Quantum computing is everywhere right now. But what actually

works and what's still just hype.

Today we're joined by Abhighyan Mishra to talk about real world quantum

advantage finance. And building quantum ready software today.

Hello and welcome back to Impact Quantum podcast. We

explore the emerging industry of quantum computing,

quantum sensing, quantum biology, all that good stuff

that's out there. You don't need to be a PhD.

You just have to be curious. And with me is the most quantum curious person

I know, Candace Gooley. How's it going, Candace? It's great, Frank.

Thank you so much. I'm so happy. I know it's silly, but the

weather's actually warmed up. So it's like just hovering it

freezing. So it's like time to go outside in shorts. I'm very

excited. That's like summer. That's almost summer weather in Montreal,

I'm. Telling you, downright balmy. Downright balmy for Montreal,

Quebec. Candace. We're getting

above freezing today for the first time in like three days, which. Oh my God,

it's a big deal for us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully it doesn't refreeze

then. And then all turned up. Oh, it totally will. It totally will. So there

you go. Okay, so today we're lucky. We

have Abby Mishra and he is the Quantum

director and co founder of Rune Technology.

Hi, Abby, how are you doing today? Yeah. Hey,

Candice. Pleasure to be here and looking forward

to a good conversation. Awesome. So what can

you tell us about Rune Technology? Rune Technology

itself without going too much in detail because it's a financial

related company. I cannot reveal too much because that's where our bread and butter

lies. But what we do differently is

we look at the market with a different perspective. We are a quantum enhanced AI

based company. Obviously we provide signals and everything.

And what we do differently is obviously we look. We

enhance the already existing AI models with a representation

given by a quantum based approach. So that's to

sum it up in a very few lines. That's what root technology does.

Oh, very cool. Very cool. You

mentioned signals. I assume you're meaning kind of what other people would call

market intelligence. Being able to read the market and kind of pick up on things

before other people do. Is that roughly kind of what you do?

And we lost this camera.

I can see that. And I have no idea why that happened. Just give me

a second. That's okay. Yeah, I should be back now. Right?

Yep. Yes. I was saying. Yeah, you're exactly right and on point with that. You

know, Signals is basically Exactly. You know, you can say the information on which other

people acts and trade. So yeah, that's exactly, you know, you're, you're

on point with that. And like, like, you know, what we do

differently is, you know, we don't, you know, just limit ourselves to one particular market.

Right. You know, you can have information from different sector, different market and

obviously, you know, at that point the problem becomes about

scale. And when you think of scale, that's

where the AI and the whole compute cost and everything comes into picture.

And I'll say that's something interesting as well, how we

put quantum in this whole aspect of it. And when we say quantum enhanced,

where exactly this quantum come in? To put it very simply,

we sort of compress the market data in a way that

the AI models can better understand. The AI itself, a different

game, that's a different architecture. It's also very sophisticated in itself,

but, but obviously the data in itself and the purity of data. That's

where I'll say the quantum part comes in.

Interesting. So your solution is AI and quantum

together, is that what you're saying? It's a

quantum enhanced AI? I'll say that's the precise way to put it,

yeah. So how, how would

you explain to a non technical person what it is that you're

doing? See, to a non

technical person in general, what do you do? You mean in reference to Rune

technology or in general, what do I do? In general,

what are you doing? What is Rune trying to do? What

problem do you want to solve? In general, I'll

say that my expertise particularly lies in

bringing technology like quantum computing, which probably and

everyone thinks is a very niche tech, into something so basic

and so rudimentary at the same time, so complicated like financial

market. And what I do is I try to figure out

where in the pipeline, the classical pipeline, where the bottleneck lies, the

right point, the right spot to even think about, you know, anything quantum

related. So that's where my expertise lies. That's what I do. And in

reference to quant in this root technology, as I suggested, you know, as

obviously I cannot deep dive into it. But as I suggested, the, the

complex, the, the, you can say the alpha or the, the elegance

really lies in the fact that you, in a different way, which

allows us to kind of collaborate or compress

more data so that the AI architecture

can better understand it and give the results, whatever

these signals, whatever we generate.

Interesting.

How widespread is quantum and finance

now? Is it still kind of. It's definitely still cutting edge. But I

mean, is it kind of fringe, Is it, is it, is it

kind of almost mainstream? Is it? You

know, we all know the big stories, hsbc, JP

Morgan. But like, I know banking has a

rigid hierarchy of like, you know, who's the top dog and things like that.

But all, you know, like, obviously if the top dogs are looking at it, right,

there's gonna. I don't want to name people, I don't want to name banks because

they're going to get upset that you didn't rank them among the top dogs. But

obviously the top global banks, they're looking at it

very clearly. They're seeing some initial success. But what about kind of like the.

