In this episode, we beam ourselves into the French quantum

ecosystem with two brilliant minds. GENCI,

Sabine, Mer, chief quantum Projects officer, and

Felix Jivois, quantum computing projects engineer.

From supercomputers to photonic QPUs, from neutral

atoms to national strategies, Sabine and Felix

unpack Francis bold quantum ambitions. All with a

healthy dose of HPC know how and continental flair.

Grab your virtual Khwa song and prepare for liftoff. We're going

full on quantum.

Hello and welcome to Impact Quantum, the podcast. We explore the

emerging industry of quantum computing. And

you don't need to be a physicist or a PhD. You just need to be

curious to participate in this, what's probably going to

be the computing revolution of the 21st century. How's that for a hype

machine? Candice, I think that is just on target. I'm telling

you, as you say, always one of the most curious, quantum curious people.

You know, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I'm eating it up.

I'm loving it. I'm loving it. So today we are going to

be speaking with Sabine Mehr, and she is

the Chief Quantum projects officer at

GenC. And we are also going to be speaking with

Felix Jervois. I

don't know how I did on that. Oh, he's giving me a thumbs up. Excellent.

Good job. And he is a quantum

computer projects engineer. And if that doesn't sound like the

coolest title ever, I'm telling you, I love it. I love it.

So we've got some really exciting guests for today. Yeah, that's the

coolest title of the decade for sure. So welcome to the show.

You both work for GenC. So

tell us a little bit about what is GenC.

Okay, maybe I can start. And if you see anything lacking,

Felix, don't hesitate to jump in. So GENC was

created in 2007, so that's not very old.

It. It stands for Grande Equipement Nationale de Calcule Intensive,

which doesn't mean a lot in English, I guess. So

we are the French HPC agency. HPC stands

for High Performance Computing for those who don't know.

So we were created to kind of neutralize the

acquisition of public computing capabilities

between the main research

organizations in France. The aim is

to equip three national supercomputing centers with

high performance computing capabilities that

are dedicated to open research. So

the researchers from industry and from

academia in France, they can do open research

using our capabilities.

So it's accessible for free. You just need to publish

some results from your research. So it's nice. And

at first we acquired supercomputers,

then we moved on to AI also. We included AI

also. So we have a lot of GPUs in our

systems. And now we are also

mandated by the French government to acquire QPUs

in the context of the French national quantum strategy.

So these QPUs will be installed in one

of the national supercomputing centers in France, which is

hosted by cea. It's south from Paris.

And so, yeah, we have already two

machines that are coming in and expecting new

acquisitions. Very cool. So

how many supercomputing labs are there in France?

There are a lot of them, because a lot of them, we only

equip the three main national supercomputing centers.

Two of them are in the Paris region, and one of them is in the

Montpellier region in the south of France. But

you have HPC centers all throughout the territory,

basically. Maybe, Felix, you want to add?

No, I think. Yeah, I don't. They don't have the exact number of the. Of

the HPC centers, but research team working on hpc.

Like, there is, I think, thousands, like, in terms of

projects, just counting for AI project,

I think last year was 1400 projects in

AI running on one of our supercomputers. So.

So, yeah, there is a lot of people working on HPC in France.

That's really cool. Yeah. No,

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Candice. No, no. So I'm trying to wrap my

mind around it. So, like, Felix, could you describe,

like, a typical day in the role that you

have right now? Oh, okay. So,

actually, I don't know if there is such a thing as a

typical day for our. For this, for this job.

Because I think also it's related to the fact that the field

of quantum computing is very moving. So you have a lot of things going

on every day. And actually, part of my job is

to conduct some technological watch.

And so it's a lot of reading, a lot of contact

with the different providers, different researchers.

So that's nothing like a typical day, I would say.

But I'm

also in charge of writing the technical

specification of the system that we install. So

this is also a part of what I do every day. So when we

install a system, I try to understand what we need it for, what

we will use it for, and what. What specs we have to

put in. Very cool.

