX, and other microgrant-funded projects reveal about the scalability of small open source investments
• Why open source benchmarking through Metriq Gym matters — and why vendor-driven benchmarks can't fill this role
• How the Qiskit team reductions at IBM illustrate the fragility of corporate-backed open source in quantum
• What specific policy asks the quantum open source community has for the NQI reauthorization
• The von Neumann vs. ENIAC lesson: why openness wins over secrecy in building transformative computing platforms

Resources & links

• The Open Foundation Quantum Technology Needs — The white paper by Zeng, Castanon, and Bhorat (March 2026) that anchors this conversation
• Unitary Foundation — 501(c)(3) non-profit building, governing, and sustaining open source quantum software since 2018 
• Mozilla Foundation — Non-profit championing open source and internet health, supporting Unitary Foundation's quantum work
• Mitiq — Open source toolkit for quantum error mitigation
• Metriq — Community-driven quantum benchmarking platform 
• Metriq Gym — Open source benchmarking suite for quantum computers 
• Unitary Compiler Collection (UCC) — Quantum circuit compilation tools
• QuTiP — Quantum Toolbox in Python, stewarded by Unitary Foundation
• PyMatching — Open source decoder for quantum error correction, originally funded by a UF microgrant 
• PyZX — ZX-calculus library for quantum circuit optimization, also originating from UF support 
• Unitary Hack — Annual bug bounty hackathon connecting open source quantum projects with global contributors 
• CSIS Commission on U.S. Quantum Leadership — Warning on quantum decryption surprise referenced in the white paper
• Will Zeng — President and co-founder of Unitary Foundation; Partner at Quantonation; DPhil in Quantum Information, University of Oxford
• Ziyaad Bhorat — VP of Imagination and Strategic Growth, Mozilla Foundation; PhD in Political Science, UCLA

Key quotes

Related episodes

• Ep 19: Quantum Error Mitigation using Mitiq with Misty Wahl — Deep dive into Mitiq, one of Unitary Foundation's flagship open source projects discussed in this episode.
• Ep 35: Quantum Benchmarking with Jens Eisert — Explores the challenges of quantum benchmarking that Will Zeng addresses with the Metriq platform.
• Ep 29: Quantum Education and Community Building with Olivia Lanes — Parallels to the community-first approach to workforce development that both guests advocate.
• Ep 53: Fostering Quantum Education with Emily Edwards — The Q12 initiative's approach to quantum education, complementing UF's open source on-ramps.
• Ep 79: Building a Quantum Ecosystem from Scratch with Martin Laforest — How Quebec built a quantum ecosystem — relevant context for the white paper's argument about building open infrastructure early.

Subscribe & connect

• Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify |

Summary

This episode is for anyone following the quantum utility debate or curious about how quantum computers will actually contribute to scientific discovery. Arnab Banerjee — assistant professor at Purdue, guest scientist at Oak Ridge's Quantum Science Center, and one of the most-cited experimentalists working at the intersection of quantum materials and quantum computing — walks us through his career-spanning journey from growing magnetic crystals to programming qubits.

You'll hear how Banerjee's frustration with classical tools that couldn't explain his own experimental data drove him to quantum computing, why a quantum spin liquid is like the vortex that forms when you throw a stone into water, and how his team used 50 qubits on IBM's Heron chip to reproduce the spectroscopic fingerprint of a real material — KCuF3 — matching data collected at Oak Ridge and the UK's ISIS neutron source. He also offers a nuanced assessment of where different quantum computing platforms excel, drawing on hands-on experience with IBM, QuEra, and D-Wave.

What you'll learn

• What a quantum spin liquid actually is and why its collective behavior — like vortices on water — could enable naturally error-protected qubits
• How neutron scattering works as a quantum probe — using the neutron's own spin and de Broglie wavelength to reveal both atomic positions and energy levels simultaneously
• Why Banerjee's team chose to benchmark quantum simulation against known experimental data first before tackling classically intractable problems
• What the IBM Heron benchmarking paper actually showed — reproducing spinon excitations in KCuF3, a one-dimensional Heisenberg chain, with quantitative agreement to neutron data
• How different quantum computing modalities serve different materials science problems — IBM for fast, cheap operations on 2D lattices; trapped ions for all-to-all connectivity; D-Wave and QuEra for Ising-like Hamiltonians
• How close we are to quantum advantage in materials simulation — Banerjee estimates 70-90 "good enough" qubits in 2D geometry could reach classically inaccessible regimes
• Why Kitaev quantum spin liquids could provide a fundamentally different path to fault tolerance — topological protection from decoherence built into the material itself, not imposed through software

Resources & links

Papers & research

• Benchmarking quantum simulation with neutron-scattering experiments (March 2026) — The news hook: IBM Heron processor reproduces real neutron scattering data from KCuF3. First direct validation of quantum simulation against experimental measurements of a real material.
•  Proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid behaviour in a honeycomb magnet (2016) — Banerjee et al., Nature Materials. The career-defining paper providing first experimental evidence for Kitaev spin liquid behavior in alpha-RuCl3. Discover Magazine Top 100 Stories (#18). 
• Neutron scattering in the proximate quantum spin liquid alpha-RuCl3 (2017) — Banerjee et al., Science. Comprehensive neutron scattering study revealing fractional spinon excitations. 
• Materials for quantum technologies roadmap (2025) — Applied Physics Reviews. Banerjee's roadmap paper on the pipeline from material discovery to quantum devices.
• Lessons from alpha-RuCl3 for atomically thin materials (Nov 2025) — What the decade-long study of alpha-RuCl3 teaches about 2D quantum materials.

Guest & lab links 

• Quantum Spins Laboratory, Purdue University — Banerjee's research group
• ORNL Profile: Traversing the Unknown, Befriending Uncertainty — Oak Ridge profile on Banerjee's research philosophy 
• Purdue News: Keck Foundation Grant for Quantum Spin Liquids — $1.2M grant to probe Majorana bound states with optical techniques
• Coverage of the IBM benchmarking work - IBM Newsroom: Quantum Computer Simulates Real Magnetic Materials — IBM's announcement of the benchmarking result
• Nature News: Quantum simulations verified by experiments for the first time — Nature's coverage of the milestone
• Organizations & facilities - DOE Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge — $115M National Quantum Initiative center where Banerjee is a guest scientist
• Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge — The neutron scattering facility central to Banerjee's experimental work
• ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Rutherford Appleton Lab — UK facility where part of the KCuF3 data was collected

Key quotes & insights

"The entire electronic industry is built around trying to avoid quantum effects as much as possible. This is the time when we need to make quantum our friend instead of our enemy."

"In a quantum spin liquid, the spin directions move collectively in dancing patterns that look extremely ordered — but if you take a snapshot, the individual spins feel completely random." — On why spin liquids are like vortices in water

"A spin is a qubit is a spin." — On why quantum magnets and quantum processors are fundamentally the same physics

"We need to know whether what we are doing really makes sense. That's what this experiment is about." — On why benchmarking against known results must come before tackling unsolved problems

"I would like to simulate the entire standard model using a quantum computer." — When asked what problem he'd throw at an unlimited quantum computer

Related episodes

• Ep 6: Better Qubits Through Material Science with Nathalie DeLeon — The materials science perspective on improving qubit quality, from diamond color centers to surface physics
• Ep 13: The Mysterious Majorana with Leo Kouwenhoven — The topological quantum computing vision that Kitaev materials could enable through a different route
• Ep 74: Majorana Qubits with Chetan Nayak — Microsoft's engineered approach to topological protection — contrast with Banerjee's materials-first path
• Ep 25: Material Science with Houlong Zhuang at Q2B Paris — Using quan...

Has quantum advantage actually been achieved — or is the field still arguing over its own milestones? Dominik Hangleiter, one of the leading theorists working on quantum computational advantage, joins the podcast to make the case that it has, explain why so many physicists remain unconvinced, and map the path toward fault-tolerant, verifiable quantum advantage.

Why This Episode Matters

If you follow quantum computing and want to cut through the noise around quantum advantage claims, this episode is for you. Dominik Hangleiter — an Ambizione Fellow at ETH Zürich and postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley's Simons Institute — has spent over a decade studying the boundary between what quantum and classical computers can do. His March 2026 paper "Has quantum advantage been achieved?" synthesizes years of experiments, classical simulation attacks, and complexity theory into a clear-eyed assessment. Whether you're an experimentalist, a theorist, or simply quantum-curious, you'll come away with a sharper understanding of what's been demonstrated, what hasn't, and what comes next.

What You'll Learn

• Why random circuit sampling became the primary arena for proving quantum advantage — and why the task's "uselessness" is a feature, not a bug
• How the linear cross-entropy benchmark (XEB) works as a statistical proxy for verifying classically intractable quantum computation
• Why audiences of physicists are still split on whether quantum advantage has been demonstrated, despite multiple experiments since 2019
• What "peaked circuits" are and how they interpolate between random sampling and structured computation
• How post-quantum cryptography (learning with errors) exploits problems that quantum computers can't solve — and what that reveals about quantum computation's limits
• Why basic arithmetic is surprisingly hard for fault-tolerant quantum computers, and how that bottlenecks algorithms like Shor's
• How fault-tolerant compilation co-designs quantum circuits with error-correcting codes to make advantage experiments scalable
• The difference between "native" quantum operations and the overhead required for universal fault-tolerant computation
• Why the interplay between quantum and classical computing strengths — not quantum dominance — may define the field's future

Resources & Links

Papers & Articles

• Has quantum advantage been achieved? — Hangleiter's March 2026 paper synthesizing the quantum advantage debate
• Computational Advantage of Quantum Random Sampling — Hangleiter & Eisert's comprehensive review in Reviews of Modern Physics (2023)
• Fault-Tolerant Compiling of Classically Hard IQP Circuits on Hypercubes — The Harvard/ETH collaboration on fault-tolerant IQP circuits (PRX Quantum 2025)
• Secret-Extraction Attacks against Obfuscated IQP Circuits — Hangleiter & Gross's attack paper breaking proposed verification protocols (PRX Quantum 2025)
• Verifiable Measurement-Based Quantum Random Sampling with Trapped Ions — Experimental realization with the Innsbruck trapped-ion group (Nature Communications 2025)

Blog Series & Commentary

• Has quantum advantage been achieved? (Quantum Frontiers blog series) — The three-part mini-series on the Caltech IQIM blog that grew into the paper
• Scott Aaronson's reaction — Endorsement on Shtetl-Optimized: "quantum supremacy on contrived benchmark problems has almost certainly been achieved by now"

Guest Links

• Dominik Hangleiter — personal website & publications
• Google Scholar profile (4,372 citations)
• QuICS profile (University of Maryland)

Key Quotes & Insights

• "Really what sets random circuit sampling apart is that it's really programmable. I give an input to the device, I design a circuit — I draw it randomly, yes — but then I give the circuit to the device, and whoever controls the device runs the circuit and gives me back the samples." — On why RCS qualifies as genuine computation
• "We typically do in physics experiments a lot of extrapolation, a lot of circumstantial experiments that validate that the experiment you really care about is actually what you want to probe. And that's the sense in which I think these random circuit sampling experiments have been verified." — On the physics-style epistemology of quantum advantage
• "Classical computers are really good at doing basic arithmetic, but quantum computers — it's really hard to do basic arithmetic. And that's for the reason that fault tolerance is very restrictive in terms of the operations that you can do on encoded information." — On the surprising asymmetry between quantum and classical capabilities
• "I can't just tell the quantum computer to give me the outcome I want. There's rules to it. And how those rules apply to computational problems that we face in the real world beyond quantum simulation is, I think, a really intriguing challenge." — On the structured nature of quantum interference
• "Maybe there's a world where we can stitch together different hardware systems and won't have a single platform that wins the race." — On heterogeneous quantum architectures

Related Episodes

• Ep 35: Quantum Benchmarking with Jens Eisert — Hangleiter's PhD advisor discusses benchmarking quantum devices — essential context for understanding how we measure quantum performance.
• Ep 12: Quantum Supremacy to Generative AI and Back with Scott Aaronson — Aaronson's perspective on quantum supremacy and computational complexity — directly relevant to the advantage debate.
• Ep 73: Peaked quantum circuits with Hrant Gharibyan — The peaked circuits approach discussed in this episode, explained in depth.
• Ep 47: Megaquop with John Preskill and Rob Schoelkopf — The road to a million quantum operations — the scale needed for the fault-tolerant advantage Hangleiter envisions.
• Ep 74: Majorana qubits with Chetan Nayak — Another approach to fault tolerance with different native capabilities — relevant to Hangleiter's point about modality-specific strengths.

Calls to Action

Dominik's Quantum Frontiers blog series is one of the most accessible deep dives on quantum advantage available anywhere — start there if you want to explore beyond this conversation. Links in the show notes.

Subscribe: ...

Scaling Quantum Hardware Like Semiconductors with Matthijs Rijlaarsdam

The quantum computing industry has been stuck at roughly 100 qubits for years — not because of physics, but because of wiring. Matthijs Rijlaarsdam, co-founder and CEO of QuantWare, explains how his company's 3D vertical chip architecture (VIO) could break through that ceiling to 10,000 qubits by 2028, and why the quantum industry needs to start thinking like the semiconductor industry if it wants to actually deliver on its promises.

Episode Summary

This conversation is for anyone trying to understand why quantum computers haven't scaled as fast as promised — and what it would take to change that. Matthijs brings an unusual perspective as a computer scientist (not a physicist) who co-founded QuantWare out of TU Delft's QuTech to become the world's first commercial supplier of superconducting quantum processors.

Rather than building a full quantum computer, QuantWare sells QPUs as components — the "TSMC of quantum." In this episode, Matthijs walks through the VIO architecture that routes signals vertically through stacked chiplets instead of along chip edges, why specialization and volume economics are the only realistic path to useful quantum computing, and how the Dutch quantum ecosystem punches far above its weight thanks to consistent long-term investment.