Somewhere bigger than regional? Like,

what's their take on this? I think that's a very interesting

question. And I'll say, I mean, I'll take an

example of AI in this particular case because

AI has always been a thing of interest in the financial market in financial sector

as well. But, you know, the issue with,

you know, this particular industry in general

is, right, they jump into this before they

truly understand the, you know, the scale and the

understanding of what the sector really brings in. And

I mean, I can say the same for AI, right? You know, you can probably

find AI research team in every other hedge fund and, or every

other financial. Not even talking about banks in general, in every

other major financial firm. But how

well are they implementing into the practical pipeline is something

kind of, you know, iffy, if you'll say. And there's a very strong reason about

it. And I'll say, like I said, because before this, before

diving into the financial sector, I do have some around four or five years

of experience in automotive, automotive sector,

aerospace sector. And I'll say there's some similarity which lies

from that sector to this sector, which is exactly the,

the resilience to a change. Right. And, and the

how. And how hard is it to penetrate these kind of, you know, these kind

of sectors. So, you know, as you said, there's a hierarchy involved

in this. And the people, they are pretty, I would

say, comfortable with the legacy methodologies, you know, which have already worked.

And, you know, they're comfortable because they understand that.

Right. So, yes, you know, technologies like

quantum computing, artificial intelligence are making their impact in the

financial sector. But I'll say there's, there's still, I

think now it's, it's more prominent. But this, the wave of actual

acceptance and adoption of the technology has, I'll say, have started in a

very, very recent, I'll say, past. So the same goes

for quantum computing. To, to, to answer your question in, in short. Right. That

you know, yes. You know, major firms do have quantum computing as one of

the. Or of their team, but it's most mostly R

D. Right. And when it comes to practical application, yes, there are,

there are a lot of limitations of how you implement that tech. But I feel

like the approach there is kind of diluted and I

cannot blame the R D team for that. It's, it's about, you know, how much

acceptance you get from the, the higher ups as well,

you know, before you actually try to implement anything to the

practical world. Yep. So

given the highly regulated nature of banks around the world,

and I know this has been a factor with AI, Right. Like you have to

have some kind of explainability.

What's the current state of regulation around quantum in finance? Right.

Is it still too new? Because I live in the

D.C. area. Right. And there was a joke that technology is not real and

actionable until the government decides to start regulating it.

So where do we stand? Where does

the. Particularly in finance? I think finance is usually one of the first regulated

fields. So is it pretty much no regulations yet

somewhere in the middle?

I'll say yes. And this is pretty much very new.

And as I said that the adoption is still very low

and you don't see that many

legal aspects and ethics come into the picture until that

option becomes to a point where, I think

to a point where we are not talking about it as a niche

technology, but we are talking about as a necessity.

If you think always. I always go back to AI when you talk about quantum

because I feel AI was exactly where quantum is right now

around a decade ago. And if you look at it right now, and if you

think what's the major reason why ethics became a subject when you

study AI is obviously because of the adoption of AI in

mainstream technology. When you start to think about

it, if every other man has access to such cutting edge AI

technologies, then you also have to consider ethics.

So I will say that right now, as long as the adoption rate does not

cross a certain threshold, ethics wouldn't be a thing. And

as you said, the jokes, I mean jokes and your stereotypes are more

or less based on real facts. So as long as you know the adoption doesn't

reach a particular threshold. Yeah, you're not going to see any kind of ethics involved

with quantum compute. There are ethics on cryptography. Yes. But

that's. That I feel is kind of like on a different

paradigm and not on quantum computing. And you know, the

computation based problems well, that's fair.

Sorry Candace, I don't want to monopolize the mic. So many financial

problems are already well served by classical hpc.

What specific characteristics make a finance

problem genuinely quantum advantaged?

Well, that's a very interesting question and I think that's

where most of the research lies. And as a spare said,

especially in my case, you know, that's where some, that's something where,

you know, I feel like I spend the most time on, well, to be frank,

you know, you know, for strictly honest. And there's this financial

sector is the newest sector which have dived into. So I have less than a

year experience in this. As I said before this I was in automotive at aerospace

industry. So. But although I will

answer your question in reference to that because I feel they share a lot of

correlations. It's, it's a different, I mean it's the same

thing. Package is a different stuff. And what I mean by that is,

see, both of these problems basically suck from high volume of data

and high velocity of data in overall, you know, you have a

huge data coming in group every second. So the

problems are, I'll say, I'll say not same but same thing

but in a different paradigm. So to answer your question, yes,

there are algorithms out there, you know, HPC algorithms,

approximation algorithms. So I do have a PhD in computer science, so I understand

that there are, you know, these algorithms. But the thing is that

these algorithms at, at the very core, at some point of time have to

take an approximation if it crosses a certain threshold,

right? Like for example, if you think about it, the very simple case I can

tell you is that, you know, if I say, if I, if I ask you

to map the dynamics of a multi particle system,

if you have multiple particles in the system, even in physics, which is

like the purest form of one of the purest form of science, you have to

take an approximation if you want to solve the problem of

a particle in a box problem. And when you do so you

lose information. I think that's where the quantum

really helps in. So obviously I never say, and I'll repeat

it again, quantum is not one solution to all problems. It is

the job of people like me and other experts like

me to identify in a pipeline where exactly

does the quantum really and help to unclog,

let's say a bottleneck which was really overall reducing the

performance. But to say that quantum is going to rebuild the whole thing,

that's insane. Quantum is not that kind of computing. It's just

another way of looking At a problem. But yes, you have to identify a problem

where you think there does lie and expertise like

one of the most common one in financial market is portfolio optimization.