No, I was wondering because, like, I know it's probably the

ecosystem is probably different in the U.S. like, I know that there's probably about a

dozen official, like, supercomputing Labs here in the U.S. right. There's

Los Alamos, there's Oak Ridge,

there's one somewhere in the Bay Area. Right.

Like, so that's what I was, that's what I was thinking in the context, but

I guess, you know, so I think it's exciting

that the French government is taking a, A,

an active role in promoting quantum computing. Right.

How long has that been the case? Like, you know, when did they see

the, the quantum light, so to speak,

not to be confused with photons. Right. I

guess the information that we had

a good chance in the race to quantum

computers came to their attention quite early

because some of the, of the companies

that have been created in the field have been there since

like 2017 or 2018.

I was thinking about Kwandela and Pascal, which I think were the first

that were created in this area. But we

have an official national

Quantum strategy since 2021, January

2021. It was drafted after

the report from, that was supported by

Paula Forteza. That was I think published the year before

or two years before that. I don't, I don't remember. And

so the strategy has drafted a number of

programs as soon as 2021, the one

that we are supporting, which is called HQI for France hybrids,

HPC Quantum initiative

actually began at the end of

2021 for the operations and beginning of

2022 for the, I'd say administrative

part. So that's, that's around that time.

Oh, interesting, interesting.

What are the main goals of

the French initiative for quantum computing?

Well, I think one of, well, what we have at

the moment. So the reality in the field is

that we are capitalizing on research

that is quite old and in which we were very good, like research

in photonics, for example, in lasers and so on.

So we had these academic strengths that we are

trying to support, strengthen,

to push towards the creation of companies,

the creation of technologies that can

actually be leveraged by end users. So we are

building this broad

cycle. I don't know how to put that, in order

to move from the lab where we have these ideas,

these proofs of concepts that

are being refined to

make them and turn them into actual products that can be then

installed in HPC centers for us. But

at a broader level because the national Quantum strategy

covers the broad spectrum of quantum technologies. So it also

includes communications, post,

post quantum safe,

cybersecurity, cryptography.

We have also the sensing part and the enabling

technologies that are being covered. But I guess we are trying to

build programs that cover the broad value

chain for these technologies.

Felix if you want to add.

Well, you know, you've mentioned, you've mentioned photonics

sensors. So you've mentioned different types

of technology, like qubit types within

quantum computing. What do you think the

French government sees as the biggest opportunity

that's going to happen? That's going to happen first.

What's going to be the biggest breakthrough where they finally, you know,

really can start everybody off from and say, look what we've accomplished and then move

forward from there. Where do you think that would be? Maybe I can

go on this one, Sabin. So

I don't know if the, from what we know,

we think that the French government doesn't see really

one technology. I think they want to kind of finance a lot

of them so that if one of them is going out and

getting the next big deal, then the

government will be part of it. And that's a bit what we are

following in our strategy. So we are buying some machines, but we

are not targeting in one technology specifically. We

actually bought one machine with the neutral atoms

technology and we also bought one from photonics technology. And I think

in the future for the next system, we will also try to cover and to

be a bit complementary of these two things that we bought. So,

and I think from what I see that it's the same for all the

other different, other programs.

So as it stands now, you're covering multiple

projects. You know, is there, is there one in

particular that you would like to speak about a little bit that you can talk

about that's super exciting?

Well, there is one that is, that is

being, that is currently being deployed. So of course the maturity

of the various projects is different. So I guess

one of the first real accomplishments that we've had

is the deployment of the Pascal system. Because it was

acquired in 2022. We are now

finalizing the deployment on site within an

HPC center. We've worked with numerous partners

throughout Europe on the integration with

the Julio Curie supercomputer. And we are about

to give access to actual end users

and not, you know, a selected number that

already have access to the device. So it's super exciting because

it's something that has never been done.

This is the first time that it's happening on this technology.

It's been an adventure like no other with Pascal,

with the CEA that is hosting the device as

well. It has taught us so much. And I'm also

speaking for Felix because you were the one following the broad

installation and so on. But yeah, execration.

Exciting times now and exciting times ahead. Also

with this system.

