Hello, and welcome to the Physics World Stories
podcast.
I'm Andrew Glester. And in today's episode, we're
gonna be exploring one of the most fascinating
fields, which is reshaping the future of computing,
communication,
and security.
That's, of course, quantum technologies.
We'll be looking mainly at careers in quantum
and talking to a couple of people with
ideas about maybe how you could get involved
in the field.
This episode is sprung from the feature on
the physics world website, physics world dot com,
called taking the leap, how to prepare for
your future in the quantum workforce. That feature
includes an interview with Araceli Vinigos Gounas, and
we'll hear from Araceli
later in the podcast.
But first, I wanted to talk to somebody
whose business
is right at the heart of quantum technologies.
But before we do, just one tiny bit
of explanation.
A qubit is something you'll hear about in
this podcast. It's a quantum bit and the
fundamental unit of information
in quantum computing,
just like a bit in classical computer.
But unlike those bits in regular computers, which
can either be a 0 or a 1,
a cubit on the other hand can represent
not only
0 or 1, but also any combination of
both in a superposition,
with a specific probability of being either 0
or 1.
The dramatic improvement over classical computing
comes from the ability to entangle multiple qubits
and the vast number of potential combinations
that that enabled. Later in the podcast, we'll
hear how quantum computers have the potential with
this great power to solve challenges
such as developing green energy and giving more
efficient tech to power
AI applications without
destroying the planet. But here's doctor Matt Hutchings
from SEEK
Digital Quantum Computing. That's s double e
q c. We're SEEK's company that that is
developing,
chips
to scale quantum computers.
And so we have an integrated chip,
technology that can that can form, integrated quantum
processes to ultimately solve,
IO bottlenecks
and and key key technical challenges in scaling
with large large scale quantum computers.
So that's what the company does.
I myself,
run
our our kind of product side of things.
So so my goal is to work out
how to get those chips into,
quantum computing systems,
and and developer systems,
in a in a productized fashion. So what
are they looking for from our chips,
and and what what features and and systems
do we need to develop to support integration?
IO bottlenecks.
Oh, yeah. Good question. No.
You've probably seen,
well, you may have seen, they're getting more
more popular to see in in public media
today, pictures of quantum computers.
And they are these kind of glorious looking,
you know, in the most common format, chandeliers,
that you kinda see where you've got this
big metal structure and all of these these
beautiful wires hanging down them.
And they look very shiny and and and
very cool,
but they look very sci fi,
which is, I think, on purpose,
you know, from a product staging point of
view,
But also in a in very much reality,
they are
a science fiction technology. You know, it's incredible
technology that we're building here.
And and
the the current state of the of the
technology,
we've proven it works, and we've proven it
can be built, which is incredible.
And we've proven you can prioritize something. You
get them out there. You can you can
access quantum computers on the cloud.
But at their at their current format,
they are these kind of lab experiments on
steroids. They they've taken what you have in
a in a lab, and you've kind of
productized it, made it look pretty,
and made it look stable.
But at the end of the day, it's
it's this lab scale technology that's been that's
been blown up. So what a quantum computer
is today is a is a room scale
system
Even if they're very, very small quantum computers,
in in the sense of their power, they're
still room scale size systems.
And all of those,
wires you see in the chandeliers are the
IO,
the input, outputs needed to control the quantum
computer.
And and today, a single qubit needs an
order between 2 and and 4
IOs
to control it. So this harks back to
the days of early computers where you can
kinda remind yourself of those images of of
the first,
kind of Colossus systems and and and, you
know, big computers when they were room scale
in in our, you know, in the 19
fifties sixties.
And, and that was the same issue that
that every time you added a bit, you
added a wire.
And it was coined the the tyranny of
numbers that that,
if I every time I had to add
a a new wire, I also had to
add,
you know, a new bit, I added a
new wire or or or etcetera,
then then this system's never gonna be manufacturable
because, you know, we can never plug in
a 1,000,000 wires, you know, and do that
regularly.
And that was the famous phrase that you
may have heard of from the leader of
the of Bell Labs at the time that
said, they looked at this system, and and
there's only ever gonna be 5 of these
computers on the planet. And it was miss
misinterpreted to think that that's not that was
a a shot against the usefulness of the
computer. But, no, it was a it was
a a comment about its manufacturability.
This was not a manufacturing system. And so
today, you can see the same thing in
in quantum computing that they are, you know,
room scale systems, huge complexity,
huge number of wires input and outputs to
to
to scale them. And and we are, as
a as a society, able to manufacture them
at the current scale, but going beyond that
will just not happen. So
we are in a situation where
we need to solve the IO bottlenecks, and
the best way to do that is to
integrate as much of the IO on a
single chip as you can.
