00:00:00:03 - 00:00:27:20 Robert Karr good evening everyone, and welcome. Thank you for joining us for a special live audience recording of the 100th episode of the new Quantum ERA. This is a milestone not only for the show, but also for the community of scientists, engineers, founders, investors, policymakers, students, and curious listeners who have followed quantum technology as it has moved from a highly specialized research frontier into a field with real engineering, commercial policy and societal stakes. 00:00:27:24 - 00:01:06:24 Robert Karr Today, we are turning the microphone toward the person who has spent nearly 100 episodes asking the questions. Sebastian has built the quantum, the new quantum era, around long form conversations with the physicists, engineers, builders and thinkers working at the edge of quantum computing, networking, sensing, algorithms and theory. The show has earned a distinctive place in the quantum conversation because it tries to do something difficult cut through the hype without losing wonder, make technical ideas accessible without flattening them, and follow the field in real time while answering the questions answered. 00:01:07:01 - 00:01:34:13 Robert Karr The questions which are still emerging. For this hundredth episode, we look backward and forward. We'll talk about what Sebastian has learned from the first 99 episodes, how the quantum ecosystem has changed, where the science and engineering stand today, how regional hubs and global competition are reshaping the field, and what the next era of quantum may demand for everyone not only researchers, companies, governments, investors, but really for everyone. 00:01:34:19 - 00:02:01:05 Robert Karr Sebastian, congratulations on your hundredth episode and on your new book. Also, the new also name The New Quantum ERA, released last month. Thank you for creating a forum where difficult ideas can be explored seriously, opening openly and with curiosity. We were delighted to have you tonight here on your show. So you know you've written this book that you wish had been there when you got started. 00:02:01:07 - 00:02:26:01 Robert Karr You've given us this remarkable guide. You tell the story of of not just, you know, what's what's occurred, but who's who's done it and how they've done it and so forth. Is a is is remarkable that you've brought us to the present moment. But your podcast has been, you know, now in the works and developing this, this story for, for several, several years. 00:02:26:01 - 00:02:49:03 Robert Karr And there's plenty of places to start. And I think we want to jump in, perhaps what I think might be one of your most favorite places in history. It's an island, and it's a time about 100 years ago, and it's Hegel. And so maybe you can just start there. Yeah, that's a great segue actually. Thank you Bob. That was a remarkable experience. 00:02:49:03 - 00:03:12:24 Sebastian Hassinger So a hundred years ago, 1925, Heisenberg was suffering from allergies. He went to the island of Helgoland off the in the North Sea, off the coast of Germany, which was sort of famously a health retreat because there's very few trees. So Heisenberg's just a tourist? No. Well, yes. He was trying to get relief from his allergies so that he could work on this very hard problem. 00:03:12:24 - 00:03:43:16 Sebastian Hassinger He was also a physicist that Niels Bohr had assigned to him. Yes. So already a physicist and also one suffering from a fever. Yes. He woke up in the middle of the night and had this insight into essentially into solving the problem that Bohr had assigned him through matrix multiplication. And it is really seen as the piece of the puzzle that brought all of the disparate threads in physics that weren't really making any sense together into quantum mechanics. 00:03:43:16 - 00:04:05:22 Sebastian Hassinger And so, you know, the the discipline of quantum physics really traces its, its roots back to that instance. So in June of last year, Yale and Max Planck Institute had a conference, and initially I'd been invited to record podcast episodes there, as I'd done at other conferences. But I realized it was too historic and occasion not to capture. 00:04:05:22 - 00:04:33:03 Sebastian Hassinger So we raised some money, and we, my wife and I actually produced a documentary. So we went there and shot for five days and got a ton of footage, which we were slowly and painfully working our way through. But it was a really, really amazing experience because there were 4 or 5 Nobel Prize winners there. There were people from theoretical physics, from experimental physics, from quantum technologies, from sort of the entrepreneurial side. 00:04:33:03 - 00:04:54:08 Sebastian Hassinger Rob and the Yale gang were there. Who sort of are the project, you know, the originators of the transmission, the superconducting qubit. And it was just an incredibly rich experience of the distilling sort of everything that's going on in quantum right now in a really profound way. So, yeah, know this being the 100th. 00:04:54:08 - 00:04:56:12 Robert Karr Podcast, you have lots. 00:04:56:12 - 00:05:19:08 Robert Karr Of listeners, and the numbers that you've shared with me are astounding. So clearly you're being listened to. And people, a lot of people know who you are. But why don't we refresh everybody's recollection? Because you're going to talk tonight about things as though you were there in the room and and also perhaps as a scientist, but your background is not. 00:05:19:08 - 00:05:20:01 Speaker 2 That know. 00:05:20:02 - 00:05:30:07 Speaker 3 So but the materials you brought, you've developed help us non-scientists really understand. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself in the projects and how they came about? 00:05:30:08 - 00:06:00:23 Speaker 2 So my whole career has been in emerging technology. So from the very beginning of the internet, I was always drawn to the bleeding edge, whether that was the internet, the web, mobile, open source, big data, data science, machine learning, you know, sort of that progression. And I happened to intersect with quantum computing. I went to a think summit at TJ Watson because I was I was asked to help with the open source strategy for for Qiskit. 00:06:01:04 - 00:06:09:06 Speaker 3 And so just everybody knows TJ Watson. But what you explain because it's a very important place. Yes I like you with the TJ Max. 00:06:09:07 - 00:06:43:15 Speaker 2 No no different TJ okay. TJ Watson is the IBM research headquarters in Yorktown Heights in New York. It's a mid-century modern. It's Uranian. Who's the architect? It's a beautiful piece of work. And it's it's a very storied institution. And you can feel it. Actually, it's one of the last, if not the last sort of golden era industrial R&D labs, which actually gave birth to a lot of classical technologies, random access memory, hard drives, a lot of things were invented. 00:06:43:16 - 00:06:45:05 Speaker 3 So were you at Apple or IBM? 00:06:45:06 - 00:06:46:13 Speaker 2 I was at IBM, yeah. 00:06:46:14 - 00:06:54:05 Speaker 3 Yeah. So so you get to go this historic place. It's sort of the beginning of your journey, and some light bulbs start to go off at that time. 00:06:54:06 - 00:06:55:16 Speaker 2 I mean, the thing. 00:06:55:16 - 00:06:56:20 Speaker 3 That we're talking roughly. 00:06:56:21 - 00:07:06:03 Speaker 2 20, 2017, they were the occasion was to talk about the launch of the 53 qubit machine that was coming out in the following year. 00:07:06:05 - 00:07:08:13 Speaker 3 And and that in itself was a milestone. 00:07:08:13 - 00:07:35:13 Speaker 2 Why? It was. Well, because before I think they had had a 20 qubit machine, but superconducting qubits and for that matter, trapped on qubits. The systems had been kind of stuck in the 5 to 10 range. So this is a big jump forward. And there was this sense of the, you know, some kind of hurdle, what had been passed and that maybe there was a future with fault tolerant quantum computing at scale. 00:07:35:14 - 00:07:56:00 Speaker 2 And what would that mean? And, you know, Eddie Farhi was on stage who was the originator of one of the Shoah, one of the variational algorithms, I think, was there certainly Joshua was there all of these famous names and I could tell they were famous. I didn't know who they were at the time, but they were talking about all these foundational things. 00:07:56:00 - 00:08:15:14 Speaker 2 And it was it was just this laid bare kind of curiosity driven foundational research into physics and to how the universe works applied to something that I recognize as the very earliest stages of an emerging technology. And that was I was done basically, there was no way I was. 00:08:15:15 - 00:08:17:00 Speaker 3 Done or just beginning. 00:08:17:01 - 00:08:22:24 Speaker 2 That's done in my search for the next thing. This is going to be the emerging technology that I focus on for the rest of my life. 00:08:23:00 - 00:08:46:06 Speaker 3 We're going to jump into the podcast in just a minute and bring it here to Chicago, where you've interviewed several key key figures, one of whom is with us tonight. But, you know, just to put it in perspective, there's 100 year anniversary last year, but this this moment where things are starting to become identifiably real. Yeah, it was only 2017. 