What You'll Learn

• Why the quantum industry is stuck at ~100 qubits — and how 90% of current chip area is consumed by signal routing, not qubits, creating a fundamental scaling wall
• How VIO's 3D chiplet architecture breaks the wiring bottleneck by routing signals vertically through stacked silicon modules, enabling 10,000-qubit processors that are physically smaller than today's 100-qubit chips
• Why quantum computing will be heterogeneous — different platforms (superconducting, trapped ions, neutral atoms) have different trade-offs analogous to CPUs vs. memory vs. storage in classical computing
• The economics that make specialization inevitable — why cable costs need to drop from EUR 1,500 per line to cents, and why volume manufacturing is the only way to get there
• How QuantWare's three business models mirror the semiconductor industry — selling packaged QPUs (Intel model), foundry services (TSMC model), and packaging services for third-party chips
• Why the Dutch quantum ecosystem succeeds — consistent decade-plus government investment in QuTech, EUR 600M+ to Quantum Delta NL, and the WENEC report recommending EUR 9.4 billion for quantum infrastructure
• What "Quantum Open Architecture" means in practice — how making QPUs commercially available lowers barriers for the entire industry, similar to how standardized PC components enabled the computing revolution
• QuantWare's roadmap: VIO-40K shipping in 2028 with up to 10,000 qubits, and a path to 1 million qubits using arrays of chiplet modules

Resources & Links

Company

• QuantWare — world's first and largest commercial supplier of superconducting quantum processors
• VIO Technology — QuantWare's 3D vertical integration and optimization architecture
• VIO-40K announcement — press release on the 10,000-qubit scaling breakthrough

Coverage & Analysis

• PostQuantum: QuantWare's 10,000-qubit chip — a real scaling bet — the most balanced independent analysis of VIO-40K's claims and limitations
• TechCrunch: Dutch startup QuantWare seeks to fast-track quantum computing — Series A coverage
• NextBigFuture: QuantWare 10K qubits in 2028 and 1 million in 2029 — Q2B keynote reporting

Partnerships Mentioned

• Quantum Utility Block (QUB) with Q-CTRL and Qblox — turnkey quantum computer kit
• Elevate Quantum Q-PAC in Colorado — first US Quantum Open Architecture system

Ecosystem & Policy

• QuantWare 2026 industry predictions — QuantWare's view on entering the kiloqubit era
• QuTech — TU Delft quantum research institute where both QuantWare co-founders did their graduate work
• Quantum Delta NL — Dutch national quantum technology program (EUR 600M+)
• DARPA HARK program — Heterogeneous Accelerated Roadmap using Quantum Solutions; referenced by Matthijs as validation of the heterogeneous quantum computing thesis

Key Insights

"There is no path towards useful quantum computing without specialization. That is a total fantasy." — Matthijs Rijlaarsdam on why volume economics and the semiconductor model are inevitable for quantum

"The difference between EUR 1,500 and 10 cents per cable line — that's all volumes and yields." — on how manufacturing scale, not physics breakthroughs, will drive the next phase of quantum cost reduction

"If you look at it on a cost-per-qubit basis, VIO-40K at EUR 50 million is actually a 10x reduction from where we are today. Anyone claiming they'll do it for less is just not telling something realistic." — on the real economics of scaling quantum hardware

"Imagine if you were a company today and you wanted to do interesting stuff in AI, but you first had to develop a three nanometer process to make the chips. It would be completely ridiculous. And in quantum, that's what everyone is doing." — on why vertical integration won't survive at scale

"Good companies will get funded. We have in general not been restricted by access to capital ourselves." — on navigating European deep-tech venture capital

Related Episodes

• Ep 41: Dual-rail superconducting qubits with Rob Schoelkopf — deep dive into superconducting qubit architectures and scaling approaches
• Ep 48: Qolab Emerges from Stealth Mode with John Martinis — another vision for scaling superconducting qubits to millions, from a different architectural angle
• Ep 59: Silicon Spin Qubits with Andrew Dzurak from D...

Ever wonder why quantum computing still feels like a "cool science experiment" instead of a deployable technology? After two decades building wireless standards and quantum systems at IBM, Brian Gaucher argues that engineering—not physics—has become the critical bottleneck holding back quantum technologies from real-world impact.

Why this episode matters

This conversation is essential for anyone trying to understand why quantum technologies haven't yet transitioned from laboratory demonstrations to scalable industrial applications. Brian co-authored the recent ERVA report that identifies the specific engineering challenges blocking quantum progress across computing, sensing, and biological applications. If you're a researcher, engineer, or technology leader wondering how quantum moves from promising science to transformational technology, this episode provides the roadmap.

The discussion reveals why materials engineering, not theoretical breakthroughs, will determine which nations lead the quantum economy—and why coordinated investment in nanoscale manufacturing infrastructure needs to happen now, before manufacturing ecosystems become geographically concentrated like semiconductors.

• What you'll learn
• How engineering precision has replaced theoretical understanding as the primary quantum bottleneck across computing, sensing, and biological applications
• Why superconducting qubit fabrication still resembles lab experiments despite being labeled an "engineering problem" since 2016—and what's needed to achieve semiconductor-level reproducibility
• The specific materials challenges blocking quantum scaling: surface and interface noise control, defect management, cryogenic packaging, and atomic-layer precision manufacturing
• Why quantum computing will require hundreds of interconnected dilution refrigerators rather than single large systems, and the engineering implications of distributed quantum architectures
• How AI and quantum computing create bidirectional acceleration opportunities: AI enabling quantum calibration and error mitigation, while quantum enhances optimization and molecular simulation workloads
• Why quantum standards development faces a chicken-and-egg problem that won't resolve until reproducible quantum advantage is demonstrated—but must be ready immediately afterward
• How regional quantum initiatives like Illinois Quantum Network and Elevate Quantum balance necessary specialization against harmful fragmentation in the pre-standards era
• Why the semiconductor industry's offshore manufacturing migration offers critical lessons for maintaining quantum manufacturing leadership in the United States

• Job seekers & researchers: Subscribe free at qubitsok.com — weekly job alerts + daily paper digest filtered by 400+ quantum tags. 
• Hiring managers: Post your quantum role and reach 500+ targeted subscribers. Use code NEWQUANTUMERA-50 for 50% off your first listing at qubitsok.com/post-job.

Resources & links

Papers & reports

• ERVA Report: Engineering Research to Advance Quantum Technologies - The comprehensive analysis Brian co-authored on translating quantum science into engineering frameworks
• National Quantum Initiative Act - Current federal quantum research coordination legislation awaiting reauthorization

Organizations & initiatives

• Chicago Quantum Exchange - Regional quantum research consortium Brian mentions as a model for coordinated development
• IBM Quantum Network - Brian's former organization advancing quantum computing applications
• IEEE Quantum Engineering - Standards organization Brian suggests should lead quantum standardization efforts

Standards & technology platforms

• IEEE 802.11 Standards - The Wi-Fi standardization work Brian contributed to, demonstrating how standards unlock technology ecosystems
• Qiskit - IBM's quantum software development platform
• OpenQASM - Quantum assembly language specification for quantum instruction sets

Guest links

• Brian Gaucher's Design News Interview - Recent discussion of quantum engineering workforce development

Key insights

"Quantum advantages is going to come not just from better qubits alone, but really from better engineering. The physics is truly exciting in the discovery aspects, but that in itself is not going to go anywhere without a bigger picture wrapped around it."

"We understand the fundamental physics. What we need to do is get to reproducible, scalable fabrication and interface control remains one of the limiting things."

"Scientific leadership alone doesn't guarantee you long-term manufacturing leadership. We know this from semiconductors—the US remains strong in research and design, but manufacturing ecosystems went offshore."

"Once manufacturing ecosystems become geographically concentrated, you can't rebuild this stuff. So you need to address this earlier on and not wait."

"If we break encryption, every old email and text and bank statement that you've ever had becomes open. The enormity of such a risk should be driving someone crazy."

Related episodes

• Ep 47: Megaquop with John Preskill and Rob Schoelkopf - Deep dive into superconducting quantum computing architectures and scaling challenges
• Ep 52: Quantum Error Correction Codes with Kenneth Brown - Essential background on the error mitigation Brian discusses as an AI-quantum intersection
• Ep 61: The Quantum Internet with Stephanie Wehner - Quantum communications standards and infrastructure development

Revolutionary Quantum Engineering with David Reilly and Tom Ohki

Have you ever wondered what it takes to build computing systems that work at temperatures colder than outer space? David Reilly and Tom Ohki are tackling this exact challenge, leading a "special ops" team of engineers from their unique position at Emergence Quantum—the startup born from Microsoft's Station Q program. They're not just building quantum computers; they're creating the entire infrastructure ecosystem that will make scalable quantum computing possible.

Episode Summary

This episode explores how quantum computing's most challenging engineering problems are being solved from the ground up. David Reilly (former Station Q lead) and Tom Ohki (ex-Raytheon BBN Technologies) share their journey from academic research to building Emergence Quantum—a company focused on the systems-level challenges of quantum computing and beyond.

Unlike typical quantum startups racing to build better qubits, Emergence takes a "qubit-agnostic" approach, focusing on the critical control systems, cryogenic electronics, and infrastructure needed to scale any quantum platform. Their work spans from cryo-CMOS control systems that operate at millikelvin temperatures to revolutionary applications of cryogenic cooling in classical data centers.

What You'll Learn

• How cryo-CMOS technology solves the fundamental wiring bottleneck that prevents quantum computers from scaling beyond hundreds of qubits
• Why the "special ops" team model enables breakthrough engineering when tackling unprecedented technical challenges across quantum and classical computing
• How cryogenic cooling could transform classical data centers by dramatically reducing power consumption and improving processor performance
• The systems-level thinking required to build quantum computers that actually work at scale, beyond just improving individual qubit performance
• Why Australia offers unique advantages for deep tech R&D companies focused on long-term hardware development rather than venture-driven growth
• How quantum computing infrastructure development creates spillover benefits for classical computing, sensing, and other cryogenic applications
• The historical parallels between today's quantum engineering challenges and the foundational R&D that built the internet and early computing systems
• Why "qubit-agnostic" approaches to control systems provide more flexibility as quantum hardware continues evolving

Company & Guest Links

• Emergence Quantum
• David Reilly
• Tom Ohki

Research & Papers

• Nature paper on cryo-CMOS coexistence with spin qubits 
• Historical cryo-CMOS research

Organizations Mentioned

• Microsoft Station Q (former quantum research division)
• Raytheon BBN Technologies (internet pioneer, quantum research)
• University of Sydney

• Job seekers & researchers: Subscribe free at qubitsok.com — weekly job alerts + daily paper digest filtered by 400+ quantum tags. 
• Hiring managers: Post your quantum role and reach 500+ targeted subscribers. Use code NEWQUANTUMERA-50 for 50% off your first listing at qubitsok.com/post-job.

Technologies & Concepts

• Cryo-CMOS: CMOS electronics operating at cryogenic temperatures
• Dilution refrigerators: Ultra-low temperature cooling systems
• Superconducting quantum devices and control systems

Key Insights

• "We recognize that although quantum is very much moving into more traditional engineering domains, there's still so much fundamental research—you have to walk both paths. It will be both fundamental science and applied engineering, all at the same time." — David Reilly on the dual nature of quantum development
• "Every member had this deep expertise, and we were able to progress in a flexible agile way. That was exactly the secret." — Tom Ohki on building high-performing technical teams
• "You could ask the question: what are the attributes of scalable qubits, given the constraints of what you can build at the control layer?" — David Reilly on systems-level thinking
• "If you don't believe in [scaling classical cryogenic computing], but you believe in quantum computing, there's some mismatch here—because the fundamental aspects are completely identical." — Tom Ohki on infrastructure requirements
• "We're not trying to disrupt the incumbent technology. We're trying to improve it. But along the way, we're building the foundation for a world beyond that." — David Reilly on their strategic approach

Community & Next Steps

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Share this episode with colleagues working on complex technical systems—the insights on team dynamics and long-term R&D strategy apply far beyond quantum computing.

Join our community of quantum computing professionals, researchers, and technically curious minds who are shaping this field's development.

From Steel Mills to Quantum Scale-Up: Inside Illinois's Bold Bet on the Future of Computing

What does it take to build the world's largest dedicated quantum technology park — on the site of a former steel mill? Harley Johnson is leading that effort, and the answer involves equal parts materials science, economic development, and a 30-year bet on quantum that's finally paying off.

Why This Episode Matters

If you're following the quantum computing industry's path from lab prototypes to commercial-scale systems, this episode maps the terrain. Harley Johnson — a computational materials scientist turned CEO of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP) — explains how Illinois assembled a unique combination of federal research funding, state economic investment, national labs, and top-tier universities into a 128-acre technology park designed to solve the quantum industry's hardest problem: scaling up.

Whether you're a researcher, a founder, a policymaker, or someone trying to understand where quantum jobs and applications are actually headed, this conversation lays out how one state is building the infrastructure — physical, institutional, and human — to make large-scale quantum computing real.

What You'll Learn

• How a 1994 bet on quantum mechanics in a mechanical engineering lab led to directing the largest dedicated quantum tech park in the world
• Why Illinois chose a "beyond silicon" strategy for the CHIPS and Science Act — and how landing 4 of the first 10 federal quantum centers positioned the state for what came next
• How IQMP's public-private governance model works: a university-governed LLC partnering with private developers, accountable to the public while incentivizing industry
• Why the park deliberately hosts a diverse portfolio of hardware modalities — including PsiQuantum, IBM, Inflection, Dirac, and Pascal — and how that mirrors venture portfolio thinking
• How IQMP's algorithm center connects quantum hardware companies with Fortune 500 end users in finance, insurance, energy, logistics, and pharma
• What the DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative means for tenant selection and validation
• Why roughly two-thirds of future quantum industry jobs may require a bachelor's degree or less — and what that means for workforce development on a former industrial site
• How the Duality Accelerator, Chicago Quantum Exchange, and Polsky Center create a pipeline from early-stage startups to scale-up tenants
• Why the convergence of physics, engineering, and computer science — all housed in one college at UIUC — is accelerating quantum's transition from science to engineering

Sponsor

Resources & Links

Guest Links

• Harley Johnson — Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering and Materials Science 
• Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP)

Organizations & Programs

• Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) — regional hub coordinating quantum research, workforce studies, and industry engagement 
• Duality Accelerator — quantum startup accelerator run through the Polsky Center at the University of Chicago 
• Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Chicago
• DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative — federal program validating progress toward useful quantum computing 
• NSF MRSEC at UIUC — Materials Research Science and Engineering Center focused on electronic and quantum materials 

Policy & Funding

• CHIPS and Science Act — federal legislation driving investment in semiconductor and quantum technology manufacturing in the US 

Companies Mentioned

• PsiQuantum — photonic quantum computing company scaling up at IQMP
• IBM — anchor tenant at IQMP with longstanding partnership with UIUC

Key Quotes & Insights

"When I heard my friends who are experimental physicists say, 'We know how to do it, now it's just an engineering problem,' I said great — now you've thrown down the gauntlet. Let the engineers at it."

