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Hey, my name is Eva, and this is Blondon 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 QR. 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 industry's 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 shorting as a cat joining the conversation. Her name is Moon. Let's get started. Hello everyone, welcome to the new episode of Blonden Quantum. Today, with me, I had the pleasure to host Dr. Puya Dinat. Puya, thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, and thanks for having me here. That's a pleasure. You are um a chief revenue officer at Quantum Computing, Inc., but you do have a little bit different background. You have a background that's a PhD in uh electrical engineering. Um my question here is does the science still inform your daily work, or do you literally genuinely shift it into a different mode of thinking? Well, actually, science plays a big role in what I do on a day-to-day basis. Nowadays you cannot approach any topic without a scientific approach and proper way of doing it. So, and particularly for for this market, for the quantum market, where there is a need to create and market, there is no existing market that you can leverage. You need to have an approach to customer discovery and like product management in a scientific approach, gather data from the market, act based on the market, based on what the customers want, and then implement the product on that. And that there is a scientific method to it because you want to take all the internal biases and everything out of it. And that's what I'm trained as a scientist to do. But it was I got fascinated by this side of the things, like basically making making money or bringing economic value to the research uh that's been done when I finished my grad school and a postdoc, and I was uh I got uh attracted into uh look uh I I started looking into commercializing what the work that I had done at my PhD and that's where I also got trained into uh the business side of things and and learned uh how to apply the scientific method into customer discovery, product uh development, product management, business development, and then uh basically generating a revenue model or a business model around some high technology that that exists there. And and that's where my scientific background has quite helped me a lot. In the quantum world, it's uh it's actually very helpful to have that background in physics, in photonics, and in electrical engineering, because you need to have a on have an understanding of how the hardware works. Quantum is is a topic that is very complicated, so knowing a thing or two about it helps in getting advantage in in the actual market and trying to place your product into the hands of the customers. Well, first of all, I must say congratulations because there's not really many people on that world who understand both business and um quantum. So you are definitely one of those unicorns here. I'm very I'm very happy that we're gonna be here together and talk a little bit more about numbers because usually my guests are speaking about technology itself and um you know the underlying of the business. But today I'm very excited to talk about actually the customers, the that you have, the the plan, the the roadmap, um the products, and so on. But before we go into it, speaking of the business, I noticed in your CV that you previously also worked for Luminar Technologies, just before QCI. And recently QCI acquired Luminar Semiconductor as a part of yeah, the the mother company bankruptcy. That was probably 110 million of acquisitions. It's a hundred and ten million dollar acquisition. That's correct. So my question here is was that a consident or did your network and knowledge on that play a role and you were part of the decision making? Yeah, the the photonics and the quantum industry is that they they are a small world. So you and people get to leverage all the relationships that they have and and the knowledge that they have from the eat either of the industries to be able to push the business forward. Now, in in this case, the Luminar Semiconductor, which was a subsidiary of Luminar Technologies, that's the part that we acquired because based on the knowledge that internally we had and the gaps that we had identified and the key technologies that we needed to be wanted to have control over, and particularly in this case, it was uh a light source technology and be being able to the photonic and the integrated circuit technology as well as the detector technology and packaging capabilities that came with the luminar semiconductor, those are some of the critical uh technologies that that are within our roadmap, our technology roadmap for our quantum platforms. And that was the motivation behind it. So we had identified what will what areas we want to target, and then me knowing the market uh from beforehand, the company that I had worked at before was very helpful in being able to quickly like point into like the companies that we need to look at. So that's that's initial direction, that's where it came from. But of course, it's uh all of these acquisitions and all of it are teamwork. So it helps to have connections within the thing, but but it is a teamwork that that makes it. So that was basically like the missing puzzles that you were looking for. So those were those were some of the technologies that that we were looking for, and uh Luminar Semiconductor happened to have the expertise in multi more than one area that we were