Welcome back to Impact Quantum, the podcast where we decode the
Speaker:quantum future one entangled conversation at a
Speaker:time. I'm your virtual MC Bailey. In this
Speaker:episode, Frank is joined as always by the queen of quantum
Speaker:curiosity herself, Candice Gilhooly.
Speaker:Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Nia Alfasi,
Speaker:general manager of the Israeli Quantum Computing Center.
Speaker:Niz coming to us quite literally from the cutting edge of quantum innovation
Speaker:with a real functioning quantum fridge behind him to
Speaker:prove it. We'll dive into Israel's burgeoning quantum
Speaker:scene, the role of quantum data centers, and why the
Speaker:future of computing is less Silicon Valley and more global
Speaker:village. Grab your coffee or your cryogenic coolant, and
Speaker:let's get started.
Speaker:Hello, and welcome back to Impact Quantum, the podcast where we explore the
Speaker:emergent fields of quantum computing and focus on
Speaker:what that ecosystem is going to look like and how to
Speaker:best position yourself today, for the quantum future and how
Speaker:to be quantum curious. Along with me on this journey, is
Speaker:the most quantum curious person I know, Candice Kahuli. How's
Speaker:it going, Candice? It's going great. Thank you very much. I just
Speaker:wanna mention that on the April 8, I woke up
Speaker:to snow. Wow. I just have to put it out there. I do. We had
Speaker:a frost warning. So Okay. I guess I can't complain too
Speaker:much. But where our guest is,
Speaker:it's 30 degrees Celsius, which is about 86 degrees
Speaker:Fahrenheit ish. So warm and toasty,
Speaker:I suppose. And, he is the general
Speaker:manager of the Israeli quantum computing sensor,
Speaker:Nir Afalsi. How's it going, Nir? It's great.
Speaker:Going great. Thanks for having me, Frank and Candace. So for those
Speaker:watching the thank you. Thank you. For those of you watching the video, he that
Speaker:actually is a quantum computer over his right shoulder.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So Get jealous. Get
Speaker:jealous. That's so cool. He had he had a great
Speaker:background on today already, and then we asked him to drop the
Speaker:kimono and show us where where he really was and what we could see
Speaker:and and And that's even cooler, honestly. So cool. So cool. Yeah.
Speaker:I'm geeking out a little bit yesterday. And it literally is cool. Right? You know,
Speaker:because, you know, close to absolute zero. Badump. Boom. Yep.
Speaker:So one of the things that we've been talking
Speaker:about, recently is data centers
Speaker:and how well, two things. Like, one, the 2025,
Speaker:it's April. And
Speaker:it's already been a pretty wild year in quantum computing with all the
Speaker:announcements coming out. First, it started off with kind of the CES kind
Speaker:of, oh, no. This is gonna be not not a thing anytime
Speaker:soon, right, from from everybody's favorite
Speaker:GPU CEO, to
Speaker:now every company is coming out with these announcements just fast and
Speaker:furious. What's your take on the current state of the quantum
Speaker:computing world? I think it's
Speaker:advancing really, really fast. You know? I mean, so I think
Speaker:there is a lot of hype around it.
Speaker:I think it's only natural, you know. I think the, the
Speaker:field is going generally in a steady
Speaker:state forward. I don't
Speaker:think we're yet in some exponential rise or
Speaker:especially in the, you know,
Speaker:physically and technically speaking. But I
Speaker:think the height the hype is is justified. You know, you want
Speaker:to this is this is going to basically change the world, you know. It might
Speaker:take a few years, depends on who you ask.
Speaker:But I think it definitely is something
Speaker:a new part a new computing paradigm that we're not used
Speaker:to. We don't know it. And I think
Speaker:the for me, the most important thing and and and
Speaker:the most, I would say, encouraging is to see
Speaker:so many startups coming out all around the world, both in
Speaker:Israel, but also, like, worldwide. And I know eventually
Speaker:one of them will shine. You know, it's a it might be one of the
Speaker:big players also. But I think it's also, like, not only that
Speaker:it's going forward, but it's only ex also expanding,
Speaker:you know, in width. So I think this is very, very encouraging to the
Speaker:entire field. Absolutely. I think one of the
Speaker:the detriments of existing technology industry
Speaker:is that it's focused really in pretty much
Speaker:Silicon Valley, and Seattle. Right? So kind of
Speaker:one time zone. And I think that
Speaker:I think that there's a certain geographic bias that you have if
Speaker:you're based in an area, and I think that it's encouraging to see
Speaker:this quantum hotspots around the world, like you said. Right? There's
Speaker:obviously what you're doing in Israel. There's, Montreal, apparently, is a
Speaker:big quantum presence.
Speaker:Maryland, where I live, actually has a has a pretty big
Speaker:research center. Obviously, you know, its proximity to DC probably
Speaker:helps. Maybe maybe I
Speaker:was joking. We were joking with somebody the other day who was talking about College
Speaker:Park, Maryland is where the University of Maryland is, but it's also
Speaker:this massive IKEA is there. So we always joke, like, maybe there's a
Speaker:correlation between IKEA presence of IKEA's
Speaker:and quantum hot spots. I don't know. But, Then then it would be
Speaker:everywhere in the world. Right? That's right. Then maybe that's what it is. Like, people
Speaker:just really like the Swedish meatballs. I don't know. Or maybe to
Speaker:assemble the furniture without any problem, you have to be a
Speaker:PhD level physicist. I don't know. But,
Speaker:I think that I think that's interesting because I've noticed that too. Right? Like, there
Speaker:are definitely kinda hot spots, but the hot spots are not the hot spots
Speaker:didn't say technology were, you know, Seattle, Redmond, you know,
Speaker:San Jose, Cupertino. Right? All in one time zone. And,
Speaker:arguably, you could say New York has a pretty solid startup scene too.