"Something like two-thirds of the jobs that this industry will eventually create will require a bachelor's degree or less." — On workforce projections from Chicago Quantum Exchange research

"Our neighbors and community members are learning about quantum and thinking about how my grandson gets a job in quantum. Because my family, until now, we're steelworkers." — On the community impact of building a quantum park on a former US Steel site

"We're seeing a convergence of the great productive academic minds from computer science, engineering, and physics working now on the same problems. I'm not sure we saw that even five years ago."

Related Episodes

• Alejandra Y. Castillo — Quantum as a Regional Economic Development Engine — Castillo, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development, discusses how quantum technologies fit into federal and state economic strategy through the CHIPS and Science Act, EDA Tech Hubs, and inclusive workforce development. Essential context for understanding the policy and economic framework that IQMP operates within.
• Martin Laforest — Building Quebec's Quantum Ecosystem — Laforest, partner at Quantacet and advisor to Canada's National Quantum Strategy, traces how Quebec built one of the world's strongest quantum ecosystems through decades of strategic investment — starting with a bet on condensed matter physics in the 1970s. A compelling parallel to the Illinois story and a window into how this pattern is playing out globally.
• Nadya Mason — Quantum Leadership — Mason, the dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at University of Chicago, is a major force on the academic side of the Illinois quantum ecosystem, and has strong views on what's needed in terms of inclusion and education. 

Breaking Down RSA: How QLDPC Codes Cut Quantum Computing Requirements by an Order of Magnitude

What if I told you that the number of qubits needed to break RSA encryption just dropped from over a million to around 100,000? That's exactly what researchers at Iceberg Quantum achieved by combining quantum low-density parity-check (QLDPC) error correction with algorithmic optimizations—potentially accelerating quantum cryptography timelines by years.

Why this episode matters

This episode dives into groundbreaking research that could reshape quantum computing's practical timeline. We explore how QLDPC codes overcome the physical constraints of surface codes, why hardware diversity is driving new error correction approaches, and what this means for the race toward cryptographically relevant quantum computers.

Perfect for quantum researchers, cryptography professionals, and anyone curious about the engineering challenges between today's quantum devices and tomorrow's code-breaking machines.

What you'll learn

• Why QLDPC codes outperform surface codes — How throwing out nearest-neighbor connectivity assumptions unlocks better physical-to-logical qubit ratios across multiple hardware platforms 
• The algorithmic tricks that matter — How shared register reads and parallelization techniques can dramatically reduce runtime on slower quantum hardware platforms like trapped ions and neutral atoms
•  What "hardware agnostic" really means — Why developing error correction methods that work across superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, and neutral atom platforms is crucial for the quantum ecosystem
• How generalized ladder surgery enables logical operations — The breakthrough that made QLDPC codes viable for full quantum computation, not just quantum memory storage
• Why decoding remains the bottleneck — The real-time classical computation challenges that still need solving to make fault-tolerant quantum computing practical
• The business model emerging around quantum architecture — How companies like Iceberg are positioning themselves as the "ARM or Nvidia" of quantum computing through specialized fault-tolerant designs
• What cryptographers should know now — Why the timeline for cryptographically relevant quantum computers may be compressing faster than expected, and why algorithmic improvements matter as much as hardware scaling

Resources & links

• Iceberg Quantum's Pinnacle paper — "Reducing the Overhead of Quantum Error Correction with QLDPC Codes"
• Craig Gidney's foundational Shor's algorithm optimization work
• Scott Aaronson's blog analysis of the research implications

 Sponsor

Key insights & quotes

• "We think this is an immensely fundamentally valuable thing to do — when hardware improvements and reduced resource requirements converge, we'll be able to do something useful." — Larry, Iceberg Quantum CSO
• "It would probably be a big mistake to assume that the numbers are not going to keep going down" — on future resource requirement reductions for RSA breaking
• "At every level of scaling, new challenges emerge — it's not just a matter of taking a zero off your number" — Paul Webster on why order-of-magnitude improvements translate to real timeline changes
• "There's no obvious reason why something like the Pinnacle architecture wouldn't have an obvious impact once hardware companies reach hundreds of thousands of qubits" — on practical implementation timelines
• "This is why it's so important to have this broader perspective and not be too dependent on the assumptions of one hardware platform" — on the value of hardware-agnostic approaches

How a Lawyer and a Listicle Launched One of Quantum's Most Influential Media Platforms

Evan Kubes had no physics degree, no engineering background, and no idea what a qubit was when he stumbled across a press release about AWS investing in quantum. What he did have was experience translating complex industries for mainstream audiences — and within months, he and co-founder Alex Challans had turned a Wix website and a "Top 20 Most Influential People in Quantum" listicle into The Quantum Insider, now one of the industry's leading media and intelligence platforms. In this episode, Evan shares how that scrappy start grew into Resonance, a multi-vertical deep tech media company — and why he spent the last year making Our Quantum Future, a feature-length documentary premiering at APS March Meeting that aims to bring quantum out of the echo chamber and onto your screen.

Why this episode matters

This episode marks a new chapter for The New Quantum Era. In the intro, Sebastian shares some big updates — going fully independent, new media projects including the Helgoland 2025 documentary, a newsletter, and broader efforts to build a more accessible and equitable quantum technology ecosystem through open source and open standards. He also announces his new role as a Fellow at the Unitary Foundation. Read the full blog post: A New Chapter.

The conversation with Evan Kubes is a perfect fit for this moment. Evan sits at the intersection of quantum's technical community and the broader world trying to make sense of it — a translator between physicists and the public. His story illuminates something the industry rarely discusses: how do you actually build awareness, trust, and market understanding for a technology most people can't explain?

The documentary Our Quantum Future, produced for the International Year of Quantum and featuring Nobel laureates, a former CIA officer, and the leaders of Google, Microsoft, and IonQ, is designed for exactly that audience — the curious non-specialist who wants to understand what quantum means for the world. The ethics and national security themes it surfaces are relevant well beyond the quantum community.

What you'll learn

• How The Quantum Insider went from zero readers to a leading quantum industry platform using a creative "vanity listicle" strategy that got CEOs to respond overnight
• Why a lawyer from the esports world saw the same market opportunity in quantum that venture capitalists were pouring billions into — and what that says about the accessibility gap in deep tech
• How the Resonance media model applies The Quantum Insider playbook to space, AI, and climate tech — and what makes a deep tech vertical ripe for this approach
• What 39 interviews across 40 countries revealed about how the quantum community thinks about ethics — including a striking divide between engineers ("I'm just solving a hard problem") and policymakers ("we need safeguards now")
• The Oppenheimer parallel: how the documentary draws a direct line between the atomic bomb's development and today's quantum technology, and why some builders don't think about consequences while others think about nothing else
• A former CIA operative's reframing of quantum advantage as incremental compounding — 1% better per year for five years — and why that makes quantum feel much more real today than the "break all encryption" narrative suggests
• Why academics and corporate leaders consistently disagree on quantum's timeline, and where Evan lands after a year of filming both camps

Resources & links

Guest links

• The Quantum Insider — Quantum industry media, intelligence, and data platform co-founded by Evan
• Resonance — Parent company extending the deep tech media model to space, AI, climate tech [link to confirm]
• Our Quantum Future — Documentary website with sign-up for distribution updates

People mentioned in the episode

• Alex Challans — Co-founder and CEO of The Quantum Insider; Evan's business partner
• Nicholas Ogler — Former CIA operative featured in the documentary; redefines quantum advantage from a national security lens
• Dr. Bill Phillips — Nobel Prize-winning physicist; discusses his bet with Carl Williams on the quantum advantage timeline
• Dr. John Doyle — Professor of quantum at Harvard, president of APS; draws the Oppenheimer parallel
• Ilyas Khan — Former CEO of Quantinuum; argues for educational licensing frameworks around quantum technology
• Eric Cornell — Nobel Prize winner featured in the documentary

Mentioned in the intro

• A New Chapter — NQE blog post — Sebastian's full announcement on going independent, new projects, and the future of the podcast
• Unitary Foundation — Open-source quantum technology ecosystem; Sebastian is now a Fellow

Key quotes & insights

Sponsor

Join the conversation

• See the film: Visit ourquantumfuture.com to sign up for distribution updates — the premiere is at APS March Meeting in Boulder, with broader release to follow.
• Read the blog ...

What does it take to build a thriving quantum ecosystem from the ground up? Martin Laforest, physicist-turned-venture-capitalist at Quantacet, reveals how Quebec transformed a 1970s academic bet into a $400M quantum powerhouse—and why the industry's biggest misconception is thinking quantum computing is either a science problem or an engineering problem when it's clearly both.

Summary
In this conversation, Sebastian sits down with Martin Laforest, partner at Quantacet, Canada's quantum-only VC fund, to explore the messy realities of building quantum companies and ecosystems. Martin brings a rare perspective: PhD from Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing, eight years leading scientific outreach, a stint building a post-quantum cryptography startup with ex-BlackBerry executives, and now investing in the quantum future.

This episode is for anyone trying to understand how quantum technology actually gets built—not the hype, but the infrastructure, the collaboration models, the government investment strategies, and the patience required. Whether you're technical or just curious about how transformative technologies emerge, Martin offers a grounded view of what's working, what's not, and why the quantum revolution looks more like slow, deliberate ecosystem building than overnight breakthroughs.

What You'll Learn

• Why quantum is both a science and engineering challenge and how the vacuum tube-to-transistor transition illuminates today's quantum journey
• How Quebec built a world-class quantum ecosystem starting from a 1970s university bet on condensed matter physics through to today's $400M provincial investment
• The infrastructure that matters: why Sherbrooke's six shared dilution fridges and quantum communication testbed represent a different collaboration model
• What VCs actually look for in quantum startups beyond the technology—and why Martin believes early-stage investing is about building great companies, not just returns
• The three most dangerous misconceptions plaguing quantum technology (spoiler: it's not just about quantum computers)
• How regional quantum ecosystems should compete and collaborate with lessons from Netherlands, Chicago, and UK programs
• Why fundamental research funding can't stop even as commercialization accelerates—and what happens when governments don't understand this balance
• What "mutualized infrastructure" means in practice and why no single entity owning critical testbeds might be the secret sauce
• How federal and provincial politics shape quantum strategy in Canada and what other countries can learn from it

Resources & Links

• Quantacet
• Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC)
• University of Sherbrooke Institute Quantique
• C2MI semiconductor fabrication facility
• QuantumDELTA

Key Insights

On the science vs. engineering debate:
"People ask if quantum computing is still a science problem or just engineering. It's both. Look at the vacuum tube to transistor transition—we needed new physics and new engineering. That's exactly where we are now."

On ecosystem building:
"Sherbrooke made a bet on condensed matter physics in the 1970s. Fifty years later, they have six dilution fridges available for rent and a quantum communication testbed owned by no one. That infrastructure patience is what builds real ecosystems."

On VC philosophy:
"Early-stage venture capital is about building great companies. The money is a byproduct. If you focus on the returns first, you'll make the wrong decisions every time."

On common misconceptions:
"The biggest myth is that quantum technology equals quantum computing. We have quantum sensors, quantum communications, post-quantum crypto—this is a multi-faceted industry, not a single magic box."

On balancing research and commercialization:
"You can't stop funding fundamental research just because commercialization is happening. The vacuum tube didn't kill physics research. We need both engines running or the whole thing stalls."

Join the Conversation

Subscribe to The New Quantum Era wherever you get your podcasts to hear more conversations with the people building quantum technology's future.

What if consciousness isn’t generated by the brain, but emerges from its interaction with a ubiquitous quantum field? In this episode, Sebastian Hassinger and theoretical physicist Joachim Keppler explore a zero‑point field model of consciousness that could reshape both neuroscience and quantum theory.

Summary
This conversation is for anyone curious about the “hard problem” of consciousness, quantum brain theories, and the future of quantum biology and AI. Joachim shares his QED‑based framework where the brain couples to the electromagnetic zero‑point field via glutamate, producing macroscopic quantum effects that correlate with conscious states. You’ll hear how this model connects existing neurophysiology, testable predictions, and deep questions in philosophy of mind.

What You’ll Learn

•  How a quantum field theorist ended up founding an institute for the scientific study of consciousness and building a rigorous, physics‑grounded framework for it.
•  Why consciousness may hinge on a universal principle: the brain’s resonant coupling to the electromagnetic zero‑point field, not just classical neural firing.
•  What macroscopic quantum phenomena in the brain look like, including coherence domains, self‑organized criticality, and long‑range synchronized activity patterns linked to conscious states.
•  How glutamate, the brain’s most abundant neurotransmitter, could act as the molecular interface to the zero‑point field inside cortical microcolumns.
•  Which concrete experiments could confirm or falsify this theory, from detecting macroscopic quantum coherence in neurotransmitter molecules to measuring glutamate‑driven biophoton emissions with a specific quantum “fingerprint.”
•  Why Joachim sees the zero‑point field as a dual‑aspect “psychophysical” field and how that reframes classic philosophy‑of‑mind debates about qualia and the nature of awareness.
•  What this perspective implies for artificial consciousness and whether future quantum computers or engineered systems might couple to the field and become genuinely conscious rather than merely simulating it.
•  How quantum biology could offer an evolutionary path for consciousness, extending field‑coupling ideas from the human brain down to simpler organisms and bacterial signaling.

Resources & Links

• DIWISS Research Institute for the scientific study of consciousness
•  “Macroscopic quantum effects in the brain: new insights into the neural correlates of consciousness” – Research article outlining the QED/zero‑point field model and its neurophysiological connections.
•  “A New Way of Looking at the Neural Correlates of Consciousness” – Paper introducing the idea that the full spectrum of qualia is encoded in the zero‑point field.
•  “The Role of the Brain in Conscious Processes: A New Way of Understanding the Neural Correlates of Consciousness” – Further develops the brain‑as‑interface, ZPF‑based framework
• Human high intelligence is involved in spectral redshift of biophotonic activities in the brain - studies on glutamate‑linked emissions in brain tissue – Experiments that inform potential tests of the theory.

