Beyond the Qubit

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...

Why is quantum computing still so hard to explain clearly, even for smart investors? In this episode of Beyond the Qubit, Frank Dekker sits down with Olivier Ezratty, one of the most respected independent voices in quantum technology. Olivier shares how he went from software engineering and Microsoft to becoming a key educator, researcher, and bridge builder across the quantum ecosystem. This conv...

DeepMind helped transform AI by using games as a training ground. Evert van Nieuwenburg wants to build the European DeepMind for quantumcomputing. In my conversation with Evertvan Nieuwenburg on Beyond the Qubit, one idea stood out: What if games are not just a way to explain quantum computing, but a way tounlock it? Thatsounds playful. Butthe ambition is serious. DeepMindshowed that games could b...

What if games are not just a way to explain quantum, but a way to build realquantum intuition? Thatmay sound playful, but the idea is serious. Onereason DeepMind changed the direction of AI is that ittreated games as more than entertainment. They became environments forlearning, experimentation, search, and discovery. Thatmatters for quantum computing too. Becausein quantum, the challenge is not o...

In Part 1 of my conversation with Evert van Nieuwenburg on Beyond the Qubit, weexplored whether games could help unlock the next phase of quantum computing. Thatmay sound playful, but the idea is serious. Gamescreate structure. They make complex systems easier toexplore, help people build intuition, and may open the door to more creativeways of thinking about quantum problems. If a quantum problem...

Here is the questionthat decides whether quantum scales. Can we model the real device physicsbefore we commit to the lab?   Quantum is notblocked by qubits alone. It is blocked by the missing quantum EDA stack. I just recorded a 30minute summary with Jonathon Riddell, CEO of Kothar Computing, and his messageis concrete. A big barrier tobuilding quantum computers today is, in his words, strangely s...

Most people thinkquantum progress is a qubit story. Jonathon Riddellargues a big part of the bottleneck is the missing quantum EDA stack. In part 2 of my deepdive with Jonathon, CEO of Kothar Computing, the punchline is blunt. We are stillbuilding quantum hardware at the scientific experiment layer, because classicalEDA was never built to capture the quantum physics that determines whetherthese de...

Most people talk about quantum as if the hard part is the qubits. In my interview withJonathon Riddell, CEO of Kothar Computing, the bottleneck looked different: theclassical layer that has to run the science. Because real quantumworkflows are hybrid. Quantum plus classical. And hybrid workflowslive or die on orchestration, reproducibility, performance, and deployment. Here is theuncomfortable tru...

Because it moves the field from impressive lab demos toworkloads you can actually run. After a year of hosting Beyond the Qubit, I have learnedthis. The real challenge is not the physics. It is knowing what is real progress, while the answer is still uncertain. Here is what I have learned so far. First. Quantum is no longer one story. There are multiple credible technology paths, and it is genuine...

This post is a short summary of a longer conversation on theBeyond the Qubit podcast. I sat down with the CEO of QC Design to talk about whatquantum computing really is once you strip away the metaphors. A qubit is not a bit with uncertainty. It is a fragile physical state. You cannot read it without destroying it. You cannot copy it. You cannot inspect what it contains. You never really ask a qub...

It’s blocked by design choices.” That was one of thestrongest realizations from Part 2 of my deepdive with Ish Dhand, co-founder of QCDesign, on Beyond the Qubit. Most people talkabout fault-tolerant quantum computing as if it’s a single problem. In reality, it’s a design-space explosion. That reframed how Ithink about progress in quantum. What stood out to mein this part of the conversation: • Ha...

That’s the question Ish Dhand has been obsessed with for years. It’s also what ledhim from academia, to Xanadu, and now toco-founding QC Design. I’m excited to sharethat Ish is joining me on Beyond the Qubit. What struck me mostin our conversation wasn’t hype or timelines, it was how hard the problem really is. A few takeaways thatstayed with me: • Fault-tolerantquantum computers aren’t blocked by...