oday, we dive headfirst into the frontier of quantum technology with a special guest: Bert De Jong, senior scientist at Berkeley Lab and director of the Quantum Systems Accelerator, part of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Quantum Initiative. Join hosts Frank La Vigne and Candice Gillhooly—and our ever-charming, semi-sentient MC, Bailey—as we explore how Bert and his team are pushing the boundaries of quantum computing and sensing.

From gravitational sensing with entangled atoms to real-time power grid monitoring, Bert explains how quantum sensing is already reshaping fields from resource discovery to national security, and even medical technology. We break down what quantum sensing actually is, how it could lead to miniaturization of sophisticated sensors, and why quantum’s impact is happening sooner than you might think.

Whether you’re quantum-curious or quantum-confused, tune in for an engaging conversation that bridges the gap between cutting-edge research, real-world applications, and the evolving ecosystem of quantum information science. By the end of this episode, you’ll see that the quantum revolution isn’t some distant future—it’s knocking at our door, bringing opportunities (and challenges) for industries and individuals alike.

Timestamps

00:00 Quantum Systems Leadership at Berkeley

04:19 Revolutionizing Sensing with Quantum Information

09:53 Harnessing Quantum Entanglement Sensors

13:27 Miniaturization and Quantum Advancements

17:06 Advancing Medical Technology's Impact

19:12 Quantum Progress Happening Now

23:09 Bridging Academic and Commercial Gaps

25:44 Specialized Technologies Over Universal Solutions

28:26 Understanding Quantum Information Sciences

34:03 Qubit Stability and Challenges

36:53 Repetition Codes in Computing

39:29 Balancing Hype and Reality

42:48 Quantum Systems: From Theory to Application

44:58 Preparing for Quantum Computing's Future

48:16 Explore Quantum System Accelerator Opportunities

Greetings, fellow travelers in the quantum continuum.

I'm Bailey, your disembodied yet charmingly British master

of ceremonies here at Impact Quantum, the podcast where

qubits aren't just theoretical, an entanglement isn't a

relationship status. Today we have an absolute

corker of a guest, Bert De Jong. He's not only a

senior scientist at Barclay Lab. Yes, that

Barclay. But also the director of the Quantum Systems

Accelerator, part of the U.S. department of

Energy's National Quantum Initiative. Translation.

He's the bloke helping push the boundaries of quantum computing

and sensing, while the rest of us are still trying to figure out how to

update our WI fi Reuters. From gravitational sensing

with atoms to real time power grid monitoring, Bert's

work is less science fiction and more science faster than you think.

So whether you're quantum curious or just quantum confused, you're

in for a treat. Now, without further ado, let's

beam into the conversation already in progress with hosts Frank La

vine and Candace Gilhooly. And the man who makes qubits

quiver, Bert De Jong.

All right. Hello and welcome back to Impact Quantum, the podcast

where we explore the emergent ecosystem and field of quantum

computing, where it's not just for physicists anymore, it's

also for the quantum curious. And with me, as always, is

the most quantum curious person I know, Candace Kahooly. How's it going, Candace?

It's great, Frank. Thank you again. I'm very excited about today.

Yes, we have an amazing guest here

and I'm just looking at his.

His LinkedIn about page and it's. It's a lot,

so I should ask

AI to summarize it, but.

But. Welcome to the show. We have Bert De Jong,

which hopefully I pronounced that right. He is a driven, strategically thinking

leader and team builder, leading with Impact and

building next generation leaders. He's a senior scientist at

Berkeley Lab and is currently serving as department Head for Computational

Sciences and the interim lead for the Applied Computing for

Scientific Discovery Group, acsd.

ACSD advances scientific computing by developing and enhancing

applications in key disciplines, as well as developing

tools and libraries for addressing

general problems in computational science. Wow. There's a. There's a lot there.

So let's. But one of the things here is that you're part of the National

Quantum Initiative. Yes.

And you're at Berkeley University. The Berkeley University. So

that's pretty cool. Continue. Tell

us. Tell us what you're up to these days. Yeah,

thanks, Frank. Thanks, Candice, for having me. So,

yes, to give it a short on the Quantum Side. So I

lead large number of programs on the quantum on in quantum

at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. So

I'm the director of the Quantum System Accelerator, which is one

of the five national Quantum initiative centers funded out of the

Department of Energy. And these are large centers.