And and that's that was for the classical
computing, the the integrated circuit, and what we're
doing the same for the quantum edge. How's
it going? Oh, extremely well. I mean, I
think both,
in the industry, we're seeing huge amount of
of activity and
and and progression in quantum computing. So it's
only accelerating, which is which is fantastic.
And
and there's also more
pull from the from from the the market
saying wanting access to quantum computers and more
and more access to more powerful computers.
So in general, in the industry, we're seeing,
you know,
really for really positive forward movement. And then
for our chips,
we already released at the early in the
year our first,
first ever, you know, digitally controlled integrated chip
based quantum computer,
full stack. We opened up to some select
partners,
through various UK government grants as well as,
you know, partners like the National Quantum Computing
Centre, which are currently having access to that
that chip. And that was the first, yeah,
first ever chip technology that was able to
be integrated with cryogenic qubits at the kind
of, you know, at the interface stage, you
know, at the millikelvin stage of these kind
of most advanced quantum computing systems,
and and do all functionality of of the
control of those qubits without, degrading their performance.
And you were able to then run that
as a full stack quantum computer, and the
users weren't able to, you know, were were
not able to see that there is now
an integrated process of controlling the quantum computer,
not not a remote control controller. So that
that's that's really exciting. And then we're on
the verge in the end of this year
to integrate
more functionality into those chips. And so by
the end of this year,
we will have
a a fully integrated chip technology where we're
not only controlling the cubits, but we're also
reading out and we're doing other, you know,
more advanced functionality.
So so at that point, we'll have a
chip technology that that mostly eliminates all of
the room temperature controllers you need to run
a a cubit system.
That's pretty cool. Pretty cool. So but you
say that the industry are asking for this.
Who's the industry? Who who is wanting Well,
I mean, so so users wise,
we're seeing more
a lot of demand from academics,
to use quantum computers. I think, you know,
they're always the pioneers in using new new
advanced compute technology.
We've seen this in across all of the
industry, particularly, you know, chemistry groups like that.
They're always wanting to use the most advanced
compute,
you can get.
So we see expanding demand in the academic
frameworks, but also more in the commercial space.
So so it used to be, Kate, that
the fortune
5 100 companies had, you know, a a
effort
measured in the 100 of 1,000
of of using quantum computers.
And now that has expanded to, you know,
multimillion
dollar efforts,
where they're consistently spending significant amounts of resource
using and and running quantum computing applications
and also bringing in a lot of the
application development in house. And so they're building
up bigger teams in house to to support,
quantum computing application development.
So we're seeing that in the bigger companies,
and now that's filtering that into the small,
even, you know, more conventional kind of companies,
you know, not necessarily your your giants,
are also starting to look at what is
our strategy in quantum computing and what resources
do we need to be put bringing in
now,
to to to be able to take advantage
of this technology.
And so, you know, you're you're the biggest
things that are happening using government tenders to
open up more local compute for for wider
groups both in the commercial and and and
academic frames. But, also, we're seeing more system
integrators being able to sell and system developers
selling
to to private companies,
and getting these systems into data centers so
the private companies can start to access them.
So
I I would say, though, you know, actually,
we're seeing, you know, still a large emergence
from from academics, but but more and more,
is being pulled from from industry wide itself.
We're talking,
well, I'm talking to you on a laptop.
I don't know what you're on. On. Right?
And it's just
a a fairly standard laptop.
Fairly standard Mac. Yeah. We've had we've had
some issues with connections.
Is there any way in which quantum computing
is gonna be involved in our day to
day lives, or is it gonna be always
at that kind of high end? I would
it's difficult. I mean so I would also
say never say never. Like, there's always this
this idea that that,
we woefully
an overestimate
the the immediate potential of a of a
new technology
and and are impossible to to predict its
ultimate,
you know, value to to society. So it
was the same in classical refute. We we
initially didn't we we thought they were gonna
save the world,
and and then they they didn't.
They they did a lot to get us
in space, which was incredible, and that was
their first use case.
And and that was, you know, justified the
whole development of the technology alone. And then
now we're sitting with the most powerful computers,
you know,
billions of times more powerful than what we
send in the space on our laps, you
know, in our phones, you know, technology that
way. No one could have imagined this, right,
when they were building the computer. So I
think it's impossible to say, you know, a
few, you know, tens of years down the
line, will we have quantum computers sitting in
our phones, and will they be doing something?
Probably. Right?