Excellent. Very cool. What,

what are your thoughts on how quantum computing can change

businesses? Right? Like what business do you think will be

disrupted first

with the development of a quantum

computer? From what

we see from the project that are running on our system or that are

supposed to be running on our future

systems, there is different

topics that are impacted. So the first one I

see is mostly about chemistry. So that's the,

I think the most

accessible application that you can have with the current state of

quantum computers it's finding

ground state of molecules or of different

chemical systems. And I think

this could actually bring an advantage to

HPC codes that we see already. So that's the first, I

think that's the first thing that we can see. The second one

that will probably have more impact would be optimization. There is a lot

of people working to find kind of an advantage

using quantum computer for optimization and I think this could have

way more impact than chemistry. You can find optimization

everywhere basically. So from what we

see, I think optimization should be a good guess. I don't know if

Sabine you want to complete or no. I think

it's valid to say that

as we didn't know that exactly and

we have some assumptions but we also wanted to confront them with

the perception of the market. We participated

in an initiative that was launched as soon as 2020

by the Paris region where they offered to

co fund some some exploration projects that

united industries coming from the

Paris region that submitted a use case, a business

problem that they have to startups from the Paris

region. And there are numerous quantum startups in the Paris region

and academic labs and they are. So these

experts are being co funded by the region to

pursue these explorations on the industrial

use case. And so far this initiative has supported

the creation of as many as 18

projects in various fields.

I mean you had projects in the energy industry with

players like EDF and TotalEnergy that some of you may

know. Projects in the pharmaceutical industry,

projects in the defense and aerospace industry as well.

Lately we've got a number of projects in finance

and insurance, banking and insurance that were

funded also in chemistry.

So really the aim is to

educate industrial players on the stakes

and also the complexity of quantum

computing, the requirements in terms of

training, education that they will

face if they want to have also in house experts in this

field. So it's been very

successful and also

it taught us a lot of lessons on

what it takes to pursue these kinds of

explorations.

Interesting. There are a lot of startups in

Paris about quantum computing. That's interesting.

So what can you tell me about the startup scene for quantum computing

in Paris? I'm just curious. So in France,

generally in France, okay. The whole country, there was a massive creation of

startups in quantum computing. So some of them focused on

hardware. And in the Paris

region you have, for example, C12

on spin qubits, you have Alice and

Bob with their cat Qubits, Quandela,

Photonic quantum computing, Pascal, Neutral

atom, you have crystal quantum

computing. They are pursuing the trapped ion track.

I don't know if I missed any, Felix, on the hardware side, I think. You

have willing, but it's not directly linked to computing, but

it's a startup that wants to build an interconnection

between quantum computers, a quantum link between quantum

computers, and they base their technology

on neutral atoms. Interesting.

I'm sorry, go ahead. There's another one, just not to forget them in

Grenoble. So in the south of France, near Switzerland

and Italy, that is called Quodli and they work on spin

qubits as well. Very cool. So this is like a pretty wide array

of technologies, not just companies, but like, you know,

there's a lot of companies working on different technologies. That sounds like a

very healthy ecosystem. Yeah. And what is nice is

that they do get along well. Well, that's cool. There's a very good

atmosphere in this ecosystem, which I think Felix and I

particularly enjoy. And additionally

there have been some creations of startups in the

software field as well. So we've got

companies like Colibri, td, Cubitsoft.

I'm always forgetting some. I know that we also attracted

some companies like Multivas Computing, the Spanish company

that are working on the software side. We have also people from

a big group that is called, that was called Atoz and now is

Evidem working on the software side and the HPC and

quantum integration and they have R and D teams in the Paris

region, which also helps make the glue between the

various players. I

don't know, Felix, if I forgot anyone on the software side. I see one,

it's a quite recent one. It's a quantum signal that wants to use

quantum computer for finance, I think. Yeah. And

QPerfect also in the, in the East, I think they're based in

Strasbourg and they're also working on the software side.

