1. This week’s long take looks at the Finnish Quantum Tech ecosystem

   • We invite you to join the IBM Quantum Challenge to celebrate 4 years of access to the IBM Q experience

   • The short take shares the most recent quantum news from the past week

   • The fan favorite SciFi section this week is not one but two quantum jokes (PG-13 warning)

2. Paying members can access our weekly investor digest here

   • Check out our investment opportunities in quantum write up

I am an author, speaker and investor in Quantum Tech - you can contact me here.

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Learn more about the ROI of working with a trusted Quantum expert like us.

The long take

You have probably heard of Kimi Räikkönen, the famous Finnish race car driver, or Linus Torvalds, the man behind the Linux operating system. Finland has given us the Finnish sauna, the Leningrad Cowboys and the Northern lights. But, let’s be honest, most of us know next to nothing about this tiny Nordic nation tucked away between Sweden and Russia.

Finland, small yet fine

With a population of 5.5M (0.07% of the global population), a GDP of $269.654B (0.24% of the global GDP) its scale quickly becomes apparent, as it is roughly the equivalent of Wisconsin in terms of population and economic output.

However, Finland spends more than average on technology and innovation, as much as 2.7% of its GDP in 2018. Industry defining companies such as Nokia, Rovio (the company behind Angry Birds), Supercell or MySQL were born out of these efforts, rooted in a strong and diverse higher education system.

Roughly 4,000 startup companies are born in Finland each year. And according to the Finnish startup association there are around 300 - 400 "growth startups", which have grown significantly over a three-year period. In 2018, these Finnish startups raised the highest amount of funding to date, as the total figure hit EUR 479M for that year. 

In other words, it’s a stunningly beautiful country, with some very prominent assets, but not very noticeable on the global stage by most metrics.

And if you are an investor, Finland might not be the best use of your time and resources if you are looking for ROI at the portfolio level.

Global quantum ambitions

But that is different within Quantum Tech. Finland has declared its goal to build the world’s most powerful quantum computer. And it has the science, companies, organization and resources to make it happen. Let’s take a closer look.

According to IQM, the QC company with Finnish roots, there are about 200 quantum experts in the Finnish capital of Helsinki alone. This ecosystem has benefited from systematic investments by academia and the government for almost 60 years.

 “We are leveraging the strong momentum of the Finnish quantum ecosystem to spread our quantum computers from Europe around the whole globe. Developing quantum technologies is of high strategic importance for Europe and Finland is an integral part of the worldwide quantum industry.” says IQM CEO Dr Jan Goetz. 

Early efforts in building and operating low temperature labs are at the origin of these efforts. Olli Lounasmaa, a reputed Finnish physicist, founded the Low Temperature Laboratory in 1965 at the Helsinki University of Technology in Otaniemi, Espoo, the present Aalto University. His laboratory became world famous in achieving records in low temperatures, based on their research into superfluid helium‐3 and nuclear magnetism.

With a Finnish, and European, ecosystem of government and industry projects, that, often, are more long term oriented than American or Chinese equivalents, they have been able to sustain basic research in the field throughout the decades.

The Finnish government is currently working on a national strategic quantum initiative. Finnish ministers are closely involved in the quantum ecosystem with close ties to several companies and the business interest in emerging solutions is growing. Mika Lintilä, Minister of Economic Affairs, is very interested in the possibilities of quantum technologies ” I have seen the future. Quantum computers will open a new era for industry, services as well as responding to climate change and for other domains. We have to make Finland a quantum computing centre for the EU.”.

Finnish quantum labs and universities

In fact, there is a strong network of basic research universities across Finland, with groups that cover all aspects of the quantum stack and applications such as quantum computing, sensing or communication.

The Aalto University Center for Quantum Engineering Otaniemi campus benefits from significant resources, clean rooms and low temperature labs with a focus on quantum sensing, communications, computing and simulation. Aalto University is the central hub out of which many of the Finnish quantum innovations have been incubated.

Turku Quantum Technology (TQT) is a theoretical physics research group at the University of Turku, which is also home to the Turku Center of Quantum Physics (TCQP).  

The University of Oulu houses the Nano and Molecular Systems Research Unit.

And the University of Jyväskylä is home to the Quantum Many Body Research Group.

These 4 research universities with long established working groups build the academic backbone of the Finnish quantum project. A joint research group, the Helsinki institute of Physics, unifies and coordinates this.

Markku Räsänen, the Head of Public Affairs at IQM, says “it is this talent and close knit ecosystem that allows us to punch above our weight”.

Government programs and support

The Finnish government has long ago recognized the importance of this sector. And the opportunity for Finland to have a significant, global impact. 

The national supercomputing center CSC has a $250M HPC program underway for building one of the three EU supercomputers in Finland. The hope is to leverage that infrastructure with future quantum computing investments. 

The state research organization VTT represents the Finnish side in the European Quantum Flagship project

The Academy of Finland supports these quantum projects scientifically.

And the Quantum Technology Finland project is a national center of excellence focused entirely on Quantum Tech.  

Finnish quantum companies

It is no wonder that with this dedicated academic and governmental support for over half a century, Finland is home to a number of world famous quantum companies and an ecosystem that spans the entire technology stack.

The leader of this quantum wolfpack is, arguably, IQM. With EUR11.5M in funding to data, IQM employs roughly 35 people, 90% of which are PhD’s in quantum and related fields. A small business oriented team is emerging as well and backed by a strong HR pipeline that will see the IQM team grow through 2020. 