We have about 15 institutions and about

450 researchers working closely together to

really try and move the field of quantum information science

effectively quantum computing and quantum quantum sensing forward

because we see the potential for the nation

to be a leader in this field and continue to be a leader

for the foreseeable future. Interesting. You mentioned

quantum sensing and quantum sensing is something that's been kind of

off the side of my radar. But when I was at the Quantum Tech USA

event, quantum sensing was a very

hot topic. What is quantum sensing?

Unlike classical sensing, you're just doing

sensing with quantum information. And so I'll

give you a couple of examples.

This is some work that actually came out of our center where

we actually use atoms to sense

gravity. So that's a good example. Bias

is important. Why did we work on it? Well, right now, if

you do these kinds of things, you have to use sensors that

are kilometers apart. By doing quantum

sensing and using the power of entanglement, you

can actually make sensors that are going to be millimeters in

size, extremely small. Now that changes the game

on how you can actually use sensing

in many, many different applications. Think right

now we have satellites trying to measure gravitational behavior.

They get their positions, their GPS is impacted by

gravitational behavior. So that's one way you can think of

sensing, fundamentally

sensing. We're trying to figure out really where we could go with

applications. We can of course use

quantum sensors to sense what's happening

with quantum systems. So we better understand for example, what

what happens in biological environments.

Those are quantum processes on its own. So can we use sensors,

quantum entanglement as a sensor

to probe these kinds of systems more accurately? But there is even more

creative ideas that are people are starting to think about this. Could we do this

on, in a larger scale, could we use quantum sensing to

detect if something is broken and goes wrong in an electric grid? It

could we get real time feedback. Now those are far fetched ideas, right?

Those are not things that are happening right now, but those are some

of the applications you can think of when it comes to quantum sensing. So

this isn't just about, you know, hey, we want to find an oil deposit or

natural gas deposit. That would be a potentially other

direction to think. Let's say you're looking for

rare earths, for example, critical Materials right now,

detecting those in the ground is not trivial,

but if you can use a signature,

a quantum signature, for example, you might be able to

detect deposits. I'm not

familiar enough with thinking about this in the oil and gas sense,

but. Yeah.

So I would say the differences in densities is

potentially something that you could use as a way to do

some quantum sensing. Interesting. The reason

why I mentioned is because I remember hearing, I

remember hearing about. The first time I heard about quantum sensing was looking

for natural resources, whether it was

oil, gas, or various types of minerals.

Yes. Which I think would be an interesting, interesting use case. But I like the

idea of being able to understand what's happening in the power

grid because as we record this today, I don't know if the power is back

on in Spain and Portugal. Oh, yeah, I heard about that today.

They had no power. Like 50 million people without power.

That's crazy. Well, I had not heard that,

but that is a major,

major issue. And of course, we've seen the blackouts here

in California, while we have seen them also

in the north and in the east. So being able to

respond quicker is always going to be a big challenge. Right. These

are large, complex systems and

single points of failure are everywhere. Yeah, no, that's

a good point. That's a good point. And the other thing was

I also heard the term quantum radar, which was

another kind of use. So in terms of being able to

detect drones, smaller objects flying around,

stealth device, stealth aircraft, and things like that. So I think quantum

sensing is definitely, I think, going to be one of those fields that,

you know, for good or for bad, is going to have a big renaissance

one way or the other. It just seems that quantum sensing can touch

on so many different things. Right? Yeah. You know, like, we're

talking about, you know, you were talking about oil and gas. We're talking about,

you know, how you can measure

gravity, time, acceleration. Like, there's

just so many aspects. Maybe quantum sensing is more of,

of a bridge that could be like a bridge

technology that could, you know, drive a

broader spectrum of quantum technologies

because it's effective in all of them. I mean, it's. It seems

we've been dying to talk to someone

about quantum sensing because it's so vitally

important. So now it feels like, you know, we got someone here, you

know, like, specifically, are you, what

fields are, are you working on in, in the, in the

quantum sensing sense? Like, what are you focusing on national

security? Are you focusing on medical

implications, natural resources? What are you guys looking at?