Oh, interesting. That's very exciting how much you have going

on, you know, and the fact that, you know, everyone's, everyone's

aware of everybody else. It sounds like it's much more, you say more of a

collaborative as opposed to, as opposed to making

it Competition. So we ask everybody this

question. What is the biggest misconception out there

about quantum computing?

I think they have one, but it's a pretty, I think it's a pretty classical

one. To me,

when I ask my family or my friends, for example, it seems that quantum

computing is a thing that will basically solve every problem that

everybody has, like global warming and so on.

And what I tell everybody is that it's not the case. So at

least in the short term, I

think quantum computing is basically meant to solve very,

very specific problems. And if you need to solve these very, very

specific problems, then you may have an advantage using

quantum computers. To me, it sounds like

the biggest misconception about quantum computing that I see.

But maybe Sabine has another opinion. Yeah, I

guess the biggest one is that one. But

I'm say the business side of the team. So

for people like me, one of the biggest

misconceptions might be related to the number of qubits.

Like to me, when I arrived in this field, the number of qubits was

everything. And discussing with Felix, I discovered that,

okay, it's nice to have a lot of qubits, but then

you need to do something with them. So they need to be good

qubits, reliable ones. You need to be able to

entangle them and to perform

universal computations also. So, yeah, there are a lot of

other requirements that are super important. And

I'd say the tricky part is that the number of qubits is something that is

easy to grasp from, in a conversation or in a technical

presentation. So you can be misguided also by this

kind of information. That's a good point.

There's a lot of confusion, right? And the

two things you point out, it seems to be a consistent theme

everywhere, right? The idea that, oh, once I get a quantum computer,

Apple will have a Q phone or something like that, right. It's

like, well, that might happen, but that's not going to happen for another 50 years,

I think. And this has been an interesting year in quantum computing, right?

Because in December there was Google announced Willow,

right. And then Cesar Jensen

Wong said, ah, it's going to be decades before. Like, you know, and then,

you know, and then that went back and forth. He walked back that. But if

you look at the round of funding, Candace, what happened last week, I mean, it

was just crazy amount. Oh, it was crazy. There was so much. There was. There

was. I and

Q had like over $2 billion. I know that. I think it was

Ionq acquired Oxford Ionics. Like

there's just a Lot of big player movement going on

right now and a lot of investment is being thrown into

Quantum. All of a sudden when it was really seemed to be kind of tied

up just with AI. I think this is the shift that we're seeing now.

Right. I'm interested to ask about,

you know, how AI and quantum could

be used together if that might, if that

might relieve any of the current obstacles that,

that you, that you're facing in your work right now. Well, especially in

regards to optimization because a lot of AI problems are optimization

related, so I can easily see that being a thing. And you both are

nodding. So tell us what you've seen over in France.

Yeah, that's actually true. There is a

subtility, I would say. I agree with you

that you can see AI as an optimization problem.

Somehow I wasn't thinking about the

same type of optimization because I think the most, the biggest problem with AI

is basically loading the data, at least for gen AI.

The problem that we face with quantum computing is that loading

the data on a quantum computer is already a complete,

completely a very complex problem.

So from what I see, and from my position, I would say

that this quantum for AI is not something that we will

see in the next years or

I don't have a date because I'm not

a witch. But from what I see, it's not

something that I see arriving very soon. However,

I would say that the reverse way. So using

AI for Quantum is something that we will see

for sure. I know that some people

are using artificial intelligence to help them design their own

chips, like, like in quantum computing, but also for

other topics or other problems. Even for learning the field,

artificial intelligence can be useful. So I see way

more usage of AI for Quantum than

quantum for AI in the short term. But who knows in the next,

in the next decades what can happen? I don't have a

crystal ball. Predicting the future is hard.

Yeah. And I'm excited, I'm excited to hear about the rich like,

ecosystem just in quantum space alone. Right. Because there, you know,

there's a lot of Silicon Valley arrogance. Right,

where you've. Sure you've heard the memes, right? You know,

like, you know, what is it? The US innovates, China imitates,

Europe regulates. Right. And I don't think that's, I don't think that's fair. Right.