Markku and the team are clear regarding their mission “we want to be the leading QC company in the world”. Asked how he thinks they can achieve this he points out that the talent at IQM is truly world class and highly focused on a very clear mission. IQM has strong specialties in readout, speed and fidelity technologies but their focus is on the full hardware stack and a fully integrated set of partners.

Bluefors is another world famous competitor, critical in the quantum supply chain, out of Helsinki and with close to 200 employees and over 500 systems delivered the global leader in cryogen-free dilution refrigerators - a wonder of technology that keeps Quantum Computers cooler than outer space.

Quantastica is a well known quantum software company, with its origins in Serbia but incorporated in Finland and backed by Finnish investors. 

Aivon designs sensors, electronics and mechanics for quantum systems. Asqella develops submillimeter-wave cameras. Canatu designs new materials. Okmetic makes high performance silicon wafers. 

The local landscape of companies engaged in Quantum Tech is completed by firms such as Elekta Neuromag, Murata Electronics Oy, Rockley, BeneQ and Picosun.

Finnish Quantum Investors

Finnish capital has fueled a lot of this activity, complemented by American and German investors, and ensured that many of the Finnish ventures mentioned above do not have to worry all too much about the 2020 Quantum Winter.

Maki VC is an early-stage venture capital firm partnering with deep tech from Helsinki with $80M in funds and investments in IQM. 

OpenOcean, also out of Helsinki, can deploy a total of $145M and has also participated in the Finnish quantum project. 

Tesi, the Finnish government VC fund has EUR 1.3B under management and is dedicated to push Finland to the next level of growth and has invested into IQM and Picosun.

Icebreaker.vc manages in total €70 million with their latest fund being €50M closed in April 2020 has invested in Quantastica.

Additionally, the Finnish government has an innovation funding agency called Business Finland that typically co-invest with these private investors in the form of research and internationalization grants. 

Conclusion

Finland has a tremendously strong ecosystem of scientists, academics, entrepreneurs and investors, all supported by strategic government projects, to design, build and commercialize a full quantum tech stack across hard- and software. 

Finland also takes a leading role in several EU Flagship projects, is a partner of choice for many German, French and British industrial companies, and is actively working on forward looking, commercially viable projects that go beyond your typical quantum use cases. 

Possible examples are application-specific quantum processors using a combination of digital and analogue blocks to reach quantum advantage with less qubits than typical NISQ applications. For these ideas the IQM team based in Helsinki gets support from the IQM Germany team based in Munich. A perfect example for hardware-software co-design.

And while a lot of work remains to be done, more software ventures required to build code and service companies in the sector are still, largely, absent, when it comes to Quantum Tech, Finland is clearly punching above its weight and a serious contender for the world title. 

Onnea suomeen!

For executives interested in Quantum there are multiple European Quantum Tech ecosystems that are able to cover the full stack across hardware, software and use cases that should be on your list as potential partners. And Finland belongs at the top of that list.

For investors interested in Quantum in Quantum Tech you have to think not so damn classically, and go off the beaten path. Finland is a great example where seed investing can make a real impact, or where risk oriented investors could potentially write large checks. Find these golden nuggets and understand the ecosystem.

We thank the following for their contribution to this article: Jan Goetz, Markku Räsänen, Ingela Waismaa, Tom Henriksson, Petar Korponaić, Mika Lintilä Minister of Economic Affairs.

Addition May 7, 2020

Additional research lab: University of Jyväskylä, Hybrid Quantum Technologies in Silicon group

The theory group and a superconducting structures group at Jyväskylä are all under the umbrella of the Nanoscience Center.

Correction: HIP is only a coordinating organization between a few groups (mostly related to particle physics).

On a separate note, I also would like to alert you to the IBM Quantum Challenge, which will start on May 4th at 9 am EDT.

With this challenge, IBM not only intents to celebrate the 4 year anniversary of their Quantum Hardware being available to users. But also offer an opportunity to engage the entire quantum community in a fun way.

The 4 challenges - create your own quantum circuit, build a calibration matrix, decrypt a secret message and define your own quantum algorithm - get increasingly complicated but are accessible to anyone (looking at you, my CEO and investor peeps).

And it all happens on their real quantum computers, which is really pretty cool. Besides bragging rights you will also get a digital badge and donations will be made to the Python Software Foundation.

For Quantum Investors

This week we added:

• 7 new quantum firms to our tracker

• 4 new quantum institutes

• 4 new quantum VC fund

• 6 new quantum deals in our fundraising pipeline

Details available here in our weekly investor digest.

The SciFi corner

At Interference Advisors we bring together Quantum Tech with business executives and investors through data, insights and market research.

Our members can access up to date data sets and reports online, we offer advisory services for executives and investors, and make co-investments with a select group of leading funds (companies looking for funding OR investors looking for deal flow please email me).

We also offer the leading business & investor focused quantum newsletter, and a paid newsletter with quantum deal flow and data.

10,000+ a month rely on our data, insights and reports.

Share Quantum Computing for investors & executives

My framework to help Quantum companies survive this winter, crisis and pandemic is being adopted my more and more quantum firms. Read about it here and reach out to me if you’d like details or help.

1. This week’s long take looks at the Quantum Tech landscape post Corona

   • The short take shares the most recent quantum news from the past week

   • The fan favorite SciFi section introduces the concept of Quantum Steampunk

2. Paying members can access our weekly investor digest here

   • We have 7 new quantum firms, 20 new institutes, 1 new quantum VC, 11 new quantum deals in our fundraising pipeline this week

   • Also check out our investment opportunities in quantum write up

I am an author, speaker and investor in Quantum Tech - you can contact me here.