Speaker:Right? But I've noticed that quantum
Speaker:hot spots tend to be far more evenly distributed.
Speaker:We also find that the hot spots are now usually
Speaker:in correlation to a major university, that's around them.
Speaker:So for example, the hot spot in Boston is very
Speaker:much connected with MIT and Harvard. Right?
Speaker:You have universities, you know, College Park, Maryland. They
Speaker:have Boulder, Colorado. Today, a lot of news is coming out of
Speaker:Chicago. They've just received
Speaker:there's there's a place in Chicago, the Illinois Quantum,
Speaker:and Microelectronics Park. They've just received an additional
Speaker:$2,000,000 to work with PsiQuantum
Speaker:on more, you know, really establishing Chicago,
Speaker:Illinois as as one of these quantum centers. I just wanted to
Speaker:throw that in.
Speaker:Interesting. So I QMP. I I I'm aware of that. Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, very cool. What is the, what
Speaker:are the main problems that you're working on in in your lab?
Speaker:Or do they you kinda just what what are the main problems you're trying to
Speaker:solve? Are they industry problems? Are they kind of, you know, how do we build
Speaker:one of these machines? How do we make them practical? Yeah. So maybe
Speaker:before we dive into the problems, maybe it's it's better to, you know, just
Speaker:just give you what do we actually do here and then it
Speaker:might, you know, give a better context to the discussion. So,
Speaker:the IQCC, first of all, it's it's it's it's it's being built and operated
Speaker:by by by Quantum Machines, which is an Israeli startup. It's,
Speaker:the largest Israeli startup. It's it's a it's a quantum control
Speaker:company, the largest quantum control company in the
Speaker:world, the leading one, with, you
Speaker:know, over 300 customers everywhere in all the places you
Speaker:mentioned. We're everywhere. So this is already an
Speaker:established well funded, also a
Speaker:company. Recently, we announced a a a
Speaker:a round of another additional
Speaker:$170,000,000. So this
Speaker:is already an established company, with an established
Speaker:sector of customers. And we got basically the
Speaker:mandate from the Israeli Innovation Authority to build this
Speaker:Israeli Quantum Computing Center, which
Speaker:is partially funded by the Israeli Innovation Authority, but still
Speaker:managed and owned by quantum machines. And the idea of the IQCC
Speaker:is to be an infrastructure for,
Speaker:to allow basically research and development for
Speaker:third parties. Okay? So I personally
Speaker:don't do like do not develop quantum computer here.
Speaker:Okay? I am dedicated to
Speaker:adjust the infrastructure. So I need to do some R and D on my on
Speaker:my behalf on how to allow the best facility
Speaker:for the quantum ecosystem, I would say,
Speaker:to basically connect
Speaker:and run their R and D on on this premise.
Speaker:Okay? So in general, we have these
Speaker:three, you know, and that's really generally speaking of these three services.
Speaker:One of them is a quantum computer over the Cloud. So
Speaker:you can connect remotely to a quantum computer
Speaker:at the IQCC. We have several technologies
Speaker:basically. One of them is superconducting
Speaker:quantum computer. We have two
Speaker:processors, one with 17 cubits and the other is 21 cubits.
Speaker:So you can log in, run your algorithms, run your
Speaker:research, and you can do it at the pulse level. So you
Speaker:can go as low as you want in the stack, I would say.
Speaker:So this is one thing that we're enabling basically. In addition,
Speaker:everything is tightly integrated with
Speaker:supercomputers with a high performance computing HPC.
Speaker:So, this is why we call it a quantum
Speaker:data center because it's not only about quantum computers, it's also about classical
Speaker:computers and tight integration between the quantum and classical.
Speaker:And part of it is the DGX Quantum, the project that Quantum Machines has
Speaker:together with NVIDIA on basically, you
Speaker:know, tightly integrating in the at the hardware
Speaker:level. The control, the OPX 1,000 by quantum machines
Speaker:and the Grace Hopper, the NVIDIA Superchip. So
Speaker:this is one offering that we have. The other the second
Speaker:one is basically a cryogenic test bed.
Speaker:So this is for hardware, more
Speaker:for hardware companies. So let's say that you are a startup. You would
Speaker:like to, you know, you think you have the best idea for the best cubits
Speaker:ever cubit ever. If you want to build the same thing that I have, you
Speaker:know, right behind me, it will take you first of all, you know, multimillion
Speaker:dollars but also probably around a year if
Speaker:you're fast. So, you know, we are able
Speaker:to assist startups at their their initial phase
Speaker:to test their devices here at the IQCC.
Speaker:And it's very very important to for us to accelerate the
Speaker:ecosystem basically. So you can start here and then, you
Speaker:know, eventually we will build your own lab. You will go to your own way
Speaker:but this is a great start. You get, you know, the state of the art
Speaker:system which will take you a lot of money, a lot of time to
Speaker:build and you get it on day one and you can start running with it.
Speaker:And the third thing that we do is also we we give education and
Speaker:and and quantum workforce training at the IQCC, which we
Speaker:believe is really kind of a bottleneck today at at in the quantum
Speaker:industry. You know, I've been in the academia
Speaker:for what fifteen years? And so you don't want any
Speaker:person that works at the quantum industry to
Speaker:be after, you know, bachelor, master, PhD, and a postdoc.
