The Future of Quantum Computing

Bloomberg

3 days ago

00:00
Before I ask exactly what you're going to be doing and the force of quantum. But first, why is Chicago the place to be spending? I think at least a billion is what you're committing in capital. Yeah. So Chicago, we figured it was the best place in the world to do what we're doing here, which is building the country's first utility scale quantum computer. And that's really about an understanding that that folks have of, you know, just how big and hard it is to build a system of that scale. Let's talk about that for the application, because I maybe loosely say that quantum is often hyped. The hype is around when it can be purposeful, when it is going to be really, truly useful. We have breakthrough after breakthrough. Jeremy, How are you going to be offering something really useful for commercial purposes? Yeah, you're right that there has been a lot of hype and a lot of talk of breakthroughs. And fundamentally I my, my view is that breakthroughs precipitate a decade or more of of hard work, you know, real hard technological development. It's not breakthrough. And then suddenly you have a new technology. And that's certainly true with quantum computing. And so our breakthrough was a decade ago when we were university professors and we figured out a path whereby we could leverage the the semiconductor industry in the trillions of dollars that have gone into that and adjacent industries to build the real thing, which is a million cubit scale fault tolerant utility scale quantum computer. And so that's what we're that's what we're doing right here in Chicago. You professor over at Stanford, at Bristol Universities as well. Jeremy And I'm thinking about how photonics has become the area of real focus for you. How does that differentiate you from what others are doing? Yeah. So you're absolutely right. It's the silicon photonics platform that we spent 20 years figuring out what's the platform that enables us to leverage that semiconductor industry, because it's been my conviction since, I don't know, the mid, mid to late nineties that unless we figure that out, it's not going to happen in my lifetime. And when we figured that out, we established CI quantum and we spent many years and much blood, sweat and tears grinding away at the really hard semiconductor engineering problems to, to make that work. And now we're at this point where we're, we're poised to, you know, to break ground and build that facility here. Can you hate to say put yourself against the competition, but when you've got IBM out there saying here in upstate New York, we're going to be getting there by 2029, a real use case, Quantum computer. Jeremy, you've got the race on with, well, companies you've helped devise before. What I'm thinking what Microsoft's up to us and Google, where are you in comparison to that race as we like to put it? Yeah, I firstly, I'm not sure that it's a it's a race when it comes to hard technologies. It's in some sense it's a filter, right? But, you know, I can't speak for all the other different folks that are out there pursuing this. But I can say that, you know, our approach has been very different from the beginning, which is to really focus on the scale that's required for really valuable commercial applications. And it's been the case for 25 plus years that that's a million cubits scale system. And so we have had nothing to do with doing small demonstrations, proofs of principle of quantum computing. And that's been a very deliberate approach because it's a bit like, you know, if you're if you're trying to get to the top of the Sears Tower here in in Chicago, then, you know, ladders are a good way to to try and get to the to the top. But if you want to get to the moon, ladders are not really the way to get you there. And so we've taken a pretty antithetical approach, I would say, from from the beginning, which is to really focus on scale. And so when you're talking about a million qubit scale system, as I said, it's been, you know, clear to me for a very long time that the only way to be able to do that is to leverage the, you know, trillion dollars and, you know, better part of a century that went into the semiconductor industry and leverage and a billion that you're going to be investing in that project. And you take us to the Sears Tower. I go back to Chicago. What is the workings been like with the governor? Why have you managed to think that that is going to be where the talent pool is basically for you going forward? Yeah, I think from from the governor to the alderman and the entire ecosystem, we've really enjoyed great partnerships here. And it's been driven by, as I said earlier, the understanding of just how big complex and hard this project is. You know, to build a utility scale quantum computer, that's a very that's a very big hard project. And I'll give you just one example of that. Early in our interactions with the with the city in the state, a big delegation came to us in Silicon Valley, led by the deputy governor and the head of Ed. The power utility came to that very first meeting. And I think that's a big differentiator for us as an organization and for the ecosystem here, is to understand that, yeah, we need to get you know, we need to get power to the site, etc., etc.. So that's that's a really big part of of our decision.