Share

Learn more about the ROI of working with a trusted Quantum expert like us.

The long take

Corona is changing everything and Quantum Tech is no exception. Many ventures are burning through their cash, most investors are preoccupied with preserving their existing portfolios, and the large vendors are scenario planning for what the market might look like whenever this is over.

The only thing that is certain is that things will be different. Let’s look at what trends have started to emerge and then try to paint the future.

Strategic investments are on the rise

Though the past week has been quiet, we have seen an unprecedented number and amount of investments in quantum within the last 6 weeks. And, largely, they can be put into one of two buckets:

1. Strategic investments - we have seen a number of very large checks written by DARPA, other government bodies as well as strategic partners into a variety of Quantum Tech firms to (1) preserve the variety of quantum computing modalities (superconducting vs. photonics vs annealing etc) (2) protect national interest and (3) shield teams of experts from losing their jobs and potentially turning to other pursuits

2. Commercial investments - we have also seen a number of much smaller checks being written to much smaller teams. Teams that have (1) a clear solution/product that meets a very specific need, (2) a commitment to go after customers and some signed LOIs or even contracts and (3) a commercial market that is possible to assess and plan for

Very simply, the chaff is being separated from the wheat. Unless you’re so large or special that you are strategic, we see a clear trend picking up to weed out those ventures that have unrealistic business plans, no clear route to market, or fail to prove their technologies

Uncertainty is the new certainty

This comes to no surprise to anyone who has ever looked at a technology maturity cycle or enterprise technology. Corona is simply accelerating that process like so many other things in our spooky world.

The only thing that we know for certain is that post Quantum Winter (aka The Great Rona) the quantum world will look very different. Only those preparing, planning and executing for that world today - despite the uncertainty - will be competitive in that new world.

Post Corona landscape

Uncertainty or not, (corporate) history gives us a clue or two of what that world might look like:

1. Full stack cloud vendors will solidify. This is the cloud wars all over again and many of the players are the same

   • Understand individual value propositions and positioning

   • What are their channels to market (enterprise and devs)

   • Ecosystems of partners, applications, verticals, etc

2. Use cases and solutions will win. Technology and products rarely ever sold; solutions and stories do

   • Founders with a commercial vision and great storytelling on top of their academic prowess

   • Smaller quantum teams with clear niche applications and a plan on how to scale

   • Assess the potential for disruption or network effects

3. Move over amateur investor, the venture landscape will be cleaned out and it’s time for the pro’s to take over

   • Data and technology driven investment decisions

   • Combination of DeepTech + commercial expertise

   • Identify, track and score use cases/solutions and their vendors to look for markets, network effects, disruption potential

   • Scenario plan the various full stack vendors and their emerging ecosystems. Identify the gaps and opportunities, and what ventures might fill them

For executives interested in Quantum in means that if you haven’t yet aligned with one of the above ideas then it’s probably too late to convince you. A lot can be learnt in failure - I certainly did myself many times.

For investors interested in Quantum it is time for investors to put your chips on the table. If you have funds, a strong existing portfolio and the resources to execute this is an enterprise technology field, which is about to write the rules for the next decade or two.

For Quantum Executives

Quantum Inspire, the new, European quantum platform has been launched in the Netherlands.

Quantum Communication has shown to be possible under water (stunning!!), thus opening up tremendous strategic opportunities. In similar but unrelated news a new breakthrough for a “quantum GPS” has been announced, a key effort for an independant, self contained location system.

IBM has released a new algorithm for protein folding with a very cool visual interface to try it out here.

A new report by consultancy McKinsey estimates the Quantum market to reach $10B by 2035 - a great report but IMHO it does not account for true disruption across verticals.

Personalities can gel or they can clash, even in Quantum. And apparently these two did not find a state of entanglement. Watch out on how this evolves as it might boost a competitor with much needed credibility.

For Quantum Investors

This week we added:

• 7 new quantum firms to our tracker

• 20 new quantum institutes

• 1 new quantum VC fund

• 11 new quantum deals in our fundraising pipeline

Details available here in our weekly investor digest.

The SciFi corner

A new field, called Quantum Steampunk, is emerging. Quantum Steampunk combines the theories of thermodynamics with the theories of quantum mechanics. The hope is that through this new thought framework, around the shared concept of entropy, we will be able to solve new, complex problems.

Thermodynamic’s second law states that the entropy of a closed, isolated system cannot shrink. Which also defines why time can only flow into a single direction. If applied within quantum mechanics, where we regard each single entity as a closed, isolated system, one has to wonder what the limits of this law are, as through quantum entanglement, it potentially extends into the infinite.

If you want to feel very dizzy and small in the world, think about the microsystems with entropies that nest into larger systems with larger entropies, and so on and so on—all the way up to the scale of the universe itself. Suddenly, the idea of a computer made by monitoring individual electrons one at a time doesn’t seem so far out.

At Interference Advisors we bring together Quantum Tech with business executives and investors through data, insights and market research.

Our members can access up to date data sets and reports online, we offer advisory services for executives and investors, and make co-investments with a select group of leading funds (companies looking for funding OR investors looking for deal flow please email me).

We also offer the leading business & investor focused quantum newsletter, and a paid newsletter with quantum deal flow and data.

10,000+ a month rely on our data, insights and reports.

Share Quantum Computing for investors & executives

My framework to help Quantum companies survive this winter, crisis and pandemic is being adopted my more and more quantum firms. Read about it here and reach out to me if you’d like details or help.

