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Hey, my name is Eva, and this is Blond and Quantum, the podcast that breaks down quantum technology into real-world business impact. Here we make the complex simple. No equation, no overthinking, just insight, innovation, and a bit of humor. So don't worry, you don't need a PhD in physics to follow. In each episode, I talk to funders, scientists, and investors about how quantum is reshaping the industries today, not in some distant future. Oh, and if you hear a black cat pouring in the background, that's my co-host, very alive Schrodinger cat joining the conversation. Her name is Mel. Let's get started. Welcome everyone in the next episode of Blonde and Quantum. Today with me is a Joe Spencer, UK director of Global Quantum Intelligence Platform. Joey, thank you so much for being with us here today. Yeah, thanks for inviting me. Last November, I had the pleasure to host another member of uh GQI, Andre Cunik. Um, it was actually one of the most viewed episodes of London Quantum so far. So no pressure, but here we are. And then with Andre, we spoke a lot about the global race of quantum and all of the job geopolitics that are involved in it. Today I wanted to change a little bit of the direction and talk about something different, something that you had a lot of experience with, which is obviously defense. You based in the UK, right? So tell us how serious is the UK about the quantum as a defense capability versus just a you know research priority? I would say, like all nations, um, we take it very seriously. The UK has a rich history of quantum, probably one of the the first early national programs deployed in 2014. And defense was uh was really sort of at the start of that with defense research organizations, uh, aspects of MOD being very involved with sponsoring a lot of PhD projects and research, uh, you know, over a decade ago, of which a lot of those have now turned into companies in the UK and the US. We have CEOs and CTOs that you know studied in university and academic environments in the UK, and and some of those were sponsored and supported by by the defense sector. So, yeah, we take it very seriously. 100% right. And UK's UK was one of the first in in the whole Europe. I recently spoke with Michael Cabbart from National Quantum Computing Center, and he also mentioned and emphasized uh that the you know the dedication of the government to create quantum very, very early before you know the rest of the country even were thinking about it. So you mentioned there's a lot of PhD programs sponsored by the defense. So, two questions here. First of all, was the defense a trigger to create the national policy? And second one is which university are the most focusing on quantum technology today? Well, the UK, I think from your prior interview with uh the NQCC, you'll remember that the UK is set up uh around a lot of centres of excellence or hubs, things like the Quantum Technology Timing Hub, the Quantum Imaging Hub, the Computing Hub, and how PhD programs are set up as changes sort of from university to university. A few years ago, back in the you know, a decade or so ago, uh, government and um some defense research organizations would sort of partially sponsor or support some of these PhD programs. I think I was um managing the technical output of about 40 uh different PhD projects uh at the time. And then these spanned um quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum commons, all of those three fundamental pillars that we sort of model uh nowadays attribute to aspects of quantum. So can you tell us a little bit more what is the UK actually building today in quantum specifically for defence? And I mean like, you know, the real capabilities rather than strategy papers? Yeah, well, um it's hard to know what what the defense organizations and research are actually building, uh, unless you're on the unless you're on the inside. But there is a significant interest in sensing and timing. The UK has a rich history in you know in in timing, as far back as even the the days of the Empire with John Harrison and the and the H2 clock. We have a an NPL. So we have a rich history in timing. Uh there is a desire, I guess, um to perhaps have a defense timing centre. So a hope you would think to not necessarily be reliant on timing solutions on a commercial domain or consider it as part of critical national infrastructure. So maybe a defense timing centre, that that'll be very exciting. But yeah, we we're they're kind of interested in all aspects, um, pushing, I would say, not lower higher TRL, but nearer market uh nearer terms to market technologies. So sensing and commons obviously are two of those closest wins that we can get. And quantum computing is somewhat still on the horizon for the useful applications, but we can buy and implement quantum sensing solutions today. And it's important as well, just to add to this, that it's we have to start thinking about it today. The average lifetime of a fast jet or a you know a helicopter or a piece of military hardware is decades. These are going to be systems that will be, you know, systems that are built today will be flying around in 2014, 2050 and have upgrades through their life. So it's important to uh for these people to understand where quantum is going to be, you know, not in five years, ten years, but in twenty to thirty years to make sure that it's enabled on these future platforms. And if we look at the political environment, does UK stand with a NATO on quantum? Um, and if so, on what position? Is that would be a leader, collaborator, or follower? Can you tell us a