And will they be impacting us? I would
say so. So I think the ways we'll
see the first impacts to society
are along the lines of,
how will they benefit applications
that that that will have
net effect for for the the general public.
So more invisible,
but but still underlying importance. So, you know,
the first first powerful computers will be able
to to to develop better drugs and things
like that and and have impact in the
in the pharmaceutical and the chemical industry,
which would have knock on effects to society.
So there's a lot of of potential use
cases particularly around green energy and, you know,
how we build more efficient catalyzers
or, catalysts and things like this, which will
have knock on effects to to to society.
And then I guess, ultimately, there's there's emergent
view that that, you know, we're seeing AI
and the importance of AI emerging,
more and more for both, you know, commercial
use cases, but but, you know, standard, you
know, per personal use cases,
and how it can impact our lives. And
and there is early evidence to suggest that
the quantum computers might be able to solve
more efficient AI,
and maybe a more u well, we know
that they're gonna be a more universal computer,
so there is potential that they can also
be a much more efficient scalable AI technology
and take advantage of the exponential power of
scaling,
of the cubits technology underlying it to really
make AI scaling. So so today, you're seeing
huge pull in AI, and it's having a
massive knock on effect of our of our
energy consumption as a planet that the these
GPUs that are being used to power AI
are just they're they're boiling the earth,
and they're only gonna get worse. So we
need to make AI more efficient, and and
I see that quantum computing could be a
a a route to getting there. So I
think that would be, you know, also a
a a more immediate impact on on human
civilization.
But then, you know, in the future, sure.
They they they probably would be your friend.
I mean, the the one that sort of
shouts to me from that, because, you know,
where the money is is where these things
happen is cryptocurrency.
Would that be a similar kind of situation?
Yeah. I mean, I think,
they they can they can be one of
the main reasons why we're building coin computers
and and one of the reasons why we
suspect that the indust what the government efforts
are sustained in building quantum computers is that
we can,
we provenly, with the right size of computer,
can break Shaw's
we can run Shaw's algorithm, which breaks RSA
encryption. So that's,
the underlying encryption that that fuels this entire
you know, everything,
is is is,
RSA encryption, you know, where you take large
numbers of large fact prime numbers and you
multiply them together, and it's hard to work
out what the the original prime number is
from the thing that gets sent.
Really cool code.
Really is, you know, pinned you know, underpinned
our entire, you know, private communication for a
long, long time.
And so a quantum computer has been of
the right size. We'll break that. We'll we'll
break encryption.
And so therefore, governments are very concerned or
very interested to get access to this technology
because
they want to see what other governments have
been doing for the last 50 years.
And and it doesn't matter whether you swap
over your your your encryption today.
Whatever you've been doing is still locked stored
somewhere,
and and will be and the quantum computer
will be able to break that at some
point. You as a consumer
shouldn't care that much because your data, though
you care about it today, you probably don't
care about your data from a decade ago.
It's probably out of date.
So I wouldn't worry too much. But but,
you know, we've already started to see the
emergence of new encryption technologies coming into the
public
domain,
where it's most needed at the moment, and
you'll see that filtering down into your cat
videos at some point
in the next few years.
And and then you'll be fully protected because
these are kind of post quantum encryption levels,
and they're gonna get more and more advanced
as as the technology advances along with computing.
So and and you bring up cryptocurrency. It's
an interesting one. There is no proven application
that means that a quantum computer will break
crypto,
or blockchain, the underlying encryption for for for
for for for,
cryptocurrency.
So it's pretty secure. I mean, the point
of cryptocurrency
and point of blockchain, you know, cryptocurrency is
is kind of what it is, but but
blockchain is an underlying concept,
and technology is is impressive because what it
does is is, you know, decentralize
your information. So even if it could be
decrypted, it's still you can't go find it,
and that's kind of cool. So I wouldn't
worry about your your your cryptocurrency assets for
for for too long or whatever. I'm not.
Listen, this might be. One area where people
can
get involved in this and particularly listeners to
the physics world stories podcast is to get
involved in the industry.
Yes. Your company
wouldn't exist if this wasn't an industry.
Absolutely. Yeah. And we we've
we've we existed for we've started in 2019.
So we've been going for quite a while
now.
We're we're one of the more mature in
the in the industry, and I think you're
seeing more and more companies existing across, you
know, across the the supply chain. It's kind
of getting really diversified. So, you know, I'd
say back in 2019,
you really needed a PhD in in quantum
information science,
to to break into this technology.
And that's kind of where I began.
And to be fair, I didn't even have
a PhD in in quantum information science, but
I my background
was in laser physics, and then I did
a a postdoc in in quantum information science.
