Beyond the Qubit

The quantum technology worked. Then the real problems started. In this episode, I continue my conversation with Ingrid Romijn from Falqon® Systems to explore what happens when deep tech moves from demonstration into real-world deployment. One of my biggest takeaways was that the hardest problems often appear after the technology works. For Falqon®, the challenge was no longer simply whether quantu...

Europe is focused on which cryptography to use. But the bigger question may be: Who controls it? In this episode, I explore my biggest takeaways from my conversation with Ingrid Romijn of Falqon® Systems and why post-quantum security is not only a cryptography question. Moving from vulnerable cryptography to quantum-safe solutions does not automatically create technological sovereignty. The questi...

Transduction is “everybody’s problem and nobody’s problem.” That line from Vijoy Pandey, SVP/GM of Outshift by Cisco, stayed with me after Part 2 of my Beyond the Qubit interview because it points to one of the most important value layers in quantum. In this episode, I explore why connecting quantum computers may become just as important as building them. In classical networking, information can b...

The internet was built by reading packet headers. Quantum networks cannot do that. In this episode, I explore my biggest takeaways from Part 1 of my Beyond the Qubit interview with Vijoy Pandey, head of Outshift at Cisco. The key difference is simple but profound: classical networks scale by inspecting and forwarding information, while quantum networks have to preserve information they cannot dire...

Quantum will not scale by optimizing hardware, software, and testing independently. The winners will have to make the entire system work. In this episode, I continue my conversation with Adriaan van Rol from OrangeQS to explore why quantum testing may become one of the most important infrastructure layers in the industry. OrangeQS looks like a hardware company at first. Its OrangeQS MAX platform c...

Why is building a great deep-tech product only half the battle? In this episode, I explore one of my biggest takeaways from my conversation with Adriaan Rol from OrangeQS. OrangeQS is building test solutions for quantum chips, but the challenge is not only technical. When a product costs millions, the company also has to solve a different problem: how customers actually buy. This episode is for in...

When quantum computers scale out, the algorithm has to know where the weak links are. In this episode, I continue my conversation with Enrique Solano from Kipu Quantum to explore why modular quantum computing is not only a hardware challenge. Most people think modularity means more chips, more qubits, and more scale. But Enrique highlights a deeper issue: once quantum computers become distributed...

Much of quantum software is built around one assumption: better hardware will eventually solve the problem. Kipu Quantum takes a different view. In this episode, I explore my biggest takeaways from Part 1 of my Beyond the Qubit interview with Enrique Solano, CEO of Kipu Quantum. The traditional quantum narrative is familiar: today’s machines are too noisy, qubits are not good enough, and real valu...

In photonic quantum computing, the cheapest error is the one you reduce before it compounds. In this episode, I continue my deep dive with Jelmer Renema from QuiX Quantum to explore one of the most important challenges in photonic quantum computing: improving photon quality before errors become more expensive later. At first, I thought QuiX’s photon distillation work was mainly about reducing loss...

ASML taught investors a powerful lesson: the real moat can be systems integration. Quantum may follow the same path. In this episode, I explore my biggest takeaways from my Beyond the Qubit interview with Jelmer Renema, CEO of QuiX Quantum. QuiX started by building photonic quantum processors, but the company made a strategic decision to move from components toward complete photonic quantum comput...

Quantum has many technical claims. But it does not yet have enough comparable evidence. In this episode, I explore one of my biggest takeaways from my Beyond the Qubit interview with Roytman Piccoli, CEO of SoftQuantus. The question that stood out to me was not only “what does a quantum provider claim?” but “what can an enterprise actually verify?” Quantum hardware is different from classical clou...

I used to think cryogenic cooling was mainly a support layer in quantum. After my interview with Alexander Regnat, I now think it may be one of the strategic bottlenecks. In this episode, Henny Crauwels asked me what actually changed in my thinking after the Kiutra interview. My honest answer is that I underestimated the cooling layer. For superconducting and spin qubits, cryogenic cooling is not...