little bit more in in which capacity on how how they cooperate? I'll do I'll do my best without stepping on any organizations with toes, but we we so the the strategic defence review came out last year for exactly the time I'm assuming October, September, October, and that was the biggest overhaul to defence spending that the UK has had in decades. And and in that we we've taken what we call a NATO first stance. So you know, we are very much aligned with with the NATO vision. Um, but the UK also, all members of NATO sit at the head of the table. But you know, we're clearly a sort of a leading force in this with our technological innovations and and and being able to sort of come to market. Other members of NATO clearly offer complementary skills with being able to sort of be fast deployment of systems. Yeah, we're we're a sort of a a leader collaborator, but then there are also organizations like NATO TQC, the transatlantic quantum community, which is currently, I think, headquartered in the UK and it moves around between um you know Denmark and the UK and and various other um nations as well. So yeah, we we're very very keen to sort of act as a a leading collaborator, I would say, in in the area of quantum. That sounds great. And I like when you mentioned that all of these countries sit in uh and uh in the same table, and I can imagine that and I think it should be like this because of the so many different you know modalities of quantum computing and quantum sensing and network and so on. So I think we can and we should learn from each other. But what's the real situation under the surface as well? Like, do you think like some of this country, even inside NATO, they are competing with each other? Yeah, I don't think that's um uh that's not something that people or nations hide, right? You know, it's clearly quantum has been defined as uh a strategic resource by most nations. The US have turned around just the other day, last week or so, for the sort of recommitment to the National Quantum Act. The UK has doubled down recently on a review of quantum spending and got another two and a half billion or so uh in the spending model. Really? Because I remember the last number that I I had in my mind was one billion, right? That UK um actually committed to. And there were some critics' voices that if it's you know, if the billion is enough because Germany committed more and France committed more. So you said right now the government also doubled it now for another two and a half two point half? I would say I'm I've always been one of those critical voices. The challenge with government spending is that you know, you you get these top-level figures. So the UK now said that they put in another, I think it's something like two or two and a half billion. Some of that has already been allocated, but we have a new billion pounds for this um procure uh program to sort of get governments, uh the UK government to sort of acquire more quantum computing capability. But historically, you know, the UK, France, Germany, they all do this. You know, when a new uh new financial year comes out or a new spending review comes out, you know, you can repackage the same amount of money and just call it something slightly different. So what we do is is spend a lot of effort to duplicate those. So when we when we see a new amount of money being added, we say we ask the question, is that new money or is that reallocated or recommitted funds? Yeah. The key point, whether it's new or recommitted, is actually uh an overall commitment for long-term stake in quantum technology and computing, sensing, and comms. And the UK has done this to 2035 at least, and we'll hopefully see other countries follow follow uh soon soon with the US and Germany potentially uh announcing new rounds of funding as well. And in terms of the the specific technology that uh the funding is going into in terms of research, you mentioned previously, obviously, uh sensing, you mentioned the timing and so on. Can we talk a little bit about specific use cases? Because especially in terms of the sensing, this is very interesting as well. I recently spoke, I had the chance to sit together and question uh Bill Vas from Busalem and the US, and he told me that quantum sensing is actually already developed industria. So I I wonder what's what's your view on this and what are those specific use cases that you're seeing in your daily job and then you know, yeah, just let's say in this. Um well I yeah, I would agree. Um sensing has been around um for to be bullish on the subject, probably about 50 years, if not more. When we talk about quantum sensors, what what do we really mean? Well, there are definitions as to what uh constitutes quantum 2.0 or quantum uh and quantum sensor technologies, but uh, you know, a clock is a quantum sensor, a s you know, a cesium fountain is a quantum sensor. We've had magnetometers, squid-based magnetometers for defense applications through DARPA programs for since the 70s or 80s, probably even longer. So, yeah, it's it's not a not a sort of a new technology, it's uh it's a an overmatch and an iteration on existing, but there are brand new capabilities that can be had. You know, we have organizations that have been established under the UK program like QLM that do quantum enhanced detectors for methane and gas detection. So that has obvious applications in the in the oil and gas industry for environmental monitoring, but you can also imagine advanced detectors, especially in the infrared region, to be LIDAR for to be useful in a defence context for mapping out terrain or domains, um, you know, leak detection. And