00:08:46:07 - 00:09:21:08 Speaker 3 Yeah. It's not even a decade ago. And a lot occurred. And it plays out in the book. It almost becomes a battle, a little bit of of, of and I want to say quantum supremacy because that seems like a dirty word. But, but, but companies competing to be recognized as at the forefront of this and IBM, you know, had in those who helped IBM along the way are are explained in your book as like an amazing individuals that have come together to try to create something new. 00:09:21:08 - 00:09:26:22 Speaker 3 But this 2017, 2018, 2019 period is where it started to come together for you. 00:09:26:23 - 00:09:48:14 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, well, it was my introduction, but also the industry, I think, hit an inflection point. You know, the the major modalities had all been defined around the 2000. And then there was this really like a rut in terms of scaling in the 5 to 10 qubit range. And there was a certain amount of, of despair. I think. 00:09:48:16 - 00:09:58:01 Speaker 3 That let's let's focus on that. So there's a little bit of ping pong going on between IBM and Google, for example. Just walk us through that in two seconds. 00:09:58:03 - 00:10:27:13 Speaker 2 I mean, so there's a couple of different there's a bunch of different races. And actually if anything, the the landscape is fragmenting more in terms of there's now 100 hardware companies. But at that point there were sort of the earliest hardware companies, D-Wave, IBM, Google was investing what Inc. and Righetti essentially where the, the, the that was what the crowd was and it really was. 00:10:27:15 - 00:10:52:02 Speaker 2 I think there was a sense that whoever could pass that threshold of like, well, this is definitely a quantum computer, that you can only do this one. This is provably an advantage of any type. There would be some kind of brass ring or prize at that point. But in fact, of course, because markets are much more complex than that, all I did was attract more attention and more investment and more creativity and innovation. 00:10:52:06 - 00:11:24:07 Speaker 2 Because now there's, as I said, there's 100 hardware vendors and there's now cross-pollination of techniques and approaches to things like error correction from neutral atom qubits that are being applied in superconducting qubits. So there's this very rich kind of interaction going on. At the foundational level, I often make the parallel with classical computing because we're really we've never we think about emerging technologies as this incremental sort of rolling wave of innovation after innovation after innovation. 00:11:24:07 - 00:11:44:04 Speaker 2 But this isn't, you know, the BlackBerry to the iPhone kind of this is we've reset the clock to the late 40s, and we're somewhere before the invention of the transistor, actually. I mean, we've got a bunch of different versions of transistors, and we're not sure what the final sort of design is. It's actually going to hit that scalability and commercial. 00:11:44:05 - 00:12:15:07 Speaker 3 And I think you end in the book, even in the podcast will continue. There is no end. There's iterations and development and so forth. But okay, so we focused on qubits a little bit quantum computers. That's not the only technology that's in play here. When we talk about quantum technologies you have sensors and also communication networking etc.. And and so maybe this is a good place to kind of we've focused on on the science and qubits. 00:12:15:07 - 00:12:42:05 Speaker 3 But let's go to much more of a macro level, because I think people have gotten a sense that quantum is is going to affect their life in some way, and in some cases it's even their neighborhood. And if I kind of draw us into and I'll start with episode 82, and if you can explain the individuals that I mentioned, their background, perhaps even anything about how that conversation came about. 00:12:42:05 - 00:13:18:09 Speaker 3 But let's begin with Harley Johnson here in Chicago. So Harley Johnson is the CEO of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park. The IQ imp makes quantum scale up feel very concrete, not just better qubits or better algorithms, but 120 acres. Now we're talking about real estate, a former steel mill. There's discussion about anchor tenants, names that we've mentioned already, and many others public private governance, workforce planning and neighborhoods asking how their grandchildren might get quantum jobs. 00:13:18:09 - 00:13:34:10 Speaker 3 So did that meeting, the interview, those interactions I know that continue with Harley. How do you think how do you think about what it means for quantum computing to move from science into industry, and for things like this to be happening in conversations like this to be happening? 00:13:34:12 - 00:13:57:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. No, I mean, one of the first jobs that I had a responsibility I had when I joined IBM quantum formerly in 2018, was to to get IBM to join the Chicago climate change. So I didn't meet Harley in that way, but I did meet Kate and David and other key figures in that organization, that sort of movement. 00:13:57:23 - 00:14:04:02 Speaker 2 I did meet Harley later when we were doing a partnership with UIUC, but but yeah, I mean, the. 00:14:04:06 - 00:14:13:03 Speaker 3 His journey started in the early 90s as far as I know. Yes. And his he's earned the role of CEO of IPO. 00:14:13:05 - 00:14:16:03 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And it's I mean he's. 00:14:16:05 - 00:14:18:11 Speaker 3 But maybe just focus on what did you learn from that. 00:14:18:12 - 00:14:45:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. Well one of the things is that he's an example of what's what it's going to take to to create these bridges between deep scientific disciplines and engineering and technology and economic development, which is the the practices that are required to build things in the real world. The physics community is very good at building abstract and experimental things, and not so much at production things, but because that's not their job, right? 00:14:45:22 - 00:15:17:20 Speaker 2 So we need to be able to tap into these very esoteric advances and techniques and learnings and turn them into translate them into economic realities. And I think IQ amp is I say it all the time. I think it's the world leading example of building an ecosystem for quantum technologies. Yeah. And a lot of that has to do with how early the community here was forming Chicago Quantum Exchange and using the phrase sort of skating to where the puck was going to go. 00:15:17:21 - 00:15:30:21 Speaker 2 But it's back to my point about that, that era in the around 2018, 2019, there was this sense of like rush to a finish line, but in fact, it was rushed to the starting line for starting to make things real. 00:15:30:22 - 00:15:51:02 Speaker 3 Yeah, I think, you know, we'll talk about quantum hubs need both patience and urgency, and we'll talk about urgency some more in a moment. But in episode 79, you interviewed Martin with Forrest. Tell us about Martin and Quebec and how maybe compare contrast that with IQ amp. But they both have similar. 00:15:51:03 - 00:16:17:17 Speaker 2 Yeah yeah yeah. So Quebec is has been very forward looking as well. And University of Sherbrooke is sort of the anchor academic institution there. And there's some really great I mean Canada has a lot of really great talent, but Quebec had the sort of public sector initiative and, and investment required to actually turn it into a tangible hub. 00:16:17:17 - 00:16:43:21 Speaker 2 So district is spelled with a Q, of course, is sort of their full lifecycle incubation. They leverage I mean, they had some serendipitous investment in the 70s in Bromo in a semiconductor fab, which they were able to leverage. They had some physical plant that they could adapt, which I think helped them a lot. And they also had a very healthy sort of attitude towards attracting foreign investments. 00:16:43:21 - 00:17:16:19 Speaker 2 They had Pascal and I think is there as well. They have a couple of foreign companies that are doing R&D and then also the the government, when they launched it, it was 90% public sector funding, 10% private. And they said right from the outset, this needs to flip over ten years to 90% private and 10% public, which I think is a really that's a great sort of benchmark to have for moving toward, like making sure you're moving it towards sustainability and real economic flywheel effect, essentially. 00:17:16:20 - 00:17:47:10 Speaker 3 Sure, sure. So a hundred years to get to this point. In the last decade or so, things have been moving pretty rapidly. We now have these locations around literally the world now, but one, this didn't just happen. So your work is really helping people understand what's taking place to get us here and the story and why why story is important, perhaps is, is to also be able to foresee how things will happen in the future. 