For the past 24 hours I've been trying to overcome my anxiety of being a day late with my next newsletter, when, all the sudden, my phone started ringing and the news breaking. Honeywell finally had announced its long-rumored quantum computer.

In our long take we discuss what the Honeywell announcement means. In our news section we talk about Honeywell. And in the fan favorite SciFi section we talk about what the future might look like in a Honeywell provoked quantum future. Praise Honeywell!

Maybe Honeywell’s most successful and well known product to date - a thermostat

We love to get your feedback, praise and scolding when so deserved - email us at andre@estrapadus.com or on www.interference.consulting

Share

The long take

Honeywell just announced its Quantum Computing service to go live in 3 months, for the first time going official with their quantum efforts and sharing details of its status that many have been waiting for impatiently.

And those details are stunning.

Honeywell announced a 4 qubit Quantum Computer. That's right. 4 qubits. The real breakthrough is that Honeywell, unlike IBM, Google and many other full stack hardware providers uses the so-called trapped ion modality Trapped ions, so far, had not been proven in any significant hardware since they pose very specific challenges - scaling of trapped ion systems has been considered very difficult at best. And gate speeds are much lower than superconducting systems.

Trapped ions also offer a lot of advantages that, until today, were only theoretical. It improves computing power with better connections among qubits and with calculations that can last longer before qubits get perturbed and have to be reset. Honeywell's machines can also easily add qubits for greater computing capability and solve the scaling issue.

Another advantage of this approach is that trapped ions are less of a committed relationship than other quantum computing modalities and allow you to sort of change your mind halfway through a computation, thus improving your odds of obtaining a meaningful result.

“We can stop the calculation, take one qubit, ask ‘what are you right now, are you a 1 or a 0?’ and change the rest of the calculation based on that answer,” says Uttley. “It’s like putting an ‘if’ statement in an algorithm, and it’s something that’s unique to us.”

“One can easily imagine situations where mid-circuit measurements would extend what one is able to do,” says Aaronson, at least in the near-term. “Mid-circuit measurements also play a central role in the proposals for how to someday achieve quantum error-correction,” he says, which is the next major milestone in the growing field of quantum computing.

A tweet from this morning by Professor Wilhelm Mauch, one of the leading global Quantum Scientists, demanding better qubits rather than just more of them

Most importantly Honeywell focuses on the quantum volume measure popularized by IBM, which doesn't just consider cubic count but also takes into account the quality and durability of these qubits, making it an essential measure to assess the true performance of a quantum computer. IBM's largest quantum computer so far achieves a quantum volume of 16. Google does not measure quantum volume but one can assume that their supremacy breaking quantum computer has a quantum volume better than what IBM has achieved so far but not by much. The new Honeywell machine delivers a quantum volume of 64.

Unlike in classical computing where each additional unit of computation delivers a linear improvement in performance, a quantum computer delivers exponential improvements in performance with each additional unit of performance. Honeywell also claims that they will be able to increase quantum volume tenfold within 5 years, which is likely to make the most complex of computations possible as it equates a performance improvement by a factor of 100,000.

This means that if a quantum volume of 64 is indeed validated the ramifications for useful applications of this new Honeywell machine cannot be overestimated. We might be witnessing the true quantum supremacy that we all have been looking for.

So far this is nothing but an announcement by Honeywell and since we strive to stick to facts and data at IA we need to caution our own words and urge patience, despite our own excitement. However, we know several reputable institutions that have already tested this computer and confirm its performance. Furthermore, Honeywell isn't exactly a crazy, break everything style Silicon Valley tech company but rather a conservative industrial conglomerate known for solid products with a commercial purpose.

For executives this means you should start to panic and call an emergency meeting, corona virus or not. If your industry is affected by the potential applications of quantum computing, and it is, it is time to start planning aggressively. When the Honeywell quantum computer goes live, assuming it delivers on its bold claims, it is very possible that the first commercial applications might emerge rapidly. Another reason to panic is that you are not currently part of the unofficial quantum club - members of this club have had suspicions, maybe even glances of this supreme hardware for weeks or even months already. Algorithms have been run on it, results delivered and reviewed. By the time it hits commercial release and you start using it, you will already be a follower in a quantum world that might only have room for winners.

For investors this means you need to control your urges to jump all over quantum now. Yes, this is an exciting development and a potential breakthrough. However, this is a unique achievement by what might now be called the leading quantum computing group in the industry. This does not mean that other companies, vendors and providers will be able to mimic this breakthrough and all the sudden achieve a commercial path to success. In fact, nothing much has changed for the rest of the ecosystem with a couple exceptions (see below). Caution and a data-driven approach remains as important as ever to source and assess deals in the quantum realm.

For Quantum Executives

There is a lot of relevant news emerging over the last week, we will catch you up on it next week as this week is fully dedicated to the new overlords at Honeywell.

And JP Morgan, a partner in the launch of the Honeywell system that has a stated purpose of delivering commercial applications within Financial Services, amongst others. We know for a fact that the quantum group at JPM is very strong, very focused and aiming very (very) high - with this type of new hardware, they might be able to make quantum dreams come true. For the competition, and you as an executive, this means you need to understand what goals a group like JPM might have, how they could implement it with Honeywell and how you can emulate and compete with it. Then transfer this to other industries, because chemicals, material science, machine learning groups and many others are on the same path, far ahead of you.

Interestingly, Microsoft, also joined into the Honeywell announcement saying that this new Quantum Computer will become available on the Azure cloud alongside classical resources. A tremendous new competitor to other quantum cloud offerings, a great path to market for Honeywell, and an amazing new tool for Microsoft, who is working on its own quantum dream machine.