And there's a very good reason why that is so relevant. Because if you think

about it, what is portfolio optimization but not a multi particle

system? You know, you have one asset, two assets, 10 different assets.

You need to find a perfect, you know, path from point, you know, perfect

path or I would say a perfect graph out of this whole network

which can give you the maximum profits. There are SPC

algorithms for it. Yes, true, but if you represent this

problem as a, as a quantum computing problem, you get better results,

is as simple as that, you get better scalability. So it's as simple

as that. There's, I mean, I don't want to complicate it any further. It's as

simple as looking at a problem, identifying where, you know, this

bottleneck lies and if quantum can solve it. Because not

every bottleneck is going to be solved by quantum computing. There is only specific

problems. But those problems might lie in one of the, you know, can

say the core pipeline of the whole thing, of the whole industry.

That's it. That's a fair way to put it. That's a

fair way to put it. Right. Like it's. Quantum is not going to solve. I

think that's one of the biggest misconceptions. It's going to solve everything. Well, not everything.

Right. Again, who knows what the future will bring like 50 years out? Because

I doubt that the people working on transistors and Bell labs in the 40s and

50s were thinking about TikTok, right?

Who's to say? But I think in the near term, probably a decade or

so, I think it's safe to say, like it is a very finite problem set

that quantum can, can, can work on. Yes,

that having been said, you know, beyond that, who knows? Sorry.

No, no, no. How do you think we can make advanced topics

like quantum computing more accessible to broader

audiences without diluting the complexity?

Again, that's a good question. And

personally I have tried to do that actually. You know, it's funny because, you

know, I started my quantum journey, the first venture, you know, which

I went ahead with, was my own venture and it exactly targeted this.

And because I myself do

not come from a quantum physics background, I come from a pure computer science, theoretical

computer science kind of a background with a master's and PhD in the same. So

I felt the same, that you know, it could be very

daunting, you know, the maths itself, you know,

and it, and obviously, you know, when you study about algorithms in

a pure quantum algorithms, it does get very daunting. The maths, they do

say it's just linear algebra. They never tell you how

complicated it gets so soon, you know, you didn't even get time

to, you know, grab your mind around it. But

at the same time I also felt that, you know, it's an intuition

which, you know, we get out of these things because.

Yes, okay, yeah, yes. You know, you, you

need to understand quantum physics to get a complete understanding of quantum computing.

But at the same time, do you really need to understand

everything from top to bottom to know if it even makes sense

in your business? Obviously, you know, you would need

a guy like with a PhD in quantum physics to make the hardware

for it. There are going to be guys like that. You obviously need Someone with

a PhD in quantum and quantum physics to, you

know, really, you know, write the math for the algorithms. Yes, but you

also need someone who can understand the intuition because like see,

for in my case I cannot understand financial market from A

to Z. That's true, but I need to know it enough.

But I need to know my stuff enough to form a bridge between the two.

So to answer the question, how do you make so complicated topics? Simple, you explain

the intuition, you make them understand

what really is happening from an intuitive point of view at least,

I mean, that's how I feel. At least, you know, anyone from, you know, who

is looking to get into this sector should have an understanding profit of an

intuition. If they like it and if they want to dwell into it,

obviously deep dive into the maths, get a better understanding. The more

you go in, the better you feel, the better you get a grasp of things.

But start with intuition, that's how you slowly get your way

to the end.

Okay, very cool. Where do you see the most

promising near term real world impact

of quantum technologies across industries like finance and

optimization or cryptography?

Obviously cryptography and optimization is always

the lowest hanging fruits because these are two sectors where

you can actually use the scale because that's where the

scale of the problem for optimization, the scale of the problem becomes a

complexity. And for cryptography it's a completely different regime. There

the encryption and decryption, all those cryptographic algorithms, they come to the

picture. But these two fundamentally, if you think about it, are very

mathematical problems. Right? And within those maths

lies. I can, I can argue not, I mean, you can't

quote me on that, but you can, I can argue, it's just Linear algebra at

its very core, both of these problems. So there

are, I'll say very low hanging fruits in both of these

sectors. And whenever a real quantum, I'll say not real, but

a fault tolerant, full fledged quantum system with enough qubits to

solve these problems. I think these will be the first two sectors which will be

obviously influenced and targeted from about the financial point of view. And

I'll say in general point of view as well. And

after these two, if I want to say,

well yeah, no, I think, I mean I, I'll say within optimization there's

a lot of things which could be done because within optimization I'll say the machine

learning also comes into the picture. Quantum machine learning, qml.