So I was lucky to convert in in,
like, the 5 years prior to to forming
SEEK.
So you really need that advanced
degree and knowledge to get in. But I
think now,
the industry is a lot more open and
requires more in engineering level positions.
So, you know, we we are currently looking
at recruiting or getting access to people with
FPGA programming experience and things like that. So
more more productized commercial,
you know, software development, things like that. So
so in London, in Seek, what we do
is build a firmware and software to run
our chips. We call it kind of, you
know, like CUDA is to to GPUs. We're
building, you know, our version of of what
we're CUDA, you know, CUDA for running our
chips. And and though some of our team
are very specialists
have very specialist knowledge in core information science,
you know, others have have less specialist knowledge.
And and as we grow, more and more,
we'll be looking at, you know,
hiring people that that have
conventional, you know, product. You know, they can
productize software.
And we're seeing that that's just our company,
but we're seeing that across the industry. So
more and more kind of,
more engineering level positions are being opened up
to to to the community. What would be
your recommendation for people who are listening to
this and thinking, oh, I quite fancy that?
The best ways to impress, you know, someone
like like ourselves would be to have a
a good foundational knowledge
of what's going on.
So I you know, maybe I don't expect
you to have a a PhD in in
core information science and and maybe not even
wanting that today, but still certainly helps if
you want to
to, you know, get into the kind of
more senior positions within the company.
But I think there is a more and
more,
entry level,
positions
that are becoming available to to people with,
with
maybe, like, non quantum information PhDs, but more
experimental physics. But but or or, you know,
this is from Zeek's point of view, but,
you know, other non directly related PhDs, but
also,
if you if you've done a master's in
something of relevance. So I I I go
back to that point of, I think having
an awareness of the technology
that you're walking into and and the industry,
is the helpful ticket to get you in.
But if you come fresh off the street
with with a master's in in physics and
and no understanding of what what a quantum
computer is, it's going to bode well in
any interview.
But I certainly look out for a group,
you know, people that have have had exposure
to the industry and the technology.
So whether that's you've done a course in
in kind of Qiskit or something like that.
If you're going to the software development or
application spends or if you've got a master's,
on the kind of,
you can do these master conversions at, like,
UCL and things like that. And there's there's
there's also international master's,
where you can even do.
I think there's there's opportunities to do something
like a 3 month conversion,
at certain places.
Another way to get into the industry that
I was gonna bring up outside of masters
is is,
we often run
internships. And I know a lot of companies
do this this as well that that, you
know, for quite a short you know, it
can be anywhere between 3
6 months or longer. And and and we've
run internships with with people that have been
doing masters right through to PhDs.
And that's a great way of getting entry
into the into the industry. And it's probably,
a better way than doing it, via going
to a master's if you want you know,
you can get more exposed to the specific
company you're interested in.
So I think that's that's something I would
recommend to look out for. And and I
think those those internship I mean, to get
on to our internship
programs, we usually come from, you know we
have associations with universities,
and they've come through those universities. So it's
kind of a friend of a friend,
in that respect. But but I know that
that so there's there's other universities that would
have relationships with with plenty of quantum computing
groups, so you could go by that. Or
I'm sure I've never applied for them, but
I think, like, groups like RiverLane do open
applications and things like that.
And more companies do open applications for internships
when they're doing them. So that's another way
of getting into the industry. But, absolutely, I
would say, you know, now is is the
time to to be looking at how if
you're interested, you know, it's only growing.
We're seeing a huge
need and demand for more and more wider
skill sets. So so it's a really exciting
time to get into into the industry. We
we measured
there was 40 quantum computing hardware developers
worldwide,
and that's just hardware. So then there is
you know, I could see there's probably equivalent
number of software,
developers out there,
in private, you know, private
they specialize purely in in quantum computing software.
And then, you know, same again, if not
double in in supporting,
supply chain,
groups. So, you know, hundreds of companies,
worldwide, and it certainly is global. But but,
you know, Seac ourselves, we we we're headquartered
in the US and New York,
and we've got an operations in in London
as well as Italy.
So just our company is international.
Every every company that there is that I
know of has multi locations already. So I
teach on a master's in science communication. How
important is it really for the public to
understand this
science?
Yeah. I mean,
I've always been it's always been important to
me that that science communication is critical. That
that, you know, it's not good enough that
that,
a scientist does a bunch of cool work
and then and then sits on it and
and it and it's, you know, it goes
right through to the science communication of your
own work to peers
as well as your own work to wider
community.
