The Superposition Guy's Podcast

Jonathan Reiner is interviewed by Yuval Boger and describes his path from condensed-matter physics to leading the Product Solutions team at Quantum Machines. They discuss the rising complexity of quantum control, customer trends toward fidelity, low-latency compute, and automated calibration, as well as QM’s products such as QUA, Qualibrate, and OPX-NIC for error-correction workflows. Jonathan shares insights on scaling control electronics, the skills needed to operate quantum computers, and his preference for spin qubits. The conversation concludes with a discussion of IP protection practices.

Kike Miralles, investment director at Intel Capital, is interviewed by Yuval Boger. They talk about corporate venture investing in quantum technologies. Kike explains Intel Capital’s focus on quantum hardware and middleware, compares leading modalities, and outlines emerging themes like QPU scale-out networking, hybrid classical–quantum error correction, and the growing role of logical qubits as a core metric. He also discusses check sizes and stages, government-heavy revenue, PR and hype in quantum, expected consolidation among hardware players, and what differentiates strong quantum investors and startups in today’s market. 

Dr. Joe Ghalbouni, a quantum communications PhD and former innovation team member at Point72, now leads Ghalbouni Consulting. He dives into shifting the hedge fund's quantum curiosity into tangible use cases and identifies algorithms and problem mapping as key bottlenecks. The conversation highlights promising areas in finance, such as optimization and quantum machine learning. Joe shares insights on deploying quantum solutions and expresses optimism about seeing practical quantum advantages in specific cases within a few years.

Biliana Rajevic, Head of External Communications at Quantum Brilliance and co-founder of Quantum Women, Rachel Rayner, a science communicator and comedian, and Alison Goldingay, a quantum researcher at UNSW. We discuss the "Elevating Quantum Women's Voices" program, an initiative designed to empower women in the quantum industry to communicate effectively and build their visibility. They share insights from the program's curriculum, such as the power of storytelling, adapting to different audiences, and the specific challenges of presenting on Zoom. Rachel describes her "Quantum Comedy" shows that blend humor with physics, while Alison and Biliana demonstrate the program's "60-second challenge" by explaining single-photon detection and diamond-based quantum computing in plain English. We also explore the broader importance of diversity in the quantum ecosystem, and much more.

Laurence Coldicott, curator of global quantum technology conferences, is interviewed Yuval Boger. They discuss how enterprise engagement has expanded beyond early adopters in finance to logistics, pharma, and defense—and how agendas now balance computing with “quantum defense” topics like PQC and QKD. Laurence contrasts U.S. scale and federal momentum with Europe’s fragmented landscape, notes attendance growth from hundreds to over a thousand, and describes a successful new event in Doha. He emphasizes keeping conferences pragmatic and hype-free, prioritizing practitioner talks and real case studies, and offers advice to speakers: be candid about maturity, challenges, and near-term value. They touch on rising government participation, the growing intersection with AI and cyber, and much more.

Bill joins Yuval Boger to discuss SAS’s vendor-agnostic, hybrid approach to quantum and analytics. Highlights include D-Wave warm-starts that let SAS prove optimal kidney-exchange solutions in seconds, as well as QML pilots for fraud and bankruptcy modeling and disaster response. He shares a pragmatic definition of “quantum advantage”, treating QPUs as just another PU alongside CPUs/GPUs, and why rapid progress toward error correction—and ideas like Penrose’s—keep him learning.

Sergio Gago, CTO of Cloudera and former Head of AI & Quantum at Moody’s is interviewed by Yuval Boger. They discuss a practical, problem-first path to quantum in finance. Sergio contrasts annealers and gate-based systems, emphasizes hybrid workflows for portfolio optimization and Monte Carlo risk, and explores fraud detection and knowledge-graph use cases. Sergio stresses rigorous benchmarking against top-end GPUs/FPGAs, explainability for regulators, and total cost of ownership over lab metrics. They also touch on post-quantum cryptography (offense vs. defense), realistic definitions of “quantum advantage,” and why disciplined pilots—and candid vendor comparisons—matter more than hype, and much more.

Constanza Bustamante, a research fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is interviewed by Yuval Boger to discuss quantum policy at the nexus of national and economic security. Constanza contrasts China’s state-led, scale-oriented model with the U.S.’s science-first, private-sector translation approach; traces bipartisan continuity from the National Quantum Initiative Act through today; and examines Europe’s growing techno-nationalism and reciprocity gaps. Constanza argues broad tariffs risk hobbling a nascent U.S. quantum supply chain, explores quantum sensing as a near-term “atomic advantage”, weighs research-security safeguards against academic openness, and much more.

Vijoy Pandey, who leads Cisco’s Outshift incubation group, and Reza Nejabati, Cisco’s head of quantum research, are interviewed by Yuval Boger. They discuss Cisco’s strategy to enable distributed quantum computing and a future “quantum internet.” Vijoy and Reza explain why Cisco won’t build QPUs, focusing instead on room-temperature, telecom-band entanglement networking. They discuss Cisco's aim is to make networking a “no-brainer” and push modality complexity to the edge via transducers and even entanglement-mode conversion, the argument that scale-out plus scale-up will reach “million usable qubits” faster, and much more.

Bert de Jong, Director of the Quantum Systems Accelerator at Berkeley Lab, shares insights on cutting-edge quantum technologies. He discusses the integration of superconducting and trapped-ion systems, and the importance of error correction in quantum computing. Bert highlights unique strategies for overcoming cost and scaling challenges, and emphasizes the need for industry collaboration and workforce training starting in high schools. He believes significant scientific impacts from quantum computing are on the horizon, potentially within five years.