00:17:47:11 - 00:18:09:18 Speaker 3 There's there's fits and starts, but we're we're on a roll, so to speak. But what's occurred in the past and those, those challenges that people face are similar to the challenges, different challenges. But people have to work through them the same way they always have. So there's this urgency now. People want things. They want to be in quantum. 00:18:09:18 - 00:18:40:24 Speaker 3 But these two places that we just discussed and there are many others, there's been a lot. It's work for a long time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So maybe we'll just shift gears a little bit. But staying on this sort of macro theme. Alejandro Castillo all right. So she's visiting with us tonight, episode 75. She she's looking at all of this with the understanding of everything we're discussing, but also offers to view it through a different lens. 00:18:41:02 - 00:19:07:07 Speaker 3 And I mentioned about, you know, what role, what jobs are for my grandchildren. What impact is this having on on on everyone. So so in your conversation with Alejandro, you know, she pushed quantum out of the technical frame and into a much broader economic development frame job suppliers, housing, regional coalitions, national security, and whether communities get to participate in the upside. 00:19:07:09 - 00:19:12:09 Speaker 3 Yeah. So did that change how you think about what it means to build a quantum ecosystem? 00:19:12:09 - 00:19:36:08 Speaker 2 Yeah. It did. I mean, certainly I had been thinking sort of along the lines of the supply chain, there's very, very specialized equipment that's required to build these sort of vertically integrated quantum computers. Those come from a variety of suppliers. There's significant innovation and scale up that's required. And those those are more like small manufacturing firms rather than, you know, quantum or computing firms, right? 00:19:36:10 - 00:20:02:01 Speaker 2 They don't have to make a fully integrated computer top to bottom. They need to make components. And that's a much broader impact for a broader swath of society. And that actually the most interesting thing for me was sort of it's an it originated sort of a thread that I've been increasingly thinking about, which is this if you take the focus away from those, the spotlight's been on these vertically integrated products. 00:20:02:02 - 00:20:26:24 Speaker 2 Right? Or quantum computer, a quantum network, if you zoom out. Really what we're talking about is a whole new set of advanced manufacturing techniques. It's the ability to design and manufacture and engineer at the quantum level. Classical semiconductors are at the limit of what classically can be done to under two nanometers. Is the size of a feature on a TSMC ship a chip. 00:20:26:24 - 00:20:48:01 Speaker 2 It's the smallest feature they can engineer below two nanometers. You're at the quantum scale anyway, so the whole way forward is through quantum engineering, quantum design, quantum manufacturing. And from that perspective, the lens is actually it's a reinvesting in the United States, potentially depending on how much investment we can actually. Marshall. 00:20:48:02 - 00:21:11:16 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. So a lot of a lot of people involved. And let's get to another example and maybe a different way to look at this. So most quantum scientists are born as quantum scientists right. So if we kind of turn our attention to to Nadja mason at the University of Chicago, and I promise for everybody. We'll get out of Chicago in a moment. 00:21:11:17 - 00:21:39:18 Speaker 3 We're in Chicago. We're in the. But episode 77. So you know, her path clearly, you know, gives us the understanding that you don't arrive fully formed as a quantum person. Right? So maybe, you know, the she challenges two common assumptions or her story does first, that the field is only for people who are quote unquote math people from the beginning. 00:21:39:19 - 00:21:50:17 Speaker 3 And second, that quantum progress is mainly about isolated technical breakthroughs. So what did not just story teach you about the human and institutional side of building the next quantum era? 00:21:50:18 - 00:22:17:07 Speaker 2 Yeah, not just great. This is the dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and was an elite gymnast in a former life and considers herself sort of weak at math as well. So but, I mean, there's a few things. One is, as you say, there's there's room for all sorts of different paths into. I usually start my interviews by asking people, how did how did you get to where you are right now? 00:22:17:08 - 00:22:42:10 Speaker 2 Because even people who came up through, you know, just a more traditional academic pathway often took some kind of circuitous route or there is some kind of serendipity, or they were on one path and then they decided to change. So there isn't really a, you know, as new as quantum is, there's certainly no defined career paths. So it takes a lot of creativity to sort of, you know, find a way in. 00:22:42:10 - 00:23:02:15 Speaker 2 But there's almost any, any number of ways in. So there is one for anybody who's interested enough. Right. If you're motivated by curiosity and wanting to make a difference. And then the other thing is I just I really love Nadia's model of leadership as service. Essentially, she sees it as not again, sort of the. 00:23:02:16 - 00:23:04:07 Speaker 3 She said nobody works for the dean. 00:23:04:08 - 00:23:05:11 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. 00:23:05:12 - 00:23:07:05 Speaker 3 So but what did she mean by that? 00:23:07:06 - 00:23:34:14 Speaker 2 Well, that that it's really about making opportunities and, and making sure that everyone who is drawn to the topic, who's drawn by curiosity, finds a way to connect and to contribute what they uniquely have to contribute. Right? I mean, this we're at this super early stage. It's somewhat tried to say, we don't know what we don't know, but that's literally true, right? 00:23:34:15 - 00:23:58:19 Speaker 2 I mean, for all of the imagining of use cases or the problem solving and engineering that we're applying to a particularly fault tolerance or error correction or the moves into public markets, market listings, there's there's really no certainty about where we are or where we're going at all. Yeah. And you know, I love I always use this example. 00:23:58:19 - 00:24:16:10 Speaker 2 So at the risk of repeating myself, because I think I've said it before on the podcast in the, in the past, but the Monte Carlo algorithm was developed by Stanley Lam, who was working at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies under von Neumann, who had built a system which they didn't really. It was built for physics calculations, and. 00:24:16:10 - 00:24:18:23 Speaker 3 We didn't go to an island with hay fever. No, no. 00:24:19:02 - 00:24:43:20 Speaker 2 It had nothing to do. Well, actually did sort of have something to do with quantum because he devises a way to get neutron diffusion calculations out of this very limited machine at a larger scale than you could actually do by sampling, right, by doing the Monte Carlo thing. It wasn't until 30 years later that somebody looked at a financial portfolio and thought, I wonder if I could do something with this, with this Monte Carlo algorithm. 00:24:43:21 - 00:24:47:21 Speaker 2 It was a technique that a scientist created to get something useful. 00:24:47:23 - 00:24:48:07 Speaker 3 So what did. 00:24:48:07 - 00:25:04:00 Speaker 2 They do? It was an act of creativity. What did they do? I mean, they created all kinds of stuff. The money. Well, the money Carlo algorithm is one of the most powerful tools in financial analysis ever, right? It's portfolio analysis and optimization. When you say that, you mean Monte Carlo simulation. 00:25:04:01 - 00:25:10:11 Speaker 3 Yeah. So, so, so one of the points you're making is something the utility of something could be. 00:25:10:13 - 00:25:33:10 Speaker 2 He was paying solitaire. Yeah. And the the act of playing solitaire created the idea of a sampling technique on this very limited machine. That would get him better physics calculations than you could do directly on the machine. And then, you know, I would say a lack of creativity in the general community. I mean, took made it take so long for. 00:25:33:11 - 00:25:54:05 Speaker 2 So if you had more creative minds looking at what he was doing at the time, that might have been a few years instead of decades. So you need a lot of orthogonal thinking outside the box thinking creative minds. And that's back to Nadia. I think she creates an environment where there's kind of a, there's an idea that that everybody can contribute. 00:25:54:05 - 00:25:57:03 Speaker 2 It's just a matter of finding your particular way in. 00:25:57:04 - 00:26:24:22 Speaker 3 Yes. In those moments, there's happen on an island with hay fever. They ask that explain in the most unexpected ways. So let's I'd like you to pick up anywhere you like around John Martinez. So he's in your book for a reasons. And maybe you can explain how he fits into all of this and continues to. But you have 48, 67 and 71. 