looking for, so it was it was a very logical acquisition for us. Okay. So speaking of selling quantum technologies, you know, I had an impression that very often when those quantum companies are trying to go to the market and you know commercialize the technology, sell the products, most buyers do not really fully understand yet what they are even buying. So I wanted to ask you how do you have the first conversation with your potential customer? So it it's all driven by what problem you're trying to solve. If we approach the customers trying to teach them about quantum physics first, and then getting into the technology, the weeds of the technology, and then see whether it's useful for them. You cannot necessarily have that first conversation that is fruitful. It it's people get fascinated by the physics of it, but at the end of it, they come out of it and be like, okay, what can it do for me? Exactly. So we try to reverse engineer this. Basically, we go to people and look into the problems that they are currently trying to solve, and we come back to house, provide the feedback internally, and then see how we can make our technology solve those problems. So, and for the state of quantum industry, the the the stage that many of the uh quantum companies are at are to first show that for legacy problems that exist, the quantum, quantum computing, and other solutions, they can address those and then better be a better solution for the legacy technologies to basically show to the customers that their problems can be solved better and produce some value for them. And that's the way to approach it in these conversations. So we have identified certain areas that we think we would have most impact or more immediate impact, and we are going after those customers and trying to find the people and talk with them and try to identify their uh problems and basically offer ours as a way and as a novel way of solving their problems. So that's customer first and then the technology follows third one. Yes. Very startup way, but I I like it. But when you said you identify some of this area, can you elaborate more on this and tell us what exactly are those those areas and also what kind of potential problem this can solve? You know, like if you meet some skeptical enterprise buyer and give them some examples, what would you say? So I can address a couple of couple of our verticals both on the quantum computing and quantum communication side, because we do have technologies for both, and we are working on offering the products for those. On the quantum computing side, the uh the current platform that we have and are Dirac products. And basically they are a photonic uh-based quantum optimization machine. So the optimization problem is a very general problem within many different industries, whether it's finance or whether it is logistics or whether it's chemistry or for all of these, at the end of the day, it's it's a kind of a math problem that needs to be solved. Our machine solves a very particular kind of formulation of this math problem. And we try to, based on some uh research that we've done in the industry, we look into sectors that are already trying to solve that math problem but using classical computing. So our method is to go, our way is to go and identify those areas, some of them I name, and try to replicate them on our Diract platform and try to solve those problems. And then based on the results that we get, that's this conversation, the starter for going to the customers. And in some areas we show advantage, in some other areas, we need to still work on algorithm development and better ways of solving the problem. But but that's a way of uh penetrating the market and pushing for market adoptions. On the quantum computing side, for instance, on the quantum communication side, for instance, we have a very unique value proposition as making the uh the quantum communication fully quantum secure. The legacy technologies that that are there based on quantum key distribution, they all leverage an authentication of the channel that is still classical. So for any adversary, they can break into that classical authentication channel and still compromise the communication. Our value and QCI's main value is to making that authentication channel also quantum secure. So then you will have a full stack of quantum, the key distribution be quantum, as well as the authentication be quantum, and leveraging the quantum physics, you will have a fully secure system in a sense that if anyone tries to tamper with the channel, uh you would immediately know. And that brings in the added layer of security that is needed for deploying a full quantum secure solution. That's a very diverse offering, to be honest. And I would like to follow up a little bit um about it because obviously the TFLN fund business and the quantum computing business is a little bit different, and even in the quantum computing, you have a different offering, right? You have the quantum computer, you have the uh the the the what you mentioned the cryptography side of it. So can you tell us um are those offering or is this offering dedicated to the same customers, or do they have completely different customers by it? So for all of the technologies that we have on the on the computing side, everything is enabled by photonics and quantum photonics uh specifically. So we have three verticals in the quantum site, they uh call them capture, compute, and communicate, basically sensing, computing, and communication. And all of these are enabled by