And actually if you look at AI, right, Mistral is, is a

French company. So I think that there's a lot of

opportunity here and I'm glad to see that there's public private

partnership and it seems like it really has

some good results. So I

guess we have it at the national level, but it's also

very much strengthened at a European level

also because for us it's critical also to

matter. So. So playing at the European

level is also a good way to matter to win

in the competition. And so I wouldn't be

able to express a lot that, but GenC

has been selected by your HPC as the

coordinator of one of the AI factories

in Europe. So we have this network of services

and platforms that are

supporting the also competitiveness in

AI in Europe. So Gensi is very much involved in that.

And at the European level for Quantum

also we are working a lot with Euro hpc.

They actually co acquired the Pascal system

that we are hosting and they acquired

the Quandela system that is coming in in a few weeks now.

So we are one of the hosting entities

for these European quantum computers and

we are collaborating with the other hosting entities

in Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Spain,

Germany. We have two in Germany,

the Netherlands also, and Luxembourg now.

So we are building a galaxy of

HPC QC platforms that will be available

for free for open research

for European research scientists. And we are trying to

build also some bridges with other countries

within Europe, but also outside Europe to

come join us in this adventure. Also

and at a national level we have

strong assets and strong partners, such as for

example Le Lab Quantic here in Paris. But also

I'd say Paul Systematique, Terratec, which are associations

that have identified some players in the field

and that have brought them to the rest of the ecosystem, connected

the dots to make sure that we leave nobody outside

of this ecosystem and that everyone is well connected.

So in our initiative also in France, we are building a network

of the houses of Quantum. The translation

in French is les Maisons du Cantique. We have one in the

Paris region, one in the east, one in

the Bordeaux region, one near Toulouse and Montpellier in

the south, one in Grenoble.

And I think I'm not missing anyone. Thank you.

So it sounds like it's kind of like an open. Is it like an open

source concept for within. Within Europe and

I guess whomever else you allow to come in, it just

seems like it's. Has it a more of an open source mentality.

Yeah, that's an open community concept. Let's. Yeah, I really like that.

Like that. And the aim is at a local level to make

sure that the quantum compute that the quantum guys

and the HPC guys talk to each other, make sure that they share

their experience and that they

participate in building this glue between supercomputers,

classical computing and quantum computers, that

we try to find a common language also and

that they participate in this national initiative and they

can also be seen at an international

level, European level and international level. So

we are collaborating with people in the Netherlands in these

houses of Quantum in the Netherlands, with local communities in Germany like

the Munich Quantum Valley or Quantum Beve in Baden

Wild Merck. And so yeah, we're trying to really

connect these ecosystems together to make sure that we are all

moving forward together in building this infrastructure

and the related support also.

Very cool. No, it's good to see that cooperation.

Right. It doesn't have to be. I think the quantum

ecosystem, there's already a lot more, I think,

collaboration between the major organizations than you would see in

typical kind of

startup world, which I think is good. Right? I think that's good for everybody.

And I'm really encouraged at the fact that there's a lot of things

going on in Montpellier and because I love the south of France, I, I

mean, it was like when I lived in, I lived in Germany for about two

years and traveled a lot and I was like, you know, when I was in

the south of France, I'm like, this is where I want to retire. So I

just have to get my, my child into. Out of high school and then.

We'Ll move. But no, it's really, it's really

good to see that because if you, I don't know if you've seen our Quantum

world report, but France has

a. What's the score? 4 point something.

4.4. They're very high on the Quantum

readiness scale. We put together all these country

reports for Quantum to see what they were all doing. And France

is incredibly progressive in what they're doing

outstandingly. So that's very exciting.

I can share my screen because we're on video. But yeah, France,

there's the French strategy and national

strategy around, you know, give or take $2 billion.

I don't know what the current exchange rate is, but I used

to know that one by heart, like followed it every day.