00:26:24:23 - 00:26:42:21 Speaker 3 You spend time with them beyond him, just the two of you finding good company. Yeah. He's a he's a player. And there's many examples. I, I picked him because he's straddling lots of different things and he's, he's woven himself into some of these huge milestones. And, and so tell us about John. 00:26:42:22 - 00:26:56:07 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I was very grateful that we had hit it off in the prior to interviews, because that allowed me when he won the Nobel Prize, to call him up and say, hey, you want to come on the podcast? And I was like, sure. It was a good get, as they say, right? 00:26:56:09 - 00:27:00:23 Speaker 3 But the Nobel Prize, you I don't want you to know it's an important another important milestone. 00:27:00:24 - 00:27:25:18 Speaker 2 That's what's really interesting. He really is at the very beginning of superconducting qubits. They weren't qubits at that point. They were. It was Michele Devra and himself and John Clark were demonstrating macroscopic tunneling in Josephson junction, which is the basis of superconducting qubits. But this is an 86, I think that was when they published the paper. And that's what the Nobel was based on. 00:27:25:20 - 00:27:49:03 Speaker 2 He then the next sort of major, I would say sort of accomplishment is he built that system at Google that was 53 or 54 qubits that they carried out the experiment, which was random circuit sampling, with the claim that it would take millions of years to do classically. The claim was then challenged by IBM, which is a little bit. 00:27:49:04 - 00:28:15:16 Speaker 3 So just put it in. Since we've talked about dates and we talked about this 2019. Yeah. So 2017 you're at IBM a couple of years in. All of these people come together because there's a there's a technology that's that's developing and important ways. Google 2019. John's kind of the heart of that. Yeah. Just get back to John story. 00:28:15:16 - 00:28:22:18 Speaker 3 But this is an important part because it really caused everybody's head to turn. It did. So what was that moment? 00:28:22:19 - 00:28:43:08 Speaker 2 Well, I mean, it was a claim that a quantum computer could do something that you couldn't do by any other means, which certainly, I mean, for all of this to be worthwhile, we have to get to that place, right? If you can just simulate it on even on a supercomputer, then why wouldn't you do that? Why would you build a whole other industry to build a whole other mode of computation? 00:28:43:08 - 00:29:16:13 Speaker 2 If it can't do something you can't do otherwise? So that was really the first overt claim that that system was able to do. It was a contrived task. It's random circuit sampling. So it's essentially creating random quantum circuits and then sampling those on the device. So it has classical overheads which make it harder to do classically. So it's not a useful task, but it was at least the first public claim that this particular thing couldn't be done in any kind of reasonable time frame class. 00:29:16:14 - 00:29:21:03 Speaker 3 And Johns continued to do work. Oh yeah, and that's what I'm trying to say, is that. 00:29:21:05 - 00:29:46:19 Speaker 2 That was really one of the key sort of moments in this. In the book I refer to as the heroic Age of Qubits. It's sort of like the, the, the, the genius Pi or PiS group of PiS, sort of declaring that they alone know how to build a qubit. Nobody else can do it as well as them, and they're going to get to that finish line, get to that sort of inflection point of like, there, we proved it. 00:29:46:21 - 00:30:16:09 Speaker 2 John is really interesting because he's made this really very dramatic sort of transition into he is a systems thinker. That's what's really interesting about him. He's at Colab, the startup that he's leading now. They're actually taking a consortium approach. So they have partnerships with Quantum machines, which builds quantum sorry, control systems with applied Materials, with HPE, and with others to try to create an open architecture. 00:30:16:10 - 00:30:49:01 Speaker 3 So, so let's let's break that down for a minute, because I think what I got out of it was, you have a scientist who is willing to do something different than just be a scientist, be a system builder, and realize that a lot of things have to come together for it to be true. Yeah. So that way of thinking and perhaps John and his the things that he's focusing on, could also be a lesson to people in the, in the space to collaborate and look at this as something more than just that perfect qubit. 00:30:49:03 - 00:30:54:08 Speaker 3 To get that perfect qubit to work, you need every, every, everything else to come together. Yeah, yeah. 00:30:54:09 - 00:31:21:23 Speaker 2 I mean, ultimately the path to to quantum advantage, as we call it, does have terrible overtones. But as an industry, we're going to call it advantage is going to require, as I've called it before, a vertically integrated system that has qubits at its core. But there's a ton of other really specialized equipment, all that that all has to work, you know, sort of at the highest level of tolerances. 00:31:21:23 - 00:31:40:14 Speaker 3 I'm going to get to some random questions on the technology. In a minute. We'll do some rapid fire. But just to maybe finish up on some of the folks that you've spoken to. So on a recent podcast, you're asked, you know, if you go to dinner with anybody, who would it be? So tell us who that is. But you also interviewed his student, John Prescott. 00:31:40:15 - 00:31:43:20 Speaker 3 So if you can kind of combine that into a story. 00:31:43:21 - 00:32:08:23 Speaker 2 So that was Yuval. He asks all of his guests that question. We were interviewing each other because he launched a book and we were sort of doing a crossover episode. And I said, John Feynman, because I was Richard Feynman, John Prescott, Richard. Richard Feynman because really, because, you know, he he valued curiosity above everything else. He's sort of, you know, maybe apocryphal. 00:32:08:23 - 00:32:23:11 Speaker 2 I don't think so. I think he actually did say, unless you can explain something, you don't really understand it. So my method with the podcast and with the book and everything, a lot of it is so that I can learn. I'm trying to get to the point where I can actually explain it credibly. 00:32:23:13 - 00:32:31:05 Speaker 3 Fineman has buildings named after him. He's considered alongside Einstein, right? Yeah. So just a few more words. 00:32:31:06 - 00:33:11:21 Speaker 2 So he I mean, he kind of made his name in the Manhattan Project. He was leading one of the calculation groups there. But then his his Nobel was for quantum electorate electrodynamic theory, which is a foundational piece of quantum mechanics. But most importantly, in the quantum technology realm, he was sort of the person that in 1981, MIT and IBM could on this small conference on the thermodynamics of computation, and they invited Feynman to sort of test their thinking about like, is quantum computing possible and is it worthwhile? 00:33:11:22 - 00:33:13:13 Speaker 3 And his time of frame was. 00:33:13:13 - 00:33:13:21 Speaker 2 19. 00:33:13:21 - 00:33:14:12 Speaker 3 91. 00:33:14:13 - 00:33:33:17 Speaker 2 Yeah. And his keynote at the end was it's kind of semi extemporaneous, actually. I don't think he wrote it ahead of time. He's just sort of he'd watched all the talks and he said, you know, nature isn't classical, dammit. That's where that quote comes from. So if you want to simulate nature, you're going to need a quantum computer. 00:33:33:18 - 00:33:38:20 Speaker 2 And it it seems like a really hard problem. So it probably means it's a good problem to solve. 00:33:38:21 - 00:33:44:22 Speaker 3 A lot of people are chasing that problem, including his student. So yeah, you tell us a little bit about John. 00:33:45:02 - 00:34:13:02 Speaker 2 John. He wasn't actually a student. He was up here at Caltech. He joined Caltech, I think maybe first as a postdoc, but certainly as a sociopath, some some sort of faculty when Feynman was still teaching. And in fact, John uses the Feynman's, you know, amphitheater now for teaching at his classroom, which is great and still looks exactly as it does in the videos of Feynman's lectures. 00:34:13:04 - 00:34:40:06 Speaker 2 Preskill is really he's he's fantastically bright. He also coined the term near term. Yeah, near term noisy intermediate scale quantum devices, which was a way of explaining why we should be making these devices when they aren't full fledged computers. Like, is there value in them? That's the you know, he's sort of the go to for like, how are we doing? 00:34:40:06 - 00:35:11:02 Speaker 2 Are we making progress? And are these things good for anything? And he posited that potentially there were nice applications. I mentioned variational techniques with with Eddie Farha as one of the originators in Las Vegas with VQ and Shaya. Those are ways to use noisy qubits to to a variational algorithm to arrive at some approximation faster than you could classically potentially they haven't really, you know, panned out the way they hoped. 