We need to both be able we need
to be able to sell,
not sell, but, you know, explain what we
do to to our peers and that's critical
to getting jobs and just, you know, exposing
the world to what you're doing, you know.
It's not just for yourself, it's for the
world.
You know, if you're doing science, you're doing
it to break the boundaries of what what
we can do as civilization.
So it's critical to be able to explain
it to your peers, but also to the
to the wider community. It's it's, you know,
we are government supported
heavily. We we we are doing this for
for for the, you know, for for the
public. So it's important to explain, you know,
why is that important and why should they
care.
And so I think science communication is is
critical. It's actually something that, you know, I
learned about science communication and the importance of
it having left my PhD my PhD.
And I hated the fact that I was
waiting until after that to really understand I
should be out there, you know, presenting my
work and and talking to the public about
it and talking more openly.
And so I think it's something that I
would yeah. I know more and more groups
and and, you you know, like yourself are
working on this, and I think it's it's
really critical.
If you'll excuse me just a moment, that
master's that I teach on is the MSc
in science communication
at the University of West of England in
Bristol. That's UE Bristol. If you'd like to
join us there, see you next September. But
I wanted to talk to somebody who's moved
from one area of physics to another. Here's
Araceli Vanegas Gomez.
I'm actually an aerospace engineer. I I started
in Spain,
and then I traveled to different countries to
do different things.
There was money, and I guess I was
young at that time. And I ended up
working in Germany forever as an aerospace engineer.
I like it. I mean, apparently, we see
it was going pretty well. I was, making
career there, but, you know, sometimes we have
strange hobbies, and my hobby was actually to
study physics. That's what I was doing in
the in the evenings and on weekends.
And at one point, I studied medical physics,
and I I discovered the magnetic resonant imaging,
the physics of that.
And I started to learn on the free
time of my free time about quantum,
and quantum physics was really
amazing for me. I want to discover more
and
decided that I wanted to learn that. And
so at one point, after I did, an
online course,
I kind of realized that maybe
it was for me that I wanted to
go into quantum.
That was 2013, so more than 10 years
ago now.
I'm starting to tell everyone that I wanted
to change my career.
So why you have a stable job? You're
you're becoming manager in a big company? I
want to study quantum physics.
I kind of
in in Google Hangouts, I think it was,
I was chatting to to you see, I
can't I can't really talk a lot.
I I was talking to the professor from
Maryland University who was the professor of this
online course that I was doing on quantum,
and I was telling him, you know, I
want to go into quantum. I want to
do a PhD in quantum. His first reaction
was like, why? Why are you gonna quit
all what you have? Like, I can always
come back to industry. I really want to
do this. So he put me in touch
with, a couple of people, and one of
these people was a professor from UCLA who
was in US who was moving to Glasgow.
He took me when I think about
and I I got in touch with him.
And when he moved to Glasgow, he said,
okay. You are too much enthusiastic about all
this. Come here.
What? Show me what you got. So in
yeah. That was September 2014.
So you see, it really quite
took, some time until people kind of
offer me the opportunity to something else than
just tell me why are you doing this.
I actually applied for PhDs in Germany because
I was in Germany, and some people started
to say things like, what is going on
that so many women are now interested in
physics? And I'm like, oh, wow.
Or,
you know, we use we use books with
formulas on it. I'm like,
hello? I'm not a space engineer.
Why are you so, yeah, a lot of
rejection, a lot of things. But, anyway, I
I went to Glasgow,
and for 1 week, this professor started
to put me exercises about quantum physics in
German because I was in Germany. He's like,
obviously, you speak German. I'm like, yeah. But
I don't speak quantum in German.
And at the end of the all that,
he offered me
a spot for to to do a 1
year masters.
And in 2015,
I moved to Glasgow to do 1 year
masters.
And at the end of that master, he
came to me and said, hey. You still
want to do your PhD? And I'm like,
obviously.
He offered me the PhD, and I did
my PhD, and I finished in actually
4 days before the lockdown in 2020.
That's when I when I did that in
I changed my career from industry to academia,
but I I kind of changed my career
again.
Okay. Can I just be before we do
that, are you still interested in the space
stuff, or did you just go, right, I'm
not doing that anymore? Always. But I I
realized that I like that's exactly the thing.
I like the space stuff, but helicopters and
airplanes is like, nah.
So what what so what is it about
I mean, you say the MRI and that
sort of thing, but what is it about
quantum that really attracted you? For me, it
was the fact that at that scale of
matter, the things behave completely different. The the
phenomena that happen there, we cannot really
feel in the microscopic world,
and on top of that, the mathematics is
kind of different. You do when you when
you study engineering,
you you study algebra, and
the question always is, why do we study
this? And people say, well, maybe you use
it. Nobody uses linear algebra
ever again.