similarly, it has applications in the medical sector. And we've seen quantum magnetometers, you know, these can be used for in the defense domain for detecting hidden uh hidden objects, hidden metallic objects perhaps, uh, you know, underground or underwater. But you can also use them to map out the human brain. And there's uh companies in the UK such as Circumagnetics that have developed the equivalent of an MRI machine, but the size of a helmet that you can put on your head. And they are trialling these in in hospitals to uh help do um uh you know brain scanning on on children that might not necessarily be able to sit still in a huge MRI machine for for hours on end. Oh, that's that's what you can do. And it can also be used on the battles, on the war zones and stuff, right? Where whenever these big machines cannot be really transported or delivered? Okay, and then so let's imagine that there are some startups working on similar um, you know, applications. And I wanted to ask you do startups really have a chance realistically to sell into defense right now in quantum, or this is still dominated by the larger contractor, like Lockin Martin and so on, similar to the you know, weapon industry? Um good question. It it's hard, right? The the there have been uh a push within at least UK MOD to open the doors, as it were, to other smaller entities, perhaps reducing the cost of um trialling equipment on, you know, even to take your equipment out to a field that is MOD approved, um, you know, can be quite expensive and quite challenging. You know, these large-scale defence primes, so they know how to fill the paperwork and they know how to do that. The SDR, the strategic defence review, um, and various other sort of new initiatives through government are trying to sort of remove those challenging blockers that um young startups will have. But ultimately, yeah, defence procurement is a difficult um chain. Quite a lot of defence primes will uh you know go through bids and procurement programs at what you call cost plus. So they don't really make much on it. But I think that the real the real answer is actually less about these startups engaging directly with MOD and saying, buy my widget. They need to be engaging, and what is happening is is with the primes to actually understand what it is that MOD or the defence customer really wants and and how you can integrate your you know your quantum widget into uh into an existing system. You can potentially sell uh you can potentially sell a solution that does one thing, you know, like a sensor that detects mines, perhaps. Um you could build that and make a sell that. But if you want to implement or integrate your quantum sensing solution into whatever comes after you know F-35, the fast jet in another upgrade or uh or Tempest or uh future submarines. The quantum technology startups are not gonna be building a submarine, they're gonna have to work with the systems integrators to you can improve it, but they're not gonna build it from scratch. Obviously, that's not only a budget, but knowledge and also huge teams working on stuff like that in years, even in decades, right? Not even in years. Okay, that's that's make a lot of sense. So if you can summarize the quantum for defense today, so do you think there are real capabilities versus strategic signaling? I think uh so we see a lot of strategic signaling out there. Uh part of the job is to cut through what can be done. Uh two two great nations of the world, the US and China, tend to throw out a lot of information about what they can do. You know, we saw this um uh quantum heart murmur thing a few weeks ago. Um, you know, when when the US rescued a uh a pilot, China sends out a lot of information about what they can do with uh quantum radar, which is not anything really, um, and is what they can do with quantum comp. So a lot of it's signalling, but there is some scientific base and truth behind it. I guess the the trick is to actually really pick and play to your strengths as a country and pick those winners. Actually, my my next question I wanted to ask you, if you think like that some of the government may a little bit overhype the capabilities to use quantum as a deterrent, kind of right? Yeah, I think um my genuine thought on this at the moment is that quantum is still whilst quantum can be used and it can be implemented, and we have you know, you can buy an atomic clock now and you know they're the you know they are helping map out you know high frequency trading. The real thing is we we really don't know what we're gonna do with quantum long term. So is it going is it overhyped at the moment? Maybe maybe if in ten years we look back and be like, wow, we didn't expect there's nothing compared to what we thought it would uh what we could do. And I always liken this back to um the initial kind of space uh space exploration. When we sent man to the moon or put a few satellites in space, that was all fun. We had no real idea that GPS and GNSS and the mega constellations that we have now, you know, that was that's a huge new capability that no one really saw coming. But when the laser was first invented by uh Theodore Maiman in 19, oh I was testing it out in 63, 53, the very first real people, two years later, the um laser weapon program came out. So the laser was invented, and less than two years later, late later, three people in America were trying to weaponize it. But they didn't expect they didn't expect or see that lasers would end up going in um compact discs or DVD players and form the backbone of our fiber optic um you know global network because it we didn't expect we didn't see that