00:35:11:02 - 00:35:35:19 Speaker 2 But pre-schools broader point was, in any case, we'll learn so much about how to make these devices by making these devices that it's always worth it. It's worth it. Even if I would think, you know, I think John would say, even if we don't end up with, you know, a shore machine that can crack any code or whatever we have, we hit some kind of limit in scale. 00:35:35:21 - 00:35:53:23 Speaker 2 We're learning so much about the fundamentals of quantum physics and applying them to design and engineering techniques that it's almost analogous to the the, the space mission in the 60s, where we learned the CD and the laser and all kinds of other technologies of the the challenge that we. 00:35:53:23 - 00:35:57:08 Speaker 3 Had, we may never get there, but the journey will be fun. 00:35:57:10 - 00:35:59:05 Speaker 2 All right. The friends we make along the way. 00:35:59:06 - 00:36:09:19 Speaker 3 So so this is perfect time to stop and do a technical lightning round, because I don't think you've proven to everybody that you understand this despite not being a physicist. 00:36:09:19 - 00:36:11:04 Speaker 2 Not a physicist. 00:36:11:06 - 00:36:35:04 Speaker 3 But the question I know everyone in this room is asking is fault. Tolerance is often described as the central technical barrier between today's experimental quantum systems and truly useful quantum computers. Right, everybody? Is that the right way to think about the fields current bottleneck, or does that framing oversimplify the challenge? No. 00:36:35:04 - 00:36:41:08 Speaker 2 I don't think it oversimplifies. There's it's it's a very there's a lot to unpack when you say fault. 00:36:41:09 - 00:36:43:17 Speaker 3 I'll give you a 15 seconds. 00:36:43:19 - 00:37:04:02 Speaker 2 Well it's a it's a, you know, it's it's better quality qubits. It's, it's better engineering and design and innovations in design and engineering. And it's also approaches to error correction. And it's also approaches to system design. So there's probably a hundred different really tough challenges embedded in the phrase. 00:37:04:06 - 00:37:11:11 Speaker 3 So there's not going to be one person in a lab that figures this out on their own. Or is there one tool that you're going to bring to the room. 00:37:11:12 - 00:37:32:15 Speaker 2 No fault tolerance is is an emergent quality, right. So it could be I mean, if you're dealing with neutral atoms or trapped ions, you have inherently higher quality qubits. They're not as noisy. So you don't need as many of them to as much redundancy to get to error correction and fall tolerance. If you're talking about superconducting you have a whole different set of attributes. 00:37:32:15 - 00:37:37:23 Speaker 2 So it's engineering the whole system to have the emergent property of fault tolerance. 00:37:37:24 - 00:38:00:23 Speaker 3 So what we were talking about, Sebastian, you laid out very nicely in the book with charts and so forth. So there's lots of modalities we get confused on which is which and what they're doing and which companies doing what. But you've laid that out nicely in the chart. But does you're suggesting some of them are going to be, you know, really good at this, and we'll have a little bit of trouble with that. 00:38:00:23 - 00:38:25:06 Speaker 3 Right. Ultimately, we don't talk about it in terms of winners and losers. There may be modalities that are better suited for certain things. We just don't know yet. Yeah, but as you were suggesting a few minutes ago, it's worth walking through the door and we're going to learn. But fault tolerance is is an issue. Yeah. And solve is, is is a little bit complex as you're suggesting. 00:38:25:08 - 00:38:46:24 Speaker 3 But you were talking about the whole inferring a whole stack to. Yeah. And so I'm going to mention some of the things that you know, integrated systems. There's qubits, controlled electronics, cryogenics, lasers, packaging calibration, readout software decoding and so forth. Readout. Let's start there. So all this stuff is happening. You have to be able to. 00:38:47:05 - 00:39:08:19 Speaker 2 Yeah I mean that's in a way we're on. If you look at all the roadmaps of the hardware vendors, we're in this early era of logical qubits, right. They're going to and logical qubits are just aggregations of physical qubits that are acting in a coordinated manner to have some level of error correction, which is a building block of fault tolerance. 00:39:08:20 - 00:39:29:04 Speaker 2 Right. But the thing that's kind of hidden in that is that in order to get error correction that really works, you need to have a very, very tightly engineered classical quantum loop, because you actually need to do what they call mid circuit measures. And so in the middle of the computation you need to read out some of the qubits. 00:39:29:08 - 00:40:01:08 Speaker 2 So now you have a classical measurement. And then you have to do what they call syndrome detection which is detecting whether there are errors in the that have emerged in the system. And then you have to correct those areas and feed forward into the on the continuing class or quantum computation. You can imagine if you've got an algorithmic quantum advantage, you could very easily like bleed that away through a slow readout syndrome, detection syndrome correction in forward circuit or cycle. 00:40:01:08 - 00:40:21:07 Speaker 2 So that whole life cycle has to happen so fast that it doesn't erode that quantum advantage. And that's I think that's you know, that's what I'm watching the most closely right now, is how each of the hardware vendors are approaching that challenge, because that's kind of the make or break at the heart of error correction. 00:40:21:07 - 00:40:42:11 Speaker 3 Yeah, I can see everybody sitting on the edge of their chairs and wanting to ask this next question about algorithms. So our algorithms a bottleneck. Tell us about where they stand today, how they're useful. But let's start with what they are. Yeah. Who's working on them and why. And tie it to use cases. 00:40:42:12 - 00:41:17:14 Speaker 2 Yeah. Well an algorithm is a recipe for, for for solving a problem. Right. And we have algorithm algorithms in classical computing. Things like bubble sort or quicksort are sort of the most easily recognizable. There are ways of sorting data in a the most efficient way depending on context. In in quantum, we have a very small set of algorithms that we know of sure as being sort of the most famous, which factors a large number to its primes, which happens to be the reverse of how we secure data with cryptography, modern cryptography systems. 00:41:17:16 - 00:41:41:05 Speaker 2 And there aren't a whole lot of others, right? There's Grover's in hell and a couple of others, but I'm not concerned about that. And I actually used my example for why before, which is the Monte Carlo algorithm. That's an algorithm that was developed for for a very, you know, particular use case that didn't no one would have thought that had commercial value at the time. 00:41:41:07 - 00:42:04:24 Speaker 2 No one would have created the Monte Carlo simulation or algorithm before that computer existed. So when I say one of the reasons I say we don't know, we don't know is we don't have when we get machines that you can't simulate classically anymore, the physical scientists are going to start using those and developing techniques to use them to solve problems that they're they can't solve in other ways. 00:42:04:24 - 00:42:26:23 Speaker 2 And those will almost naturally lead to unintended other consequence. There are other uses, right? So I think that, you know, we this is sort of the urgency. But patients that's the patients part of it. It's like we have to have the urgency to try to build these devices, but then the patients to discover what it is that they're actually really good at. 00:42:26:24 - 00:42:27:14 Speaker 2 Yeah. 00:42:27:15 - 00:42:39:09 Speaker 3 Well, you know, bringing the technical round to a close. Is there anything that we didn't discuss? I mean, there's a lot we didn't discuss, but is there anything that you comes to mind that you'd like to put on the record? Well. 00:42:39:10 - 00:42:40:01 Speaker 2 I mean. 00:42:40:07 - 00:42:40:13 Speaker 3 I. 00:42:40:13 - 00:43:00:12 Speaker 2 Think there's often sort of a horse race mentality about the modalities. I think that there's going to be a lot of money. It's not like I don't foresee the kind of collapse that we saw in classical once, you know, there was there were vacuum tubes and there was exotic ways to make transistors and a bunch of different approaches. 00:43:00:12 - 00:43:18:19 Speaker 2 And then the monolithic solution came along and you could make you print an integrated circuit. And it was obviously the best solution for scale and reliability. And we were off to the races. I don't think my gut feeling is we're not going to hit that point where it's like, oh, that one. Yeah, I think they're going to coexist. 