And when I discovered that the mathematics of
quantum physics actually uses linear algebra, and it
was something that I actually like, I was
like,
wow. The mathematics of it is, is fascinating.
It's you need to think in a different
way. It's very abstract. I asked a friend
of mine who was the only physicist I
I knew at the time.
And my question to him is, can you
tell me more about this hyperspace and the
mathematics for quantum? And his answer was, oh,
come on. That's the very hard stuff. Alright.
Don't challenge me.
It it was a lot of things. I
think quantum physics in general, when when you
are interested in science and you read all
these books about
you you cannot make things. Black holes, the
multiverse, and and fix it. But quantum has
that kind of weirdness that you can actually
prove it. Because all what is really big,
all what is space, and, obviously, I love
space, but all that kind of a very
big thing, you can look through your telescope,
but you cannot really prove a lot of
things because it's just out there. But quantum
is inside
everything. It's inside all of all of us,
and that's why my favorite is in imaging
that. Right? It's like it's taking you the
atoms in in the water molecules in your
body and realign them so that it meets
a signal that you can then put into
an image and voila, that's what you have
inside your body. So I think I think
that's really what fascinate me about Okay. So
what are you doing now?
Oh, that's that's the the other big step.
You know, it's a you realize I chat
a lot, and I was kind of
I was going to to events, conferences, to
everything because I was older than most of
the people that were doing the PhD with
me. I had obviously a different career path,
and I just wanted to understand.
I wanted to be involved in everything. I
did a lot of outreach activities. I was
part of the,
women in physics group. I was doing,
student,
activities and things like that. But,
I I was starting to hear about this
new system that people say quantum technologies because
it was 2015.
The the UK was the first country that
actually put money into a national initiative on
quantum technologies.
And I wanted to know more about that
program. Obviously, I was in the UK, so
it was really easy for me to get
involved in that. But within
with these activities that I was doing in
student
chapter study was called, the the student,
associations, I could also travel to other countries.
So I was starting to see what was
going on in other countries.
I could even travel to the US, and
that was the when the launch of the
national initiative in the US. So I was
really gathering a lot of information about what
was going on in a lot of countries
regarding this market, and I was asking people
from industry,
what do you think about all that? What
do you think is needed? And I realized
that there was a huge gap between the
mindset of research and scientists
that that that they were doing their stuff,
but they would have to send that to
industry, and they couldn't speak the same language.
So we're in the in the quantum flagship
in the European quantum flagship lounge in Vienna
in 2018, I remember being with someone from
industry and someone from academia, and they couldn't
understand each other. They were speaking different languages.
And I was in the middle, and I
could understand both. And I'm like, that's actually
quite helpful.
I didn't know what I wanted to do
next, but I didn't want to stay in
academia. I didn't want to come back to
Airbus.
And I started to well, I talked to
the people, yeah, at the UK quantum program,
in the European quantum program. But when I
went to the US, someone came to me,
thanks to social media
because yeah. He said, oh, you are the
one kind of reposting all things about quantum.
So social media helps.
He became a mentor,
supported me to apply for a fellowship. I
applied for an optical fellowship from the US,
and I got it in 2019.
They called me the quantum ambassador, and thanks
to that, I could actually create my own
company. I created my own company with the
aim to bridge this gap between academia and
industry
to actually
break the barriers of the quantum language so
that people understand it's not all, oh,
very
nice words that we don't know what it
means. Nobody understands how the mechanics what it's
all about. No. It's about how can we
apply the technology that is gonna come, how
industry can become ready for that.
Since then, I'm the CEO of this company.
I'm supposed to be an an entrepreneur, so
it has been 5 years.
A lot of ups and downs because not
everyone is ready for quantum. So it's you
need to adapt to the market because it's
a very
nice
very new market emerging. The, people really need
to
to start creating that awareness is is key,
right, to to be able to to make
that learning path. What are the kind of
most exciting areas where you can apply quantum
to industry?
I think everywhere really is,
the same thing that the first
kind of a first quantum technology that we
are using, that is lasers, magnetism and imaging,
the GPS, the transistors in your computers, they
are everywhere. Nobody's saying, oh, we are using
quantum technology 1.0.
Right?
Now people are saying quantum technology is 2.0.
But the thing is that this technology is
gonna be really transformative because we are talking
about computing,
very powerful computation.