Speaker:Right? And then, okay, now you you now you can go work at a quantum
Speaker:industry or maybe you're only PhD and then you need like ten years.
Speaker:Right. Right. But then maybe it's not mandatory.
Speaker:Maybe you can take good physicists, good electrical engineers.
Speaker:They're amazing. They've been working for fifteen years in the industry. Okay. You train
Speaker:them for a few months, you made them a quantum expert, you know.
Speaker:So this is kind of also where the market is heading because, you
Speaker:know, it's growing rapidly. And
Speaker:other than, you know, money, time, you also need good people.
Speaker:And this is something also that we are aiming to lead at the
Speaker:IQCC as well. So I
Speaker:mean That's really cool. That answers your your question.
Speaker:No. It answers you just then some. Right? I mean like I mean is it
Speaker:fair to say you're like a quantum accelerator? Right? Like, I mean, or quantum
Speaker:Exactly. Exactly. I think couple of things you said there. I think we're just a
Speaker:hundred percent spot on. I don't wanna hog the mic because I know Candace is
Speaker:I see her eyes, like, you know, lighting up. But I think the number one
Speaker:thing was, you know, there's a lot of people you're right. That,
Speaker:you know, maybe they have a design I like the idea that you have where
Speaker:you have like a cryogenic center where you can be like, Hey, I have this
Speaker:great idea. I have this great idea. I want to build this hardware. And then
Speaker:let's just give a crazy example. Like, you know, maybe once it gets to a
Speaker:certain temperature, the board cracks or the breadboard cracks or or whatever. Right? Like,
Speaker:it's it's a great way to test and prototype. Right? I think that's brilliant.
Speaker:The other thing too was you're absolutely right. Like, there's a shortage of people
Speaker:and skill set in the quantum I don't wanna say the quantum realm because I
Speaker:think of Ant Man or whatever. But, like, you know, the quantum space is that
Speaker:you're right. Like, the amount of people that are gonna be needed
Speaker:for this space, you know, if you go through the traditional
Speaker:kind of, you know, PhD in physics, postdoc work, and then
Speaker:industry, that's really gonna slow things down. But what if you could take not just
Speaker:electrical engineers, but software engineers, right, And kinda say, like, this is
Speaker:how you this is how you would code it in traditional, and you can kinda
Speaker:take them and and repurpose them into, you know, the different types of
Speaker:algorithms and stuff like that. I remember reading about
Speaker:the different gates that are available inside of a quantum computer and was
Speaker:completely floored. I'm like, wow. This this opens up a lot of doors.
Speaker:Right? And then it's and I even wonder, like, you
Speaker:know, are you gonna need to offer, like, remedial computer science
Speaker:for a lot of these people? Because last time I really thought a lot about
Speaker:logic gates at that level was a long time ago. I'm not even sure
Speaker:they teach that that to kids today at school. You know what I mean?
Speaker:So, and and certainly, you know, not all
Speaker:computer science
Speaker:programs are created equally. Right? I'm I'm pretty sure that you would have a different
Speaker:experience if you went to, like, one of those boot camps where they taught you
Speaker:how to code. Like, not knocking on them, but I don't know how much time
Speaker:they spend on the actual, you know, silicon in in the
Speaker:example. Right? So I think it's I think it's great because you're you're really kind
Speaker:of building ahead. It's like if let's just say if a company
Speaker:figures it out tomorrow, right, everything goes perfect for them,
Speaker:They're gonna need to hire all these people. The quantum curious. Right? And, you know,
Speaker:you're gonna need quantum marketers. Like, well, what's that mean? How do you market a
Speaker:quantum computer? How do you how do you what's your d t g go to
Speaker:market plan? Like, what's your what's your marketplace look like? You know?
Speaker:And and all sorts here, the practical stuff. Like, you know, if I'm
Speaker:a if I'm a data center designer, right, I
Speaker:obviously, I have electricians, electrical engineers on
Speaker:my staff, but what are the unique power requirements for quantum computers
Speaker:as they are today, right? They they they obviously have, you know, cooling
Speaker:systems, but probably not liquid nitrogen based stuff. Like, what does
Speaker:that look like? Like, what is that practical kind of like not
Speaker:even day two stuff. I think, you know, kind of just the how
Speaker:do you rack them and stack them as they would say. Right? Like, what's that
Speaker:look like? Did you have any
Speaker:questions, Candace? Well, I was just really interested in the bottleneck
Speaker:idea that there is so much opportunity for
Speaker:other people in this industry, you know, to kind of
Speaker:find a spot where they could be, you know, teaching the
Speaker:knowledge that they have in order to bring people closer,
Speaker:to what they need in order to use these systems appropriately.
Speaker:I like the idea that there's a lot of space there. I like the idea
Speaker:that it doesn't have to be necessarily a direct path,
Speaker:that there's you know, you can take people with different skills and then you can
Speaker:position them in certain in certain areas where then they're
Speaker:able to teach others what they need in order to make these
Speaker:systems effective. I like that kind of collaborative
Speaker:feel. You know? I'm also in my head, I'm kind of
Speaker:thinking, like, what kind of problems are you
Speaker:are you trying to get solutions for by
Speaker:using, your quantum computer? Like, what are
Speaker:you specifically looking at right now?