4.4. Which is in the leading category. Yeah, yeah. Basically

it's. I mean, the Highest score is 4.9 according

to our index. That's basically the US and China

and Canada. So, yeah, four and a half is pretty

good. So. And you know, I noticed like, if you, if you kind of

start visualizing this, you'll start noticing patterns. Right. You know,

you have, you know, obviously the G7 countries are

big players in this, but also you have emerging markets also getting involved in

this. That all that hard work was from

Candace. So good work, Candace.

And. But I think it's an interesting,

it's an interesting time to be in this industry because

I'm too young to have lived

through the transition to transistors and kind of the

silicon revolution. But it seems like we're all just about

in the right place at the right time for what is going to be at

least as big of a revolution. Some people will say bigger. I think

there's definitely potential for it to be bigger, even if

it doesn't have to solve all the problems, because it can solve the

hard problems. And that's really where you're going to see a lot of, I think,

innovation, whether it's obviously the security. I live in D.C.

baltimore, so obviously the national security aspect is going to

come top of my mind. But chemistry,

material science, medicine,

there's just enormous

upside potential for humanity.

I guess for organizations like ours that

serve HPC users, it's also nice to see which

communities will benefit the most from these

new technologies. So we've got more and more

industrial end users, so it's nice to see also that they have

some interest in these new technologies. A lot of

our compute cycles are for chemistry.

So as Felix said, if there is a gain,

then for us it will be a huge change also.

Right. So talk me a little. I'm sorry, go ahead. It doesn't

have to be a computational advantage. For example, if it's just an

energetic advantage, you probably know how much data

center consumes. So if it's just reduction by

scale, scale of magnitude, then we will be up for it,

even if it's slower. So that's also cool to

try to look for other types of advantage from

quantum computing. Now that's a good point, right? Because

I know Europe has some very aggressive greenhouse gas goals.

And how do you reconcile that with new data center construction?

Where I live, for instance, I live between Three

Mile island, which Microsoft basically paid to get that started up.

I'm not downwind. So if there's a problem, it goes the other direction. But.

But, but just south of me, that's just north and east of me. But

just south of me is the, what they call data center

alley, which is by, if you ever fly into Dulles Airport,

that they just have data centers everywhere, right. They've taken up

farmland, they make a lot of money off of that. I think the county gets

something. 55% of their tax revenue comes from data

centers. Right. So you Know when they put,

when a company petitions to add a new data center, they're probably going to say

yes, right. I mean it's, it comes down to

that. But a lot of the neighboring counties are, want to get in on

that, that, that, that sweet money too. But

one of the interesting things is they want to build a power line from Three

Mile island over to Dulles Airport

area. And that's going to affect, I live in kind of a farm,

rural area, you know, that, that there's a lot of people

upset about that because they're going to have to rip up farmland and things like

that. So yeah, I mean the energy requirements

for doing this computation is not trivial anymore. Right. It's a

big deal and it's getting even a bigger deal.

Right? Yeah, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. And also

as we are procuring and also in the US you

already have, but we are in the process of doing so in Europe.

The exascale systems, yes, they are consuming

a whole lot of power and we are in

a phase in Europe, I'd say also where

energy matters and the energy consumption that is

acceptable to the community

is being lowered. So if we

also say that we found a way

to compute to solve as many

problems using the power in a more efficient way,

then it's going to be more acceptable also to the community.

So it's a good time for these devices

to come into play. Yeah, no, that's a good point because now,

you know, you're the experts on the high performance computing world or hpc,

that's a whole world into itself as I've recently discovered over the

last couple of years, like it's a whole different world.

And so I imagine energy, the

exascale and the energy consumption is a big deal. So in that, in that

space, do you see an

advantage? I don't want to use the word advantage, but do you see that there's

any good reason to simulate quantum computers on

existing high performance silicon?

Yeah, the quick answer is yes, obviously

because from what we see that the

useful quantum computer, as we can call them, will not

be in the data center for some years.