So again, as A center. We really have

focused on actually finding ways to harness the entanglement

so that we can build the foundations. Yes,

the field is progressing, and I would think it probably is

one of those markets that. One of those technologies that will be the

earliest to market relative to computing

or networking, simply because over the last

five to 10 years, I would say the last decade, the technology

really has moved forward to a point that sensing

is not that far out. We know how to

entangle photons, we know how to entangle the

key pieces and actually then be able to very

accurately measure these kind of

quantum systems and measure the entanglement that allow us to actually

make decisions and actually get insights that

we are looking for. So it is

early, but more and more industries are

especially even computing industries

are diversifying, diversifying their portfolio.

One of the jokes that I always make is, so,

for example, if you make a good qubit, it's a

terrible sensor. If you have a terrible qubit bit,

they're actually excellent sensors. Oh, because of the

noise? Yes. If they're sensitive to noise.

Right. If they can detect the smallest amount of

noise, then they are good for sensors.

That makes sense. Okay. All right. So all this work and

the chandeliers and all that stuff that they do to shield it out, you

actually kind of want that, in a sense. Yes. You

kind of work in two directions. Exactly. Quantum computers want to get

rid of the noise and be less and less sensitive to

noise, while quantum senses want to be more and more and more sensitive to noise.

It's that interesting dichotomy, but it also means

that if you start thinking about. For us, we are

not just building quantum computers,

for example, with atoms, we're

also trying to measure them more and more accurately. And so the more

accurately measure, the more you get

sensitive to noise. Right. The extra little

piece of noise that you didn't know about that then

makes you also better as a sensor.

So it's kind of that even though we are developing

technologies for quantum, they have that angle of actually being

able to readily used in. In a

quantum sensing realm, just in a different way.

Interesting. And also as the sensors, I don't know if this is as important, but

as the sensors become more sensitive,

like you can go smaller and smaller and smaller. I don't know

if that's necessarily something that is important

to this field, but it makes me think when something is sensitive, everyone

likes when things can get smaller and smaller. Well, it has to be. Right.

So let's say I can build right now a sensor that

takes up a Big room in a building. Now, if you want to

have that sensor, for example, on a ship or in a

submarine or on

a plane, you need to make it. Why you want small? You need to make

it taller. Or if you want to put it in space, lighter weight,

smaller is good, right? So

miniaturization, that's what our. I would say

our technology advances have been around. If you look at the first

kind of space missions, right, Apollo missions,

they had computers that were bytes, not kilobytes,

bytes, and they were big, right? Now what

we have there, we can do in,

oh, not even a pinky. It's just going to be

a very small square space. And so

miniaturization allows you to scale, but actually

more we miniaturize, we more and more get closer

to the quantum realm, right? Quantum is at the

smallest scale. So the smaller you make things,

the closer you get to the quantum realm and you start to deal with the

same problems that we are dealing with right now. When it comes to quantum computing

or. Quantum centering, sensing the invisible and measuring

the immeasurable, it's like, you know, it's

Star Trek, right? Like, they pull up a tricorder, which is like a handheld device,

and they can tell. They can tell everything from, you know, medical issues

to, you know, planetary or cosmic

like stuff all in the palm of their hand. And, you know, it's. Right

now that's still science fiction, but I mean, I can easily see there being uses

for it because, you know, in the TV show, there was always a use for

it. So I can imagine, you know,

that. Would so think of everybody. Well, not

everybody, but a lot of people are wearing watches now, right now, where they

detect heartbeat, blood pressure, all of that, even

oxygen levels. And so there is.

That is also a demonstration of new sensing

technologies. And there they're using light.

It's also a. Photons are the

smallest piece you can deal with. So it's all of

that miniaturization and putting together

more and more foundational knowledge around

how materials behave, how photons, how electrons

behave, allow us to miniaturize. And

all of those phenomena tend to be quantum.

And so the smaller we go, the more we need to actually

handle quantum information sciences in general.

Interesting. I would also

imagine quantum sensing would help in error correction with

qubits or no. Am I not thinking right?

I would have to think through that. But I don't think

the way we are doing quantum error correction right now would be

directly a sensing thing. Okay. It's more

indirect, but yes. Okay, sorry, Candice.