Now that also I think will fall under optimization. So yeah, I think these two

sectors particularly.

Very cool.

What advice would you give someone trying to break into

quantum engineering as a career today?

I'll say again, same thing which I said before that, you know, start

with building an intuition as a book. I really liked,

you know, quantum Computing for computer scientists. I mean I have

bias because I am a computer scientist, so I have a bias towards that. But

I'll say now there are a lot of lectures out there, so

go through those lectures and yeah, one important thing is I'll

strongly suggest to, you know, participate in hackathons, these

quantum hackathons. And I do so because

that's how you get to understand, you know, how are people thinking

about a problem and how are they mapping the problem to an algorithm?

Because you know, you can study all the algorithms you want, you can study Shor's

algorithm, you can study Simon's algorithm, you know, digestors

algorithm, but where do they map into a real world

problem? Obviously you know, they are, they're simple obvious

answers. But when you meet people in hack, because that's how I started my

journey and that's, you know, one of my personal advice to anyone who's starting the

journey is you start to see the insight at the thought process

which people have when they think of a problem and how they map it to

a solution. Solution being the, the limited set of algorithms which we

have or whether it makes sense to, you know, go towards this or not.

I think once you start to build that intuition of how to map any

classical problem into a plausible quantum problem,

that's where I think, you know, the real, you know, the real edge lies.

I'll say it's the hardest thing also. But that's something, you know, you should start

building from day one because the maths and the

Quantum physics part. It will take time. You know, it will take time.

You'll have to go through a lot of lecture. You'll have to watch the famous

lectures from Mr. Payment and you know, you have

a lot of go through a lot of lectures to get to that, get that

point of time. But at the same time, I think, you know, this is important

to, you know, kind of build an intuition in your journey.

Yeah. What first drew you into

quantum computing and how, how did your early

experiences shape your approach to both research and

advocacy?

I don't have, I'll say very, I have a very anticlimactic answer to that.

Before quantum computing, I was actually working on blockchain and before that

I was working on iot. Okay. So.

And you know, I started with quantum back when, you know, the COVID started.

I mean, blockchain back then was starting to, you know, get some

hype. But I wanted to, I was looking for something new and

I, I saw this video on YouTube. It's, it's, it was

from Microsoft. It's a world video. I think right now it would be around six

or seven years old. So it wasn't from background. It was a like

introduction to quantum computing from a computer scientist perspective or something.

I watched the video, I liked it. And around same

time, IBM was conducting, I think it's second quantum hackathon or something.

So I got to know about it. I participated, obviously.

And yeah, and rest is history. And

what happened was that to be very on. What happened was that this happened around

the time when I was about done with my bachelor's. So I was already looking

for, you know, something solid, like, okay, now I have to make a career.

It's, it's fine. You know, I've been doing all this cool stuff like IoT

and blockchain. Now I have to pick something, you know, I have to make a

career out of something. I would say it was pure luck that, you know,

I just stumbled upon quantum computing and just picked it up. And

to answer your question about how the initial journey was,

I'll say from, at least from India,

we didn't have many people like, other than me. They were like

three, four more people, you know, who were really interested

and was a part of this hackathon and everything. So, yeah, there was a lack

of community initially, I agree. But at the same time,

how things have went, you know, from that to, you know, where things are right

now, I feel any kind of difficulty which I had

with, you know, finding resources online because all of the books were

mostly quantum Mechanics book. It was for quantum physics people, not for

someone from, like, there were one or two books, you know, which as a computer

scientist could study and, you know, grasp some intuition. But mostly it was for physics

people. But now I think, you know, you can just go on

YouTube and just type quantum computing and just type the

word intuition or lectures, and you'll get

thousands of results. So, yeah, things are much better now. And

I like the fact that it's that. It's that because now in India

also, you know, we have a lot of. A huge community of, you know, enthusiasts

from content. Like, I have every day I get at least one or two messages

on LinkedIn asking that, you know, we want to get into the sector, how do

we do this and that? So, yeah, from then to now,

obviously, you know, things have escalated a lot. It has really gained

a lot of hype. And that's why I always say that, you know,

quantum right now is what AI was around 10 years ago. People

were interested, they wanted to get in. They didn't know exactly what

was happening. But, yeah, it still hadn't got that, you know, that

adoption thing. But it was getting some hype because hardware was coming in.

Right. So, yeah, I think we are at the same thing with the quantum plate

now. I think that's fair. I think that's

a fair way to put it. Interesting.

Where do you think we're going to go? Like, what do you think 2026 is

going to have in store for Quantum? I know that's a really tough thing, but

I think if I had to sum up 2025, Candice

can confirm or deny was kind of, wow, this

is, this is going to be a thing. This is going to be an industry.

Where do you think we go from here? Like, what, what, what?