Key Quotes or Insights

•  “The brain may not produce consciousness; it may tune into it by coupling to the zero‑point field, like a resonant oscillator accessing a universal substrate of awareness.”
•  “Conscious states correspond to macroscopic quantum patterns in the brain—highly synchronized, near‑critical dynamics that disappear when the field coupling breaks down in unconsciousness.”
•  “Glutamate‑rich cortical microcolumns could be the molecular gateway to the zero‑point field, forming coherence domains that orchestrate neuronal firing from the bottom up.”
•  “If we can engineer systems that replicate this field‑coupling mechanism, we might not just simulate consciousness—we might be building genuinely conscious artificial systems.”
•  “Quantum biology could reveal an evolutionary continuum of field‑coupling, from simple organisms to humans, reframing how we think about life, intelligence, and mind.”

What happens when a former elite gymnast with “weak math and science” becomes dean of one of the world’s most influential quantum engineering schools? In this episode of *The New Quantum Era*, Sebastian Hassinger talks with Prof. Nadya Mason about quantum 2.0, building a regional quantum ecosystem, and why she sees leadership as a way to serve and build community rather than accumulate power.

Summary 
This conversation is for anyone curious about how quantum materials research, academic leadership, and large‑scale public investment are shaping the next phase of quantum technology. You’ll hear how Nadya’s path from AT&T Bell Labs to dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at UChicago informs her service‑oriented approach to leadership and ecosystem building.  The discussion spans superconducting devices, Chicago’s quantum hub strategy, and what it will actually take to build a diverse, job‑ready quantum workforce in time for the coming wave of applications.

What You’ll Learn

• How a non‑linear path (elite sports, catching up in math, early lab work) can lead to a career at the center of quantum science and engineering.
• Why condensed matter and quantum materials are the quiet “bottleneck” for scalable quantum computing, networking, and transduction technologies.
• How superconducting junctions, Andreev bound states, and hybrid devices underpin today’s superconducting qubits and topological quantum efforts.
• The difference between “quantum 1.0” (lasers, GPS, nuclear power, semiconductors) and “quantum 2.0” focused on sensing, communication, and computation.
• How the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Chicago Quantum Exchange are deliberately knitting together universities, national labs, industry, and state funding into a cohesive quantum cluster.
• Why Nadya frames leadership as building communities around science and opportunity, and what that means in a faculty‑driven environment where “nobody works for the dean.”
• Concrete ways Illinois and UChicago are approaching quantum education and workforce development, from REUs and the Open Quantum Initiative to the South Side Science Fair.
• Why early math confidence plus hands‑on research experience are the two most important ingredients for preparing the next generation of quantum problem‑solvers.

Resources & Links  

• Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago – Nadya’s home institution, pioneering an interdisciplinary, theme‑based approach to quantum, materials for sustainability, and immunoengineering.
• Chicago Quantum Exchange – Regional hub connecting universities, national labs, and industry to build quantum networks, workforce, and commercialization pathways.
• South Side Science Fair (UChicago) – Large‑scale outreach effort bringing thousands of local students to campus to encounter science and quantum concepts early.

Key Quotes or Insights  

• “A rainbow is more beautiful because I understand the fraction behind it”—how physics deepened Nadya’s sense of wonder rather than reducing it.
• “In condensed matter, the devil is in the material—and the interfaces”—why microscopic imperfections and humidity‑induced “schmutz” can make or break quantum devices.
• “Quantum 1.0 gave us lasers, GPS, and nuclear power; quantum 2.0 is about using quantum systems to *process* information through sensing, networking, and computing.”
• “If you want to accumulate power, academia is not the place—faculty don’t work for me. Leadership here is about building community and creating opportunities.”
• “If we want to lead in quantum as a country, we have to make math skills and real lab experiences accessible early, so kids even know this world exists as an option.”

Calls to Action  

• Subscribe to The New Quantum Era and share this episode with a colleague or student who’s curious about quantum careers and leadership beyond the usual narratives.
• If you’re an educator or program lead, explore ways to bring hands‑on research experiences and accessible math support into your classroom or community programs.
• If you’re in industry, academia, or policy, consider how you or your organization can plug into regional quantum ecosystems like Chicago’s to support training, internships, and inclusive hiring.

Your host, Sebastian Hassinger, talks with Alumni Ventures managing partner Chris Sklarin about how one of the most active US venture firms is building a quantum portfolio while “democratizing” access to VC as an asset class for individual investors. They dig into Alumni Ventures’ co‑investor model, how the firm thinks about quantum hardware, software, and sensing, and why quantum should be viewed as a long‑term platform with near‑term pockets of commercial value. Chris also explains how accredited investors can start seeing quantum deal flow through Alumni Ventures’ syndicate.

Chris’ background and Alumni Ventures in a nutshell

• Chris is an MIT‑trained engineer who spent years in software startups before moving into venture more than 20 years ago.
• Alumni Ventures is a roughly decade‑old firm focused on “democratizing venture capital” for individual investors, with over 11,000 LPs, more than 1.5 billion dollars raised, and about 1,300 active portfolio companies.
• The firm has been repeatedly recognized as a highly active VC by CB Insights, PitchBook, Stanford GSB, and Time magazine.

How Alumni Ventures structures access for individuals

• Most investors come in as individuals into LLC‑structured funds rather than traditional GP/LP funds.
• Alumni Ventures always co‑invests alongside a lead VC, using the lead’s conviction, sector expertise, and diligence as a key signal.
• The platform also offers a syndicate where accredited investors can opt in to see and back individual deals, including those tagged for quantum.

Quantum in the Alumni Ventures portfolio

• Alumni Ventures has 5–6 quantum‑related investments spanning hardware, software, and applications, including Rigetti, Atom Computing, Q‑CTRL, Classiq, and quantum‑error‑mitigation startup Qedma/Cadmus.
• Rigetti was one of the firm’s earliest quantum investments; the team followed on across multiple rounds and was able to return capital to investors after Rigetti’s SPAC and a strong period in the public markets.
• Chris also highlights interest in Cycle Dre (a new company from Rigetti’s former CTO) and application‑layer companies like InQ and quantum sensing players.

Barbell funding and the “3–5 year” view

• Chris responds to the now‑familiar “barbell” funding picture in quantum— a few heavily funded players and a long tail of small companies—by emphasizing near‑term revenue over pure science experiments.
• He sees quantum entering an era where companies must show real products, customers, and revenue, not just qubit counts.
• Over the next 3–5 years, he expects meaningful commercial traction first in areas like quantum sensing, navigation, and point solutions in chemistry and materials, with full‑blown fault‑tolerant systems further out.

Hybrid compute and NVIDIA’s signal to the market

• Chris points to Jensen Huang’s GTC 2025 keynote slide on NVIDIA’s hybrid quantum–GPU ecosystem, where Alumni Ventures portfolio companies such as Atom Computing, Classiq, and Rigetti appeared.
• He notes that NVIDIA will not put “science projects” on that slide—those partnerships reflect a view that quantum processors will sit tightly coupled next to GPUs to handle specific workloads.
• He also mentions a large commercial deal between NVIDIA and Groq (a classical AI chip company in his portfolio) as another sign of a more heterogeneous compute future that quantum will plug into.

Where near‑term quantum revenue shows up

• Chris expects early commercial wins in sensing, GPS‑denied navigation, and other narrow but valuable applications before broad “quantum advantage” in general‑purpose computing.
• Software and middleware players can generate revenue sooner by making today’s hardware more stable, more efficient, or easier to program, and by integrating into classical and AI workflows.
• He stresses that investors love clear revenue paths that fit into the 10‑year life of a typical venture fund.

University spin‑outs, clustering, and deal flow

• Alumni Ventures certainly sees clustering around strong quantum schools like MIT, Harvard, and Yale, but Chris emphasizes that the “alumni angle” is secondary to the quality of the venture deal.
• Mature tech‑transfer offices and standard Delaware C‑corps mean spinning out quantum IP from universities is now a well‑trodden path.
• Chris leans heavily on network effects—Alumni Ventures’ 800,000‑person network and 1,300‑company CEO base—as a key channel for discovering the most interesting quantum startups.

Managing risk in a 100‑hardware‑company world

• With dozens of hardware approaches now in play, Chris uses Alumni Ventures’ co‑investor model and lead‑investor diligence as a filter rather than picking purely on physics bets.
• He looks for teams with credible near‑term commercial pathways and for mechanisms like sensing or middleware that can create value even if fault‑tolerant systems arrive later than hoped.
• He compares quantum to past enabling waves like nanotech, where the biggest impact often shows up as incremental improvements rather than a single “big bang” moment.

Democratizing access to quantum venture

• Alumni Ventures allows accredited investors to join its free syndicate, self‑attest accreditation, and then see deal materials—watermarked and under NDA—for individual investments, including quantum.
• Chris encourages people to think in terms of diversified funds (20–30 deals per fund year) rather than only picking single names in what is a power‑law asset class.
• He frames quantum as a long‑duration infrastructure play with near‑term pockets of usefulness, where venture can help investors participate in the upside without getting ahead of reality.

Alejandra Y. Castillo, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development and now Chancellor Senior Fellow for Economic Development at Purdue University Northwest, joins your host, Sebastian Hassinger, to discuss how quantum technologies can drive inclusive regional economic growth and workforce development. She shares lessons from federal policy, Midwest tech hubs, and cross-state coalitions working to turn quantum from lab research into broad-based opportunity.

Themes and key insights

• Quantum as near-term and multi-faceted: Castillo pushes back on the idea that quantum is distant, emphasizing that computing, sensing, and communications are already maturing and attracting serious investment from traditional industries like biopharma.
• From federal de-risking to regional ecosystems: She describes the federal role as de-risking early innovation through programs under the CHIPS and Science Act while stressing that long-term success depends on regional coalitions across states, universities, industry, philanthropy, and local government.
• Inclusive workforce and supply-chain planning: Castillo argues that “quantum workforce” must go beyond PhDs to include a mapped ecosystem of jobs, skills, suppliers, housing, and infrastructure so that local communities see quantum as opportunity, not displacement.
• National security, urgency, and inclusion: She frames sustained quantum investment as both an economic and national security imperative, warning that inconsistent U.S. funding risks falling behind foreign competitors while also noting that private capital alone may ignore inclusion and regional equity.

Notable quotes

• “We either focus on the urgency or we’re going to have to focus on the emergency.”
• “No one state is going to do this… This is a regional play that we will be called to answer for the sake of a national security play as well.”
• “We want to make sure that entire regions can actually reposition themselves from an economic perspective, so that people can stay in the places they call home—now we’re talking about quantum.”
• “Are we going to make that same mistake again, or should we start to think about and plan how quantum is going to also impact us?”

Articles, papers, and initiatives mentioned

• America's quantum future depends on regional ecosystems like Chicago's — Alejandra’s editorial in Crain’s Chicago Business calling for sustained, coordinated investment in quantum as a national security and economic priority, highlighting the role of the Midwest and tech hubs.
• CHIPS and Science Act (formerly “Endless Frontier”) — U.S. legislation that authorized large-scale funding for semiconductors and science, enabling EDA’s Tech Hubs and NSF’s Engines programs to back regional coalitions in emerging technologies like quantum.
• EDA Tech Hubs and NSF Engines programs — Federal initiatives that fund multi-state consortiums combining universities, companies, and civic organizations to build durable regional innovation ecosystems, including quantum-focused hubs in the Midwest.
• National Quantum Algorithms Center — This center explores quantum algorithms for real-world problems such as natural disasters and biopharma discovery, aiming to connect quantum advances directly to societal challenges.
• Roberts Impact Lab at Purdue Northwest (with Quantum Corridor) – A testbed and workforce development center focused on quantum, AI, and post-quantum cryptography, designed to prepare local talent and companies for quantum-era applications.
• Chicago Quantum Exchange and regional partners (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin) – A multi-university and multi-state collaboration that pioneered a model for regional quantum ecosystems.

In this episode of The New Quantum Era, your host Sebastian Hassinger is joined by Chetan Nayak, Technical Fellow at Microsoft, professor of physics at the University of California Santa Barbara, and driving force behind Microsoft's quantum hardware R&D program. They discuss a modality of qubit that has not been covered on the podcast before, based on Majorana fermonic behaviors, which have the promise of providing topological protection against the errors which are such a challenge to quantum computing.

Guest Bio

•  Chetan Nayak is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft and leads the company’s topological quantum hardware program, including the Majorana‑1 processor based on Majorana‑zero‑mode qubits. 
•  He is also a professor of physics at UCSB and a leading theorist in topological phases of matter, non‑Abelian anyons, and topological quantum computation. 
•  Chetan co‑founded Microsoft’s Station Q  in 2005, building a bridge from theoretical proposals for topological qubits to engineered semiconductor–superconductor devices. 

What we talk about

•  Chetan’s first exposure to quantum computing in Peter Shor’s lectures at the Institute for Advanced Study, and how that intersected with his PhD work with Frank Wilczek on non‑Abelian topological phases and Majorana zero modes. 
•  The early days of topological quantum computation: fractional quantum Hall states at , emergent quasiparticles, and the realization that braiding these excitations naturally implements Clifford gates. 
•  How Alexei Kitaev’s toric‑code and Majorana‑chain ideas connected abstract topology to concrete condensed‑matter systems, and led to Chetan’s collaboration with Michael Freedman and Sankar Das Sarma. 
•  The 2005 proposal for a gallium‑arsenide quantum Hall device realizing a topological qubit, and the founding of Station Q to turn such theoretical blueprints into experimental devices in partnership with academic labs. 
•  Why Microsoft pivoted from quantum Hall platforms to semiconductor–superconductor nanowires: leveraging the Fu–Kane proximity effect, spin–orbit‑coupled semiconductors, and a huge material design space—while wrestling with the challenges of interfaces and integration. 
•  The evolution of the tetron architecture: two parallel topological nanowires with four Majorana zero modes, connected by a trivial superconducting wire and coupled to quantum dots that enable native Z‑ and X‑parity loop measurements. 
•  How topological superconductivity allows a superconducting island to host even or odd total electron parity without a local signature, and why that nonlocal encoding provides hardware‑level protection for the qubit’s logical 0 and 1. 
•  Microsoft’s roadmap in a 2D “quality vs. complexity” space: improving topological gap, readout signal‑to‑noise, and measurement fidelity while scaling from single tetrons to error‑corrected logical qubits and, ultimately, utility‑scale systems. 
•  Error correction on top of topological qubits: using surface codes and Hastings–Haah Floquet codes with native two‑qubit parity measurements, and targeting hundreds of physical tetrons per logical qubit and thousands of logical qubits for applications like Shor’s algorithm and quantum chemistry. 
•  Engineering for scale: digital, on–off control of quantum‑dot couplings; cryogenic CMOS to fan out control lines inside the fridge; and why tetron size and microsecond‑scale operations sit in a sweet spot for both physics and classical feedback. 
•  Where things stand today: the Majorana‑1 chiplet, recent tetron loop‑measurement experiments, DARPA’s US2QC program, and how external users—starting with government and academic partners—will begin to access these devices before broader Azure Quantum integration. 