Speaker:Yeah. So I think the idea of the IQCC, and that that's what I like
Speaker:the most. So first of all, I mean, the
Speaker:quantum ecosystem is is is is pretty large and and
Speaker:starting or at least starting to be pretty large with but there are a lot
Speaker:of, like, small companies and usually,
Speaker:each company works alone. And I think that at least as I
Speaker:see the future of quantum computing of quantum computers, like,
Speaker:you should really have, like, a, you know, a dedicated focused
Speaker:company working on a certain thing. So I don't see so so for
Speaker:example, let's say that I'm building a quantum computer, right, and I
Speaker:need cables. I will not go in I will not go and build the
Speaker:cables. Right? Or I will not or let's say, I even need a a
Speaker:laptop. Right? I will not go and build the laptop. I'm gonna buy it from
Speaker:the store or the same with the with with the cable. So I
Speaker:think in my in my vision, I
Speaker:see I see that, you know, when you build a quantum computer, you
Speaker:need so many components. And I think like
Speaker:you just need expertise in each one of them. So for
Speaker:example, quantum machines are experts in quantum control.
Speaker:And you can see behind me, for example, you have, you know, BlueForce that are
Speaker:experts in dilution fridges. There are other companies, it's
Speaker:fine. But I wouldn't want to see
Speaker:companies build their own, you know, components
Speaker:when you have them when you have small companies which are experts
Speaker:in these components. And the same goes, in my opinion,
Speaker:for software and algorithms. Right? So at the
Speaker:IQCC, the idea is that we give, you know, we have we have place for
Speaker:everyone. We can give you the access to each level of the
Speaker:stack. So we have, you know, software companies working
Speaker:here but also like all over the stack.
Speaker:If you go to, you know, like a
Speaker:computer, right? You have intel that are making the chips but you have
Speaker:Windows and you have Excel and you have, I don't know,
Speaker:Adobe PDF view. Right? So it's like you have things across the
Speaker:stack and that's the same for quantum computers. So
Speaker:we have There's a whole ecosystem there's a whole ecosystem that is Yeah. And
Speaker:and and and it's a full stack. Right? So you can here you can
Speaker:test the chip. If you have, let's say, that you
Speaker:build a filter or or an amplifier or something, you can test
Speaker:it with a chip that we provide. You can
Speaker:log in if you have a low level software that needs to, you know, maybe
Speaker:you run quantum error correction but on the actual like
Speaker:hardware level. Right? You want to learn the noise on the hardware
Speaker:level. You can get access to that, that's pulse level access. If you
Speaker:want to go higher in the stack, you go
Speaker:gate level access. You can run-in gate level access here and then, you know,
Speaker:if you're trying to do quantum error correction or quantum
Speaker:algorithms. And I feel like,
Speaker:you know, we need to advance in all of this stack. So it's
Speaker:like this is this is this is, how I
Speaker:feel obviously like the the processor itself is a huge, huge, huge
Speaker:engineering
Speaker:challenge because we still don't have, you know, fault tolerant
Speaker:qubits. But the idea is that, okay, maybe we don't need fault tolerant
Speaker:qubits. Maybe we just need good control system and good quantum error
Speaker:correction algorithms and that will fix it. So I think
Speaker:that's kind of where the the industry is going. Like, okay, let's try to improve
Speaker:the qubits. Let's try to improve the the software. Let's try to improve the control.
Speaker:Let's try to improve the the filters that we have so we have less
Speaker:noise. So everything is is needs to, you know,
Speaker:basically be better. And,
Speaker:so I think this this is this is what we're trying to provide. Like, accelerate
Speaker:basically, the realization of of useful quantum
Speaker:computers. That's that's the idea. Interesting.
Speaker:And you might be a first person, Candace. Correct me if I'm wrong. That is
Speaker:really kind of explained that, you know, the whole
Speaker:ecosystem and has a holistic approach
Speaker:to what that whole ecosystem needs to look like. Oh,
Speaker:absolutely. Like, the way he's talking about how there's so many
Speaker:there's so many different positions that are available. There's so much
Speaker:need, for people with specific type of knowledge
Speaker:that they could all go into this and be incredibly
Speaker:collaborative, which you know is always my game. I'm always I'm all
Speaker:into the collaboration of it all. I don't care about one about
Speaker:one company kind of standing up and being the leader. I'd rather there be
Speaker:a whole bunch, kind of bringing everyone towards, you
Speaker:know, understanding quantum computing better. But no,
Speaker:I really like how he breaks up the ecosystem in a very different way than
Speaker:what we've heard before. A %. And I think it also I
Speaker:mean, maybe it's confirmation bias, but Candace and I kinda had
Speaker:this idea that, like, when this thing blows up or grows
Speaker:up, right, it's gonna need you're gonna need a village. Right?
Speaker:You're gonna need the ecosystem. Right? Like, the PC industry as we
Speaker:know it, if you kinda look at the early documentaries and, you
Speaker:know, where it started off with the Altair and these home brew
Speaker:computer groups, every one of those people that were at those meetings
Speaker:well, not every one of them, but, like, each one of them had a startup,
Speaker:had realized that they had to fix one particular aspect of something. Right? So like
Speaker:you said, like, you know, you're not gonna go buy you're not gonna you're not
Speaker:gonna go make your own cables. Right? You're gonna buy it from someone
Speaker:who makes cables. Right? And, like, I I think people
Speaker:people take for granted the entire ecosystem that exists in
Speaker:conventional or classical computers. Whereas this is gonna be some
Speaker:of it I think we'll be able to reuse, but some of it's gonna have
Speaker:to be completely built from the ground up. I think,
Speaker:like, even if you go to, you know, maybe, I don't know, the chip industry.