You know, imagine a year from now, we're talking and we're like, well, how could

you put 2026 in a word in. In a sentence? Is it going to

be. Is it going to be kind of like,

wow, that was a year, or is this going to be like, oh, man, that

was a year. How do you think

it'll go? I know it's hard to predict the future. That's, that's, that's. I think

that would be the hardest question you can probably ask me

to answer that. I feel, I

personally feel it's. It's just gonna be a year, I

think. Yes, okay. Yeah, it's just gonna be here. I don't think something very major

happening right now. And I'll tell you why, because

2025 was a banger and banger in a sense that, you

know, a lot of big names, big companies kind of

revealed a, you know, a good sense of their timeline, I'll say.

So if you're talking from a hardware, hardware development,

that's what your feed would be. Just like saying that, you know, Nvidia

tomorrow comes up with a new architecture, it's like saying that. So I don't think

that's going to be something which really happens on the other hand on the software

side of things. Well, I think it would be, it's

going to be very, very interesting. And I say that

because, I mean if, if we had like 100 startups

in, in last year, we're gonna have 100 more and I'll say 200 more this

year. Quantum is getting edge. So software side is

always what every year of our quantum software is going to be something new, something

interesting because the last thing to close it

out. The more people you have interested

in something, the more possibilities you have. And I think

that's going to really pay off now.

Interesting.

You've participated in beginner focused discussions

and podcasts about quantum roadmaps.

What's one piece of advice that you consistently give to beginners?

I think again for beginners it's always to build an intuition first

because. And not to be scared from the maths. Right.

And you know, if you can kind of focus and

map whatever you learn, you know, in your journey

to real world applications is that you're on the right path

even if you don't understand the maths, you know, don't be scared.

It's, it's something you know, which takes time, you know, the math takes

time to understand. It's, you know, as they say, if you understand

quantum mechanics, you don't understand it. That's how they put it.

So you don't need to understand it from day one, but you do need to

understand what it means and how you do. You apply

it to any problem. So yeah, just focus on that as a beginner.

That's all you can do. And to expect something more out of you is,

you know, it's kind of putting yourself under the kind of pressure which

you can't get enough. Cool.

How should policymakers and educators collaborate

to build a quantum ready workforce and lessen

the gap between hype and expertise?

I think that's, that's one of the, I think

one of the most future looking question. I'll say yes, I think this should

be the case. It obviously makes sense to

integrate such a Promising technology like

quantum computing into the coursework. And

I don't mean it in a way that they should understand everything about it,

but I mean the other day one

of my cousins, she's in 10 standard right now and she's

studying about AI and ethics in AI, by the way,

which baffled me because I was like

back then AI was something I wasn't even aware about. AI was

supposed to be a subject which we studied when you reached in your bachelor's final

year and in your masters, we had no idea what AI was.

And even then AI was just about deep neural networks,

RNNs and all of these things, just the mathematical stuff and these

things. So similarly, I feel like quantum technology

can be part of one of those kind of one of those things, one of

those curriculum where they understand what this technology

is about. At least they could, they can know what a qubit and what a

bit is like they can understand what

kind of advantage these technology is mean thought to

have, right? So just a bit like, you know, they can, they can have

a basic understanding of what cryptography means, what, what quantum sensing means,

what quantum computing means. At least they should know and be able to differentiate

between three. And so that I think is, I

think it's pretty rudimentary, but at the same time it gives them an

understanding because later, later in life, right, let's say

they do build an interest in this and they go on to

pursue a full time career in quantum computing. Good for them.

But even if they don't, let's say they do become some big

executive, right? Or they join the, you know, the mid level

executive. They should understand quantum computing enough to be able

to know whether it's a good fit for the problem which we are having

or not. Because that I think is the biggest gap in the market

right now. The mid level executive, because I know

quantum is a buzzword, you know, and you know, you can

kind of pitch any problem and say, you know, we'll just improve it using

quantum. But yeah, I think we need more people at executive

level who doesn't need to do the whole technology but just have enough

understanding to know, okay, this is bullshit. So yeah, I think that's,

that's why I feel, I mean it's a fair. Way to put it. That's a

fair way to put it, right? We, and that's kind of the basic premise of

the show since we rebooted it last season, was

it was based on something somebody had told us that there's enough PhDs in this

field already. We don't need more. It's basically kind of what

he said. And I'm not discouraging anyone who has a PhD or

wants to pursue PhD in this because, you know, go for it. Because, you

know, you all are going to be the core of the

engine. But even if you think of, you know, extending the engine metaphor even further,

right. To build a car, you need not just the engine, the transmission, you need

the wheels, you need the windshield, you need, you know, the car seats,

the airbags, the.

It's very cold here as we were talking about, like, you need the seat heaters.

Right. As well as a new feature, I discovered a

heated steering wheel, which is completely new to me.