Looks like you had a question. No, no, I was just kind of thinking, you

know, you know, in my head again, because we were talking about the watches and

the medicine. Just what, you know,

it's so the next step of, of what this could do

for, for people with everyday health issues that they're

monitoring. And I don't know, I, I just, I'm very excited about the

medical breakthroughs because I just. You keep on seeing how these everyday

devices are now being used by all kinds of people. Like, I think about my

mom who was like, was so upset about the cell phone. She's like, I

wasn't made for the cell phone, candy. She's like, I, I'm 80 years old. Like,

I cannot handle the cell phone. I'm like, you can, mom. Like, I swear you

can. And now I watch her take the cell phone and put it to her

arm to detect her, like, diabetes, rate her diabetes

rating, and then how everything is all interconnected now to help

her when it wasn't like that even a couple years ago.

And so I'm seeing how, you know, with medical technology, it's going

faster and faster. And I can see how, you know, as the world is having

issue with natural resources, that's going to go faster and of course, with,

with security, you know, national security, that's going to be,

you know, one of the biggest ways they're going to want to deal with sensors

and stuff. So I think it's such a, an incredibly exciting

field to investigate and for people to figure out

how they get to be a part of it. Yeah. So I'll give you one

early sense. So, you know, we already using

quantum in our medical fields. Right. So the

MRI, many of us have had MRIs

driven by Quantum. It's a quantum

technology. I didn't know that, to be honest. That's true. I

was thinking functional mri, the magnetic one.

Yeah. Interesting. So we're already. So we're already using it.

Yep. So then why are you using everywhere?

Honestly, quantum is everywhere right now. MRI is one. But

the fact that we have light bulbs is definitely also a

quantum phenomena, especially the new lights.

GPS is driven by atomic clocks. So

if we measure atomic systems more accurately,

we build better atomic clocks. We have better gps.

Think of optical fibers in telecom. We are using

photons right now, but could we actually use entangled photons

in the future to maybe get better

quantum networks? I already mentioned

the transistors getting smaller and smaller, needing

quantum. So it's there in every

way, shape or form. So yes.

So it shouldn't be such an argument that's going on, or I should

say, lively debate in terms of how many years it's going to

take for us to be able to, you know, enjoy,

you know, what's going on as more and more breakthroughs are happening.

Like, it's already happening. Like on the show we

spoke with a lovely lady, Anna White of

Hedo Match. They're currently using a quantum algorithm

in, in their business. You know, we've spoken to, you know, Quantum Knight,

who's already, you know, coming up with national security

measures that are working with, with quantum and,

and quotes, quantum encryption. So, like, things

are already happening. We don't have to necessarily

wait five or 10 years. It's just going to continue to see the

evolution as more funding is put behind the science.

Yes, now we are definitely progressing. But so when

it looks, when you look at where we are and how we've evolved

in the last five, I would say 10 years, we are really

trying to push what, what I coined as kind of

the second quantum revolution. And yes,

census is one. Networking is, is a very

different challenge and that's mainly driven by security

because, yes, we could potentially break information

encryption and then quantum computing. And

are they all going to be now? No. Are they

all moving forward? Most definitely.

And they all have a timeline

where, I think depending on how you look at it, I still

think quantum computing can have some early impact in the

next three to five years. Now, is it

going now? I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead,

go ahead. I won't continue your thought. No, it's not

like, honestly, in the next five

years, a quantum computer probably will not break quantum

encryption and break all the,

and gets access to all your secret information you might have.

But there is going to be a lot of domain areas

and a lot of application areas where early

demonstrations of quantum computers or

even quantum networking will have an impact.

We know that banks are actively pursuing

their secure networking effectively right now.

Surprisingly, not so surprisingly, but it's

still interesting. There's a lot of banking companies, for example, that are

trying to understand how they can use quantum computing at this point in time.

And for them, it's very simple. If you're

the first one or you're the fastest when it comes to

making decisions on what stocks to trade, for example, you make more money.

So everything here in that world is driven

by being the fastest. The first,

I would say a lot of other technology, a lot of other industries

are really looking at, I would say

primarily right now, quantum computing as a potential

to accelerate their R&D efforts.

But that one, as I said, it's going to be very

specific areas that. Where that

technology, a quantum computing technology will actually help them

accelerate their R and D. It's not going to be across

all industries, quantum

computing, good for certain things. It will not be universal

replacement for classical computing in the future.

What do you think is some of the biggest. What do you think are the

barriers right now? Like, we've talked about the ecosystem, you

know, Frank and I discuss this usually with every. Every guest that we've.