Papers and resources mentioned
These are representative papers and resources that align with topics and allusions in the conversation; they are good entry points if you want to go deeper.

• Non‑Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation – S. Das Sarma, M. Freedman, C. Nayak, Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, 1083 (2008); 
  Early device proposals

• Sankar Das Sarma, Michael Freedman, and Chetan Nayak, “Topological quantum computation,” Physics Today 59(7), 32–38 (July 2006).
• Roadmap to fault‑tolerant quantum computation using topological qubits – C. Nayak et al., arXiv:2502.12252. 
• Distinct lifetimes for X and Z loop measurements in a Majorana tetron - C. Nayaak et al., arXiv:2507.08795.
• Majorana qubit codes that also correct odd-weight errors - S. Kundu and B. Reichardt, arXiv:2311.01779. 
• Microsoft's Majorana 1 chip carves new path for quantum computing, Microsoft blog post 

In this episode of The New Quantum Era, Sebastian talks with Hrant Gharibyan, CEO and co‑founder of BlueQubit, about “peaked circuits” and the challenge of verifying quantum advantage. They unpack Scott Aaronson and Yuxuan Zhang’s original peaked‑circuit proposal, BlueQubit’s scalable implementation on real hardware, and a new public challenge that invites the community to attack their construction using the best classical algorithms available. Along the way, they explore how this line of work connects to cryptography, hardness assumptions, and the near‑term role of quantum devices as powerful scientific instruments.

Topics Covered

• Why verifying quantum advantage is hard The core problem: if a quantum device claims to solve a task that is classi-cally intractable, how can anyone check that it did the right thing? Random circuit sampling (as in Google’s 2019 “supremacy” experiment and follow‑on work from Google and Quantinuum) is believed to be classically hard to simulate, but the verification metrics (like cross‑entropy benchmarking) are themselves classically intractable at scale.
• What are peaked circuits? Aaronson and Zhang’s idea: construct circuits that look like random circuits in every respect, but whose output distribution secretly has one special bit string with an anomalously high probability (the “peak”). The designer knows the secret bit string, so a quantum device can be verified by checking that measurement statistics visibly reveal the peak in a modest number of shots, while finding that same peak classically should be as hard as simulating a random circuit.
• BlueQubit’s scalable construction and hardware demo BlueQubit extended the original 24‑qubit, simulator‑based peaked‑circuit construction to much larger sizes using new classical protocols. Hrant explains their protocol for building peaked circuits on Quantinuum’s H2 processor with around 56 qubits, thousands of gates, and effectively all‑to‑all connectivity, while still hiding a single secret bit string that appears as a clear peak when run on the device.
• Obfuscation tricks and “quantum steganography” The team uses multiple obfuscation layers (including “swap” and “sweeping” tricks) to transform simple peaked circuits into ones that are statistically indistinguishable from generic random circuits, yet still preserve the hidden peak.
• The BlueQubit Quantum Advantage Challenge To stress‑test their hardness assumptions, BlueQubit has published concrete circuits and launched a public bounty (currently a quarter of a bitcoin) for anyone who can recover the secret bit string classically. The aim is to catalyze work on better classical simulation and de‑quantization techniques; either someone closes the gap (forcing the protocol to evolve) or the standing bounty helps establish public trust that the task really is classically infeasible.
• Potential cryptographic angles Although the main focus is verification of quantum advantage, Hrant outlines how the construction has a cryptographic flavor: a secret bit string effectively acts as a key, and only a sufficiently powerful quantum device can efficiently “decrypt” it by revealing the peak. Variants of the protocol could, in principle, yield schemes that are classically secure but only decryptable by quantum hardware, and even quantum‑plus‑key secure, though this remains speculative and secondary to the verification use case. 
• From verification protocol to startup roadmap Hrant positions BlueQubit as an algorithm and capability company: deeply hardware‑aware, but focused on building and analyzing advantage‑style algorithms tailored to specific devices. The peaked‑circuit work is one pillar in a broader effort that includes near‑term scientific applications in condensed‑matter physics and materials (e.g., Fermi–Hubbard models and out‑of‑time‑ordered correlators) where quantum devices can already probe regimes beyond leading classical methods.
• Scientific advantage today, commercial advantage tomorrow Sebastian and Hrant emphasize that the first durable quantum advantages are likely to appear in scientific computing—acting as exotic lab instruments for physicists, chemists, and materials scientists—well before mass‑market “killer apps” arrive. Once robust, verifiable scientific advantage is established, scaling to larger models and more complex systems becomes a question of engineering, with clear lines of sight to industrial impact in sectors like pharmaceuticals, advanced materials, and manufacturing.

The challenge: https://app.bluequbit.io/hackathons/

Episode overview
This episode of The New Quantum Era features a conversation with Quantum Brilliance co‑founder and CEO Mark Luo and independent board chair Brian Wong about diamond nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers as a platform for both quantum computing and quantum sensing. The discussion covers how NV centers work, what makes diamond‑based qubits attractive at room temperature, and how to turn a lab technology into a scalable product and business.

What are diamond NV qubits? 
Mark explains how nitrogen vacancy centers in synthetic diamond act as stable room‑temperature qubits, with a nitrogen atom adjacent to a missing carbon atom creating a spin system that can be initialized and read out optically or electronically. The rigidity and thermal properties of diamond remove the need for cryogenics, complex laser setups, and vacuum systems, enabling compact, low‑power quantum devices that can be deployed in standard environments.

Quantum sensing to quantum computing 
NV centers are already enabling ultra‑sensitive sensing, from nanoscale MRI and quantum microscopy to magnetometry for GPS‑free navigation and neurotech applications using diamond chips under growing brain cells. Mark and Brian frame sensing not as a hedge but as a volume driver that builds the diamond supply chain, pushes costs down, and lays the manufacturing groundwork for future quantum computing chips.

Fabrication, scalability, and the value chain 
A key theme is the shift from early “shotgun” vacancy placement in diamond to a semiconductor‑style, wafer‑like process with high‑purity material, lithography, characterization, and yield engineering. Brian characterizes Quantum Brilliance’s strategy as “lab to fab”: deciding where to sit in the value chain, leveraging the existing semiconductor ecosystem, and building a partner network rather than owning everything from chips to compilers.

Devices, roadmaps, and hybrid nodes 
Quantum Brilliance has deployed room‑temperature systems with a handful of physical qubits at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Fraunhofer IAF, and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. Their roadmap targets application‑specific quantum computing with useful qubit counts toward the end of this decade, and lunchbox‑scale, fault‑tolerant systems with on the order of 50–60 logical qubits in the mid‑2030s.

Modality tradeoffs and business discipline 
Mark positions diamond NV qubits as mid‑range in both speed and coherence time compared with superconducting and trapped‑ion systems, with their differentiator being compute density, energy efficiency, and ease of deployment rather than raw gate speed. Brian brings four decades of experience in semiconductors, batteries, lidar, and optical networking to emphasize milestones, early revenue from sensing, and usability—arguing that making quantum devices easy to integrate and operate is as important as the underlying physics for attracting partners, customers, and investors.

Partners and ecosystem 
The episode underscores how collaborations with institutions such as Oak Ridge, Fraunhofer, and Pawsey, along with industrial and defense partners, help refine real‑world requirements and ensure the technology solves concrete problems rather than just hitting abstract benchmarks. By co‑designing with end users and complementary hardware and software vendors, Quantum Brilliance aims to “democratize” access to quantum devices, moving them from specialized cryogenic labs to desks, edge systems, and embedded platforms.

Episode overview
John Martinis, Nobel laureate and former head of Google’s quantum hardware effort, joins Sebastian Hassinger on The New Quantum Era to trace the arc of superconducting quantum circuits—from the first demonstrations of macroscopic quantum tunneling in the 1980s to today’s push for wafer-scale, manufacturable qubit processors. The episode weaves together the physics of “synthetic atoms” built from Josephson junctions, the engineering mindset needed to turn them into reliable computers, and what it will take for fabrication to unlock true large-scale quantum systems.

Guest bio
John M. Martinis is a physicist whose experiments on superconducting circuits with John Clarke and Michel Devoret at UC Berkeley established that a macroscopic electrical circuit can exhibit quantum tunneling and discrete energy levels, work recognized by the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.” He went on to lead the superconducting quantum computing effort at Google, where his team demonstrated large-scale, programmable transmon-based processors, and now heads Qolab (also referred to in the episode as CoLab), a startup focused on advanced fabrication and wafer-scale integration of superconducting qubits.

Martinis’s career sits at the intersection of precision instrumentation and systems engineering, drawing on a scientific “family tree” that runs from Cambridge through John Clarke’s group at Berkeley, with strong theoretical influence from Michel Devoret and deep exposure to ion-trap work by Dave Wineland and Chris Monroe at NIST. Today his work emphasizes solving the hardest fabrication and wiring challenges—pursuing high-yield, monolithic, wafer-scale quantum processors that can ultimately host tens of thousands of reproducible qubits on a single 300 mm wafer.

Key topics

• Macroscopic quantum tunneling on a chip: How Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis used a current-biased Josephson junction to show that a macroscopic circuit variable obeys quantum mechanics, with microwave control revealing discrete energy levels and tunneling between states—laying the groundwork for superconducting qubits. The episode connects this early work directly to the Nobel committee’s citation and to today’s use of Josephson circuits as “synthetic atoms” for quantum computing.
• From DC devices to microwave qubits: Why early Josephson devices were treated as low-frequency, DC elements, and how failed experiments pushed Martinis and collaborators to re-engineer their setups with careful microwave filtering, impedance control, and dilution refrigerators—turning noisy circuits into clean, quantized systems suitable for qubits. This shift to microwave control and readout becomes the through-line from macroscopic tunneling experiments to modern transmon qubits and multi-qubit gates.
• Synthetic atoms vs natural atoms: The contrast between macroscopic “synthetic atoms” built from capacitors, inductors, and Josephson junctions and natural atomic systems used in ion-trap and neutral-atom experiments by groups such as Wineland and Monroe at NIST, where single-atom control made the quantum nature more obvious. The conversation highlights how both approaches converged on single-particle control, but with very different technological paths and community cultures.
• Ten-year learning curve for devices: How roughly a decade of experiments on quantum noise, energy levels, and escape rates in superconducting devices built confidence that these circuits were “clean enough” to support serious qubit experiments, just as early demonstrations such as Yasunobu Nakamura’s single-Cooper-pair box showed clear two-level behavior. This foundational work set the stage for the modern era of superconducting quantum computing across academia and industry.
• Surface code and systems thinking: Why Martinis immersed himself in the surface code, co-authoring a widely cited tutorial-style paper “Surface codes: Towards practical large-scale quantum computation” (Austin G. Fowler, Matteo Mariantoni, John M. Martinis, Andrew N. Cleland, Phys. Rev. A 86, 032324, 2012; arXiv:1208.0928), to translate error-correction theory into something experimentalists could build. He describes this as a turning point that reframed his work at UC Santa Barbara and Google around full-system design rather than isolated device physics.
• Fabrication as the new frontier: Martinis argues that the physics of decent transmon-style qubits is now well understood and that the real bottleneck is industrial-grade fabrication and wiring, not inventing ever more qubit variants. His company’s roadmap targets wafer-scale integration—e.g., ~100-qubit test chips scaling toward ~20,000 qubits on a 300 mm wafer—with a focus on yield, junction reproducibility, and integrated escape wiring rather than current approaches that tile many 100-qubit dies into larger systems.
• From lab racks of cables to true integrated circuits: The episode contrasts today’s dilution-refrigerator setups—dominated by bulky wiring and discrete microwave components—with the vision of a highly integrated superconducting “IC” where most of that wiring is brought on-chip. Martinis likens the current state to pre-IC TTL logic full of hand-wired boards and sees monolithic quantum chips as the necessary analog of CMOS integration for classical computing.
• Venture timelines vs physics timelines: A candid discussion of the mismatch between typical three-to-five-year venture capital expectations and the multi-decade arc of foundational technologies like CMOS and, now, quantum computing. Martinis suggests that the most transformative work—such as radically improved junction fabrication—looks slow and uncompetitive in the short term but can yield step-change advantages once it matures.
• Physics vs systems-engineering mindsets: How Martinis’s “instrumentation family tree” and exposure to both American “build first, then understand” and French “analyze first, then build” traditions shaped his approach, and how system engineering often pushes him to challenge ideas that don’t scale. He frames this dual mindset as both a superpower and a source of tension when working in large organizations used to more incremental science-driven projects.
• Collaboration, competition, and pre-competitive science: Reflections on the early years when groups at Berkeley, Saclay, UCSB, NIST, and elsewhere shared results openly, pushing the field forward without cut-throat scooping, before activity moved into more corporate settings around 2010. Martinis emphasizes that many of the hardest scaling problems—especially in materials and fabrication—would benefit from deeper cross-organization collaboration, even as current business constraints limit what can be shared.

Papers and research discussed

• “Energy-Level Quantization in the Zero-Voltage State of a Current-Biased Josephson Junction” – John M. Martinis, Michel H. Devoret, John Clarke, Physical Review Letters 55, 1543 (1985). First clear observation of quantized energy levels and macroscopic quantum tunneling in a Josephson circuit, forming a core part of the work recognized by the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. Link: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.55.1543
• “Quantum Mechanics of a Macroscopic Variable: The Phase Difference of a Josephson Junction” – J. Clarke et al., Science 239, 992 (1988). Further development of macroscopic quantum tunneling and wave-packet dynamics in current-biased Josephson junctions, demonstrating that a circuit-scale degree of freedom behaves as a quantum variable. Link (PDF via Cleland group):

Thomas Monz, CEO of AQT (Alpine Quantum Technologies), joins Sebastian Hassinger on The New Quantum Era to chart the evolution of ion-trap quantum computing — from the earliest breakthroughs in Innsbruck to the latest roll-outs in supercomputing centers and on the cloud. Drawing on a career that spans pioneering research and entrepreneurial grit, Thomas details how AQT is bridging the gap between academic innovation and practical, scalable systems for real-world users. The conversation traverses AQT’s trajectory from component supplier to systems integrator, how standard 19-inch racks and open APIs are making quantum computing accessible in Europe’s top HPC centers, what Thomas anticipates from AQT launching on Amazon Braket, a quantum computing service from AWS, and what it will take for quantum to deliver genuine economic value.