For Quantum Investors

There have been a couple other investments over the past week but, again, we want to focus on Honeywell as they also announced two investments with potentially important commercial ramifications.

One is Cambridge Quantum Computing, that just a few days ago announced an investment by IBM. And another one is Zapata.

Why? To leverage both their expertise in use cases and quantum software as well as other Quantum Information Science applications that might round out an offering portfolio to potential customers. Both, CQC and Zapata are leaders in their respective fields and can bring a lot of solutions and track record to this new hardware and its ecosystem.

This is a huge validation for both companies as their technologies, research and teams have had to endure tremendous due diligence by the best in the business for the past few weeks. Honeywell is ready to go all out with a full solution play rather than a purely scientific hardware breakthrough. They clearly signal with this investment that they are ready to talk to customers and aim to deliver real commercial solutions. Investors who can figure out who else in the ecosystem fits onto this platform have a tremendous opportunity.

The SciFi corner

Imagine science fiction becoming reality, maybe the scariest of all SciFi stories ever. New materials to build anything, no more diseases, universal income and wealth for all, peace and a healthy environment globally.

A distant dream for sure but take 5 minutes out of your day today and try to imagine what it could be like… then get back to work.

A new theory on black holes is emerging, rooted in Quantum Mechanics

We love to get your feedback, praise and scolding, when so deserved - please email us at andre@estrapadus.com or on www.interference.consulting

Long take

Not a day passes without a LinkedIn post by a quantum expert, a press article or conference exploring use cases for quantum computing, their timeline and potential impact.

The speculations range from the fantastical to the ridiculous, and rarely carry much substance. We know that, theoretically, quantum computing can solve certain hard problems, specifically we believe it can solve factorization and optimization problems better than a classical approach can today. But we have not done so within a business use case. We also know that specific Quantum Information Science applications such as Quantum Key Distribution, Quantum Communications or Quantum Sensing have immediate and highly valuable commercial applications. But, no matter what experts and the media proclaim, we do not know what a business use case for content computing would be today.

I recently had the privilege to have this debate with one of the most respected business leaders in the space who runs the Quantum program at one of the 15 largest companies in the world. His response was simple:

We do not know what the use cases are, but we need to present them in our internal business plans to get funding and resources. But, frankly, my team and I are not worried about these use cases all that much.

What he was really saying, to my ears at least, was eye opening. This is one of the largest global companies in the world with hundreds of thousands of employees, trillions in USD in assets and offices and customers pretty much in every country of the world. They move vast amounts of super fast data around the globe every second, in a business where split seconds can make a difference of many million dollars profit or loss. They run operational processes, customer support systems, sales and marketing efforts globally that are worth billions, and the all rely on the efficient storage and retrieval of data to be faster to market, cheaper and more productive, more personalized than their competition, or simply to find new answers to not yet known problems in all of this data. This is a business challenge, which lends itself perfectly to one of the two known quantum algorithms that we have tested and proven so far.

What he meant, is that his team is not vying for the next best use case but rather is building a global, company-wide quantum driven infrastructure for its business.

Their hypotheses is that by leveraging quantum hardware, quantum software and known quantum algorithms they will be able to more efficiently store all of their data, more effectively search it, mine it more deeply, and ultimately gain a significant advantage across all business functions and verticals of a global company. It is then up them to dream up use cases specific to their functions, regions, needs and goals. But the overall data system, so is the goal, will be Quantum powered, and thus light years more performant than anything previously known.

In other words, they are not building quantum computing use cases. They are building a quantum inspired corporate infrastructure that will be a global platform for innovation and use use cases that nobody has thought of so far.

Of course, this presents tremendous challenges, both technical and corporate, where you are competing internally with already amazing HPC systems, A.I., digital and blockchain. The mindset, though, is a wonderful demonstration of what Quantum is and can be - it’s not a faster computer or a system that can solve really complex computations. It’s a new way of thinking rooted in fundamentally different laws of physics. Innovation at its best ❤️

For executives this means not much. Unless, you’re in the fortunate and rare position that the protagonist of this story is in, and you have the context, knowledge, skill and resource to drive true, company wide change. Unless, you’re willing to really dedicate your career to Quantum, understand how it is different and new at its core and not just the superficial statements of superposition and entanglement. Unless that is you, for you it means that the best you can do is to continue to build skill, credibility, support and learn as much as possible so as to implement your use cases when we have the necessary capabilities.

For investors this means that true risk capital is cool again. Are you able to cut the kind of checks that inspire comic book heroes? Are you able to not worry about the returns for a decade? Then this is your chance to make history. All other investors need to understand the ecosystem to find opportunities to take advantage of consolidation trends, or, the rare niche application with a near term commercial future.

For Quantum Executives

Quantum simulation gets more powerful thanks to new research out of Kiel University, Germany.

Intel provides more details on its Horse Ridge effort to industrialize the manufacturing of quantum chips.

The new Women in Quantum Development (WIQD) network announced its first event.

I don’t know the people behind this program and I am sure they are excellent but here is a cute example how not to go about Quantum, which, will come to life between 2023 and 2025… really, people, really?! It’s this kind of overblown hype that will bite us all in the…

Not much else to report this week that is pertinent to executives so here is something to make you smirk - yes, all things quantum are built by humans, so be warned.

For quantum investors

Deals were made over the last week, specifically, seed rounds in well positioned Quantum startups that are (1) led by a credible team (2) have the scientific background required (3) understand that commercialization is important and accept it as part of their business plan and (4) demonstrate a realistic and strong focus on specific problems.