That we talk about, you know, the ecosystem. Everything from, you know, the

physicists and the academics to the commercial,

commercial practitioners who are, you know, who are trying to

be, you know, the business folk that, that are putting quantum

out there to the world and how there is

a little. There's a little bit of a chasm between both sides, especially when

information is coming out from the commercial side or, you know, because, you

know, academia is trying to make sure that everything that's being said

is completely true and

practical. And sometimes, you know, there's a little bit of a gap between

that and there's a little bit of a chasm where I think it'd be better

if there was a bridge between the two sides. You know,

I'm also of the mentality that I don't want a one, winner take all. I

would like there to be like a leader for every type of qubit,

you know, that there is another company, because if one company is

dedicated to the, you know, ionization, another one is dedicated,

you know, to, you know, to the photons or to

different qubits, then we could have really some of the best technology

possible for everybody. But do you see it

as a little bit of a chasm in the ecosystem that there's kind of a

little disconnect that's happening between the two sides, or

no. Do you think that the two sides are kind of beginning to work with

each other? I think the community

is getting better and better at working together. I do agree

that one of the big challenges that we are right now when it comes to

the quantum ecosystem is that there

is still a lot of directions quantum

information science, or quantum computing can take at this point in time.

There is a lot of different platforms that are being developed as we get

better and better understanding, better and better control of what

qubits can and cannot do. It's

not that far and different from where classical

computing was for a long time. We had,

for a long time, very different technologies. Hey, we move from

the abacus to tubes

to Effectively transistors. And

now there's new types of transistors that are being developed if they

want to scale scale smaller and smaller. I don't think we

are much further when it comes to the quantum technologies. Right now

we have that choice of

which technologies will be the best ones. And

I think the real question becomes what are these

technologies the best for. And I would argue that there

is potential that some technologies will be better for certain

application areas for certain industries versus others.

And again, universal quantum computer,

sure we can build one eventually, but is it going

to be the best for some of the applications? I don't know.

If you look at classical computing right now,

we had x86 for the longest time. Now we

have GPUs, we have FPGAs, we

have new types of technologies that are being developed on the

classical computing side too. What you see is a

merger from diversity or

specialization to universal to back now

a diverse set of technologies that is specialized for

certain application areas. I would expect

that diversity and specialization to

be the case for a while when it comes to the quantum technologies. Till

we get a couple of that are going to be clear winners. And

honestly we have some technologies that are at the forefront right

now. There is a lot of dark horses out there still.

And so who knows that what we're looking at

right now when it comes to quantum technologies. Quantum

computing technologies are the ones that are going to be

the ones that are going to drive most of the industry.

But that matter is top. The matter

of quantum information is a complex

matter for industry in general to deal

with. And so they need to get an early

handle on it. Hey, if they have to still use

a computer build of tubes to do

their work right now and understand how quantum could actually

impact their end user

application that their domain, so be it.

Eventually they will transition like everybody else to the

technologies that will be most suited for them for their application

area or for their industry. Right, and you mentioned

a couple times quantum information science. I think I know what that means,

but can you dive deep

into that?

So pretty much everything that

we've talked about so far is part of quantum information

sciences. Fundamentally we

need to understand and fully grasp what

the powers of quantum information, what the power is of

quantum. And that umbrella is called quantum information

sciences. So this ranges from actually doing

understanding the physics to actually doing the engineering,

to actually doing things like quantum error correction, doing

fundamental computer science theory effectively,

which is a lot what quantum error correction is

to understand how we can harness a technology,

but even fundamentally better understanding what actually

Quantum mechanics is how it works.

What entanglement actually means, what it

means to actually have a statistical process instead of a

deterministic process are things that

need to be, that are

continuously being studied, probed,

and better understood. That's the umbrella of

quantum information sciences is literally that

understanding from the fundamentals to actually getting to a point

where we can build systems and engineer

systems and then potentially do real

applications with them. So this would be kind of, you

know, like information

theory from Claude Shannon and things like that. Like

you go from, you know, this is how you represent

information in terms of how do you quantify it, how do you measure it, that

sort of thing. Is that that what you mean, but like the quantum version of

it? The quantum version of it, yes. Interesting.