Guest Bio  
Thomas Monz is the CEO and co-founder of AQT. A physicist by training, his work has helped transform trapped-ion quantum computing from a fundamental research topic into a commercially viable technology. After formative stints in quantum networks, high-precision measurement, and hands-on engineering, Thomas launched AQT alongside Peter Zoller and Rainer Blatt to make robust, scalable quantum computers available far beyond the university lab. He continues to be deeply engaged in both hardware development and quantum error correction research, with AQT now deploying systems at EuroHPC centers and bringing devices to Amazon Braket.

Key Topics  

• From research prototype to rack-ready: How the pain points converting lab experiments into user-friendly hardware led AQT to build its quantum computers in the same form factors and standards as classical infrastructure, making plug-and-play integration with the supercomputing world possible.  
• Hybrid quantum–HPC deployments: Why systems-level thinking and classic IT lessons (such as respecting 19-inch rack and power standards) have enabled AQT to place ion-trap quantum computers in Germany and Poland as part of the EuroHPC initiative — and why abstraction at the API level is essential for developer adoption.  
• Error correction and code flexibility: How the physical properties of trapped ions let AQT remain agnostic to changing error-correcting codes (from repetition and surface codes to LDPC), enabling swift adaptation to new breakthroughs via software rather than expensive new hardware — and why end-users should never have to think about error correction themselves.  
• Scaling and networking: The challenges moving from one-dimensional to two-dimensional traps, the emerging role of integrated photonics, and AQT’s vision for interconnecting quantum computers within and across HPC sites using telecom-wavelength photons.  
• From local to cloud: What AQT’s move to Amazon Braket means for the range and sophistication of end-user applications, and how broad commercial access is shifting priorities from scientific exploration to real-world performance and customer-driven features.  
• Collaboration as leverage: How AQT’s open approach to integration—letting partners handle job scheduling, APIs, and orchestration—positions it as a technology supplier while benefiting from advances across Europe’s quantum ecosystem.

Why It Matters 
AQT’s journey illustrates how “physics-first” quantum innovation is finally crossing into scalable, reliable real-world systems. By prioritizing integration, user experience, and abstraction, AQT is closing the gap between experimental platforms and actionable quantum advantage. From better error rates and hybrid deployments to global cloud infrastructure, the work Thomas describes signals a maturing industry rapidly moving toward both commercial impact and new scientific discoveries.

Episode Highlights  

• How Thomas’s PhD work helped implement the first three-qubit ion-trap gates and formed the foundation for AQT’s technical strategy.  
• The pivotal insight: moving from bespoke lab systems to standardized products allowed quantum hardware to be deployed at scale.  
• The surprisingly smooth physical deployment of AQT machines across Europe, thanks to a “box-on-a-truck” design.  
• Real talk on error correction, the importance of LDPC codes, and the flexibility built into trapped-ion architectures.  
• The future of quantum networking: sending entangled photons between HPC facilities, and the promise of scalable cluster architectures.  
• What cloud access brings to the roadmap, including new end-user requirements and opportunities for innovation in error correction as a service.

---- 

This episode offers an insider’s perspective on the tight coupling of science and engineering required to bring quantum computing out of the lab and into industry. Thomas’s journey is a case study in building both technology and market readiness — critical listening for anyone tracking the real-world ascent of quantum computers. In the spirit of full disclosure, Sebastian is an employee of AWS, working on quantum computing for the company, though he is not a member of the Braket service team. 

Quantum Materials and Nano-Fabrication with Javad Shabani

Guest: Dr. Javad Shabani is Professor of Physics at NYU, where he directs both the Center for Quantum Information Physics and the NYU Quantum Institute. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 2011, followed by postdoctoral research at Harvard and UC Santa Barbara in collaboration with Microsoft Research. His research focuses on novel states of matter at superconductor-semiconductor interfaces, mesoscopic physics in low-dimensional systems, and quantum device development. He is an expert in molecular beam epitaxy growth of hybrid quantum materials and has made pioneering contributions to understanding fractional quantum Hall states and topological superconductivity.

Episode Overview

Professor Javad Shabani shares his journey from electrical engineering to the frontiers of quantum materials research, discussing his pioneering work on semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems, topological qubits, and the development of scalable quantum device fabrication techniques. The conversation explores his current work at NYU, including breakthrough research on germanium-based Josephson junctions and the launch of the NYU Quantum Institute.

Key Topics Discussed

Early Career and Quantum Journey
Javad describes his unconventional path into quantum physics, beginning with a double major in electrical engineering and physics at Sharif University of Technology after discovering John Preskill's open quantum information textbook. His graduate work at Princeton focused on the quantum Hall effect, particularly investigating the enigmatic five-halves fractional quantum Hall state and its potential connection to non-abelian anyons.

From Spin Qubits to Topological Quantum Computing
During his PhD, Javad worked with Jason Petta and Mansur Shayegan on early spin qubit experiments, experiencing firsthand the challenge of controlling single quantum dots. His postdoctoral work at Harvard with Charlie Marcus focused on scaling from one to two qubits, revealing the immense complexity of nanofabrication and materials science required for quantum control. This experience led him to topological superconductivity at UC Santa Barbara, where he collaborated with Microsoft Research on semiconductor-superconductor heterostructures.

Planar Josephson Junctions and Material Innovation
At NYU, Javad's group developed planar two-dimensional Josephson junctions using indium arsenide semiconductors with aluminum superconductors, moving away from one-dimensional nanowires toward more scalable fabrication approaches. In 2018-2019, his team published groundbreaking results in Physical Review Letters showing signatures of topological phase transitions in these hybrid systems.

Gatemon Qubits and Hybrid Systems
The conversation explores Javad's recent work on gatemon qubits—gate-tunable superconducting transmon qubits that leverage semiconductor properties for fast switching in the nanosecond regime. While indium arsenide's piezoelectric properties may limit qubit coherence, the material shows promise as a fast coupler between qubits. This research, published in Physical Review X, represents a convergence of superconducting circuit techniques with semiconductor physics.

Breakthrough in Germanium-Based Devices
Javad reveals exciting forthcoming research accepted in Nature Nanotechnology on creating vertical Josephson junctions entirely from germanium. By doping germanium with gallium to make it superconducting, then alternating with undoped semiconducting germanium, his team has achieved wafer-scale fabrication of three-layer superconductor-semiconductor-superconductor junctions. This approach enables placing potentially 20 million junctions on a single wafer, opening pathways toward CMOS-compatible quantum device manufacturing.

NYU Quantum Institute and Regional Ecosystem
The episode discusses the launch of the NYU Quantum Institute under Javad's leadership, designed to coordinate quantum research across physics, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science. The Institute aims to connect fundamental research with application-focused partners in finance, insurance, healthcare, and communications throughout New York City. Javad describes NYU's quantum networking project with five nodes across Manhattan and Brooklyn, leveraging NYU's distributed campus fiber infrastructure for short-distance quantum communication.

Academic Collaboration and the New York Quantum Ecosystem
Javad explains how NYU collaborates with Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, RPI, Stevens Institute, and City College to build a Northeast quantum corridor. The annual New York Quantum Summit (now in its fourth year) brings together academics, government labs including AFRL and Brookhaven, consulting firms, and industry partners. This regional approach complements established hubs like the Chicago Quantum Exchange while addressing New York's unique strengths in finance and dense urban infrastructure.

Materials Science Challenges and Interfaces
The conversation delves into fundamental materials science puzzles, particularly the asymmetric nature of material interfaces. Javad explains how material A may grow well on material B, but B cannot grow on A due to polar interface incompatibilities—a critical challenge for vertical device fabrication. He draws parallels to aluminum oxide Josephson junctions, where the bottom interface is crystalline but the top interface grows on amorphous oxide, potentially contributing to two-level system noise.

Industry Integration and Practical Applications
Javad discusses NYU's connections to chip manufacturing through the CHIPS Act, linking academic research with 200-300mm wafer-scale operations at NY Creates. His group also participates in the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA)  based at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Notable Quotes

"Behind every great experimentalist, there is a greater theorist."

"A lot of these kind of application things, the end users are basically in big cities, including New York...people who care at finance financial institutions, people like insurance, medical for sensing and communication."

"You don't wanna spend time on doing the exact same thing...but I do feel we need to be more and bigger."

Vijoy Pandey joins Sebastian Hassinger for this episode of The New Quantum Era to discuss Cisco's ambitious vision for quantum networking—not as a far-future technology, but as infrastructure that solves real problems today. Leading Outshift by Cisco, their incubation group and Cisco Research, Vijoy explains how quantum networks are closer than quantum computers, why distributed quantum computing is the path to scale, and how entanglement-based protocols can tackle immediate classical challenges in security, synchronization, and coordination. The conversation spans from Vijoy's origin story building a Hindi chatbot in the late 1980s to Cisco's groundbreaking room-temperature quantum entanglement chip developed with UC Santa Barbara, and explores use cases from high-frequency trading to telescope array synchronization.

Guest Bio
Vijoy Pandey is Senior Vice President at Outshift by Cisco, the company's internal incubation group, where he also leads Cisco Research and Cisco Developer Relations (DevNet). His career in computing began in high school building AI chatbots, eventually leading him through distributed systems and software engineering roles including time at Google. At Cisco, Vijoy oversees a portfolio spanning quantum networking, security, observability, and emerging technologies, operating at the intersection of research and product incubation within the company's Chief Strategy Office.

Key Topics
From research to systems: How Cisco's quantum work is transitioning from physics research to systems engineering, focusing on operability, deployment, and practical applications rather than building quantum computers.
The distributed quantum computing vision: Cisco's North Star is building quantum network fabric that enables scale-out distributed quantum computing across heterogeneous QPU technologies (trapped ion, superconducting, etc.) within data centers and between them—making "the quantum network the solution" to quantum's scaling problem and classical computing's physics problem.
Room-temperature entanglement chip: Cisco and UC Santa Barbara developed a prototype photonic chip that generates 200 million entangled photon pairs per second at room temperature, telecom wavelengths, and less than 1 milliwatt power—enabling deployment on existing fiber infrastructure without specialized equipment.
Classical use cases today: How quantum networking protocols solve present-day problems in synchronization (global database clocks, telescope arrays), decision coordination (high-frequency trading across geographically distributed exchanges), and security (intrusion detection using entanglement collapse) without requiring massive qubit counts or cryogenic systems.
Quantum telepathy for HFT: The concept of using entanglement and teleportation to coordinate decisions across locations faster than the speed of light allows classical communication—enabling fairness guarantees for high-frequency trading across data centers in different cities.
Meeting customers where they are: Cisco's strategy to deploy quantum networking capabilities alongside existing classical infrastructure, supporting a spectrum from standard TLS to post-quantum cryptography to QKD, rather than requiring greenfield deployments.
The transduction grand challenge: Why building the "NIC card" that connects quantum processors to quantum networks—the transducer—is the critical bottleneck for distributed quantum computing and the key technical risk Cisco is addressing.
Product-company fit in corporate innovation: How Outshift operates like internal startups within Cisco, focusing on problems adjacent to the company's four pillars (networking, security, observability, collaboration) with both technology risk and market risk, while maintaining agility through a framework adapted from Cisco's acquisition integration playbook.

Why It Matters
Cisco's systems-level approach to quantum networking represents a paradigm shift from viewing quantum as distant future technology to infrastructure deployable today for specific high-value use cases. By focusing on room-temperature, telecom-compatible entanglement sources and software stacks that integrate with existing networks, Cisco is positioning quantum networking as the bridge between classical and quantum computing worlds—potentially accelerating practical quantum applications from decades away to 5-10 years while solving immediate enterprise challenges in security and coordination.

Episode Highlights
Vijoy's journey from building Hindi chatbots on a BBC Micro in the late 1980s to leading quantum innovation at Cisco. 
Why quantum networking is "here and now" while quantum computing is still being figured out. 
The spectrum of quantum network applications: from near-term classical coordination problems to the long-term quantum internet connecting quantum data centers and sensors. 
How entanglement enables provable intrusion detection on standard fiber networks alongside classical IP traffic. 
The "step function moment" coming for quantum: why the transition from physics to systems engineering means a ChatGPT-like breakthrough is imminent, and why this one will be harder to catch up on than software-based revolutions. 
Design partner collaborations with financial services, federal agencies, and energy companies on security and synchronization use cases.
Cisco's quantum software stack prototypes: Quantum Compiler (for distributed quantum error correction), Quantum Alert (security), and QuantumSync (decision coordination)."

This episode is a first for the show - a repeat of a previously posted interview on The New Quantum Era podcast! I think you'll agree the reason for the repeat is a great one - this episode, recorded at the APS Global Summit in March, features a conversation John Martinis, co-founder and CTO of QoLab and newly minted Nobel Laureate! Last week the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made an announcement that John would share the 2025 Nobel Prize for Physics with John Clarke and Michel Devoret “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.” It should come as no surprise that John and I talked about macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantization in electrical circuits, since those are precisely the attributes that make a superconducting qubit work for computation.  

The work John is doing at Qolab, a superconducting qubit company seeking to build a million qubit device, is really impressive, as befits a Nobel Laureate and a pioneer in the field. In our conversation we explore the strategic shifts, collaborative efforts, and technological innovations that are pushing the boundaries of quantum computing closer to building scalable, million-qubit systems. 

Key Highlights

• Emerging from Stealth Mode & Million-Qubit System Paper:
  • Discussion on QoLab’s transition from stealth mode and their comprehensive paper on building scalable million-qubit systems.
  • Focus on a systematic approach covering the entire stack.
• Collaboration with Semiconductor Companies:
  • Unique business model emphasizing collaboration with semiconductor companies to leverage external expertise.
  • Comparison with bigger players like Google, who can fund the entire stack internally.
• Innovative Technological Approaches:
  • Integration of wafer-scale technology and advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes.
  • Emphasis on adjustable qubits and adjustable couplers for optimizing control and scalability.
• Scaling Challenges and Solutions:
  • Strategies for achieving scale, including using large dilution refrigerators and exploring optical communication for modular design.
  • Plans to address error correction and wiring challenges using brute force scaling and advanced materials.
• Future Vision and Speeding Up Development:
  • QoLab’s goal to significantly accelerate the timeline toward achieving a million-qubit system.
  • Insight into collaborations with HP Enterprises, NVIDIA, Quantum Machines, and others to combine expertise in hardware and software.
• Research Papers Mentioned in this Episode:
  • Position paper on building scalable million-qubit systems 

Pierre Desjardins is the cofounder of C12, a Paris-based quantum computing hardware startup that specializes in carbon nanotube-based spin qubits. Notably, Pierre founded the company alongside his twin brother, Mathieu, making them the only twin-led deep-tech startups that we know of! Pierre’s journey is unconventional—he is a rare founder in quantum hardware without a PhD, drawing instead on engineering and entrepreneurial experience. The episode dives into what drew him to quantum computing and the pivotal role COVID-19 played in catalyzing his career shift from consulting to quantum technology.