The purpose of these investments seems to ensure that said ventures do not have to worry about a potential Quantum Winter. Clearly a vote by investors into the viability of Quantum and the backing of the top horses and jockeys. More details to follow as these deals are made public.

One public deal is QuintessenceLabs, a leading quantum cybersecurity provider, who secured funding by Q-Tel, a non-profit strategic investor with a mission to accelerator the development of new technologies for the government.

Quantonation, one of the few VC funds focused only on Quantum, is raising a new 50M+ EUR fund to capitalize on their deal pipeline.

The Dutch government is committing another 23.5M EUR to a 5 year national Quantum program.

The SciFi corner; just for fun!

I don’t know you but personally math has been the dark horse of my education, a never ending struggle. But, no matter how fluent in math we all are, I think we all can agree that math is an exceptional language to describe the laws of nature and the universe.

Most of us have used math to describe physical laws of nature to some extent or another, or even explore the laws of the universe around us. It is common knowledge, that math is the best and most accurate way to describe what happens around us.

A new research paper suggests that the universe, in turn, might be describing math. I guess we are not alone out there…

The UK national quantum program is one of the best funded and coordinated national efforts.

We love to get your feedback, praise and scolding (when so deserved) - please email us at andre@estrapadus.com or on www.interference.consulting

The long take

A hotly debated topic by quantum laymen and experts alike, and thank you Google for declaring supremacy, is when will we finally deliver a quantum computer that is “practical”. Or, in other words, will be able to perform meaningful tasks with a commercial ROI. A lot of the attention with respect to this question is focused on qubit count and many media outlets, consultants, conferences and other experts make daring predictions that we need to reach anywhere between 150 and many millions of qubits to deliver on this promise. Now that’s a ballpark.

The bad news is, this is fundamentally flawed reasoning rooted in poor understanding of the topic. When answering the above question, one needs to consider three important factors.

The first one is a concept called quantum volume coined by IBM. Quantum volume takes into account not just the qubit count, but also the quality of each qubit, the connectivity between each, and the coherence of these qubits, along with other factors. It is a holistic measure of the overall quality and productivity that is vastly more insightful than qubit count in itself. IBM has made a commitment to doubling its own quantum volume with each release and historically we've seen that they have been able to deliver on this promise. If they will be able to continue on this path, we surely will see quantum hardware emerge that can deliver meaningful results within a few years.

Another important concept is a fault tolerant quantum computer or fully error corrected quantum computer. Qubits, as we all know, are famously fickle and highly sensitive to outside vibrations, temperatures, noise and measurement. Error correcting methodologies aim to reduce or eliminate the impact of such outside interference, thus providing us with the ability to compute more complex algorithms and computational results that are much more reliable. Error correction is arguably the most important field in quantum computing today, as existing qubits and notoriously poor in performance and require a lot of TLC to be rendered more stable and usable. Which, as such, is not a scalable, commercial solution. We are seeing an increasing amount of resources being dedicated to tackling this challenge, now that the hardware infrastructure, albeit young and unstable, is established.

Lastly, and this might be the most important and overlooked aspect when it comes to answering the question of ‘when’, is industrializing the production of quantum qubits and quantum hardware systems. Currently, qubits are lovingly manufactured in high-grade labs, a true craft. Recently, however, companies such as Intel have made strides in using their existing infrastructure and know-how in manufacturing quantum hardware solutions akin to chips or wafers. It is this industrial aspect of how we go about designing, manufacturing and integrating quantum hard solutions that will ultimately most impact the timeline. Especially, if a government or large corporation decides to make a significant multi-billion dollar investment focused on this specific manufacturing challenge, a highly sped up timeline to a usable, meaningful quantum computer will see the light of day.

this means that when you're looking to pick a technology partner for your quantum journey make sure that they have full stack capabilities or a full stack ecosystem, meaning that they will be able to deliver on all aspects of scaling quantum systems, not sure the qubit count.

that there is a large financial opportunity along the supply chain that enables these full stack solutions. The qubit handy(wo)men might be getting all the spotlight but there is a sophisticated, well positioned, commercially active supply chain hard at work behind the scenes.

"The Gartner of Quantum" - data sets, market reports and advisory on Quantum Information Science vendors, investors, use cases and applications.

For quantum executives

Government funding for Quantum is growing steadily as significant grants by various departments have been released. The White House is committing at least another half billion to these efforts.

Anthem, a large healthcare provider, has joined the IBM Q hub in Raleigh, further demonstrating the traction QC in general is gaining in the healthcare field.

It is interesting to note that even the CFO community is now taking note, which means that real corporate budgets for Quantum are in the works and it's not a CTO only topic anymore, even though the American heartland is increasingly joining into it as well.

For quantum investors

Last week brought us a whopper (not the sandwich) when IBM invested an undisclosed amount into Cambridge Quantum Computing.

CQC is one of the oldest, most respects CQC ventures in the market and a long time partner of IBM, with whom they recently announced the integration of their IronBridge (quantum safe encryption) solution into the IBM Cloud.

This is certainly a strategic investment by IBM as it extends their QIS reach with new, commercially viable products as well as QC expertise and use cases in Chemistry and ML.

It also brought an onslaughts of really fine reporting on how to invest into quantum - good luck to these savvy folks.

The SciFi corner... just for fun!

Since today is Sunday we thought you should know that you don't exist. Bummer, I know!

In fact all you are is a collapsing wave function that only exists as a probabilistic entity.

You can thank this guy for it.

You, I, everything surrounding us is just a mathematical likelihood of some form of energy being in a certain state at a certain place in a certain moment.