coming at all. So I think with quantum, you could be overhyping now, you could be under hyping now. But I guarantee whatever comes out of it, we won't necessarily have expected. Thank you so much for all of this example that you mentioned, and I couldn't even agree more with what you said. I think every technology that was ever created by humanity, first of all, is trying to be weaponized by us sooner or later, but you also have a multiple of different applications that right now we cannot even see or imagine for quantum. So I I I like to think that sometimes the overhype is needed for that case. Because the overhype is causing people to be aware and talk about it. And there is the more people talk about it, the more people starting to look into it deep. What can I do with that? And then where the solutions or or new innovation are popping up. So I love I love thinking that that sometimes the overhype is is is kind of needed and is helping the industry. Okay, but let's talk a little bit about the the defense leaders in terms of countries and so on. What do you think the defense leaders are right now? What's keep them up at night? Is it more like that quantum will break the encryption? There's a lot of buzz and hype about this as well, definitely. Or maybe the sensing navigation advantages. What are they scary? Like you talk to those people on every daily basis, you work with them closely. Can you tell us like what's keep them in night? Um, this is gonna be a challenge one. And not much quantum, you have to remember, is still a very small part of a very small subset of a of a the defence industry and the defence sector, right? So whilst there are a lot of uh, and myself included, um yeah, porters have been evangelists of quantum, especially in the defence and security sector, um, it's it's still a challenge. So I would say two aspects. One, the the board, the bosses, etc., of these, you know, Lockheed and um Talas and BAE, they I don't think they they need to be made more aware of quantum and the disruptive impact that it has. They've got other things to work that keep them up at night. We're about to work about um but the people that are working in defence, you know, the the the quantum um technology enthusiasts in the defence sector, I think that exact thing is keeping them up at night. Is how do we communicate this message up, how important it is to high-level decision making now to make sure that our senior leadership and executive decision makers are informed enough about quantum in a coherent way that they can make a decision for the company to be position position themselves to take quantum and make advantage of that in the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. As I said, it'll get it's a weird thing working in defense because you have to be competitive today, right? You need to you need to comp you have to beat your competitors today and make money today for your shareholders and you know have have products. But also you've got to start these large-scale primes already having to start thinking about what is going to what the next generation fighter jet will look like. So a seventh jet fighter, what is going to be being built in 2050 and 2070? What will that look like? And how do we, as the company, how does how does our company get involved in that kind of procurement framework? So that's you've got to be both really pure research basically that have to be done on the government and academic um environment, because as you said, those this research takes years or decades, even, and a startup cannot very often survive the economical you know situation here, right? Because they need to generate the revenue, they need to generate the revenue for for their um shareholders for the VC that invest in them and so on. Okay, okay. Another uh question though here is another buzzword that is very often overheard in the industry is the famous Q day. So can you please explain us, yes, what is the Q day is actually, and uh what is the narrative is really actually influencing the policy policy decisions in a very meaningful way or or not? Yeah. Um it really depends on I I change my data. Definition of this, uh, depending on who I'm talking with and whether I want to scare people into making a decision or encourage people. Um, if I really wanted to scare us, scare us. To be bold, I I would say Q Days sort of already happened. You know, it it happened when Peter Shaw um developed the algorithm back in the 90s, right? As soon as that piece of maths came about, um Q Day happened because it's it's only a matter of of when it's going to be implemented. So we all know it's gonna happen. It's not a single day or a point in time, it's a it's a spectrum of events that have been occurring over the last 40 years, uh, to that point where we get the uh quantum computer of enough scale to break RSA 2048. That that's one of the definitions. But we see we are moving to that day or that that period, but the day is also moving closer to us because as soon as a scientist or mathematician comes up with a new innovation, then that can move move the timeline. So I I would say it sort of happened the moment that paper was produced, and it's now just a matter of of waiting until somebody turns the machine on to be able to do it. Okay, that sounds scary. Okay. I hope that you know people will memorize memorize that, what you said. Switching back again to the Sunsenc, I wanted to ask you one thing that I think from investor perspective could be valid for for LPs, for investors, and so on. So we we mentioned previously that quantum sensing is already a developed industry and there's a lot of going