What if quantum does not scale by building bigger fridges, but by redesigning the cooling architecture itself? In this episode, I unpack one of my biggest takeaways from Part 2 of my Beyond the Qubit interview with Alexander Regnat, co-founder and CEO of kiutra. Most people still picture quantum computing as a chip inside a giant cryogenic chandelier. The default assumption is simple: if the quant...

What if the next bottleneck in quantum is not qubit count, but the speed of learning around the hardware? In this episode, I unpack one of my biggest takeaways from Part 1 of my Beyond the Qubit interview with Alexander Regnat, co-founder and CEO of kiutra. Most quantum discussions still focus on the visible roadmap: more qubits, higher fidelity, better error correction, logical qubits, and fault...

In neutral atoms, scale matters less if you cannot control it. What matters more in neutral atoms: the size of the array, or the ability to control and read it out as the system scales? In this episode, I unpack the key learnings from Part 3 of my Beyond the Qubit interview with Matt Kinsella, CEO of Infleqtion. I went into the conversation looking mostly at qubit scale. I came out paying much clo...

Can neutral atoms turn physical scale into logical qubit quality? What matters more in neutral atoms: how many atoms you can trap, or whether you can turn them into high-quality logical qubits at acceptable overhead? In this episode, I continue my deep dive with Matt Kinsella, CEO of Infleqtion, to unpack what I think is the real neutral atom question. Infleqtion has already shown a 1,600 physical...

What if one of the most important questions in quantum is not how many qubits a company can build, but whether it can finance the journey? In this episode, I go deep with Matt Kinsella, CEO of Infleqtion, to explore why the company’s neutral atom strategy may look very different from the standard quantum computing playbook. Most companies are still judged on the long-term roadmap: more qubits, bet...

What if one of the most important companies in quantum is not the one building the qubits, but the one helping the industry see what is going wrong around them? In this episode, I break down my key learnings from the QuantaMap interview and why I think diagnostics could become one of the most strategic layers in quantum computing. One of the biggest bottlenecks may not be qubit count itself. It ma...

What if the real bottleneck in quantum is not building the chip, but learning why it fails? In this episode, I unpack the key learnings from Part 2 of my deep dive with Johannes Jobst, CEO of QuantaMap. One of my biggest takeaways is that quantum may need its own process control and diagnostics layer before the industry can truly scale. Building a few quantum chips in a lab is one thing. Building...

What if one of the biggest winners in quantum is not the company building the qubits, but the one helping everyone understand what is going wrong inside them? In this episode, I unpack the key learnings from my deep dive with Johannes Jobst, CEO of QuantaMap. The deeper I go into quantum computing, the more I think this industry will become obsessed with measurement. Most people focus on the race...

Could the real value in quantum sit above the hardware? Because after two hours with quantum founders, the real question is not only what they are building. It is also how that changes the value chain. In this episode, Henny Crauwels interviews me after my deep dive with ParityQC to unpack the biggest lessons from that conversation. One takeaway stood out: the most interesting quantum company may...

What if the company that captures the most value in quantum is the one that helps everyone else perform better? In this episode, I go deeper with Magdalena Hauser and Wolfgang Lechner of ParityQC to explore a very different way of thinking about value in quantum computing. A lot of the discussion still centers on hardware alone: more qubits, better fidelity, bigger systems. But ParityQC is making...

What if the real breakthrough in quantum computing is not just better qubits, but a better way to use them? In this episode, I explore why architecture may be one of the most overlooked layers in quantum computing with Magdalena Hauser and Wolfgang Lechner of ParityQC. Their latest result, implementing a 52-qubit Quantum Fourier Transform on an IBM Quantum Heron processor, suggests that progress m...

In Part 3 of this conversation, Frank Dekker reflects on one of the biggest takeaways from his discussion with Olivier Ezratty: great science alone does not create a winning quantum ecosystem. Europe has deep talent, strong research, and serious technical capability, but turning that into globally relevant companies is a different challenge. This episode is for investors, founders, policymakers, a...

Quantum computing has a hype problem. But the real challenge is much harder than most people think. In Part 2 of this conversation, Frank Dekker continues his deep dive with Olivier Ezratty and gets into what real progress in quantum actually looks like. One of the clearest takeaways is that every step forward can create a new bottleneck. Solve one problem, and another appears right behind it. Thi...