Speaker:Right? Mhmm. You go to these huge players. I don't know. Intel,
Speaker:TSMC, whatever. You got these huge players. But if you go to their okay. So
Speaker:maybe even let's assume that there is one that controls %
Speaker:of the chip industry. But then you if you go to their
Speaker:fabrication facility, I assume that they do not
Speaker:produce the the machines that produce the chips.
Speaker:Right? Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So they buy it from I don't know.
Speaker:Whatever company. I don't want to name names. But, you know, they're buying from somewhere
Speaker:and they have, you know, other devices that so they they
Speaker:they they gathered things from other places. They integrated them
Speaker:together and then they bring you the best product ever.
Speaker:Right? So I think there's a problem, but I don't correct me if
Speaker:I'm wrong, but I don't think NVIDIA even owns their own production facilities. Right? They
Speaker:they lease it from t t c TSMC.
Speaker:TSMC. TC. I'm gonna Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. I cut
Speaker:you off. But, like,
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not I'm not an expert, but, I mean,
Speaker:it only makes sense. Like, even if you even when you build a car when
Speaker:you build a car Right. You go you don't make your usually,
Speaker:I assume you don't make your own tires. Right? So they
Speaker:are like dedicated tire companies. And
Speaker:it only makes sense. Glass companies, dedicated Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker:And the robots. Who makes the robots that put the cars together on the assembly
Speaker:line? It's not Exactly. Exactly. The auto man car manufacturer.
Speaker:Exactly. So I think there's room for for for a lot of
Speaker:companies here that are really experts and dedicated. You
Speaker:know. I think there there is room for many
Speaker:technologies in my I mean, at least the near
Speaker:future. Obviously, you know, there might be one that will rise
Speaker:and, you know, just wipe everyone else because it's so much better.
Speaker:But currently, maybe, you know, one is
Speaker:better for this task and another one is better for this task.
Speaker:And, you know, for this one, you just need high numbers of
Speaker:qubits and short lifetimes. But for this one, you just need small number of qubits
Speaker:and long lifetimes and better fidelities. And, you know, you don't you need all to
Speaker:all connectivity. You don't need so I think there is room for for a lot
Speaker:of of players here at least, you know, in the
Speaker:near future. And I definitely see,
Speaker:I see much more collaborations. I would like to see even more,
Speaker:at least for my that's that's I would say even say it's my
Speaker:personal view.
Speaker:Usually, you know, especially when you come from academia, you're used to
Speaker:collaborate. And I've been fifteen years in the academia. So you're used to collaborate
Speaker:all around and you know, with people. So I think that's
Speaker:the that's the way to go. You know, you should really get that
Speaker:like the the the fridge from the expert, the the cable
Speaker:from the expert, the filter from the expert, the control from the expert, the QPU
Speaker:from the experts, etcetera, and integrate everything together
Speaker:and and make, you know, a great quantum computer. That's, yeah.
Speaker:Very cool. So there hasn't been a lot of public announcements
Speaker:coming out of Israel, in terms of what they're
Speaker:doing with quantum computing. You know, we are hearing about other countries
Speaker:that are just being, just,
Speaker:just, you know, promulgating their their information
Speaker:greater? Like, do you find that that's something specifically about Israel
Speaker:that they're not necessarily trying to necessarily
Speaker:show off kind of what they have and what they're doing? It's more of
Speaker:kind of like an internal,
Speaker:kind of an internal project that they're kind of just working on and trying to,
Speaker:you know, see what they can create out of it? What do you think is
Speaker:the is the is the perception we should take
Speaker:from from what Israel does with their information, you know, involving
Speaker:quantum? Yeah. So so I I think
Speaker:I missed your the first few words that you said, but you said that Israel
Speaker:hasn't been Yeah. Yeah. I I see not much in the
Speaker:news. And I you know, and not not to say everyone should do what they
Speaker:wanna do, and what they think is the most important and appropriate
Speaker:for what they're trying to work on. I just find it is I find it
Speaker:interesting that constantly Israel is always on the
Speaker:cusp of every new technology that
Speaker:there is, but they keep it a little quiet, a little closer to the vest.
Speaker:Yeah. So I think, like, in general, so first of all,
Speaker:you know, the big players dominate also the news. Like, you hear about
Speaker:Microsoft, you hear about Google, you hear about IBM, you hear about Intel maybe. I
Speaker:don't know. So that's that's number one. I think you don't hear about,
Speaker:you know, amazing startups that are rising around the
Speaker:world. And I think that Israel is
Speaker:lagging a bit behind. I think we have great idea now. We have great
Speaker:ecosystem. That wasn't the case few years ago.
Speaker:So five so quantum machines was started in seven years
Speaker:ago in 2018 and 2019. And then there was like the only
Speaker:quantum company. Later, they came like two others more of a
Speaker:software higher level companies. And only recent two
Speaker:years started to to grow like this, a hardware
Speaker:quantum startups. They they want to do like, you know, full stack quantum
Speaker:computers. So I first of all,
Speaker:I think it's lagging a bit behind, but I think that the main thing
Speaker:is that Israel understood it. So we want to
Speaker:be more ahead.
Speaker:But in general, I think that, we're rising and I I mean, I hope
Speaker:that you will hear great news in the future. So I think like,
Speaker:there are lots, lots, lots and lots and lots of players, small players around the
Speaker:world that you do not hear about. And
Speaker:it doesn't mean that they're not, you know,
Speaker:not will not lead the industry
Speaker:in the future. Right? I also think I don't think there
Speaker:is I don't don't, you know, I don't think there is any intention to hide
Speaker:anything. Right? No. I would mean I didn't mean to apply that. I just thought
Speaker:it was We're a bit similar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I
Speaker:I also completely understand what you mean. I also think too, like, the
Speaker:whole idea you're the first person to mention that you have, like, a quantum test
Speaker:bed, right, where you can hook it up to, like, one of those cooling systems
Speaker:and try it out. Like, I I I wonder, like, how many
Speaker:how many hardware startups are are gonna come from that. Right?