on, the real application and so on. So, why, if this is the case, quantum sensing is still a little bit under the rudder comparing to quantum computing. You know, that the I'm talking here about the bus generating, the hype, the press coverage, how how people think, and even you know, you work obviously in uh the best component and they can predict and predict and also assess the the value of the market. Constantly what we see in those reports is that quantum sensing is double, at least double that size in terms of value for quantum computer computers. So why is so? Why is it like that? That's that's the that's the million-dollar question, to be honest. And the question that's the one that keeps me up at night. I think I've spent the last 10 years uh of my career in quantum um uh saying exactly that and saying exactly what you know great people in the UK like Sapita Knight have been saying for years of you know, quantum sensing is already here. You you can buy it. Uh the the market cap uh is is it's smaller, it's currently higher than quantum because you know there's it and it's nearer term. But ultimately, in the long term, quantum computing will probably have a higher um you know market or mark uh higher TAM. But I I think it comes from a of a nuanced point of the fact that you're you you're competing in an existing market. The the alluring thing about quantum computing, right, is it allows you to to do things that historically you've not been able to do. That's what we would call like uh a disruptive capability. There's nothing there's nothing on the shelf that you can buy already that does this. Whereas quantum sensing or enhanced quantum sensing or quantum timing, you're competing against um extant technologies and trying to sort of make them better. So you can do in the defense world, you can do a few things. You can have what you call sensor overmatch. If I can see my enemy one kilometer or before he can see me, then I've got one kilometer's worth of advantage. It means I can shoot first. The doctrine is see first, shoot first. Or you can have a disruptive advantage. Could I see the underwater domain using a gravimetry and magnetometry and make the oceans um you know transparent to me? That's a completely disruptive capability. And in the area of warfare, you know, they they give advantages in in subtly different ways. So I think to go back to your point, quantum as quantum computing has been um kind of like sexier and hyped up. Quantum sensing has been more under pragmatic in its deployment. Um and both both both you know both are right and both can learn from each other. I think the computing industry can learn from the sensing industry, and vice versa. So I would say it's sensing is hasn't got us the media, I think it's to say that they can both learn from one another of how they've gone to market. So, Joey, basically what you said, this is very important, and I want to emphasize it because you actually say that quantum sensing would fundamentally change how the wars are fought. And obviously, we have a couple of global wars right now, and as you know, I'm originally Polish, so I'm very close to them to following what's going on in Ukraine as well. And when you were talking about it, it just came to my mind that you know the drones, the drones changed so much how the wars are today fought. So the question, I guess, here is when is this gonna happen? When do you think the the real application um or a breakthrough here? Well, I think so so to go back to the point, will it change the way we fight wars? I don't know, fundamentally. There might be, as we said earlier, you know, if you're overhyping it, what's gonna happen in the future, there might be some disruptive advantage that we we didn't predict, right? But the idea for for years, this idea of see first, shoot first, you know, if I see my gut enemy one kilometer before they see me, then they just improve their sense. And you you're just kind of building on this, doing step changes in capability until you've both realized, you know, that that you're really good. Um will quanta quantum sensing and quantum timing and resilient uh PNT can be uh position navigation timing, can allow us to operate in things like GPS denied environments. Now, will that change how we fight war? Probably not, but it might change how we plan a mission or you know how you know how um an operator will enter a you know a fighting real war zone because they now know that if they have yeah, previously if they didn't have freedom of what you call freedom of operation in theatre or freedom of movement, then you're limited in what you can do. But if you can utilize a quantum sensing solution, then you've got freedom of operation or freedom of movement. And then that gives you new capability, it maybe gives you new missions that you can do. So will it change, fundamentally change the nature of war? Those kind of technologies, maybe not, but it will fun it will change the nature of what type of missions can be effectively delivered for the modern warfighter. But then that will lead us to the to the moment when the wars are something different anyway, I think. Well, yeah, yeah. Years from now we'll look back and be like, well, that's completely different. Uh to you know, it might be everybody's just flying FPV drones at each other. Yeah. Or you might just do a quantum simulation and just say, well, the the simulator says that we would win if we did invade or we did defend, so you might as well just surrender now. I I I don't know. But these small tech step changes cumulatively over a number of years, you will look back and be like, wow, that's a