So very difficult problems that we cannot solve
now, we will be or we might be
able to be,
solve solving these problems with quantum computers. We
will have quantum communication, very secure communication. All
the encryption that we have, it will be
secure. The one that we have now is
not so secure anymore.
We'll have sensors that can be applied to
absolutely everything. And coming from outer space, sensors
is everything. Right? You want to measure any
physical property. Being able to measure things much
better so that it give you better sensitivity.
For example, in health care, you have,
something that measures your the magnetic field in
your brain.
1st,
it can help to detect
illnesses like,
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's much better.
It could transform health care in general, but
it could actually just improve what we have
right now. Imagine a medical resident imaging
device that is gonna be just like a
small helmet. So for children, it's much better
than putting them into this big machine. So
it's about improving a lot of things that
we have right now. It's about new devices.
We know already how they are gonna be
applied.
But the most exciting part is so many
unknowns. Because, again, we are, like, in the
fifties of last decade with quant with sorry.
With classical computing. Nobody could imagine that we
were gonna have a computer in our pockets
now. So imagine
how many are loans are right now with
quantum technologies.
So, yeah,
banking,
energy,
health care,
absolutely,
each business sector can benefit.
Sometimes, when we do our trainees now, we
have in front of us people that are
CEOs, CIOs from different companies, and then you
have someone, I work in retail. What what
how quantum can be applied? And you can't
always
find something because
it's it's really about understanding a little bit
what could be those kind of problems that
they would like to solve, either that they
could like to solve it because they cannot
know or they could solve it faster or
better giving them this business advantage. So is
that is that what you're doing with the
business? You're sort of bridging the gap in
that way. You're telling people that they need
Quantum?
The focus really is on on skills, talent,
and education.
That means
from awareness, just about what is all about
quantum, how can I get prepared,
why are we talking about this, who is
doing what in the ecosystem,
who is putting money into that, very general
awareness, and then going into more? For me,
it's like imagine 3 different axis. It's like,
how much do you know already about quantum?
Who you are? Because it's not the same
if you if you talk to a CEO
of a bank or if you talk to
someone that is already technical,
from the energy sector. So the the kind
of
speech
changes a lot. Right?
And and the third one is at at
the end of the day, the the business
sector where you're working. Right? So
if I'm talking to to someone that is,
very high level, that knows nothing about quantum,
I cannot go and speak about a Qubit
directly because this person would be like, why
are you talking to me about that? They
want to know first what is all about
quantum. And the second step will be, okay,
what is it for me? That is,
understanding the different business, businesses and how the
the potential of the quantum technologies for these
different business sectors.
We are doing that. And then once people
are kind of hooked into into that,
we kind of could offer more training, training
that is really applied for their business sector.
For example, quantum computing for finance
or,
quantum sensing for defense, things like that. So
a lot of education program. But we can
also support them on consulting services. For example,
they might know of a problem already that
they cannot solve, and they want to,
to do a market research where
we we could or not find how quantum
technologies could support on that.
Or the other thing is I have this
business. How do you think that we could
fit within the supply chain? Because, obviously,
a lot of people are doing things that
somehow they are gonna be feeding in the
whole supply chain, like lasers, cryogenics, and all
all the things. So that's kind of,
how our core business is, the the education
training part,
and then the the business,
consulting.
Then,
then what happened is, in the
in the last years, because we have been
so much involved in education, we don't only
focus on businesses. We have been working on
education on different levels.
We work with schools,
on on outreach activities, bringing quantum computing awareness
to teachers. That's really, really important. We launched
something last year where
I can tell you it works marvelous.
People have absolutely no idea about quantum computing.
In 2 days, they can go and make
a small algorithm,
but you need to be able to use
this specific methodology. It's like a game. We
we haven't done it with children, but we
have done it with CEOs from from companies,
and it works the same way. They are
all really fascinated, and you you can see
senior people with with the the stuff that
they build. And, can I take it home?
I really love this. I've been talking now
with my family about it. So that's really
what we want. It's kind of,
yeah, start up that kind of spark that
that interest into Quanto. And then we have
been working with,
institutions
to support on curriculum building,
undergraduate level,
master's level, and etcetera. So, basically, we're involving
absolutely everything that has to do with Quantum
Education or in law. So you did started
this journey, like, a long time ago. You
looked at quantum,
and you had that you're saying in Germany,
people's talking about women in physics. Why do
we need them? That sort of thing.
Is is it different now? Are you feeling
like if you if it was you now
wanting to make that change into quantum, do
you feel like it's a smoother journey? Oh,
that's a very good question, actually. I would
have to think about it. It really it
depends on a lot of different things. It
depends on where you are, who you talk
to. Obviously, there is always this kind of
people that they are always gonna say the
wrong
thing. Just
last May,
I was in an event.