You know, it sounds like a complete waste of time until it gets really

cold. Yeah, you live in Montreal, and it's a must have. It's

a must have. I'm telling you, after you scrape that ice off your

windshield, your hands are cold, so. Or you have to

shovel or whatever, and you're like, ah. You get in the car, you're like, oh,

yeah, sorry, that's a bit of a sidetrack. So what's,

what's a quantum concept that you initially misunderstood yourself?

And how did that aha moment change how you explain

it to others? Now.

That'S, that's a question I'll, I'll take a minute to think about.

That's because the reason

I do so is because I have misunderstood a lot of concepts.

And that's, I mean it when I say that, you know, as I went ahead,

I, you know, understood more and more. I'd say

entropy is one of the

things which I was really wrong, you know, I

really, you know, was pretty wrong about it. I used to think

it's always a bad, you know, it's always a bad thing to have high

entropy. But, you know, when, when

you, when you start to work on it, you know, especially with the, the finance

sector, you start to notice that, you know, entropy in itself is a

representation of a lot of things. And it is

something, you know, which is bound to always, you know,

the thermodynamics will always bound to just increase. But if you

can map how, at the rate of change of it, change and, you know,

and you can map it to certain physical properties and everything,

it reveals a lot about a system, whether it's the financial sector, whether

it's a particle system, whatever. So entropy, I will say,

what's the aha moment? Actually, but I'll say

the most impactful one in itself is

how entanglement and correlation could be, you know,

interrelated. And entanglement gives you a superior.

More information than, you know, your usual correlation matrices. I think these

two were always something, you know, which I. I

mean, that's what I can think of at least. But, yeah, right now that's all

I have. Okay. As someone who's

active in advocacy. How do you avoid

oversimplifying quantum ideas. While still keeping

newcomers engaged?

I'll say by asking them, you

know, to stay in touch. And I say that in a

way that. And because I don't want to scare them away.

You know, if someone is interested in this sector, even I will

end up maybe sometimes oversimplifying it. And when I say oversimplifying,

maybe I also will, you know, say that certain

concepts in a way that on the theoretical level is not

the best way to explain it. But might be the best way to explain to

the other person. So I always say that, you know, to stay in

touch. And I always, you know, try to at least, you know.

Or, you know, try to, you know, just touch. Touch base with them whenever I

get time, obviously. But I try to do so. And by doing so. And the.

And the. And what I do is. And. Okay. Another thing which I do is

after, you know, I meet anyone who asks. Who probably, you know, ask me for

my opinion and to, you know, ask experience something. I always share a

video or a lecture, a theoretical one, obviously,

always. So that, you know, after I'm done.

So that if he has some understanding, he should go back to the lecture. And

I have noticed mostly, you know, they come back and they have some more

actually legit questions. And. Yeah. And by the time,

you know, they have reached that state of mind where, you know, they can ask

legit questions, it's already done. You know, they

already, you know, are on the right way. That's usually how I

handle it. But, yes, I'll say this is

also not with me, but with everyone who tries to,

you know, advocate quantum computing or, you know, tries to

work, let's say, talk about intuition. You'd end up

oversimplifying things sometimes. Like, you know, you end up

explaining superposition with a flip of coin. I mean, it's.

It's. It's just a. It's just a very crude representation of what it really

is. But at the same time, it helps you draw, you know, have

a picture in your mind. Because I have to say, because I cannot explain

quantum mechanics to you. And I can expect you to have any picture in your

mind. Because I cannot have an picture in my mind when I talk about it.

So, yeah, yes, we do oversimplify things, but in my case, I usually

follow it up with theoretical lecture or something.

So that helps. At least for now. That has helped.

Well, quantum. Quantum mechanics is a hard thing to get your head around, right?

I mean, Richard Feynman had the

famous saying about, you think you understand that you

don't understand it, right? Like, and it, it's just so counter to the

world we live in, the world we experience kind of some of these quantum

phenomena that

if you're confused by it, one, you're paying attention

and two, you're in good company. Like, if Richard Feynman was a

smart guy, right? And you know, Einstein

himself kind of was very skeptical of it because he said it sounded, you know,

the spooky action at distance was his term.

You know, it was a derisive term. Like, it wasn't like, he was. Yeah, he

was. He. He called. He stopped short of calling it bs,

right? Like, so.

So, yeah, I mean, if it is hard to get your head around, and I

think that that's solid advice, right? Like, you know, don't feel bad if you don't

understand it because it's. Some of this is really hard to understand.

And exactly how you put it, man, I mean,

it's the fact that you don't understand this is the fact that

you're putting really your time into it,

and that will always be the case. And

you can say that Einstein's. That whole thing led to the EPR paradox

and that led to proving itself how quantum mechanics really

act. So I think it's always the curious people, even though you are

in favor or against quantum mechanics and is, you know, what really

helps? Right, Right. That's the case.

What do you think the, the quantum industry still gets wrong

about timelines and how should practitioners

communicate uncertainty more honestly?