So using the emulation of these quantum systems

to try to begin to make the

code, the code evolves to the quantum

era is a thing that we have to do and

we can only do it by using this

emulation. But even if we had like a useful

quantum computer using these

emulation algorithms to track errors

or to see how it will scale is already something that is, is nice

to have. So, so we see, we See a benefit on that, of

course. Very cool. I think it, it

seems that because the French government is being so

supportive of Quantum and

ensuring HPC access,

that's why there is this really rich

and fertile group of startups that

get to participate and not just large

corporations. And with you talking

about how you're trying to connect with other countries in Europe to do

this, I just think that again, that

whole mentality is going to really allow

the opportunity to explode.

Yeah, I think that's part of the dynamic

that we are facing at the moment. And it's also nice because we

see different scales of organizations trying to collaborate.

I think it teaches a lot of

lessons to one another also,

also because of these public private partnerships, which

is always super interesting to see. But

I think there is also a

good part of chance because we also invested in

some areas of research in the past that actually

led to the construction of actual qubits.

And so it's really, I think we

are lucky to have bet on these

scientific fields because now they are,

because they led us to building these

qubit types that are actually very promising.

But one of the other things that I think

is interesting in this stage is that it's also

disrupting a bit the HPC ecosystem

because the Quantum guys, they're

adjusting to the HPC guys. But, but the HPC guys, they also

need to figure out how they will host these devices,

how they will integrate them. They come directly from the lab

sometimes. So these are devices that you are not used

to seeing in HPC centers. So you

need to adjust quite a lot to welcome

these in compute rooms, for example.

I imagine that's a huge opportunity for customer service,

customer success for these companies. Somebody, as

I said in previous shows, like somebody has to rack and stack these things.

Yeah, sorry Candace, I'll cut you off. No, I was just thinking like what new

skills do you think the next generation of HPC

professionals, what are the new skills that they will need

beyond the traditional computer science or engineering?

That's a tough question, I would say, because I think

being an HPC expert already means to have a lot of skills. Like,

because you need of course to be, to

master the computer science side and so on. But as you will

apply high performance computing to a lot of different

fields, a lot of different, a lot of different codes, you also need

to have some kind of a curiosity to go beyond just computer

science and to try to look at the physics that you try to simulate or

the mathematics that you

are trying to port on the

supercomputer. So

I don't think it really require

new skills. I would say it require more

curiosity, like to go in. Yeah, it

sounds very philosophical. I'm sorry, but no,

curiosity is a core. Human curiosity is a

core driver of learning. So I totally get it.

Unintelligent people are not curious. I mean, like, with all

honesty, like if you're, if you're curious, you're intelligent,

right? Because you want to know more and you know that you don't know everything.

So it's kind of aligned. It's not, you know, I think it's.

Okay, but it's also a nice, I think it's a nice time because

we're at a phase where everyone learns from each other. So

you, you can always be taught by experts of

the other fields. So I was thinking about Felix. He speaks from

experience because he arrived with his HPC

background and you also

did some explorations on quantum

computing. But now when you write the technical

specs, you also need to get a bit deep

into the physics. And so you need to get connected with

experts in various fields and to try to really understand

how it works and. Yeah,

well. And some of the smartest people I work with today

have a background in high performance computing. Right. Like, I mean, just because you have

to know a lot of, you have to be very deep in a lot of

different aspects and places. Right. You know, whether that's

infrastructure, spinning up the hardware, managing the hardware, but also

kind of the computer science angle of it. Right. You know,

doing, you know, plugging stuff in and networking isn't really, you know, classical computer

science. Right. Like, you know, there's a lot that

is you kind of have to just know, right.

Whether. And 90% of that is you do it yourself.

Right. There's only so much you can read about packets and, you know,

spinning up clusters and things like that. You actually have to do it now. That's

cool. Yeah. And also I guess if. Sorry.

No, go on, go on. In hpc, if you want your code

to run smoothly, you also need to understand what it runs

on. Yes, that's true. Optimize everything that you do

to fit the infrastructure on which you will run it. So it

requires a very broad set of skills.

I hate using the term full stack because that means so many things to so

many people, but it really is a full stack skill set. Right.

You can't just write the code and make assumptions about where it's going to

run. You have to understand the environment and conditions and the

hardware it's going to run under. Yeah.