00:43:18:19 - 00:43:43:10 Speaker 2 They're going to potentially even be in the same systems. Things like longer live coherence times like atom based qubits may be well suited for memory and not for, you know, rapid computation, for example. But I think they're going to coexist for a long time. So people are sort of concerned, like which qubit do we invest in as a, an ecosystem or a fund or whatever? 00:43:43:11 - 00:43:46:24 Speaker 2 It's like, actually, you should probably put a bunch of different bets down. 00:43:47:00 - 00:44:28:00 Speaker 3 So that gets us to one of your most recent podcast, episode 96. So in your conversation with Chris, is it not? And Zainab of Fig Ventures, excuse me, all the funding story shifts from is there enough capital for quantum to is there the right kind of capital at the right stage? They argue that seed funding is no longer the main gap, but that series A and B rounds are where quantum scallops need specialist investors who can underwrite engineering risk, modality, risk and long timelines. 00:44:28:01 - 00:44:56:07 Speaker 3 Did that interview change how you think of about the financing bottleneck in quantum? And you're just talking about creating the perfect segue. Let you know that it isn't about on one, right? It's across the board. And that we're getting to a point where investors really do have scientists working for them, for they themselves, and in this case, both of them, you know, extraordinary backgrounds in the space so that they can really see it. 00:44:56:08 - 00:45:00:23 Speaker 3 Yeah. And and so tell us about what they're doing and what the recommendations are. 00:45:00:23 - 00:45:29:20 Speaker 2 Yeah. For is really interesting. They're just they're relatively new. They've only taken a few investments. Quantum motion of the spin qubits and tonic I believe as well. And they met as angel investors in Cambridge Quantum which is one half of what became quantum. So they had a really good week last week. So and yet they interestingly enough, I think they're right that the seed stage funding problem is largely solved. 00:45:29:20 - 00:45:58:17 Speaker 2 But I think that's actually a testament to efforts like and IQ AMP. The public sector is largely validating the risk. Right. It's there's there's so much effort being put into technology transfer and things like duality here in Chicago. And Creative Destruction Lab has a whole quantum cohort that's, you know, a vote of confidence that this is a they're there for investors. 00:45:58:17 - 00:46:08:00 Speaker 2 But there is I heard the market described as a as a barbell shape right at QB in Paris last year actually. 00:46:08:07 - 00:46:09:06 Speaker 3 Did they mention it to. 00:46:09:07 - 00:46:34:07 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. And being that there are some very well capitalized companies, very small number of them either their corporate, you know, corporate divisions like IBM or Google or their they've done mega rounds like quantum private funding or they've got to public markets through a side door, through a Spac, or now we have an old fashioned IPO in continuum, but there's a handful of them. 00:46:34:12 - 00:47:11:01 Speaker 2 And then there's this sort of giant valley of death. And I think they're right. It's in order to have the confidence to do a bigger check and an A or B, you have to have a lot more domain expertise, because this is not, as I said, it's not just another emerging technology. This is a totally different ball game, and you have to be able to evaluate the claim to scientific claims, the validity of the approach, the team and, and have, you know, the the patience and the timeline that it's going to require and the understanding of the error bars on, you know, exactly what the outcome is going to be. 00:47:11:02 - 00:47:37:16 Speaker 2 So I'm really happy to see the emergence of that specialty kind of fund. There are others that are in the works as well, and I think that's a really healthy sign of evolution. Again, beyond the the public sector investment and focus nationally and regionally in the United States and other countries to to sort of the next stage of evolution, to turn it into a viable venture market. 00:47:37:17 - 00:48:24:10 Speaker 3 Great. Well, I want to thank you for the book, the hard Work, and really on behalf of everybody and for anyone who's looking to dive in to understand all of this, the book is a great read. It reads really well. There are stories, so it's almost like a novel on how how we got to where we're at. But I think it certainly made me feel more comfortable about the things I didn't know, and explained that, in fact, the things that we're encountering today and listening, you know, about where we're at and the IPOs and so forth, just to understanding how we got here, maybe a lot more comfortable that we probably understand it better than 00:48:24:11 - 00:48:50:13 Speaker 3 that, but it's certainly confirmatory. And a read that almost enjoy it, go through it. But it also could become a reference tool for for understanding a lot more. But then the podcast, we've laid out a few that at least I've felt are useful for people to get an understanding of what you're doing here. But there are 99 now, 100. 00:48:50:14 - 00:49:11:18 Speaker 3 If we didn't screw this up, too bad that people can can find topics and you've done a great job on your website, the new Quantum ERA, to put all that information there. So before you even listen to it, you have a sense of of what what's there and pick and choose. So that's great. That kind of gets me to the final. 00:49:11:20 - 00:49:35:19 Speaker 3 You no place in our discussion, which is what are you going to do next. And I know it's not. There's just a next. But you have a lot to offer. And I think you're identifying some opportunities where you could be useful beyond just providing information, the knowledge, the experience, the people. But what does this all mean to you now? 00:49:35:20 - 00:49:36:24 Speaker 3 Where do you go? 00:49:37:03 - 00:50:06:21 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I've I've have a lot of irons in the fire. The thing that I'm the most excited about is, is really going back to we've touched on regional ecosystems and this sort of evolving set of, of more mature companies. There's a demand for quantum hardware R&D space, which IQ is, and other regions are doing a good job of of starting to fill. 00:50:06:22 - 00:50:36:19 Speaker 2 But ultimately that needs to lead to, as I said, with Quebec needs to lead to a self-sustaining private market, right, or private capital infused markets. So what I've started with some partners we call the entity Build Quantum Partners is to try to engage with the ecosystems and with the sources of demand, the tenant pool, and find ways that we can sort of take the friction out of that, out of the whole set of challenges. 00:50:36:20 - 00:51:02:18 Speaker 2 Right. So if it could be a European or an Asian company that needs entry into the US market, that's a whole complicated set of challenges in and of itself. So we're trying to set up a way to help them do that. And among, you know, including choosing where they're going to hone their efforts, it could be Illinois, it could be multiple sites, right, depending on what they're they're actually trying to build. 00:51:02:18 - 00:51:43:04 Speaker 2 And then from the public sector side, be a partner in managing that influx of demand, finding the right fit, potentially building facilities for an anchor tenant. Ultimately, the goal is to get to the point where when there is enough of a sustainable market, we think that the biotech hub model is really there needs to be a quantum version of that, where there's R&D facilities with a larger anchor tenant and some amount of footprint that's reserved for the earlier stage, more risky, you know, exploratory, kind of venture backed or sea back startups. 00:51:43:04 - 00:51:59:13 Speaker 2 So that's what we're experimenting with. It's it's going to be there isn't a clear path. It's going to be very experimental. It has to be sort of tailored to each. Each player in that whole space means somewhat of a custom approach. But that's that's the kind of challenge I like. 00:51:59:14 - 00:52:18:07 Speaker 3 So yeah. Great. Well, we look forward to seeing all of that. Well, this is your show in many, in many ways. And you do your sign off at the end of every show. But I want to just close us out. I want to thank you for for sharing your stories and doing all the hard work that you're doing. 00:52:18:07 - 00:52:22:09 Speaker 3 But you have an audience out there. What would you like to say in your 100th episode? 00:52:22:11 - 00:52:46:22 Speaker 2 Oh, I mean, I appreciate the audience so much. I get a lot of feedback on, you know, the what's what's valuable, what kinds of things I love, suggestions for themes for shows or guests that I should have on, and I'm trying to with the website now. I'm trying to create more of a space for interaction. So, you know, I'd say like if you if you want to see something on the show, let me know. 00:52:46:23 - 00:52:48:16 Speaker 2 I'm all right. I'm all ears. 00:52:48:17 - 00:52:50:05 Speaker 3 I you'll have some takers. 