big change. There is so many different applications how actually this could be could be applied. And this is also all very, very interesting, and I really wonder how this will involve in the next couple of years. But speaking about that and those applications, so do you think government are paying first for quantum sensing rather than the industry? Or do you think industry will catch up on that? Oh, yeah, no, I think government are still defence are still uh um um significant investor. There are revenue generating quantum sensing companies out there, but but not much. The trick has been the shift, especially in the UK, and we're seeing this globally as well. The shift has been moving away from this uh what I would call research-led innovation to now procurement and requirements-led um acquisition of systems. So rather than feeding out some money to make the labs uh you know, make the quantum sensor a little bit better, they're now starting to say this is what we want to use it for. Can you build it for that? And if you do, we revive it. So is it a good moment right now in the UK market to start um startup in the quantum sensing because of those procurements and this uh you know government paying attention? It's always hard to it's always hard to have a start uh be a startup because there's a lot of yeah, there's limited, limited availability and budget and money, and there's a lot of competitors out there, right? So you've really got to come up with your unique differentiator USP. But I think it's still a uh there's a there's plenty of opportunity both in the UK, the US, Europe, and Australia for startups because all you need to do is look at you know what we do at uh GQI. We we map out all the things like supply chain and components capabilities, and you can identify what a nation or a country is good at and what they're missing. I would always advise any startup would say just have a think about where do you know how many magnetometers are built in the UK or you know, would the UK require sovereign, homegrown capability in that area? And if the answer is yes, then chances are you've probably got a reasonable business. Another tricky question for you in terms of the adaptation and and generation of meaningful revenue. Do you think quantum sensing will be here? It will happen in quantum sensing before the quantum computing, in terms of you know generating uh real big revenues? That's a tough question. So when you say meaningful revenue, if you ask uh if you ask a startup meaningful revenue is anything above zero, if you ask an investor, yeah, break even is when we're above zero, right? No, no. I'm talking about let me maybe precise the question. This is this is good that you mentioned. So right now, when we look at the public stock market in terms of quantum companies, right? So we have like what four or five maybe publicly listed companies, and only maybe half of them or less than half of them really generating revenue. The others are still, you know, working on technology and so on. There is um a couple of others, I think historically the biggest uh uh number of startups going public in quantum industry this year, five or six or seven even. I I stopped can't think to be honest. There's like new and new press releases popping up every day, which is obviously uh I mean it's very interesting and it's amazing. But yeah, the question is here are they all gonna you know generate a revenue as others publicly listed companies? So that's kind of revenue, not the revenue that startups are trying to scrap every single dollar or British punch just to you know prove that the concept works and so on. We know we are in uh in a deep in the deep uh technology here, and you know, the development of technology it takes years. It's much longer cycle than another. It's not it's not SAS, it's not soft, it's typical pure software or B2B software. So yeah, by meaningful revenue, I mean here the publicly listed component as a as a benchmark. Yeah. Well, we have a number of um I think that I can't remember how many companies are publicly listed now. Quite a few, but yeah, there are there are companies well, I think more than that, um probably a dozen at least. But there are some of them that I would call quantum all play companies. And it's those ones that you know have a have a computing roadmap for long-term, have a supply chain or a hardware roadmap for components that are valuable, or have a sensing technology as well, or you know, a clock and timekeeping. It's those ones that can fit uh and fill multiple customers and multiple client requirements simultaneously. You know, if you only sell one thing and you sell a compute a quantum computer that's only going to be valuable in 2035, then that's not that's not going to work very well for you. Well, it might do, but you know, it's not gonna be huge revenues in the next few years. But if you sell uh a clock or a common system or a you know in the tangled network um now, you'll be generating revenue and prove that you you can do that until your um large-scale quantum computer becomes ready. Yep, no, that's percent right. Um in the in the between when you're speaking, I also check there's actually five companies listed right now in US. I don't know about the European market, right? But in the US we have Ion Q, we have D Way, we have Rigetti, we have Quantum Computing Inc. And recently, obviously Inflection. It's launched, yeah. And there's another cup of coins. So so yeah, so we we are still on the beginning of the industry, right? But it's it's it's trending, it's growing, it's more and startup popping up, and more and more startups actually landing