And I Think that really applies to quantum computing because we

talked a bit about different technologies. But from

my opinion, I would say that there is some specific problems that

will run on specific hardware. So I don't think there will be one

winner in the end. I think there will be some, for example, photonics

for some specific problems, you will have natural atoms for some others

and so on. So I think this

type of hardware oriented skills, I

think it will kind of replicate for quantum computing or I hope it will kind

of replicate in quantum computing because it's what makes the field very

interesting, all these physics going around.

Right. I don't think it's going to collapse to one type of winning

architecture. Probably not in our lifetimes, if at all.

Yeah. Also it's a bit complex because you need to find

the right mapping between the problems that you want to solve

and the platforms on which they run best. And for that

you need to not be tied to one of these technologies.

So you also need to have neutral end users who will

do this mapping. It might take a bit

of time.

This has been fantastic. I just have to say I've learned a lot. I'm

so excited about what's happening in France. Like, I'm really

excited about it and because I'm, I'm in Montreal, Quebec, you know,

you know, we feel very connected, you know, language,

you know, and the food and the culture. Even though you

guys, you all pretend that what we're saying doesn't make any sense because we're not

pronouncing it correctly, but we still have great luck. But

I'm really excited about the whole idea of the startup culture that's going on there.

And I think that some of the most, some of the best innovation comes from

those hungry minds that are, that are not from

big companies but have great ideas. And with a government that's so

supportive, I think it's

fantastic. I'm just really blown away. Yeah, I think France is going

to be a quantum success story. We'll look back in 5 years, 10 years

and will be a major player in this. Like I'm even more convinced now

than what I was. Right. Yeah,

everybody focuses on the US or China. But I think, you know, I think more

people should pay attention to what's happening in, in France.

Great. You should come. Definitely. I haven't been there in ages.

I tell you. Some, some of the best food I've ever had was in,

I mean even, even like the, I was in the metro and I got like

a chocolate croissant and like it was even the one sold

in the metro, which as a New Yorker, the idea of getting

something in the subways, it's just. Yeah, exactly.

But I'm like, I. It's my first trip to Paris and like I was on

the metro and I was like, hungry and I was like, ah, you know, I'll

get it. And I was like, oh my God, this is good. Like, you know,

but yeah, so, no, it was good. And like I

said, the south of France is just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

If you're interested to know more about our ecosystem, there

is a conference that is being prepared, I think for the

first week of December in the surroundings of Paris

that is called Quest is. I think it also

covers the broad spectrum of quantum technologies. But there will

definitely be a day on Thursday

on HPC and quantum integration and warning on

Friday about community outreach in

hybrid quantum computing that we are organizing actually

where we are inviting some initiatives

from all over the world to foster the

adoption of these, of these new technologies.

So you're welcome to come and then we could meet. Very

cool. That sounds excellent. Yes. Yeah,

the ones away from the Metro system were even better.

But no, that's great. And we'll let our AI finish the show.

And that's a wrap on this quantum rendezvous. A massive

messi to Sabine Meir and Felix Jivois of

Gentsy for teleporting us into France's quantum future, where

HPC and QPUs cohabitate better than

most flatmates. Now, if you're wondering how to actually

sell all this quantum wizardry to people who think

Schrodinger is a new luxury handbag brand, allow us to

recommend a little light reading. Bluebook, the Quantum

Sales playbook. Selling outcomes, not qubits.

Written by your very own Impact Quantum hosts, Frank

Lavine and Candice Gilhooly, this Kindle guide

is your go to manual for turning deep tech into real

revenue. Learn how to sell what buyers actually care

about outcomes, not entanglement. It's perfect for

founders, business devs, investors, or

anyone who's ever tried to explain quantum computing at a dinner

party. Find it now on Amazon and get ready to stop

waiting for the market to catch up and start building it

yourself. Until next time, stay curious,

stay entangled and remember, in quantum computing

and sales, success is all about superpositioning

yourself in the right conversations. This has been Impact

Quantum Abientot.