Enjoy your Sunday!

In Q4 of 2019 our reach was 136,560 and we had 336,606 impressions across all social media channels.

- Quantum Computing, non technical introduction LINK
- NYC QC ecosystem overview LINK
- The Quantum Computing vendor quadrant LINK
- QIS landscape report LINK
- QIS cognitive market analysis LINK

A graphic by Sandia National Laboratories visualizing the state of a Qubit.

We love to get your feedback, praise and scolding (when so deserved) - please email us at andre@estrapadus.com or on www.interference.consulting

The long take

A recent post of mine on LinkedIn mentioning the infamous “Quantum winter” received an interesting comment by a data scientist. He innocently asked if there ever was a quantum summer?

I found this most intriguing and responded that yes there was at least a mild quantum summer, with startups that sometimes do not have more than some research commanding seven if not eight digit dollar valuations, many Fortune 500 companies showing up at conferences touting their quantum achievements and all the large vendors fighting each other with supreme press releases.

So is there truly a quantum winter coming? Maybe. To me, what is more interesting, after dozens and dozens of conversations during the first months of 2020, is the fact that a certain “quantum fatigue” seems to have set in. You have vendors large and small trying to prepare NISQ era machines for usable applications. On the other side you have potential clients, concerned with disruption or innovation, failing to see results from their sometimes onerous and long-term agreements with some of these vendors. And in the middle of it all an investor community that has been forcing down rounds, meaning additional fundraises at a lower valuation than the previous round, onto startups. This typically is a strong sign of skepticism and a downturn to come.

The major lesson from all the conversations I've had in the first month of this year, is that most companies potentially impacted by quantum computing and other quantum information science applications currently do not see the urgency of moving forward with large expensive programs. The results of the last 2 to 4 years of investing, experimenting and trying to commercialize quantum use cases without any tangible results has led to a certain quantum fatigue across the board. Sure, in the press you continue to hear about companies investing into quantum and that is certainly true. JP Morgan just made a splash by hiring a high-profile scientist and inventor from IBM. Goldman Sachs, a large Wall Street rival, hired the former head of product from Rigetti, arguably the most famous quantum computing startup, to join their team. You also still see the same usual suspects from large automobile or insurance companies making the rounds of the conference circuit and spreading their internal quantum grandeur.

But when you dig deeper and speak to these teams you notice one of two things. First, they either have sufficient ambitions and resources as not to be concerned with the short term and are building an infrastructure and culture for the long term to succeed in quantum information science and its potential applications. Second, you see companies using it as a PR strategy to celebrate their new technology skills and expertise and, thus, distract from other challenges that the company and their relevant industry is potentially facing.

As we move into the second month of 2018 what is the lesson from all of this? It's simple, quantum computing is increasingly following the usual technology adoption and maturity curve. One might argue that we're currently entering the trough of disillusionment and that is an awesome thing. It will lead to a shake out in the industry, realign commercial and industrial resources towards truly useful and profitable applications and use cases. And clean out the hype and bullshit in an industry increasingly crowded by pseudo experts, consultants and other vultures.

lies ahead in 2020 as some companies will stand out through their sheer quality and accomplishments and be able to confirm their growth curves. And others will fall prey to consolidation in the market. The ability to bet on the right horse in this environment will lead to significant and timely returns for the smart well-informed investor.

. There will be no easy way to justify an investment into quantum computing for any company, as use cases that are practical and offer bottom line impact remain far in the future. Yet, the argument that quantum computing will be a paradigm shift, and that you need to start today to build your skills, culture and team remains more valid than ever. Additionally, use cases such as quantum key distribution, quantum communications or quantum sensing continue to have an increasingly imminent timeline and application. As a senior executive, this means you need to equip yourself with the data, partners and vision to build a long-term program within your company.

Contact us if you are interested to learn more about Quantum Key Distribution and how Quantum might break current encryption standards

For quantum executives

News from January

You've heard about qubit count or the raw power of a quantum computer. Equally important, though, is how to manufacture and scale the production of these qubits, once research has advanced on their coherence and error correction. Other applications, such as QKD, increasingly see industrialization of their technologies, even though many of these are yet untested.

The blockchain community has been in uproar last year about the threat of quantum breaking their encryption. Truth is, that this is becoming a matter of national security that goes well beyond blockchain and is affecting all types of public and private encryption to a point where new countries such as India or Germany make new, large commitments to the technology.

Quantum Sensing is an underreported field within QIS that is showing initial commercial applications. This follows significant investments into the research and implementation of Quantum Communications infrastructure, such as in China, another imminent QIS application.

For quantum investors

News from January

We are aware of only one investment in January, which goes to Xanadu for their efforts to develop photonic QCs.

While investors and industry might have some quantum fatigue, even though some still stir the pot, research is powering onward with new labs at Princeton, new government grants and private funding.

The SciFi corner... just for fun!

Recently the theory of Quantum Darwinism is gaining increasing popularity amongst certain Quantum fans.

One of the most remarkable ideas in this theoretical framework is that the definite properties of objects that we associate with classical physics — position and speed, say — are selected from a menu of quantum possibilities in a process loosely analogous to natural selection in evolution. In other words, physics too might be survival of the fittest.

Three experiments have vetted quantum Darwinism, a theory that explains how quantum possibilities can give rise to objective, classical reality.

In Q4 of 2019 our reach was 136,560 and we had 336,606 impressions across all social media channels.