Speaker:And and and to your point, the fact
Speaker:that you're also focused on educating existing industry professionals,
Speaker:I think it's gonna you know, I can give it, like, three to five years
Speaker:and and and you will hear a lot more out of it. I think what
Speaker:you're doing there is very clever because you're you're planting
Speaker:seeds that will may not bear fruit this
Speaker:year, maybe not next year, but guaranteed they will in in the five year
Speaker:time frame. Because, you know, if you're going to have a quantum workforce, right? The
Speaker:quantum, you know, once there's a practical and I put practical in air
Speaker:quotes for those listening. Right? Because practical what
Speaker:what a practical quantum computer means is slightly different
Speaker:to whoever asked it. Right? You ask five people, you get seven different
Speaker:opinions or what a practical quantum computer is. But whenever
Speaker:that happens, whatever that
Speaker:happens, it will there will be an immediate need
Speaker:for a quantum capable or quantum aware workforce.
Speaker:That's from the people who build data centers, the
Speaker:people who plug stuff into the data centers, the people who write the code on
Speaker:it, the people who get paged out in the middle of the night when something
Speaker:breaks. Right? To the marketers, to this
Speaker:to the CEOs, and and, you know, all the business line
Speaker:folks. And, I think that, you know, you're built
Speaker:you know, I think you're really the first guest to realize,
Speaker:like, there needs to be kind of a public partner,
Speaker:private, partnership where you're building out this
Speaker:workforce because this is going to happen. Now when it'll happen, I think, is the
Speaker:only thing people are debating about. But,
Speaker:it's going to happen. And the best way to be prepared for the future
Speaker:rationale for this podcast. Right? Like, how do you go from being quantum curious
Speaker:to actually knowing how to talk to customers? How do you
Speaker:how do you explain to I had a conversation early this morning, oddly
Speaker:enough. Like, how do you explain to a CIO
Speaker:or CTO or CEO? Why they should care about
Speaker:quantum computers? Right? And kind of like
Speaker:my take was, you know, you
Speaker:have to explain to someone who's not technical.
Speaker:Explain, like, this is coming. It's going to do
Speaker:to conventional computers as you know them today to what
Speaker:computers did to the slide rule in Abacus. Right? It's going to be
Speaker:like that kind of, I don't want to say quantum leap, but it's going to
Speaker:be that type of jump ahead in processing power.
Speaker:And it's not going to be like, you know, a latest and greatest chip.
Speaker:Right? You know, Intel comes out with a new server chip or, you know, you
Speaker:know, a new i9 chip or I whatever chip, and you plug it into
Speaker:a motherboard, and you you plug it into the network, and boom, you suddenly have
Speaker:this magical new thing. It's gonna be a completely new
Speaker:ecosystem that has to be built. And, you know,
Speaker:and when you're getting down to brass tacks and kind of practical things, like, I
Speaker:don't know if it's gonna happen this year. I don't know if it's gonna happen
Speaker:next year. I don't know if it's gonna happen in five years. Right? I don't
Speaker:know. But the best way is to start thinking about that. How are you gonna
Speaker:hire quantum people? Right? You're gonna annoy a lot of people if, you know, say
Speaker:tomorrow. Right? This happens. Right? Well, we
Speaker:need someone with five years experience, you know, developing quantum computers, which is a
Speaker:big annoyance that recruiters do. Right? Like, this framework came out a year ago.
Speaker:We need someone with ten years experience with it.
Speaker:Really? No. Yeah. Yeah. So,
Speaker:I mean, I think that, you know, the
Speaker:motivation for the Israeli Innovation Authority behind it
Speaker:was kind of, you know, if you build it, they will come. Right? Yeah.
Speaker:Right. Right. Absolutely. That's the idea. So, I mean, we are open
Speaker:to all of the world. Like, there is no restriction. Like,
Speaker:we're working with with the entire world and
Speaker:Israel, as part of this world. But the idea is, you know, that
Speaker:once it's here, it's closer. People are interesting. People are coming. They're looking.
Speaker:They're seeing. They're touching. Then it accelerates everything, you
Speaker:know? And in my opinion, it's working. It's working even
Speaker:though, you know, you might you might be working a lot with with also with
Speaker:with customers.
Speaker:It's still, you know, getting traction and hype and people are
Speaker:hearing about it from their colleagues and they say, oh, wait, it's right here in
Speaker:Tel Aviv. Right? I mean, I can drive fifteen minutes and I'm there. Let's go
Speaker:talk to them, see what's happening. And then it's much easier to collaborate and
Speaker:much easier to, you know,
Speaker:execute your great ideas because, you know, it's
Speaker:we have this great facility for lease and you can
Speaker:just, go and do stuff that you could not imagine before.
Speaker:So this is really I think the, the motivation
Speaker:behind it, at least in terms of the IIA and obviously
Speaker:for quantum machines. No. I think it's great. I think it's
Speaker:great. I think we're gonna need the world's gonna
Speaker:need a lot more of this to follow the model that you have.
Speaker:Yeah. I think it's it's already going. Right? So Right. And
Speaker:obviously, in in in The US, it's, you know, on a larger scale. But I
Speaker:think we are actually I mean, I would say
Speaker:as far as I know, we're the first to to to build something like
Speaker:that, like a like a, you know, remote access
Speaker:quantum data center. And
Speaker:So were your systems there, are they are are they hybrid?