And that's partly how I guess people were. That's how Shor's algorithm or

Grover's algorithm was worked out. Right. Kind of on a whiteboard, so to speak.

Yes. And like just working with the theory of it before there was the actual

hardware, which, that just boggles my mind. Right, like that you can

think this through. So let me ask you this. So

I, I, I'm, as you're talking, I'm like doing a little like

researching behind the scene here. So they're saying here in, in

classical information, imagine a pianist playing one note

at a time. Each note is clear and separate, like a classic

bit being 0 or 1. But in A, in quantum

information, imagine a full orchestra where every instrument

plays every note at once, but in perfect

harmony. This is like a qubit, which can be

a 0 or 1 simultaneously. Superposition. And

some instruments are linked, so if one changes, the others

can change instantly. Therefore entanglement.

That's a very simple,

interesting description of doing it. So I would

say this is the fun part, of course, then. So

you're saying this is like an orchestra, but each instrument playing

the right and exact right role. Well, that's what

we're trying to get to when it comes to

quantum computing or quantum networking. Right now there's a lot of

noise in these systems, so

some of these instruments might be slightly out of tune.

This is why I like. So how do we better tune them

and make sure that

the high room temperature is not getting them out of tune

over time? For example, do you

think that the. Fact that you need

to get these really isolated systems

and down to almost absolute zero, you

think that's been a blocker for more of this or is that just,

that'll get worked out at some point? That's an

engineering problem. I Would say that has been worked out

pretty well so far. What we do see is that.

So the superconducting qubits, for example, are extremely cold.

Actually, the bridges we have

that we take superconducting qubits in

and then do these quantum processes on with,

they're actually colder than the universe. So we're trying

to beat what the universe can do to some extent.

Right. And so, but we're also seeing this now in the other

technologies. So our center, for example, has

trapped ions and neutral atoms. Neutral atoms.

They're now also going cryo simply because they want

to get rid of a lot of the background noise. And,

and to do that, cryo is one pair.

Cryo means we're just going cold. Right. So.

But it's hard, honestly. We can build

very good qubits as good as

nature will allow them, as long as we don't touch them. Right. So.

Right. The best qubits are the ones that we cannot touch.

But someone had mentioned that, someone we spoke to talked about

if. And then if you touch destroys it. Almost like

it, it. It then it does. It doesn't work. And I

just was having a hard time kind of conceptually conceptualizing that

in my mind about these qubits.

Doesn't have to be the case. Right. So a qubit we can build,

and if we don't touch it, it probably is staying around for

a long time. Now, of course, it's still an environment.

Any stray photon, any ray coming out of

the cosmos could still impact

the system. So perfect isolation still doesn't exist.

Now, there is some technologies that people are developing, like topological

qubits, where inherently they would be protected against a

lot of these background noises. But in the long run,

we want to do something with these qubits. We want to operate on

them, we want to do something with them

to do that. We actually become part of

that noise, VR the noise. If we don't do it exact

don't rotate the qubit exactly the way we

think it does, we introduce noise.

If we don't do a sharp enough pulse

or we do a slightly different frequency, we are not

directly doing what we're thinking we're doing. So we're

introducing noise. The other thing is,

again, entangling two of these

protected or best protected qubits

breaks a lot of the symmetries, breaks some of the protection

symmetry, for example, so that opens

them up again to noise. So the game when it comes to

quantum computing is finding a way to

control the noise, mitigate the noise to a point.

That we can then do quantum error correction on top of

that. And reality is, we already doing this in classical

computing too. Your memory is error corrected

in your computer. Chips have inherent

error correction. And how do they do that? They just have

multiple versions of it and they just do a majority vote to decide which

one is correct. It's not that different. Right now when it comes

to quantum error correction, we're doing very similar approaches

where you start thinking about how we can do repetition

codes effectively. So repeated encoding so that we

can kind of decide what is the right answer at some point.

Interesting. Yeah.

It boggles the mind because you're right. We.

I don't really think computer science undergrads today even cover error

correction. And I remember my professor when I was

in school said, you're probably never going to really see this in the real world.

When he was teaching it again.

At. The time, his words were something to the effect of this is largely a.

Solved problem for classical computing.

I think it is a solved problem. It's

simple. You can do repetition codes, right? I

spent 15 years in high performance

computing prior to getting a lot more engaged with

quantum, with quantum computing specifically.