- Quantum Computing, non technical introduction LINK
- NYC QC ecosystem overview LINK
- The Quantum Computing vendor quadrant LINK
- QIS landscape report LINK
- QIS cognitive market analysis LINK

We love to get your feedback, praise and scolding (when so deserved) - please email me at andre@estrapadus.com or on www.interference.consulting


To quantum supriming or not

You’ve heard the news (originally leaked paper), Google has achieved Quantum supremacy. You’ve also heard the outcries that Google fell well short of that achievement. And you’ve read the articles arguing about it.

So what is the deal you wonder? Very simple, it’s a two sided sword and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Side 1

Google achieved Quantum supremacy. What Google describes in its research paper (official publication) cannot practically be achieved by a classical computer and, in fact, offers a superpolynomial speedup over the best known classical algorithms.

It is a tremendous technological breakthrough that nobody else has been able to come close to so far and that the competition has been working on feverishly. Across the bandwidth of NISQ technologies required to deliver on this computation, Google innovated in terms of multiple aspects such as coherence times, error rate, software and algorithmic design.

Bravo Google!

The flipside

Google did not achieve Quantum supremacy. They failed to accurately depict the performance of a classical HPC, which can be much improved upon from the suggested 200,000 years towards a timeframe that indeed would be while not desirable possibly practical. Thus, it is not a superpolynomial speedup.

This does not yet account for the purely theoretical nature of the experiment, which has no accepted applications and has been specifically designed to deliver the best possible result in this competition. If this were the Tour de France, you now would be crying “doping”.

Google pulled off a stunt, so hold your horses!

Conclusion

Both sides, with many more arguments, can be credibly argued and who is right and who is wrong will solely be decided by your own judgment (a great in-depth technical analysis).

This, though, would get you a “failed” in grade school on your philosophy paper - it is missing the point. The entire Quantum community and ecosystem needs to be grateful for good news. Too little innovation and breakthroughs have been publicized lately in a field with high expectations that is running hot with hype.

Ultimately, this is driven by diverging business interests and models. Google is playing a long game, certainly hoping to make Quantum A.I. a reality ASAP, their true goal is to build a universal quantum computer. And they have the funding, independence and context to deliver on it. Other vendors might not be so lucky as they are feeling the pain of significant R&D investments over the past 2 decades and increasing budgets for sales, marketing and consulting around QIS. Without a bottom line justification for these expenditures in the near to medium term, reality might set in sooner than they like.

What Google did might or might not be actual Quantum supremacy, it certainly is a considerable achievement that others have failed to deliver on. As such, we must celebrate it, embrace it and build on it to make sure that as an - small and fragile - QIS ecosystem we continue to strive and attract the necessary resources required to make Quantum applications practical and beyond doubt.

Bravo. Google. Let’s all join the party!!!

From January 25-30 ID Quantique will be holding its 12th annual Winter School. A great opportunity to learn about the state of Quantum Communications and what's on the horizon for this exciting application.

The QC market is in a state of superposition

What we are starting to see is that the overall market, after a handful of years of excitement and investments, is that people are starting to wonder what comes next.

All of the large hardware vendors (except Google if you’re in the pro supremacy camp) have been behind expectations both on delivering technical breakthroughs and real world applications.

The smaller vendors and startups have equally struggled to announce true breakthroughs and are suffering the consequences ... acquisitions, down rounds (Rigetti, despite a highly focused tech effort) and lack of funding.

New quantum modalities such as trapped ions (congrats on the new raise, though, IonQ) or topological (Microsoft is simulating) have not made news for any practical solutions either.

Which leaves many in the “scene” betting on the (not so) dark horse Honeywell, who is expected to make a major announcement by Q1 2020 that people are betting much of their money on (smart move Google hedging their short term bet… more “bravo” for two large vendors joining forces).

All of this gives us a very mixed Quantum big picture at the very best, with the true issue an open secret - we still don’t know of a real world (even theoretical) application that indeed would present a quantum speedup. And that is a real big problem despite what you read in the news every week (hype alert!!!).

From December 10-12th you won't want to miss Q2B - the practical quantum computing conference by QCWare with some of the world leading experts in QC.

Let’s not get too entangled

One lesson we seem to have learnt from other emerging (paradigm shifting) technologies is the need for regulations and standards. In Quantum Computing, despite its lack of maturity, this is indeed one success story.

In fact the US Government just signed the Quantum Initiative Act recognizing the need for this as a national security risk. The National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) is taking on the business end of this battle with the creation of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QEDC).

Private think tanks such as The Hudson Institute in DC are spearheading further initiatives and published recommendations for international standards that have most recently met with widespread cross-atlantic support. The IEEE is another great example of this and publishing additional guidelines.

In Europe and Japan we see similar efforts in parallel and in addition to the American led standards and regulations, and consensus seems not impossible. A great step forward to ensure the viability and credibility of QIS systems.

The SciFi corner... just for fun!

• At a recent closed door QIS event a high level government official showed a slide with milestones until 2035. One of them was teleportation.

What business executives need to know about Quantum

• 3 ways to use QIS in your enterprise

• IBM Quantum Computation Center

What investors need to know about Quantum

• IonQ secures $55M

• HQS closes financing round

• HIS startup raised $27M

What Americans need to know about Europe in Quantum

• Cambridge Quantum Computing appoints Robert Young to its board of directors

What Europeans need to know about North America in Quantum

• Quantum Benchmark supports development of Google’s world-leading quantum computers

Our research and social media reach (+14% monthly)

- Quantum Computing, non technical introduction LINK
- NYC QC ecosystem overview LINK
- The Quantum Computing vendor quadrant LINK
- QIS landscape report LINK
- QIS cognitive market analysis LINK