on on IPO, which is also also good. Okay. So I'm just looking in the time. We probably should write up, um, write up shortly, but I don't want to let you go, uh Joey, before we get at least one or two questions on the prediction. That's my tradition to to grill my guests on the prediction. Um, because my my ambition is here to come back to this prediction in five years so we can compare and see who's right, who's no, you put pressure on. You've put pressure on now. Okay, Joey. What would be the first quantum technology to truly matter in the real world? And you can define a real world yourself. Yeah, well, that's a good one. Uh well, I what that will truly matter. Do you want to make a prediction about this? I'm biased and I think it's already happened. We already have a quantum technology that truly matters, and that is in the area of timing and clocks. Timing esoterically is one of the most sort of is the thing we all want and the thing we never have enough of, if you were to say that in a sort of philosophical sense. But it underpins so many aspects of modern life. We could not live without our ability to keep time to the way that we do. So, what's the most real useful question? It's already happened and it can only it can only get better, and we have to be be aware of how reliant we are on time and timing solutions and time distribution as well, because they're gonna be it's still gonna be a cornerstone of modern quantum computing and networking and sensing. All of them require good understanding of time. 20%. I like that. I like that. Let's take it here. Okay, another another prediction, or maybe it's not even it could be actually prediction. Okay. So I wanted to ask you if there is any country that you may see across, again, you have access to so many data through uh GQI, which I'm super jealous about, to be honest. So if you think, are there any country that quietly perform outperforming others in quantum defense or in quantum itself? Oh, quietly performing. I don't think there's any country that's quietly performing. I think a lot of countries make a big song and dance about their work in quantum, and you know they want to be perceived of as the best because they want to attract um you know foreign investment and and countries. I would say um uh the the the um Japan, I really admire the Japanese um ecosystem for for quantum. It that's probably the the quiet one. I think because they've got the right idea. If you it's very it's very Japanese in its um in its writing, but it and I can't remember what the translation is, but it's something like quantum computing for the benefit of the people of Japan or something or something like that. So it's very it's very linear for for the people kind of thing. So it's not defense related as such, although it will be, but they seem to have this more kind of like humanistic approach to to quantum and what you'd call a an project management world, an agile methodology. You know, countries write down their plan of this is what we're going to do for the next 10 years for something that we don't understand and might change. Whereas the Japanese program has been like, well, this is kind of this is the goal, but we're willing to change it because we understand that the technology might change and our requirements might change with that. So I think that's yeah, that that that roadmap really inspired me, I think, when it came out and it reminded me why at least why I do science and quantum, which is to you know try and make the world a a bit of a better place. I like what you said, and I I also really admire the Japanese work ethics. I think a lot of their success is coming with this this ethics in mind. But um I like when you said that there is a very humanistic approach to the quantum. And I think I agree. They they I would even say it's maybe holistic, you know, and say like, hey, this is new technology, like you know, following by you know, we had AI and now we're gonna go to the quantum, and quantum will have basically an adaptation with every single aspect of our life. So let's make it, you know, with a human-centering first approach when when we have our our people in mind first when we when we deploy it and when we adapt it in every single part. So I like that. Yeah. Um, I I read about this recently as well. I think it hit the the news so much. So okay, but once we are on um on the geopolitics, do you think there is something uh that can be can be sorry seen as um first geopolitical shock caused by quantum. Is there any event that you can imagine that could cause like a like a shock? Yeah, well, this is one of the things we say uh that accelerates what we call our Q day timeline. So we spoke about this earlier. Yeah, actually, yeah, Q Day could be a geopolitical shock. Yeah, if there is a um a major, which we we start to see if there are major national initiatives for quantum, uh what we would call a like a quantum Manhattan project. Okay, Joey, thank you so much. Uh our time's going to yeah, because we I think we we overexceed the time anyway. So thank you so much for being us here. It was super interesting, and I'm really, really looking forward to which of those predictions will be right. I hope we can we can meet again and some time and and compare it maybe together. That would be fantastic. That was Blonde and Quantum. Thank you for joining me on this journey through the quantum business frontier. If you like the episode, please review it on Spotify or Apple Podcast and help more people discover the quantum world without needing to untangle the theoretical physics. See you next time! Unless the cat change the time and first.