the the technology that we have through making chips in a material system called thin film lithium nibate, which is a novel technology, it's also not known as a TFLN. And TFLN is very diverse, it's a very special material system that you can extract more performance out of this material system that previously you couldn't. And that enables, for instance, on data center operations to reach into higher bandwidth to have more data throughput in their systems at a cost-effective way. Or in our case, we leverage the nonlinear properties of this TFLN material. That's something that's not been that much exploited up to this point because the technology wasn't available and the material wasn't developed. But now that TFLN is approaching its maturity, now we can extract those additional features basically to perform quantum operations and utilize it in our quantum machine. So uh the TFLN and the foundry that that we have, the fab that we have, it is right now a prototyping and uh research and prototyping fab that services our internal product roadmap and technology roadmap. At the same time, we notice that there is a big drive for TFLN coming from the data center market because of uh high data throughput that TFLN can enable that. And the technologies for for us, for us to be able to make those cheap chips, it's not that necessarily complicated or that different from making it for our quantum applications. And that provides us an additional revenue stream to be able to offer that, particularly for our TFLN foundry. We are US-based, and there are not many US-based uh foundries that can offer that. And that puts us in a unique position to be able to offer the services that that we have to to the broader market, at least as far as it goes for people who are curious and want to do prototyping and want to do some quick research and uh get a flavor of TFLN. So that is that is an additional revenue stream that that this material has provided for us. Amazing. And your facilities are in Arizona. That is correct, that's in Tempe, Arizona. Okay. Okay, and now I want to talk about the other of things. So literally, I think three weeks ago on April 23rd, you announced that um NeuraWave as a deployment ready. Um, can you please explain what's what NeuroWave is for someone who never heard of reservoir computing? So, yes, NeuroWave is the opto-electronic implementation of this computing modality that we have that is based on photonics. And now for a photonics is the science of manipulating light so that you can you can basically transfer information through light or process information through light. And light is very unique in a sense that it doesn't necessarily interact with the environment around it, which makes it very good for performing and also light travels really fast, so it makes it very good for fast processing of the data, also lower noise processing of the data. So those are some of the unique features of doing data processing with light, and hence hence photonics. And NeuraWave is an AI machine or AI computer or AI at the edge computer that basically utilizes the optoelectronics in this in this uh rendition for performing AI operations through a reservoir computer. At the end of the day, it's it's a time series predictive, so it it and it can get real-time training. That's that's the uh something that is exclusive to like very very special to NeuroWave that you can do real-time training and of this system of this AI at the edge, and it doesn't consume much power, so you can deploy it in the field or wherever you need to have AI capabilities, but you don't have access to much power that you can deploy. So there are there are many scenarios in defense applications and let's say oil-field applications that you don't have a data center ready, or you cannot just have it in the field. But neural wave can be there and provide you with with AI operations. And uh that's the main the main thing about neural wave. It is a photonic computer, it's not a quantum computer, but it is our QCI's approach into uh addressing AI and AI hardware market through the neural web. Again, all of these are enabled by by the photonics and the quantum photonics that that is a core part of all the technologies that we have. Correct. And then one of the other differentiations that you mentioned actually, because of your photonic modality, um, is the fact that this is a room temperature temperature operation. Um, so you know, in the industry we talk a lot about how this is a big advantage for both photonic and neutral atom and so on. But I wanted to ask you, as a chief revenue officer, do you think the enterprise bias they really care about it? Or is this more like we use it for a cost story? The enterprise adopters care about it because once you go into cryogenics, then that means that you need to have an infrastructure built about it. So buying a quantum computer that requires cryogenics for an enterprise at that point means that okay, it's not only buying the machine, they have to also go buy it the infrastructure that supports that and hire the people and the maintenance people and everything that comes with it. So it's not, let's say, someone pays, I don't know, I'm just making up the number, uh, $50 million for a quantum machine, and then that's it, and there is no overhead. It actually comes with a lot of overhead. Uh is the cost double then if for meet cryogenic? I don't know how much uh more the cost would be, but but I know that it's it's something that gives a pause to people who want to adopt it. Also, another