And we were doing that on the algorithmic side

even. It's just replication and being

able to make decisions as to when something

goes corrupt, if it's corrupt, and how you can

correct it at that point in time. And so

quantum to some extent has a similar kind

of flavor to that right now, where we use

inherently things that look like repetition codes, not in

a classical sense where we just make five copies of the

same thing, but rather store that

information in a bunch of qubits and then

try to use the entanglement information to

decide if a certain qubit is wrong.

But fundamentally the ideas are the

same. The approach using entanglement and

storing information in a different way across

qubits allows us to do things that

you couldn't do on a classical computer, computer, for example, when it comes to correction.

So I would say right now, given what you

know and what you do and what's going on in the ecosystem,

what is not, I always feel that communication is a

problem. You know, those that know, know, and those that don't know

don't know what they don't know. And

communication can always be better. So what

do you think those in the know in quantum could

do to be communicating, you know, the

importance, the excitement, you know,

of what's going on in quantum to get more folks,

you know, interested so that, you know,

either they want to become knowledgeable themselves or that they're going to make sure that

their kids are going to do better in math so that their kids can go

into a really, a gigantic array of jobs that

don't even exist right now, but are going to exist within, you

know, five, 10 years. So what do you think could be

done better for communication?

Well, that is also a little bit of a twofold thing.

So one of the big challenges with a lot of the communication

early on had been that it became a hype.

And the hype and then not delivering

becomes a kind of a

failure of death in the long run, it's not going to go anywhere. So

communication has to be done in a very balanced way where

we need to talk about reality while talking about the

excitement and the potentials. But

of course, we have a lot of industry right now that, that

have a lot of VC capital that need to deliver.

And the danger that

not just in Quantum, by the way, but also I would say in AI has

come across is that there might be sometimes

a little bit too much hype. It has gotten a lot better in Quantum. There

was a lot more hype, I would say, five years ago than there

is now. And that's a big good step.

But how to communicate excitement to the right people is

a big challenge. And it's something that we have

focused also on in our center. We've

developed programs to actually try to get the

excitement about Quantum for high schoolers

looking at going even back to earlier in

the K12 ranges because we need to get

them excited to go into a STEM field that

allows us to get even

AA or bachelor's degrees that can

build these systems in the future. And you mentioned five to

10 years out. No, it's not five to 10 years out, it's

now. Companies are building

systems, they're installing systems at, at the

customers. That's a skill set that doesn't require

physicists that are electrical engineers

doing the cabling, making sure the fridges are working

properly, the network is installed properly,

the lasers are aligned properly. That's a very different

skill set that companies are looking for right now. And then

that's the hardware, but we need software. We need the

nice simple interface for the end user.

We need software engineers that they don't need to be

experts in Quantum, but they need to be able to understand

enough so they can build a software infrastructure that is needed to

run industrial applications in the future.

And the future is sooner. Three to five years

for some applications, not forever. And to be clear, we didn't pay you to say

that because that's what Candice and I were talking about when we relaunched the show

was let's, you know, somebody had said, someone very smart

had said something. The effect, there's enough physicists, there's enough

theoretical physicists in this field already. What we need are the sales

people, we need the marketers, we need every

profession that you mentioned and then, then some. Right. It's going to, I think I

hate the term it takes a village, but it's going to take a village. It

takes a large, large village. And I've seen that, I've visited

some companies and it's interesting to see

their changing mindset from being

physics experiments to starting deliver to deliver

early systems to their end users. And it's just

a different type of marketing. You need people that can

provide support consulting to

the less the people that are not as knowledgeable but want to explore

these quantum systems for their applications. And then there

is a lot of application development that has to be done

in the long run. At the end, it's like think

of if I want to build a better catalyst,

I need to have codes effectively that can run the

simulations that I need to run. Well, that's not a trivial

thing right now. It's like you're still

programming in assembly language and that's not what most

people want to do. So even that level, there's a

lot of computer scientists and computer engineers that we need

for those kind of activities to make sure that the industry is

ready for those kind of use

cases. Right. Right now. That's a good point.

That's a good point. I think that it's always good when you hear someone else

agree with you, what you're.

But it looks like Candace had a question. No,

I honestly, I was just gonna say I've enjoyed so much what we've talked about.