Speaker:So the idea here is to build
Speaker:a hybrid system because so so so we're seeing
Speaker:that the near future of quantum computing is is is being
Speaker:hybrid. Like, you know, quantum computers will not stand alone in the next few
Speaker:years. But we believe that, you know, CPUs, GPUs, they can accelerate
Speaker:it. And Right. That we have that's
Speaker:the idea behind the IQCC is to have a hybrid
Speaker:quantum classical computer. So we work kind of in,
Speaker:I would say, in layers. So the first layer, this is the
Speaker:OPX 1,000, the quantum control by quantum machines.
Speaker:And this can give you, you know, really fast
Speaker:control in the orders of nanoseconds, okay? Hundreds of nanoseconds,
Speaker:tens of nanoseconds, hundreds of nanoseconds. You can control your qubits. You can do
Speaker:really fast, operations on the qubits. But, you know,
Speaker:sometimes you want to do something that you need
Speaker:a larger compute capacity. Right? You want to do quantum error correction on a hundred
Speaker:cubits. And then you want to
Speaker:go to a classical processor. So what
Speaker:we're now co developing with NVIDIA, the DGX
Speaker:Quantum and we just gave a second demo
Speaker:at the APS, the American Physical Society March meeting,
Speaker:is that you can we have this
Speaker:dedicated communication card which is, been
Speaker:developed by Quantum Machines. So
Speaker:you can extract the information from the Quantum System. It goes out
Speaker:to this communication card with our logic on it with our
Speaker:IP, and then it can say, okay, what do you want to do next? Right?
Speaker:And then if it's a small operation, it goes directly to the OPX 1,000, to
Speaker:the control system. But if it's something that you need powerful computation
Speaker:resource, then it will direct you to the NVIDIA Grace Hopper. And
Speaker:then you have CPU GPU. It can decide, wait, this is a task for CPU.
Speaker:This is task for GPU. And then it comes back to the control and back
Speaker:to the quantum system, and every all of this is done in less than
Speaker:five microseconds. So I think we showed three point seven microseconds. So this
Speaker:is like microsecond time scale, which is shorter
Speaker:than the lifetime. So this is like really still real time
Speaker:measurements. Okay? So this is good for mid circuit measurements and real time
Speaker:quantum error correction. And then if you wanna go, you know, you
Speaker:need okay. Wait. No. One GPU is not enough. I need more. Then
Speaker:we have in a separate room, like, a server room where you have DGX a
Speaker:100 by NVIDIA that's already eight GPUs. So you
Speaker:can also take it out there. But this is for like, you know, post processing.
Speaker:You're done with your measurement, you can take it
Speaker:out. This is milliseconds, time
Speaker:scale. Then you have larger,
Speaker:classical compute. And if you want, I would say, infinite
Speaker:classical compute, you can also we are also working with AWS cloud
Speaker:so you can take your information to the cloud and run it on as many
Speaker:GPUs as you want. And that will take, you
Speaker:know, a longer time scale. But this is like kind of the layers that we're
Speaker:working on. And this is our, you
Speaker:know, this is where we're focused. And
Speaker:we are really like Quantum Machines as a company is really, you know,
Speaker:focused on this tightly integration of quantum and
Speaker:classical processing because this we believe that this is the way to go in the
Speaker:future years. In the near future, I mean. Yeah. I
Speaker:mean, that makes sense. I mean, I think that it's
Speaker:certainly in the most practical way forward.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, you know, quantum computers, you will not, you
Speaker:know, do your Excel sheet on a Excel sheet on a quantum computer or you
Speaker:will not play GTA six, GTA seven on on your current
Speaker:computer. So, you're also probably
Speaker:not run things that you run currently on on I don't know if you do,
Speaker:you know, GNAI and then and then generate, you know,
Speaker:these amazing pictures from the Simpsons have been sent Yeah. I do. You
Speaker:know, of my my my, you know,
Speaker:character in Simpsons. So I don't believe you're going to do it on on a
Speaker:quantum computer, but we we believe that each
Speaker:the same as as, you know, I'm going with my phone. I don't have a
Speaker:GPU here. Right? Right. And I don't have a GPU on my computer because I
Speaker:can just access the Cloud and and and, you know, one thing on AI and
Speaker:that runs on GPUs. So we believe
Speaker:this will be the same with quantum computers. You will have a quantum computer
Speaker:and you can just, you know, choose what will do
Speaker:the test that you want to do best. Or even in the task you
Speaker:want to do, which parts are done best on a CPU, which are done best
Speaker:on a GPU, and which are done best on on a QPU.
Speaker:And I think this is really the vision, you know. I don't know what to
Speaker:say what will happen in fifty, seventy years. I
Speaker:always show this picture when I give this, you know, elect
Speaker:it talks about quantum computing. I will show this picture of, you know, IBM quantum
Speaker:computer IBM classical computer eighty years ago.
Speaker:Right? And it looks exactly similar to what you see here behind.
Speaker:Right? It looks very, very similar. So I say, okay. I don't know if in
Speaker:eighty years this is how the, you know, quantum computer will look like,
Speaker:but I know that in ten years it won't. Right?
Speaker:So I I think this is the idea. We're not gonna hold it in our
Speaker:pocket, but it will do the tasks and it will, you know,
Speaker:you can direct specific tasks that it will excel in and
Speaker:things that are not only accelerating quant
Speaker:classical computing, but actually opens to,
Speaker:you know, complete things that are completely blocked by classical
Speaker:computing. Wow. This is, you know, this is this is basically the hyper on quantum
Speaker:because it's it's a new paradigm. It's not that you can do things faster.
