Carmen Palacios-Berraquero’s Post

Last week was a whirlwind - a TV debut, 2 panels and an award! 🌐 On Thursday, we enjoyed another year of an incredible Founders Forum Group event, where I was part of a conversation about the Funding and the Mindset for Scaling up Quantum, alongside Jeremy O'Brien, Ilyas Khan, KSG, Andrew Griffith and Sebastian Weidt - thanks Brent Hoberman 💫 and the FF team ! On Tuesday, appeared on Bloomberg Live discussing the Quantum industry and the UK's global position in this industry - thanks again for some great questions, Tom Mackenzie. You can watch the clip here: https://lnkd.in/e_wpYwgG On Monday, was named one of the winners of the InspiringFifty 2024 awards - thanks EQL:HER and Carolyn Dawson 💙 And finally, the week kicked off with a panel at London Tech Week 🌍 - discussing applications of quantum computing alongside Jasper Simon Krauser from Airbus and Fernando Dominguez Pinuaga from SandboxAQ Thank you Commplicated, Hailey Eustace and the Nu Quantum team for your support💎

🌍 If you are at London Tech Week today, catch me later at the Main Stage discussing unlocking the quantum future alongside - Airbus's Jasper Simon Krauser, SandboxAQ's Fernando Dominguez Pinuaga, https://bit.ly/3X7o0FI

For quantum computing, modularity is inevitable. Shifting to modular scaling benefits everyone. Two major positive consequences of modular scaling are predictable timelines to use-case, and verifiability of results. But there are many more (come to the panel). We get real modularity in quantum computing by using networked architectures: Quantum Processing Units interconnected via Quantum Networking Units (Nu Quantum product), together form a compute fabric that enables both better Quantum Error Correction and a cleaner interface to the Software Stack. Come to our panel tomorrow at The Economist event to hear a diverse group of experts, from end-users of quantum computing to qubit providers, discuss how we move towards a more mature industry. Quantinuum - Steven Herbert, Head of Quantum Algorithms Cisco - Dan Holme, Technology Innovation Lead National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC)- Elham Kashefi , Chief Scientist Nu Quantum - me Moderated by the brilliant Jonathan Legh-Smith. See you at 15:15 👀

Are we witnessing the beginning of the ‘horizontalization’ of the quantum industry? These are my takeaways & conclusions from the impressive quantum workshop hosted by Applied Materials last week in Santa Clara, which included most leading voices in the quantum industry ~ Applied Materials is getting into Quantum. They want to accelerate the ecosystem by leveraging state-of-the art CMOS manufacturing techniques. The workshop revolved around two topics - 'scale up' & 'scale out' 1. Strategies to ‘Scale up’: Up until now, improvements in qubit performance were almost all coming from device design. Most further gains will come from better materials and fabrication methods. 2. Strategies to ‘Scale out’: the quantum networking infrastructure required to scale to commercial value (across all qubit types) needs high-performance integrated photonic devices. Nu Quantum is leading today on strategies to scale out. This dual approach makes sense since, like in classical cloud & supercomputing, both scale up and scale out strategies are required simultaneously in order to build commercially-disruptive quantum supercomputers. Perhaps this is the beginning of the ‘horizontalization’ of quantum, i.e. no superhero company will do it all (not even IBM!) - a sign of maturity. Interesting to also see increased investment activity (e.g. most CVCs like Applied Ventures now have a quantum thesis, as well as top financial VCs - see e.g Sequoia Capital quantum investment this week) Thanks to the Applied team Robert Visser Leslie Du Ruoyu Li Brad McManus Rajesh Ramanujam Steven Konsek Great presentations from IBM Quantum PsiQuantum QuEra Computing Inc. Photonic Inc. Oxford Ionics Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) Intel Corporation Jerry M. Chow John Martinis Nate Gemelke Stephanie Simmons Chris Ballance Will Oliver ... which evidenced how rapidly we are moving closer to fully realising a technology that will change our lives. 🌿

✨Thank you Cambridge Independent for naming me CEO of the Year! ✨ Truly, the last year has been amazing for Nu Quantum: - we have delivered the quantum networking technology which will enable the industry to build large-scale & modular quantum computers - we booked >£8M revenues from key lead customers - raised >£8.5M investment - grew the team from 17 to 51 people whilst retaining our core values This recognition really goes to the Nu Quantum team and to our investors, partners and customers 🦋 Shout out to Claire Le Gall and Coral Westoby - the Nu Quantum technology visionaries - who represented us last night! Thank you! 🌿

On my way to Paris for Hello Tomorrow Global Summit 🌍 Catch me tomorrow 3.15pm at the Frontier Stage for the provocatively-named panel - 🚀 Can quantum deliver its promises? 👀 Alongside Christophe Jurczak (Quantonation) and Jean-Francois Bobier (Boston Consulting Group (BCG)), and moderated by Daphné Leprince-Ringuet (Sifted) And really looking forward to the Women in Deeptech drinks tonight organised by the brilliant Hailey Eustace (Commplicated), and Imène Maharzi (INDEFI) Friends, reach out if you are in Paris too!