I'll say. I'll say that, you know, one of the,

one of the things which I think would really use some

better point of view is that, you know, you don't

have to wait for the right hardware to start working on the

technologies. I personally advocate for this thing called

quantum being quantum ready. And you're writing quantum ready software.

And I'll say just to explain, you know, what quantum

ready means is it's more of a quantum inspired algorithms, but

it's capable of being ran on a real quantum system once

it reaches a particular point of maturity.

So it's like saying that, yes, you know, I mean, I have the code, which

works right now. I use HPC systems to simulate and get

results and still get minor benefits in the future. When we

have the right QPUs and quantum processing units,

we can just switch over and work on that. So I think that's one of

the sectors which I feel should be focused more, at least from a

software point of view. Because, yes, I obviously, I cannot, I cannot deny the

fact that hardware is the backbone of the sector, like any

other set, like artificial intelligence, AI. Right. If you don't have

the right GPUs and the GPU architectures, you can't even

probably imagine running half the things

which we come up with. But at the same time, you still have to come

with things. You have to find better ways to do it on

the current system. Meanwhile, the architecture is being

built for the future system. So I think that's one of the things which I

think is probably lacking in the timelines. They talk about the hardware and then

they talk about the software. They always say that this is how software will look

like, but the hardware reaches this point. But what about in between? I think

that that would probably have some work.

Interesting. So what's, I'm sorry, go ahead, Frank.

No, no, this is interesting. I was going to say. So what

skills outside of physics and math do you think

are the most undervalued for quantum engineers today?

I, I'll say, I'll, I'll argue and say, you know, computer science

as a, as a, as a skill really helps

in quantum computing. And, and why

is that? Is, you know, I think quantum

computer science really helps you build a problem solving

capability. So what I mean to say when I say computer science, I mean to

say a problem solving skills is something which is really undermined, you know,

because people usually talk about, yeah, you need to know maths, you need to know

your quantum stuff. But what about problem solving? Yeah, I have this

information. Let's say, you know, I am expert, I have a PhD. I mean, as

I said, we do need, we do need PhD. Yes, but I feel more than

that, we need PhDs who knows how to apply their

thesis in real world applications. Yeah, I mean, yes, obviously you could

have the best thesis, you could have the best results, but

if you can map it to a real world problem or a problem of

a sector which initially when you thought about it, it wasn't for that

sector, but later you figured it out that, okay, this also could be an

application of my work here, could also be applied here. So

I think problem solving and mapping problem to a solution,

a very undervalued skill, very important. Skill for a niche

technologies where I'll say, people talk about it, people say

that it's a very difficult industry. I say that there's a lot of

potential here. You really have the canvas, you know, you have the

algorithms. You have all the world problems of the world.

If you can map it, you can get the money. I

don't. I think that's also one of, one of the ways to look at this,

you know, whole thing as well. So if you

were going to build your own quantum team from

scratch, what mix of backgrounds

would you prioritize and why?

I'll say I'll always get a software development

guy, obviously, because, you know, you need someone to write the good code,

you know, good quality code. And I'll get someone

who has a very good understanding of the maths and, you know,

these, this quantum stuff and obviously. And

I'll get someone like me who can bridge the two. So,

I mean, and that's the kind of the, that's kind of my philosophy when back

when, you know, in one of my previous corporation where I was

leading the quantum team, that was my philosophy. You

know, I always had one Ph.D. or one, usually

a bachelor's or a master's guy and a guy, you know, who

was just an enthusiast. He was like a jack of. Jack of

both. He was not best at both. I'll say I'm never good at. I

never say that I'm very good at quantum physics or I'm very good at, you

know, coding. I'm somewhere in between. I can do both. And

that's what, you know, if I had my ideal team, that's how would I like.

I would like to have it because that allows me to do, is that I

can give these three people one problem. I'll say that, okay,

work on solving the partial differential equation on quantum computer.

And you know, we have a coder, we have a physics guy, and we have

someone who can just help both communicate. That's it. That's all you need.

Communication. It's important that you have the people that know how to communicate

this. It's always important for us that, you know, those folks are

vital. Right? Yes, yes.

It's such an underrated skill for a lot of things. Right? For

sure, for sure. If you can't put your point ahead

in the right way, it becomes an issue.

So if you were to look ahead 5 to 10 years, what would

success in quantum computing actually look

like to you? Beyond headlines about

qubit numbers? I'll say it would be about

bringing roi, you know, to the stakeholders.

Because that's something which I personally had

to deal with in one of my previous ventures.

That yeah, you can explain all the tech, you can explain all the

theory and you can explain all the potential advantage.

Right. But at the end of the day it's about

money. I mean whether we like it or not. You

know, if someone is going to put in billions of dollars because

that's, that's the amount of money you will need to run anything on real quantum

computer. If somebody's going to put that, they need an

roi, a return on investment. So I think

that's one of those things which will really separate

an R D focused company from a real

quantum industry tech. I think that's something which will really be

the case. You can have all the qubit numbers, but

if it takes you 1 million to solve

a 500k problem, then

it's just going to be limited to being a research paper and nothing else. So

the real edge would future would lie to solve a 2 million problem with 1

billion compute. Let's say just example.