C12’s Technology and Unique Angle

C12 focuses on developing high-performance qubits using single-wall carbon nanotubes. Unlike companies centered on silicon or germanium spin qubits, C12 fabricates carbon nanotubes, tests them for impurities, and then assembles them on silicon chips as a final step. The team exclusively uses isotopically pure carbon-12 to minimize magnetic and nuclear spin noise, yielding a uniquely clean environment for electron confinement. This yields ultra-low charge noise and enables the company to build highly coherent qubits with remarkable material purity.

Key Technical Innovations

• Spin-Photon Coupling: C12’s system stands out for driving spin qubits using microwave photons, drawing inspiration from superconducting qubit architectures. This enables the implementation of a “quantum bus”—a superconducting interconnect that allows long-range coupling between distant qubits, sidestepping the scaling bottleneck of nearest-neighbor architectures.
• Addressable Qubits: Each carbon nanotube qubit can be tuned on or off the quantum bus by manipulating the double quantum dot confinement, providing flexible connectivity and the ability to maximize coherence in a memory mode.
• Stability and Purity: Pierre emphasizes that C12’s suspended architecture dramatically reduces charge noise and results in exceptional stability, with minimal calibration drift, over years-long measurement campaigns—a stark contrast with many superconducting platforms.

Recent Milestones

C12 celebrated its fifth anniversary and recently demonstrated the first qubit operation on their platform. The company achieved ultra-long coherence times for spin qubits coupled via a quantum bus, publishing these results in *Nature*. The next milestone is demonstrating two-qubit gates mediated by microwave photons—a development that could set a new benchmark for both C12 and the wider quantum computing industry.

Challenges and Outlook

C12’s current focus is scaling up from single-qubit demonstrations to multi-qubit gates with long-range connectivity, a crucial step toward error correction and practical algorithms. Pierre notes the rapid evolution of error-correcting codes, remarking that some codes they are now working on did not exist two years ago. The interview closes with an eye on the race to demonstrate long-distance quantum gates, with Pierre hoping C12 will make industry headlines before larger competitors like IBM.

Notable Quotes

• “The more you dig into this technology, the more you understand why this is just the way to build a quantum computer.”
• “We have the lowest charge noise compared to any kind of spin qubit—this is because of our suspended architecture.”
• “What we introduced is the concept of a quantum bus… really the only way to scale spin qubits.”

Episode Themes

• Entrepreneurship in deep tech without a traditional research background
• Technical deep dive on carbon nanotube spin qubits and quantum bus architecture
• Materials science as the foundation of scalable quantum hardware
• The importance of coherence, noise reduction, and tunable architectures in quantum system design
• The dynamic evolution of error correction and industry competition

Listeners interested in cutting-edge hardware, quantum startup journeys, or the science behind scalable qubit platforms will find this episode essential. Pierre provides unique clarity on why C12’s approach offers both conceptual and practical advantages for the future of quantum computing,

Dr. Eli Levenson-Falk joins Sebastian Hassinger, host of The New Quantum Era to discuss his group’s recent advances in quantum measurement and control, focusing on a new protocol that enables measurements more sensitive than the Ramsey limit. Published in Nature Communications in April 2025, this work demonstrates a coherence stabilized technique that not only enhances sensitivity for quantum sensing but also promises improvements in calibration speed and robustness for superconducting quantum devices and other platforms. The conversation travels from Eli’s origins in physics, through the conceptual challenges of decoherence, to experimental storytelling, and highlights the collaborative foundation underpinning this breakthrough.

Guest Bio
Eli Levenson-Falk is an Associate Professor at USC. He earned his PhD at UC Berkeley with Professor Irfan Siddiqui, and now leads an experimental physics research group working with superconducting devices for quantum information science.

Key Topics

• The new protocol described in the paper: “Beating the Ramsey Limit on Sensing with Deterministic Qubit Control." 
• Beyond the Ramsey measurement: How the team’s technique stabilizes part of the quantum state for enhanced sensitivity—especially for energy level splittings—using continuous, slowly varying microwave control, applicable beyond just superconducting platforms.
•  From playground swings to qubits: Eli explains how the physics of a playground swing inspired his passion for the field and lead to his understanding of the transmon qubit, and why analogies matter for intuition.
•  Quantum decoherence and stabilization: How the method controls the “vector” of a quantum state on the Bloch sphere, dumping decoherence into directions that can be tracked or stabilized, markedly increasing measurement fidelity.
•  Calibration and practical speedup: The protocol achieves greater measurement accuracy in less time or greater accuracy for a given time investment. This has implications for both calibration routines in quantum computers and for direct quantum measurements of fields (e.g., magnetic) or material properties.
•  Applicability: While demonstrated on superconducting transmons, the protocol’s generality means it may bring improved sensitivity to a variety of platforms—though the greatest benefits will be seen where relaxation processes dominate decoherence over dephasing.
•  Collaboration and credit: The protocol was the product of a collaborative effort with theorist Daniel Lidar and his group, also at USC. In Eli's group, Malida Hecht conducted the experiment.

Why It Matters
By breaking through the Ramsey sensitivity limit, this work provides a new tool for both quantum device calibration and quantum sensing. It allows for more accurate and faster frequency calibration within quantum processors, as well as finer detection of small environmental changes—a dual-use development crucial for both scalable quantum computing and sensitive quantum detection technologies.

Episode Highlights

•  Explanation of the “Ramsey limit” in quantum measurement and why surpassing it is significant.
•  Visualization of quantum states using the Bloch sphere, and the importance of stabilizing the equatorial (phase) components for sensitivity.
•  Experimental journey from “plumber” lab work to analytic insights, showing the back-and-forth of theory confronting experiment.
•  Immediate and future impacts, from more efficient calibration in quantum computers to potentially new standards for quantum sensing.
•  Discussion of related and ongoing work, such as improvements to deterministic benchmarking for gate calibration, and the broader applicability to various quantum platforms.

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Assistant Professor Mohammad Mirhosseini (Caltech EE/APh) explains how his group built a mechanical quantum memory that stores microwave-photon quantum states far longer than typical superconducting qubits, and why that matters for hybrid quantum architectures. The discussion covers microwave photons, phonons, optomechanics, coherence versus lifetime (T2 vs. T1), current speed bottlenecks, and implications for quantum transduction and error mechanisms. The discussion centers on a paper from Mirhosseini's paper from December of 2024 titled, “A mechanical quantum memory for microwave photons,” detailing strong coupling between a transmon and a long‑lived nanomechanical oscillator for storage and retrieval of nonclassical states.

Guest

Mohammad Mirhosseini is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics at Caltech, where his group engineers hybrid superconducting–phononic–photonic systems at millikelvin temperatures for computing, communication, and sensing. He completed his PhD at the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics and was a postdoc in Oscar Painter’s group at Caltech before starting his lab. His recent team effort demonstrates mechanical oscillators as compact, long‑lived quantum memories integrated with superconducting circuits.

Key topics

• What “microwave photons” are and how qubits emit/absorb single microwave photons in circuit QED analogously to atoms and optical photons.
• Why “memory” is missing in today’s quantum processors and how a dedicated long‑lived storage element can complement fast but dissipative superconducting qubits.
• Optomechanics 101: mapping quantum states between electrical and mechanical degrees of freedom, with phonons as the quantized vibrational excitations.
• T1 vs. T2: demonstrated order‑of‑magnitude gains in lifetime (T1) and more modest current gains in coherence (T2), plus paths to mitigate dephasing.
• Present bottleneck: state conversion between qubit and oscillator is about 100× slower than native superconducting operations, with clear engineering avenues to speed up.
• Quantum transduction: leveraging the same mechanical intermediary to bridge microwave and optical domains for interconnects and networking.
• Two‑level system (TLS) defects: shared decoherence mechanisms across mechanical oscillators and superconducting circuits and why comparing both can illuminate materials limits.

Why it matters

Hybrid architectures that pair fast processors with long‑lived memories are a natural route to scaling, and mechanical oscillators offer lifetimes far exceeding conventional superconducting storage elements while remaining chip‑integrable.. Demonstrating nonclassical state storage and retrieval with strong qubit–mechanics coupling validates mechanical oscillators as practical quantum memories and sets the stage for on‑chip transduction. Overcoming current speed limits and dephasing would lower the overhead for synchronization, buffering, and possibly future fault‑tolerant protocols in superconducting platforms.

Episode highlights

• A clear explanation of microwave photons and how circuit QED lets qubits create and absorb them one by one.
• Mechanical memory concept: store quantum states as phonons in a gigahertz‑frequency nanomechanical oscillator and read them back later.
• Performance today: roughly 10–30× longer T1 than typical superconducting qubits with current T2 gains of a few×, alongside concrete strategies to extend T2.
• Speed trade‑off: present qubit–mechanics state transfer is ~100× slower than native superconducting gates, but device design and coupling improvements are underway.
• Roadmap: tighter coupling for in‑oscillator gates, microwave‑to‑optical conversion via the same mechanics, and probing TLS defects to inform both mechanical and superconducting coherence.

In this episode, host Sebastian Hassinger sits down with Xiaodi Wu, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, to discuss Wu’s journey through quantum information science, his drive for bridging computer science and physics, and the creation of the quantum programming language SimuQ.

Guest Introduction

• Xiaodi Wu shares his academic path from Tsinghua University (where he studied mathematics and physics) to a PhD at the University of Michigan, followed by postdoctoral work at MIT and a position at the University of Oregon, before joining the University of Maryland.
• The conversation highlights Wu’s formative experiences, early fascination with quantum complexity, and the impact of mentors like Andy Yao.

Quantum Computing: Theory Meets Practice

• Wu discusses his desire to blend theoretical computer science with physics, leading to pioneering work in quantum complexity theory and device-independent quantum cryptography.
• He reflects on the challenges and benefits of interdisciplinary research, and the importance of historical context in guiding modern quantum technology development.

Programming Languages and Human Factors

• The episode delves into Wu’s transition from theory to practical tools, emphasizing the major role of human factors and software correctness in building reliable quantum software.
• Wu identifies the value of drawing inspiration from classical programming languages like FORTRAN and SIMULA—and points out that quantum software must prioritize usability and debugging, not just elegant algorithms.

SimiQ: Hamiltonian-Based Quantum Abstraction

• Wu introduces SimuQ, a new quantum programming language designed to treat Hamiltonian evolution as a first-class abstraction, akin to how floating-point arithmetic is fundamental in classical computing.
• SimiQ enables users to specify Hamiltonian models directly and compiles them to both gate-based and analog/pulse-level quantum devices (including IBM, AWS Braket, and D-Wave backends).
• The language aims to make quantum simulation and continuous-variable problems more accessible, and serves as a test bed for new quantum software abstractions.

Analog vs. Digital in Quantum Computing

• Wu and Hassinger explore the analog/digital divide in quantum hardware, examining how SimuQ leverages the strengths of both by focusing on higher-level abstractions (Hamiltonians) that fit natural use cases like quantum simulation and dynamic systems.

Practical Applications and Vision

• The conversation highlights targeted domains for SimuQ, such as quantum chemistry, physics simulation, and machine learning algorithms that benefit from continuous-variable modeling.
• Wu discusses his vision for developer-friendly quantum tools, drawing parallels to the evolution of classical programming and the value of reusable abstractions for future advancements. 

Listen to The New Quantum Era podcast for more interviews with leaders in quantum computing, software development, and scientific research.

Host Sebastian Hassinger interviews Alexandre Blais, professor of physics at the Universite de Sherbrooke and scientific director of the Insitut Quantique. Alexandre discusses his academic journey, starting from his master's and PhD work in Sherbrooke, his move to Yale, and his collaborations with both theorists and experimentalists. He outlines the development of circuit QED (quantum electrodynamics) and its foundational role in the modern superconducting qubit landscape. Blais emphasizes the interplay between fundamental physics and technological progress in quantum computing, highlighting both academic contributions and partnerships with industry. He also describes the evolution and mission of Institut Quantique, stressing its role in bridging academia and the quantum industry by training talent and fostering startups in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Finally, Blais reflects on the dual promise of quantum computing—as a tool for scientific discovery and as a long-term commercial technology.

Key Themes and Points

1. Early Career and Path into Quantum Computing

• Alexandre Blais began his quantum computing journey during his master’s at Sherbrooke, inspired by a popular science article by Serge Haroche that laid out the argument for why quantum computers would never work.
• He pursued quantum studies at Sherbrooke despite a lack of local experts, showing early initiative and risk-taking.

2. Transition to Yale and Circuit QED

• Blais joined Yale for his postdoc, attracted by the strong theory–experiment collaboration.
• The Yale group pioneered "circuit QED," adapting ideas from cavity QED (single atoms in magnetic cavities) to superconducting circuits, enabling new ways to read out and control qubits.
• Circuit QED became the backbone of superconducting qubit technology, notably enabling the transmon qubit (now a dominant architecture).
• Collaborated with figures like prior guests of the podcast Steve Girvin and Rob Schoelkopf, and was a postdoc along with Jay Gambetta and Andreas Wallraff.

3. Superconducting Qubits and Research Focus

• Most of Blais’s work has centered on superconducting qubits, particularly on understanding and extending coherence times, reducing errors, and improving fabrication/design.
• Emphasizes the complex, nonlinear, and rich physics even of single-qubit systems (e.g., challenges of dispersive readout and unexpected phenomena like multiphoton resonances).
• Notes the continuing importance of deep, fundamental research despite growing industrial and engineering focus.

4. Role of Academia vs. Industry

• Growth of corporate investment (Google, IBM, Amazon, Intel) has changed the landscape.
• Blais argues that universities should focus on pushing the scientific frontier and training talent, not on building commercial-scale quantum computers.
• Academic groups can pursue high-risk, high-reward research and deeper understanding of quantum technology’s physical underpinnings.