00:52:50:06 - 00:52:51:02 Speaker 2 Yeah. 00:52:51:04 - 00:53:11:12 Speaker 3 Well thank you audience for for joining us tonight. And thank you again, Sebastian, for all of your work. You've really made a dent in this. In a good way. I hope so. And let's let's keep knocking it around and I'm sure we'll get to that perfect qubit at some point. So let me give Sebastian a round of applause. 00:53:11:13 - 00:53:19:22 Speaker 4 Thank you. 00:53:19:24 - 00:53:47:16 Speaker 3 Okay, maybe we all did our job tonight. Good. Thank you for listening patiently through the discussion. I'd like to open it up to see if anybody has any any questions. And while we've been recording this, the idea is your questions won't be live, but I think you might do a summary of the discussion afterward that the audience had highlighting some of the points of interest and so forth. 00:53:47:17 - 00:53:55:12 Speaker 3 So I'm going to just help with some mics. But does anybody have a question or a comment? 00:53:55:17 - 00:53:57:07 Speaker 2 Yeah. 00:53:57:09 - 00:53:58:13 Speaker 5 Here we go. 00:53:58:15 - 00:54:34:22 Speaker 6 I think I can project. Okay. Yeah that's good. All right. Well my name is Jack. Looked at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Wanted to thank you and Bob and the whole team for having us today. This was incredibly insightful. What I did want to touch on. You do an excellent job on your book in terms of discerning between genuine progress of quantum versus the hype, especially when it comes to the transformative technological applications that quantum will bring to infrastructure and the value that we will derive from that with applications. 00:54:35:02 - 00:54:54:15 Speaker 6 If you think past it as you think about the next ten years, what is one signal that you think CEOs, investors, business owners are ignoring that will ultimately distinguish a quantum companies that create lasting values from the ones that disappear? 00:54:54:17 - 00:55:22:10 Speaker 2 Yeah. Tough question. You know, Dana Anderson of Inflection, I interviewed him a couple of years ago and he said, in the future, in the near future, any company that's not operating at the quantum limits for their industry won't be competitive. And I was struck at the time by how broad a statement that was. But it's one of the things I sort of taken on board to understand the breadth of the potential impact here. 00:55:22:10 - 00:55:47:08 Speaker 2 So, you know, when I talked about the potential for economic development, I think that we have to be really, you know, for example, if we get to a quantum computer by 2030 that you can't simulate classically anymore, you have to watch what people do with that machine really carefully, because it's not going to be obvious. It's not going to be portfolio optimization or logistics or any kind of optimization because it's not large enough. 00:55:47:08 - 00:56:18:06 Speaker 2 It's not even going to be, you know, pharma drug discovery. It may be something in material science that changes the economics of an input into automotive manufacturing, right? I mean, it could be very difficult to see the direct line from, from the, the innovation to the impact. And so that's I think what we need to do. We had to adopt a very I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago called Beginner's Mind. 00:56:18:08 - 00:56:43:13 Speaker 2 I think that's what we have to adopt is a very open kind of mentality to what is this that we're building and what are we doing within, what might the impact be? Because it's not going to be, you know, if we if we wait around for the things that are obvious, like optimization or drug discovery or whatever it's going to be, you know, those the innovations that happen along the way are going to be adopted by your competitors and you're not going to be competitive. 00:56:43:16 - 00:56:51:23 Speaker 2 So it's really it's a very creative problem to solve, unfortunately. I'm sorry, I don't have an answer. Really. 00:56:52:00 - 00:56:53:02 Speaker 6 No one does know. 00:56:53:03 - 00:56:59:18 Speaker 2 I know I know anybody who says they do is in that hype category. Thank you. Hi. 00:56:59:20 - 00:57:28:20 Speaker 7 Hi there. Thank you for incorporating economic development into the narrative. I'm fascinated by climate and what quantum can do for how we not only look at climate change or climate impact, but also as we what we do with regards to natural disasters and how people look at that. Has that come across in your many podcasts? Is, is is that a conversation that people are having? 00:57:28:22 - 00:57:47:13 Speaker 7 There's nothing more challenging than to look at the multitude of factors that come into, you know, climate. I and I will say the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Noah, that would be such a way to lean in how we're looking at climate and climate disaster. 00:57:47:18 - 00:58:24:05 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, it's challenging because this is a good example of sort of the, the, the obvious direct line and the non-obvious sort of oblique line for innovation. So the work that I've seen around climate is really it's again, it's the class of optimization problems. Right? Because if you look at numerical weather prediction, which by the way, was also pioneered at Princeton at the Event Institute for Advanced Studies at von Neumann, it's amazing how many things started a little tiny place and slice of time. 00:58:24:07 - 00:58:45:09 Speaker 2 It's a it's a number crunching challenge, right? And it's a common challenge. And it's likely well, it's not a sure thing, but it's possible that quantum computing is going to help with that type of problem. But it's way down the road because those are very large. The whole. 00:58:45:11 - 00:59:24:01 Speaker 2 Problem set that distinguishes what quantum is going to be useful for first is very small data with very high dimensionality, which is not how climate behaves. Right. However, I do think there's a lot of I you know, I sort of drew an example of the top of my head of like an input into an automotive manufacturing, potentially. There's all kinds of material innovations that might help with, I mean, like the research and battery technology, for example, there's there's a theoretical quantum battery that's it emits more energy than you've put into it. 00:59:24:02 - 00:59:57:20 Speaker 2 Like it's bizarre, right? I mean, it doesn't quite, but that's what it seems like on paper. But it's these sort of really innovative potential material, innovative approaches that I think those are most likely the first impacts. And again, it takes orthogonal thinking and very creative application of thinking because it's not just tackling, you know, whatever aid distribution as a as a commentary optimization problem, which is going to need a larger quantum computer than we're going to have in your future. 00:59:57:22 - 01:00:02:05 Speaker 3 Any other questions? Yes. 01:00:02:07 - 01:00:25:17 Speaker 8 Again, thank you for this. It's been great. I'm sort of curious. We talked about bottlenecks a little bit. You're talking about the sort of way insularity things will spin off before the direct lines. I'm thinking about it from a workforce perspective and is done a great job for fronting workforce and saying, really, we just want you to care about math, math, math, math from a global perspective or more global perspective. 01:00:25:18 - 01:00:43:04 Speaker 8 Systems thinking. Where should higher education K through 12 be thinking about putting resources to help us make sure we have a workforce, not just to design quantum computers, but to use them to think more creatively so that we can get the biggest results. 01:00:43:04 - 01:00:43:10 Speaker 1 From. 01:00:43:10 - 01:00:44:12 Speaker 8 This revolution. 01:00:44:14 - 01:00:45:17 Speaker 3 Who you are. 01:00:45:19 - 01:00:49:19 Speaker 8 Sorry, I'm Rich McCaskey and the vice president for research at Northern Illinois University. 01:00:49:21 - 01:01:22:23 Speaker 2 Cool. Thanks for coming. It's a really good question. You know, I think there's a couple of things that that sort of feel to me, like bottlenecks, educational bottlenecks that are good approaches to educational products. For one thing that there's UCLA has a masters of quantum engineering, I think is what they call it program, where each semester is spent in a different photonics lab, superconducting lab, trapped ion lab, and they're developing master's level skills. 01:01:22:24 - 01:01:49:04 Speaker 2 I think that's a really good place to focus, because if any of these modalities hit some kind of inflection point of commercial value, the supply chain is going to fall apart, basically. I mean, there's there's no scale built into the way we're building these devices and to whatever test and characterize and set up dill fridges, for example. That's a master's level skill set. 01:01:49:05 - 01:02:21:09 Speaker 2 It's not a PhD necessarily. Right. So there's that. And then and then the supply chain itself. And the thing that again, the sort of more diffused kind of approach to it is to take a step back. I talked to Quantum Brilliance sometime in November. I think they're in Australian startups are doing nitrogen vacancy qubits in diamond. Right. And they were telling me they have a viable commercial demand for their NV center devices, not as qubits but as sensing devices. 