Okay.

What'S one of the biggest misconceptions

that you have heard about quantum computing?

That it can solve anything. Okay,

that's fair. You give it anything and it

will just give you a solution faster with the higher convergence

rate. That's not how it works, unfortunately. I wish it did.

And if it did. Yeah then we would be going places. At least

I would be going places. That's not the case.

What role do you think cloud access

will play in shaping who actually gets to

experiment meaningfully with quantum systems?

I think cloud access is the most, I'd

say it's like, it's like an underdog. But the,

I said the backbone of any kind of, you know,

exposure and any kind of, I'll say the exponential growth

which you know, the quantum as has seen as an industry

because it allows you to, you know, get access to,

you know, world class technologies and you know, world class

devices just from your home. So

I think that's always going to be one of the most

primary agents, you know, which really drives any kind of innovation in this

sector. Because obviously I say that in a two tier way.

Right? Obviously as a corporation you get

all these accesses and everything

from your own company. You can just send a

process which needs to be run on their, let's say

quantum processor and get a result, which is a good thing because that means that

there's a data security involved in this. And as an individual who wants to

get into this sector, I do not need to Spend millions and

thousands of dollars just to get 5 minutes or 10

minutes on running a real system. Something on a real system.

So I think, yeah, I mean the cloud access is one of those things which

has really led to whatever growth in

exposure and the popularity of quantum computing which we have seen so

far. I think it was same for AI if I'm not wrong. Right. I think

it was the access to these especially players

like AWS and Azure. It was that the fact that

they came into existence and these cloud services allowed companies to just

put their architecture there and scale as they go. So I think

cloud in general, quantum or AI or any other technology

is always the driving force because nobody

could, I mean if you can't possibly ask a startup with

no funding actually to just get access

to these H100 all those kind of

systems which probably will cause them their kidneys actually.

So I think it's always a cloud which drives innovation. Yes, as

same as the case with quantum. Okay,

okay. So

where could people find out more about

Rune, about your company, about

what you're working on?

Well, about what I'm working on. You know, probably you can follow follow me on

LinkedIn and connect with me on LinkedIn. As I said, you know, I'm very

open on, you know, connecting on LinkedIn. You can probably text me and you

know, if you have any questions from this, you know, just hook me up and

I'll probably answer it for root for Roon technology. I'll

same, I'll suggest that you know, you reach, you know, visit our LinkedIn page.

We also have a website. I'll probably, you know, give you the link if you

want that you can just put it there with this recording.

But yeah, I think, But I think LinkedIn texting me directly would be the

best way if you want to know anything about quantum computing or

related stuff. Yeah, you can just probably reach out to me on LinkedIn.

That's excellent. Well, thank you.

Thank you. This is, this is great. Like I love talking not just to like

experts in the field, but also founders and co founders because like, you know, clearly

you went from, you know, maybe you had it like you're

putting your butt on the line. That's basically what I'm saying. Like, you know, you're

a true believer, right. And it's also an inspiration to other people. Right. Like

for people who are sitting in a cubicle somewhere or not happy with what their

current career path looks like and

the urge to pick up a book on quantum computing is far less risk than

the risk that you've taken. Right. So go out there, kids,

learn something new is basically what I'm saying. Exactly. I love

it. I love it. This has been great. Thank you so much. So,

so much. And we'll play the opposite.

Sorry, go ahead, go ahead. I'll let you finish. Yeah, I was just, I was

just concluding, saying that, you know, it's always a pleasure to talk about quantum computing.

And you know, as I said, you know, I like to advocate for quantum

computing itself because with AI getting so much

traction and everything, right. I feel the next big thing might

be quantum, even if, even if it's not the case, right? You learn

something and, you know, you can always apply it to your own

use case, whether it's a big thing or not. Because I don't

like. One last thing before I conclude is one, I don't like the fact that

people get into quantum thinking that it's going to be the next big thing.

Get into it thinking that if it can help you or not, if it becomes

the next big thing, good for you. If it does not, you learn

something new and you learn how to apply it to your use case. And trust

me, man, trust me, if you really do something that becomes a big tool,

that's it. I agree, I agree. Always learn. As Frank

says, always be learning. Right? Always be learning.

Always be learning. Awesome. Now we'll play the outro music.

They're sharing a glance Frank's got a joke about a quantum

romance Candace drops knowledge like a trumpet Flare the

speed of their banter Nothing compares String theory

strumming reality humming the cosmos is bopping and we

keep on drumming

Quantum podcast Turn it up fast Candace and Frank

blowing my mind at last Quantum podcast They're breaking

the mold Science and sky beats its bold and it's soul.

The multiverse is skanking Skanking in time Black holes

are wailing in a horn line so fine From Planck scales to planets they're

connecting the dots Candace and Frank they're the cosmic

hot shots.