Like there's so many follow ups that I'm gonna have that I'm gonna have

to convince you to come back onto the show again, you know, in

a little bit of time. I'll give you a break for a little bit but

then come back because I just want to delve a little deeper into some of

the, you know, you're really on the pulse of where

this has to grow and you have a very unique

perspective with all of your experience. You're

fascinating. Thank you so much for all of this. I've loved it.

That's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking, Frank. Awesome.

Awesome. Yeah. I want to be respectful of, of your time and.

But this has been an enlightening conversation.

It's interesting to think about how

organizations have to start thinking in terms of quantum

algorithms, even if they don't have a machine yet, even if they don't have

access to the chips and whatnot,

if anyone does. But I think it's important to start thinking about how

to think differently today. Right. Because when this

happens, and again, that timeline is anyone's guess,

those who think ahead of the curve will

be definitely in a more competitive advantage. So I actually had to write a

trip report in regards to,

you know, to me attending this Quantum conference. Right.

And it was kind of like, well, you know, what's the impact to, you know,

my day job as a Red Hat? Like, well, right now

this is really an over. From the way I see it. Again, this is

Frank speaking, not the company. This is an over the horizon

technology from the point of view of a

software company. So the best thing to do today is

just kind of familiarize yourself with the concepts. So that way when it does come

over the horizon, you're going to be in a much better position to

adapt to the new situation on the ground. That's kind of my,

you know, that was my elevator pitch.

Now I would argue from the perspective

that it's, I think it already is appearing

on the horizon. So I think even those companies really should

be careful not to fall behind. And those

quantum technology companies that are out there have

recognized that and now starting to develop their own kind

of infrastructures. And like we had in the classical world

computing world, we had, everybody had their own operating

system, effectively. Of course, eventually

most of it is now run on some version of Linux. Right,

right. Red Hat supports.

But I think there are a long ways away to getting in that

direction when it comes to Quantum, for example. Yeah, that's fair, that's

fair. But it's needed, I think,

sooner than you think. I like that.

Any parting thoughts, Candace? I like the sooner than

you think. I do. I want to get that on a bumper sticker.

Yeah, I do, I do. I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot

of companies that are putting a lot behind this and, and many of them are

still in stealth and, and you know, everyone's working towards, you

know, who's going to break out with the first of, the first of something,

you know, of which qubit or whatever or which, which technology it's going to, going

to affect. But I think that just talking to people like

Bert, you know, talking to other people that we've brought onto

this podcast is really keeping everybody as informed as we

possibly can be. And you know, I'm a big believer in the

communication, so. Awesome. Yes.

All right. And we'll let our. I'm sorry, go ahead. Any. Any parting thoughts

where folks can find out more about you and your research?

If people are interested in learning more about some of the research

that I would say go take a look and just look up

Quantum System Accelerator. You'll find all the

information about all the awesome stuff that our center has

done when it comes to advancing quantum computing and quantum

sensing technologies, from the fundamentals to actually

engineering systems. And generally

LBL has some great information about

all the research that they do because the Quantum System

Accelerator is not the only one. We have also an advanced quantum testbed

which by the way, industry can access if they really

want to explore quantum and see if their

applications could run on those kinds of systems. So there is

a lot of different avenues, I think, for industry, for example, to

engage with national labs. And of course, I'm representing

the national labs here in this conversation and

I think industry should really

carefully look at the opportunities that could

afford them. Excellent. And with that, we'll

let our AI finish the show. And there you have it, Dear

listeners, another episode of Impact Quantum wrapped up tighter

than a qubit in a cryostat. Our thanks to the

marvelous Bert De Jong for transporting us through the

quantum multiverse without so much as a single wormhole

mishap. If today's episode made you feel smarter,

you're welcome. If it made you feel slightly bewildered,

congratulations, you're paying attention. Be sure to

check out the Quantum Systems Accelerator and Barclay

Lab's other mind bending work, because as Bert rightly pointed out,

the quantum future isn't five years away, it's practically

parked outside. Remember to like, subscribe

and share with that one friend who still thinks quantum is just a

buzzword used by tech startups and sci fi

screenwriters. Until next time, I'm Bailey, your

semisentient host, signing off and reminding you

when it comes to quantum, it's not about being certain,

it's about being superposed.