Rumours of a 'quantum winter' are back - however, what I have observed so far in 2024 is increased engagement and activity in Quantum, across the board... 1) Engagement from large primes at Nu Quantum we announced a collaboration with Cisco to develop a world-first product: a Quantum Networking Unit (QNU), designed to link multiple Quantum Processing Units (QPUs). Inside future quantum datacentres, QPUs and QNUs will be assembled together to create large-scale quantum computing systems. Read about it here https://rb.gy/wssi88. You can hear Claire Le Gall our VP Technology talking to the Cisco team (Dan Holme MBA& Stephen DiAdamo) about this on their podcast: The Quantum Divide (https://lnkd.in/exgumd9A). 2) Engagement from (UK) Government - I was called to give evidence at the House of Commons on their enquiry into Commercialising Quantum Tech, where the MPs asked insightful questions about the strengths of the UK ecosystem, about regulation and ethical use of quantum, export control, scale-up funding, supply chain, advanced manufacturing infrastructure needs, and other important topics to help Parliament understand the impact of government support. Fellow witnesses were Dominic O'Brien, Ian Walmsley, Gerald Mullally and Steve Brierley. Submit written evidence if you want to contribute, or watch the recording of the session, here: https://lnkd.in/eNFBBKmW On top of that, the UK's National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) published the winners of the testbeds calls. It is unique in the world to have a single centre with access to QC hardware representing Photonic, Neutral Atom, Trapped Ion, Superconducting, and Silicon Spin qubits. Congratulations Aegiq, Infleqtion UK, ORCA Computing, Oxford Ionics, Quantum Motion, QuEra Computing Inc., and Rigetti Computing. 3) Increase in activity: US industry, academia, gov Quantum West at Photonics West was bigger than last year. There was a strong (and controversial) plenary from US Gov rep, and a session dedicated to Quantum Computer Networks (my favourite topic!) - which resulted in a first annual Quantum Networks Industry dinner - a new part of the quantum ecosystem. We visited top quantum / networking groups at University of California, Berkeley, Caltech, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, UCLA, - were it is clear that the number of projects and amount of funding on quantum is increasing substantially. Thanks Roger McKinlay and Pardeep Singh ! 4) The Industry at large - QuEra published an impressive roadmap to take us into the era of logical qubits; QphoX announced a funding round, Quantinuum announced a £300M funding round at an eye-watering valuation, and Zapata is prepping for something big... Infleqtion and ORCA acquired 3x American integrated photonics companies, and Davos was more Quantum than ever. Despite lower funding in 2023 compared to 2022 & 2021, the trend for quantum - on funding, activity, maturity, and huge actual progress - is clearly up.

2024 is going to be a transition year for the Quantum industry, where the focus will start to shift from 'qubits' to modular and scalable 'quantum systems'. Quantum networking is essential to enable both modularity and scalability, and ultimately to reach fault tolerance. I’m excited to see that much of the day at the Quantum West Business Summit (part of #PhotonicsWest) next week focuses on this topic. The day kicks off with a plenary session by US Gov John Burke ‘Looking for advantage in quantum networking’. This will be followed by a fantastic panel - ‘Robust Local Area Quantum Networks for Scalable Quantum Computing’ featuring most of the companies in the world working on quantum networks today - Nu Quantum , Amazon Web Services (AWS) Mihir Bhaskar, Aliro Quantum Prineha Narang, QphoX, Simon Groeblacher, Qunnect Noel Goddard. Both hosted by the great Carl Williams. Reach out to discuss quantum computer networks. Myself and Nu Quantum team members Philip Dolan and John Jarman - Tech Leads on our Quantum Networking Unit and our Integrated Photonics activity respectively - will be attending Photonics West Saturday 27th - Thursday 1st. See you in San Francisco! 

Yesterday I had the honour of speaking in Parliament, alongside our new Minister for Science Andrew Griffith MP, Sir Peter Knight, and Pauline Neville-Jones, to represent the view of the quantum industry & members of UKQuantum. The UK has a unique quantum ecosystem in breadth, quality and ambition. The 48 UK Quantum startups founded since 2013 (with most founded since 2017) have raised over £600M in investments, employ over 1030 people, are deploying real quantum products globally, and we are now growing our revenues. We already know all of these numbers will multiply in 2024 (for Nu Quantum they certainly will). Stable, long-term support and engagement from Government is vital for the quantum industry, and the UK Government has been a leader on this front - first, setting up the National Quantum Technologies Programme 10 years ago, thanks to which many startups were created. Now, with the new Quantum Strategy and the Missions which are crucial for strategic alignment and setting out a roadmap for the industry, without which investors and end users would be almost in the dark. I put forward the top three issues I believe Government needs to ensure it helps quantum businesses with: 1) Enabling international collaboration and export of quantum technologies and products 2) Creating growth capital within the UK for us to access as we scale and internationalise 3) Early regulation for the ethical use of Quantum, and encouraging Responsible Innovation Thanks to Anke Lohmann for some of the figures and Jonathan Legh-Smith!