thing about uh cryogenics is that it makes uh large-scale deployment of it very, very uh complicated. So if you look at the quantum computing solutions that are available right now, all of them are trying to work on networking them in a sense that the final quantum computer would be one unit of computing, the size of this room, this building, or or the building that you and I are sitting on, which makes it in like for critical missions uh something that is not easily deployable. I mean, you cannot load a cryogenic on an on an airplane and like expect like reliable operations, bringing on the on the battlefield or something. Yeah, so that that effectively makes uh limits the business model that like uh for for the cryogenic computers and limits that or limits it to people who only can afford it, or make it mainly into a B2B uh business opportunity. Now, having a uh quantum computer or having a uh computing platform that operates at room temperature will give you that flexibility that you don't need much overhead. You can probably put it in your data center and just putting the right cooling elements around it and and be able to utilize that. Of course, the uh going into the room temperature, that's uh that but I have to make this distinction that our version of computing is an analog quantum uh photonic computer, while others is a gate-based universal quantum computer. So from that perspective, they are they are different. It's not um it's very much application-specific what we make, so we go after each uh application and make it for that, while the other one is universal and it's it's good, it can solve a broader range of problems. But then again, you have to do the analysis and be like, does everyone need the universality that that that is needed? Or in like an enterprise deployment, you can get away with the room temperature and uh receive the same functionality. And that's what we are banking on. Uh, we want our machines to be practical and usable, and we just deploy them uh without the businesses needing to like have let's say hire five quantum scientists to be able to just operate at the machine. We want the people that are currently working on in these companies to come and adopt the technology and it improves their their work in any shape or form that they need. That's that's make a lot of sense. And then I will actually want to talk a little bit more about because um when we were talking about narrow wave and the fact that it's deployable right now, but you also work on the entropy quantum computers, which sounds fascinating, but it's a little bit on aerial stage and for me and maybe for for a lot of people a little bit abstract. So I want you to uh tell us what it is, who is that for, and uh what kind of problem you can solve better than anything else available. So quantum computing is a very academic name that that we gave to the quantum model, the modality that we are uh implementing the computing. So at the end of the day, what uh what it comes down to our method of computing is we define, we shoot pulses of light in a uh in a feedback loop, and these pulses of light have some sort of built-in quantum state into them. And then we initialize the system and perform the operations through like the some elements that we have in the machine, electrooptic modulators enabled by a lithium nibate and tin film lithium nibate and these sort of things. We conduct the math problem, we perform the math problem through manipulating these pulses of light through these elements that I mentioned, and then we let the system evolve into uh the ground state or the solution state, and we do the readout of that and then return that as a solution or as it as a solution to the problem, the math problem that we try to solve. So the process goes that someone has a math problem, they come in and use our Python interface, they put in all the elements of that math problem without needing to know what the physics of it is, and then we have um uh we have an application that does all the translation and bring it into the photonic domain or the domain that we manipulate light, and then we let the system go through the evolutions, and then once it settles into the ground state solution, we read that and then translate that into actually the solution that the user has been asking for. So it's a pretty seamless way of for us, for our for our computing system, of being able to utilize the machine without needing to know what's going on in the physics part of it. We take care of the physics, you and let you solve the problems that you have. That's a that's a beautiful saying, by the way. And by the way, I really like the name. I think it's it's it's a cool name. Um okay, changing a little bit uh topic, yeah, and coming back to a communication that you mentioned before. Um, I think like uh Quantum Computing Inc. was very busy this year. Uh this year, as a lot of going on. Um so when I was preparing for the interviews, a lot of I need to catch up. So uh I wanted to um to refer to something else. Uh earlier this year, on or OFC conference, you announce your partnership with uh Siena, the global leader in um high speed connectivity. So I wanted you to tell us a little bit more what you gonna what you've been doing with Siena and um how is the Think close to you know being deployed or something that a bank or telecom can use? Is it next year? Is it few years? Tell us more about it, please. So the approach to the quantum communication for for us is any system or any solution that we we try to deploy, it has to be