5. Institut Quantique and Quebec’s Quantum Ecosystem

• Blais leads Institut Quantique, which supports both basic and applied quantum research and has been highly successful in fostering a local quantum startup ecosystem (e.g., SBQuantum, NordQuantique, Qubic).
• Offers entrepreneurship courses and significant seed grants (even to students and postdocs) to encourage talent retention and company creation in Sherbrooke.
• Partnership between academia, startups, and public investment has attracted international players like Pasqal and IBM, establishing Sherbrooke as a quantum technology hub.

6. Societal and Philosophical Reflections

• Fundamental challenge: making increasingly large quantum systems remain quantum despite Bohr’s assertion, via the Correspondence principle, that as a quantum system scales it will become classical.
• Quantum computers are not only future commercial tools—they are already invaluable scientific instruments, enabling new physics via experimental control of complex quantum systems.
• Blais is optimistic about quantum computing’s potential for both discovery and eventual large-scale applications.

Main Takeaways

• Building quantum computers is both a technological and fundamental scientific challenge. Even with commercial interest, deep physical understanding is essential—academic research remains vital.
• Close collaboration between theorists and experimentalists breeds breakthrough advances. Circuit QED exemplifies this synergy.
• Quantum research institutes can seed thriving tech ecosystems, if they focus on both talent training and supporting spinouts, as shown by Institut Quantique in Sherbrooke.
• Quantum computing’s greatest early impacts will likely be as scientific instruments, enabling novel experiments and discoveries, before large-scale commercial utility is achieved.
• Quantum hardware’s development continually reveals new, subtle physics; e.g., the decades-long puzzle of dispersive readout reflects the complexity inherent in scaling up quantum technology.

Notable Quotes

•  “Quantum computers will, before being commercially useful, be fantastic tools for discoveries.”
•  “What we’re trying to do is go against that very fundamental principle—we’re trying to build a bigger and bigger system that behaves ever more quantum.”
•  “There is real power in mixing theory and experiment when tackling the challenges of quantum technology.”

Listeners will enjoy a blend of scientific storytelling, personal insight, and a blueprint for building world-class quantum research hubs that advance both discovery and innovation.

In this episode, Sebastian Hassinger sits down with Bert de Jong, a leading computational chemist and Director of the Quantum Systems Accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They explore Bert’s journey from high-performance classical computing to the front lines of quantum research, his vision for the future of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative (NQI) center he leads, and the scientific and engineering challenges that will define the next era of quantum computing.

Key Topics Covered

• Career Arc: Bert reflects on his 27-year career in the national lab system, moving from classical computational chemistry and HPC to becoming a leader in quantum computing research and center management.
• Genesis of Quantum Focus: He describes his pivot to quantum in 2014, prompted by the scaling limitations of classical simulations and the promise of quantum systems to tackle “bigger and bigger” problems.
• Role of National Labs and NQI: Discussion of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative and the unique positioning of national labs in driving foundational science and cross-sector collaboration through centers like QSA.
• QSA’s Multimodal Approach: Insight into QSA’s decision not to “choose a lane,” advancing superconducting qubits, trapped ions, and neutral atoms in parallel, and the unique innovations—like integrated photonics—enabled by this breadth.
• Neutral Atom Milestones: Highlights the rapid progress in neutral atom systems (including work with QuEra and Misha Lukin), and the looming advent of devices with dozens of logical qubits and error correction.
• Logical Qubits and Error Correction: Bert explains how all quantum modalities are advancing toward error-corrected logical qubits, and why 100-logical-qubit prototypes are a realistic five-year goal.
• Scientific Impact: A discussion of what constitutes “quantum (scientific) advantage,” and why Bert believes that chemistry, materials science, high-energy, and nuclear physics will be the first domains to benefit from quantum systems unavailable to classical computing.
• Balancing Science and Engineering: Exploration of the transition from fundamental scientific challenges to applied engineering problems as quantum hardware matures—touching on device manufacturing, integrated photonics, and the symbiosis between national labs and industry partners.
• Quantum Software Innovation: Bert’s perspective on bridging researcher expertise with usable tools, including his work on open-source quantum compilers (e.g., BQSKit/biscuit) and the importance of diverse, in- terdisciplinary teams.
• Looking Ahead: Bert’s vision for the next five years: transitioning quantum from promise to prototypes that deliver real scientific results, and solidifying a collaborative ecosystem across labs, universities, and industry.

Notable Quotes

• “HPC, quantum, and AI are all just tools—what matters is how we use them to solve real science problems.”
• “We’re at the point where error-corrected quantum prototypes with 100 logical qubits and high fidelity could deliver a true scientific advantage within five years.”
• “National labs bring together deep science, advanced engineering, and a culture of collaboration that’s essential at this stage of quantum’s development.”
• “Quantum advantage isn’t a buzzword for us—it’s about doing science that can’t be done any other way.”

Episode Highlights

• Bert’s transition from classical to quantum and the pivotal role of DOE research centers.
• How QSA’s cross-modality approach both accelerates hardware and fosters cross-institutional partnerships.
• A preview of upcoming neutral-atom milestones and why industry is watching closely.
• The importance of open standards and software that supports a rapidly diversifying hardware landscape.
• The public sector’s role in driving “over the horizon” technology, derisking pathways beyond what private startups can take on alone.
• Ambitious, concrete goals for the next five years: prototype quantum systems delivering early scientific wins, not just more research papers.

If you enjoy deep dives into the intersection of science, engineering, and the future of

quantum technology, subscribe and share The New Quantum Era.

Episode Overview

Join Sebastian Hassinger in conversation with Deeya Viradia, a Gen Z voice and rising researcher in the quantum computing field. Deeya discusses her multifaceted journey—from early inspiration and undergraduate research to hackathons, quantum clubs, and her ambitions in commercialization. This episode is packed with resources, perspectives on education, and advice for newcomers in quantum technology.

Key Topics & Highlights

Deeya’s Quantum Origin Story

• Inspired by curiosity and early science exposure—especially an episode of "Martha Speaks" with Neil deGrasse Tyson—which led to an ongoing passion for exploring the unknown, from astronomy to quantum computing.
• Found her quantum footing through engineering physics at UC Berkeley and participation in the IBM Qiskit Summer School.

Building a Quantum Resume

• Gained diverse hands-on experience with UC Berkeley’s Quantum Devices Group, SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), the DoD Quantum Entanglement and Space Technologies (QuEST) Lab, and multiple quantum hackathons (MIT iQuHack Hack, Yale's Y Quantum).
• Emphasizes the breadth of opportunity for undergraduates—advocates for involvement in hackathons and clubs, even without prior quantum experience.

Theory vs. Experiment, and Academia vs. Industry

• Challenges traditional boundaries, advocating for integration: understanding both the experimental physics and the theoretical/algorithmic sides of quantum.
• Describes work at SLAC: optimizing readout for superconducting qubits, working with dilution fridges, and collaborating across national labs and Stanford.

Student Community & Entrepreneurial Drive

• Founded Q-BIT at Berkeley, a club focused on quantum computing applications and industry connections.
• Active in Berkeley’s entrepreneurship community, driven to explore how quantum research moves from lab to commercial product.

Commercialization and the Future of Quantum

• Discusses the uncertain but promising path to quantum’s economic value, highlighting interdisciplinary collaboration, communication, and cross-sector engagement.
• Strong advocate for students and non-technical communities alike to take risks, reach out, and jump into the field—because quantum needs diverse perspectives and no one knows exactly where it’s headed!

Resources Mentioned

• IBM Quantum education resources
• IBM Quantum blog - where the summer camp will be announced
• MIT iQuHack
• Yale’s Y Quantum
• Unitary Foundation
• Q-Ctrl Black Opal
• Q-BIT at Berkeley
• Qubit by Qubit
• National Q-12 Education Partnership 
• IEEE Quantum Week
• UC Berkeley Quantum Devices Group
• SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
• Entrepreneurs @ Berkeley

Host: Sebastian Hassinger
Guest: Andrew Dzurak (CEO, Diraq)

In this enlightening episode, Sebastian Hassinger interviews Professor Andrew Dzurak. Andrew is the CEO and co-founder of Diraq and concurrently a Scientia Professor in Quantum Engineering at UNSW Sydney, an ARC Laureate Fellow and a Member of the Executive Board of the Sydney Quantum Academy. Diraq is a quantum computing startup pioneering silicon spin qubits, based in Australia. The discussion delves into the technical foundations, manufacturing breakthroughs, scalability, and future roadmap of silicon-based quantum computers—all with an industrial and commercial focus.

Key Topics and Insights

1. What Sets Diraq Apart

• Diraq’s quantum computers use silicon spin qubits, differing from the industry’s more familiar modalities like superconducting, trapped ion, or neutral atom qubits.
• Their technology leverages quantum dots—tiny regions where electrons are trapped within modified silicon transistors. The quantum information is encoded in the spin direction of these trapped electrons—a method with roots stretching over two decades1.

2. Manufacturing & Scalability

• Diraq modifies standard CMOS transistors, making qubits that are tens of nanometers in size, compared to the much larger superconducting devices. This means millions of qubits can fit on a single chip.
• The company recently demonstrated high-fidelity qubit manufacturing on standard 300mm wafers at commercial foundries (GlobalFoundries, IMEC), matching or surpassing previous experimental results—all fidelity metrics above 99%.

3. Architectural Innovations

• Diraq’s chips integrate both quantum and conventional classical electronics side by side, using standard silicon design toolchains like Cadence. This enables leveraging existing chip design and manufacturing expertise, speeding progress towards scalable quantum chips.
• Movement of electrons (and thus qubits) across the chip uses CMOS bucket-brigade techniques, similar to charge-coupled devices. This means fast (<nanosecond scale) movement within the quantum processor, supporting complex quantum operations.

4. Cryogenic Operation

• Diraq’s qubits run at around 1 Kelvin, much warmer than superconducting qubits (which require millikelvin temperatures). This enables integration of classical CMOS control electronics at the same temperature layer, avoiding the wiring and cooling challenges typical in superconducting systems1.

5. Error Correction & Control

• Diraq aims for native error correction schemes adapted to their modular, but not fully 2D-grid, architecture.
• Error correction controllers (CPUs, GPUs, ASICs, FPGAs) will sit outside the fridge but integrated tightly with the quantum module, with exact architectures still under consideration.

6. Roadmap and Commercialization

• Diraq is targeting a first product release during the first half of 2029: a fully integrated quantum computer module with thousands of physical qubits, enough logical qubits for meaningful problems beyond classical supercomputing.
• Near-term (100–200 qubit) systems will be available in limited cases to select partners and governmental organizations, but the focus is on large-scale, commercially relevant systems.

7. Vision for Quantum Data Centers

• Dzurak envisions thousands of quantum processors integrated into conventional data centers, providing affordable and compact quantum computing alongside AI and HPC for applications such as drug design, materials discovery, and more.

Notable Quotes

"We've designed now a system that will go to many millions of qubits that can sit inside one single refrigeration unit, pretty much the size of a rack in a data center." — Andrew Dzurak

"If we want quantum computing to be ubiquitous ... there are going to need to be thousands of quantum computers ... integrated with high-performance computing, GPUs, and so on." — Andrew Dzurak

Episode Takeaways

• Leveraging existing silicon manufacturing and design expertise offers a promising pathway to mass adoption.
• Quantum computing at scale requires not just clever physics, but robust industrial engineering and integration with classical technologies.
• Watch for Diraq’s commercial debut of thousands-of-qubit systems by 2029, poised to play a role in future quantum-enabled data centers.

For further episodes and details, visit www.newquantumera.com or follow on Bluesky @newquantumera.com.

This episode of The New Quantum Era podcast, your host, Sebastian Hassinger, has a conversation with Dr. Charlotte Bøttcher, Assistant Professor, Stanford University. Dr. Bøttcher is an experimental physicist working with superconducting quantum devices, and shares with us her areas of focus and perspective on this critical area of materials research for quantum information science and technology.

Episode Highlights

• Meet Dr. Charlotte Bøttcher: Dr. Bøttcher shares her journey from Harvard (PhD) and Yale (postdoc with Michel Devoret) to launching her own experimental quantum materials group at Stanford. She discusses the excitement (and challenges) of building a new research lab from scratch.
• Hybrid Quantum Material Systems: The heart of the conversation centers on hybrid systems combining superconductors (aluminum) with semiconductors (indium arsenide). These materials pave the way for:
  • Tunable and switchable superconductivity—the foundation for switchable quantum devices and potential advances in quantum information technology.
  • Probing unconventional and topological superconductors, with implications for fundamental physics and exotic quantum states.
• Applications in Quantum Computing:
  • Superconductivity plays a crucial role not only in qubits themselves but also in creating tunable couplers between qubits, allowing for controlled entanglement and reduced crosstalk.
  • High-Tc superconductors (those with high critical temperatures) are discussed, including their complex, often disordered behavior—and their challenges and potential in qubit applications.
• Quantum Simulation and Sensing: Dr. Bøttcher describes her group’s efforts to use devices for simulating complex many-body quantum systems, including both bosonic and fermionic Hamiltonians. Quantum devices are also used for quantum sensing—detecting magnetic fields, charge, or collective modes in exotic materials (such as uranium-based superconductors).
• Controlling Disorder: The episode explores how adjusting electron carrier density can expose or screen disorder in materials, enabling the study of its effects on quantum properties.
• Building a New Lab: Charlotte highlights the rewarding process of establishing her own experimental lab and mentoring the next generation of quantum scientists.
• Fundamental Science vs. Application: Dr. Bøttcher emphasizes the synergy between foundational quantum research and technological development—the pursuit of basic understanding feeds directly into better qubits and devices, which in turn open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena.
• Future Directions: Looking ahead, her group aims to develop new superconducting qubits capable of operating at higher temperatures and frequencies, expand their quantum simulation platforms, and continue collaborations with Yale and others. The quest for phenomena like Majorana fermions and the exploration of topological phases remain part of her group’s broader experimental frontier.

Key Quotes
“Combining superconductors and semiconductors gives us not just new functionality for quantum technology but also lets us explore fundamental questions about exotic states of matter.” – Charlotte Bøttcher
“Building a lab from scratch is a lot of work, but every day is exciting. Working with students and starting new experiments is incredibly rewarding.” – Charlotte Bøttcher

Tune in for a deep dive into hybrid materials, quantum simulation, and the inner workings of a cutting-edge quantum materials lab at Stanford!
For more episodes: Visit newquantumera.com

Thanks to the American Physical Society (APS) for supporting this episode.