This guy, he was an Italian guy, said,
oh, you are the Spanish lady in Tiquant,
and I'm like, excuse me. There are a
lot of Spanish
people doing quantum.
Oh, I thought it was you. So you
think
you see, there there are these these kind
of comments and things, every single time.
Going into academia, my feeling is the in
in physics, there are a lot of women
in a at undergraduate level,
but they just kind of start to disappear,
later on, less in doing the PhD, much
less going into into research careers.
I think we we hear over and over
again that research careers is so hard, but
believe me, I think all careers are hard.
It depends how you want to live with
it. I really I need to mention, there
is, there is this researcher. She's in Chile,
Carla Herman, and she is an amazing professor
of physics, and she is gonna have just
her 3rd baby.
That's for me. It's like, you can really
manage all if you want. It's it's about
how you manage your your life. Right?
So answering your question,
it will really depends on
where you are. It depends on the region
where you are applying to,
and also
a little bit on how you
take all these things. Right?
I I'm quite
okay because I have been I have been
always in the minority. In our space, we
were 10% women. So for me, it was
kind of normal,
And I I have heard everything when I
was a therapist in Germany, obviously, being in
the minority,
but,
not everyone is kind of quite okay within
this or or take it more
seriously, let's say, could affect
your mental health a lot. So,
yeah,
I will I will really advise if anyone
is listening to this, thinking about a career
change or,
am I good enough or things like this,
Every single person is asking this when
men everyone is having that kind of,
oh, I'm I'm not fitting here. Right?
So just do it. But I'm always happy
to talk to anyone. There are a lot
of people who came to me,
afterwards and say,
I want to do these for example, applying
for this fellowship. I want to change my
career. What do you think? And I'm always
happy to
want to give my 2¢.
Imposter syndrome is
a thing
that we all feel. I think men just
don't talk about it as much and, you
know but it's it's totally there. For sure.
If people are listening to this, maybe they're
students, maybe they are already in industry or
in academia, and they're thinking about changing. What
would you recommend they do to get into
this quantum industry? 1st of all,
I think when we want to change our
careers,
right now, there is so much information everywhere.
So just use it. Just try to investigate
as much as possible.
As we also do recruitment within our company,
we have a lot of people coming and
say, I I have done this. I want
to go into quantum.
Right now, quantum because it's a very new
field,
it's very, very hard for people with not
huge expertise on the topic to find a
job. That's the truth. Right?
I'm not saying that you need a PhD,
but 80% of the cases that that's probably
it. If you go into quantum computing, you
probably need to show that you have been
working for 4, 5 years,
with Python,
that you have been working in industry as
a software developer.
So it's not like
it's such a vast field right now that
anyone could find a job in Quanta. It's
gonna be. That's why we are trying to
prepare people for that. So I'm taking your
question, Andrew. What I would tell people is
start preparing
your path and also understanding where you wanna
go. A lot of people that come to
physics or computer science, they don't have that
kind of a specific background in in quantum
computing algorithm design. I said, why don't you
work in industry? A couple of years as
a data scientist, you acquire that kind of
experience in industry at the same time that
you in your free time, you continue learning
about quantum computing,
then you will be fit for the job.
But it's it's not
you cannot expect that in 6 months, the
job is gonna be there for you. But
there are a lot of masters right now.
There there are a lot of events. So
being part of the ecosystem is key because
the ecosystem is small.
So trying to to participate on on webinars.
There are a lot of things online.
Again, just, sending me an email. I can
send you some resources that just receiving some
newsletters.
That's really, I think, the the first thing
to do.
And then what? Maybe you have a crazy
idea like like I did, and and you
will change your life,
into that career.
But if it's not now,
what I would like to tell people is
that it will never be too late. If
it's not now, maybe in 6 months, maybe
in 5 years, I think quantum is gonna
be open for everyone, and it's just gonna
be growing and growing. It's not about quantum
physics, remember? It's about how we can use
quantum physics to create new technology that can
be applied to transform businesses and our society.
So let's see how quantum will transform our
lives in 20 years' time.
I'd like to thank Araceli and Matt for
talking to me for this episode of the
Physics World Stories podcast, and you can find
that feature on the Physics World website under
the title, taking the leap, how to prepare
for your future in the quantum workforce.
If you are interested in this field, we'll
post links to everything we've talked about on
the article associated with this episode of the
podcast
on physics world dot
com. We'll be back next month with something
else from this wonderful world of physics, and
thank you very much for listening.