Speaker:It's that you can do things that you could never done with a with a
Speaker:classical computer or it would take a billion years to do. Right.
Speaker:Uh-huh. Which can be completely impractical, obviously. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly. Interesting. Yeah. So I think
Speaker:every all of these resources should coexist. I don't think,
Speaker:I don't know, Microsoft or or
Speaker:or or or Nvidia should be worried about their business, you know, because of quantum
Speaker:computers. Because I think quantum computers will coexist with
Speaker:CPUs and GPUs, and, that's that's at least my
Speaker:vision. Cool.
Speaker:Any parting thoughts, Candice? Honestly, I'm just so incredibly
Speaker:fascinated. I I really enjoy the whole collaborative
Speaker:effort of what quantum computing can be.
Speaker:That's really what excites me the most and and these,
Speaker:and these data centers and what they can be used for. And you're totally right.
Speaker:Like, we're not gonna be solving it for, you know,
Speaker:playing for generative AI. We're not gonna be using it,
Speaker:you know, to give us an image or to give us a Simpsons character. It's
Speaker:going to be for the purpose that it's intended for. You know?
Speaker:But, no, I I I love I love
Speaker:what Nir has explained, and I'm
Speaker:fascinated by, you know, the next the next thing that they're
Speaker:going to be able to create there. I mean, it's right behind them.
Speaker:It's very exciting. I really I really like the the long view approach
Speaker:you all have taken there because it it it's not
Speaker:you're you're doing you have the test bed. People can come and test
Speaker:their hardware on and at cryogenic temperatures.
Speaker:You can also, you're also doing the
Speaker:courses for kind of, you know, quote, unquote normal people. Right?
Speaker:Not normal. Regular people. Classical people. There we go. Classical people.
Speaker:There we go. So I like it. I think I think it's
Speaker:it's brilliant. Like, on top of everything else you're doing, and I I I
Speaker:would encourage others around the world to follow the similar model of,
Speaker:like, you know, start a quantum interest group or start, like, a
Speaker:thing where you kind of study groups and things like that. And there's plenty of
Speaker:of resources. And I'm also encouraged by,
Speaker:I'm encouraged by, you
Speaker:know, the collaborative approach that I'm seeing here. I think
Speaker:that's it's gonna be I think accelerate
Speaker:something. I would love to be able to come back
Speaker:with you near, you know, in a little bit of time and just to see
Speaker:what has progressed, what has happened, you know, where you
Speaker:are, where you're you know, the the next focus that you
Speaker:have. I think that you have an incredible story
Speaker:to tell, that a lot of people would
Speaker:be really interested in that is not necessarily
Speaker:being told right now by other companies
Speaker:that are developing different types of technologies. It's really
Speaker:thoughtful and insightful with how you're explaining how this has
Speaker:to evolve and develop, and
Speaker:how really just more people can come in to be involved in it.
Speaker:I think that sounds fantastic. Absolutely.
Speaker:So keep up the good work, and we definitely wanna keep in touch and let
Speaker:us know if you have anything you wanna share with us on our audience in
Speaker:the future. And, we encourage those that are listening to go
Speaker:and subscribe to our newsletter. Go to impactquantum.com. In
Speaker:the upper right, there should be a thing
Speaker:that says, you know, join our list, and,
Speaker:we'll keep everyone informed of the latest happenings. I think
Speaker:that sounds great. Thank you, Frank. And thank you here. This is there anything that
Speaker:you'd like to tell us as, like, a parting a parting comment,
Speaker:or or a hot take, on,
Speaker:on quantum computing?
Speaker:No. I mean, I first of all, thanks for having me.
Speaker:It's also good to to sit there, I know, a lot of quantum podcasts.
Speaker:Unfortunately, I I I don't have I mean, I don't listen much,
Speaker:but, it's really it's really I mean, when you I mean, when I looked for
Speaker:quantum podcast, I said, oh my god. There are so many. Maybe I should start
Speaker:listening, you know? But it's really, really
Speaker:great to see that, you know, it's also
Speaker:intriguing for the for, you know, for the classical people.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think
Speaker:that, I think quantum computing
Speaker:ecosystem is going in the right direction. It grows.
Speaker:I think it still needs, you know, a bit of time to to to
Speaker:grow, but I think it's really, really going, steady forward.
Speaker:At IQCC, we're also going to grow a lot this year.
Speaker:So we're going to expand our facility.
Speaker:And, I mean, every everything is expanding. Scaling is the is
Speaker:the is the issue. And, I think this will
Speaker:be the the the the next challenge. Right? How do we scale?
Speaker:This is already the huge challenge. Right?
Speaker:Yeah. So we need to scale both in quantum computing and and in the
Speaker:quantum, audience. Excellent.
Speaker:Agreed. And we'll let our AI, Bailey, finish the
Speaker:show. And that, dear listeners, wraps up another
Speaker:quantum conundrum cracked wide open here on impact.
Speaker:Quantum. Immense thanks to near alpha c for reminding us that
Speaker:not all heroes wear capes and wear lab coats and hang
Speaker:out next to very, very expensive freezers. If you
Speaker:enjoyed today's episode, do subscribe, leave us a review,
Speaker:and tell a friend preferably one who thinks cat is just a
Speaker:weird meme. Until next time, stay curious,
Speaker:stay entangled. And remember, in quantum computing,
Speaker:the future isn't just bright, it's probabilistic.