01:02:21:09 - 01:02:45:11 Speaker 2 So this is an industrial application of a quantum components, a quantum technology. It's just not a universal quantum computer. But there again, I think there's there's specialized skill that's not at the PhD level that's required to potentially, you know, integrate that into a product design or, or, you know, install them in a, in a building or an industrial deployment, right? 01:02:45:12 - 01:02:57:08 Speaker 2 I mean, I think there's there's a much broader set of skills that are not PhD in math and physics that are required. 01:02:57:10 - 01:03:06:15 Speaker 9 Hi. I'm, I'm a PhD student at the University of Chicago. Nadia mason is my dean and David Shalom is my advice. Excellent. 01:03:06:17 - 01:03:08:22 Speaker 7 So I saw PhD younger. 01:03:08:24 - 01:03:40:23 Speaker 9 And I was like, oh yeah, the scientist care. I'm particularly interested in the recent announcement by the federal government that they would take an equity stake and a couple different variety of companies, right. Some of them are semiconductor foundries and ranging to like inflection and Dirac, I believe, and other quantum startups. And then based on your most recent conversation with the Ferguson Adventure Venture Capital Fund, they said we need the right capital at the right time. 01:03:40:24 - 01:03:47:08 Speaker 9 Right. In your opinion, is this equity stake by the government the right capital at the right time? 01:03:47:09 - 01:04:16:16 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, jury is out. It's hard to see it. So, okay, the parallels I would draw that I immediately sort of think is when, when a, when there's a strategic investor, you know, whatever GE invests in an equipment manufacturer or a network company or whatever a startup of some type, the market interprets that as being that strategic investor is going to buy this company. 01:04:16:17 - 01:04:39:24 Speaker 2 So there's a signal being sent by who you have on your cap table. And I'm not sure how the market is going to interpret having the US government on your cap table. I mean, I can see the argument when we get to the point where there is viable dual use technology that you need defense contractors that are, you know, of, you know, we know what those types of companies look like. 01:04:40:00 - 01:05:10:18 Speaker 2 Right. And that they have a profile that is is optimized to serving the needs of the defense needs of the federal government. That's not what these companies are primarily. Maybe they'll be dual use, you know, but they aren't right now. I mean, they're they're science experiments. So I really don't know how the market is going to interpret. I think there's the other thing that immediately calls to mind is you're you're exposing your company to the risk, to political risk. 01:05:10:19 - 01:05:38:23 Speaker 2 Right. I mean, when the administration changes over what is the new administration's attitude towards those investments? And if I'm if I'm an entrepreneur, I don't want to worry about somebody on my cap table suddenly having an antagonistic, you know, approach to that, that stake. So I think there's a lot of there's a lot of risk, but they're unknown risks at this point because it doesn't really have a modern precedent in any way, and certainly not in this country. 01:05:39:01 - 01:05:43:24 Speaker 2 So I non-answer, but I hopefully that was. 01:05:44:01 - 01:05:53:17 Speaker 9 Just in here, your perspective. 01:05:53:19 - 01:06:11:17 Speaker 10 Thanks for a great talk about the quantum ecosystem. What do you think in terms of your knowledge so far, is going to be the best candidate for a full time quantum community? 01:06:11:22 - 01:06:32:01 Speaker 2 But that answer has a bunch of different. Or that question has a bunch of different answers. I think in the short term, I, I very bullish about neutral atoms in particular. Right. I mean they're they have the advantage of as I said, atom based qubits are more stable. So both trapped ion and neutral atoms are they've much higher. 01:06:32:01 - 01:06:57:19 Speaker 2 Fidelity's. You need fewer of them to get to a logical qubit. So you don't have to have as large as scale. And I interviewed Vlad and after they had done the 48 logical qubit demonstration a few years ago, a couple of years ago, and it struck me that he was describing building a version of a von Neumann machine in the vacuum chamber, because they can move the atoms around anywhere they want. 01:06:57:20 - 01:07:17:19 Speaker 2 So it's fully plastic and it's topology, right? Whereas you fabricated chip and you're stuck with how that chip is laid out. So there's a lot more power in prototyping. They're not nailed down. They don't have to wait through, you know, like IBM is now pivoting entirely their chip architecture to implement QLD PC. And it's now a buy planer chip. 01:07:17:19 - 01:07:37:23 Speaker 2 And they need a lattice chip as well. So they're actually designing, you know, two entirely new architectures just to try out a new error correction scheme. That's a big bet. And it's a long lead time. You know Misha and Latin can just like whip up a new approach to error correction, you know, pretty much overnight with their array. 01:07:37:23 - 01:07:58:01 Speaker 2 And same with inflection and Pascal. So I'm very bullish on neutral IBM's in the short term. But the their main challenge is the wall clock time right. I mean atoms are just really slow to operate on orders of magnitude slower than superconducting or spin qubits. So I kind of I go through this at the end of the book. 01:07:58:02 - 01:08:27:20 Speaker 2 I say I know everybody wants to know which is going to win. So my answer is, I think near-term we're probably going to see neutral atoms because they have fewer scale problems than than trapped ions. I think trapped ions have some viable ways to get to the necessary scale, but my guess is that neutralize will get to that 1500 sort of neutral atom array, and we'll get something that is absolutely impossible to simulate classically, which to me is the real. 01:08:27:22 - 01:08:55:11 Speaker 2 That's the moment we go like, okay, the quantum era has arrived, right? If you can, anything you do on that machine that's fully entangled, all the qubits are entangled and and it's in superposition. Good luck simulating that. You just can't. So anything you do on it is an advantage, even if it's not useful. But then I think superconducting and potentially spin qubits will overtake the atom based ones. 01:08:55:13 - 01:09:15:20 Speaker 2 And photonics are kind of a dark horse for me, I'm not sure. But I think ultimately long term the the millions of qubit scale, you know, is going to be won by either spin or photonic because they're on the face of it, they're just so much more scalable once they overcome the scientific and engineering challenges they face today. 01:09:15:21 - 01:09:28:08 Speaker 2 So it's a multi-phase kind of thing. That's why I'm saying I think we're going to have a plurality of modalities for a long time. 01:09:28:10 - 01:09:39:07 Speaker 10 Seeing Microsoft pursuing topological quantum computing. What do you see in that in terms of a good candidate for. 01:09:39:09 - 01:09:39:24 Speaker 1 Jury is still. 01:09:40:00 - 01:10:06:18 Speaker 2 I mean, theoretically, obviously the the promise of topological qubits is great, right? I mean, it's essentially doing topological approaches to error correction are some of the most successful. So if you have a physical embodiment of a topological system that should be, you know, really well suited to fall tolerance, I think the jury's still had as to whether they've actually identified real marijuana fermions in that that device. 01:10:06:20 - 01:10:38:01 Speaker 2 I mean, certainly the people I talk to, I trust go like, maybe it's certainly they're using machine learning to filter and and essentially cherry pick the results in real time and into in less they, you know, are very transparent about that machine learning algorithm. I don't know that we can really trust that those are on us. So it's it's a I mean, it's a really fascinating topic because it's a whole bunch of really interesting challenges there. 01:10:38:02 - 01:10:43:11 Speaker 2 So I want them to succeed. I just don't know if the evidence is very strong right now. 01:10:43:13 - 01:11:00:06 Speaker 3 Well thank you. I think that's our last question. You know how to contact Sebastian. Thank you very much for all the time you put coming here and sharing everything with everyone. Really appreciate it. We look forward to hearing the podcast. Mike, if you could close this out, that would be great. 01:11:00:07 - 01:11:00:12 Speaker 1 Sure.