compatible with the already existing network infrastructure. So it's it's gonna be a very hard problem to solve if we want to go all alone and try to like reinvent the wheel. So but what we know and what is unique to us is we know how to make the networks and the connections through the network quantum secure and fully quantum secure in in not only QKD but actually the uh you tend to be also securely using quantum uh quantum physics. So and then in this path in this method of commercialization we need to have work with the existing ecosystem and Siena is a key player in there with their market share and with their leadership in quant uh in in uh in telecommunication and data communication networking so it was very logical for us to work with them and try to deploy our solution and do co-demonstration of how our solution can coexist with the current network infrastructure. And it's it's being done in in multiple steps we actually before doing this demo with Siena we we did a very first demonstration of our quantum solution last year at Ecoc and then uh then at OFC we we we had partnered up with Siena and showed that uh to to the customers and to the people who are interested in that and they are looking into more more and more data points into the the practicality of a quantum communication system. So that's what we are after in our partnership with Siena to bring the new technology to the market through a great partnership that we have with the market leader in networking and show that the quantum technology that we have is not only on the papers and on textbooks but it's actually something that is can work with the existing networks and existing network infrastructure. Okay. Thank you for explaining that right now I would love to jump a little bit more to talk about the numbers that's something that is your daily bread um and it's very excited for me because I have a really rare opportunity to speak to chief revenue officer um speaking about the the market so your cap your market cap right now is around two billion is that okay well yes about that something around that and last year your revenue was a little bit less than $700,000 which make it like almost $2700 price to sales ratio I know that this this is not unique for QCIA and I wanted to use this occasion sitting with you to look across the entire publicly trade quantum sectors um because obviously companies collectively worth tens of billions of dollars they are only generating a few hundreds of millions in revenue between them obviously that's changing there's a lot of production a lot of excitement we're gonna talk a little bit uh later about that as well but I guess the question here is isn't specifically about QCI I want to talk about the market itself what do you think is this a sign that public market fundamentally don't know how to price a deep tech yet or we are on the beginning of something bigger like you know biotech and this before the drug really arrived generate a lot of excitement then recently we saw exactly the same path with AI companies where the value on the potential long-term revenue did not really you know catch up with the revenues and so on. So um do you think we're in the same moment for quantum right now and all of this hype and excitement so I think quantum technology is going to be transformative. And I say that based on my personal experience when I was at grad school and I I was doing my own grad research and then came across this concept of performing computation using quantum physics, reading Feynman's work and all of that. And then it gave me goosebumps when I read it in my grad school and I want it's it was something that I then I uh I wanted to follow and and learn more about and participate in to the level that I just couldn't shut up in like Thanksgiving dinners or like family gatherings to to talk about it. And people were fascinated by it. People were like oh you say smart things so so and and it was it was that for me it was a passion. But and then I started looking into like seeing that companies are popping up like small or large all all over and governments started noticing that and all of this is because the potential for the quantum market is so high and it can be transformative that I think there is a consensus and agreement that if any of this happens and becomes commercial then the potential will be very high. And I think that's what the public markets are looking into the potential of it. And people it also comes on the back of uh when the public markets um uh started to learn about the AI and its potential uh I think uh the public started to notice that a little bit later than like some some folks who had seen it like many years ago. So a lot of FOMO here a lot of FOMO here. Yeah based on that experience I think the public w wants to make sure that that they are looking into quantum uh I personally saw the potential and that's what uh directed me always to pursue quantum and now I'm I'm doing I'm in this business and I think if uh this sentiment exists in the market and that's where the pricing comes from uh all the evaluations and all of it are are are coming from it's the recognition from the public and the private entities public entities as well as the governments that this technology has a lot of potential. Now it's up to all of these companies to be able to deliver on the vision to show that that this potential can become reality and that's that that's on the plans for all of these companies and the competition that the QCI currently has to to deliver on their roadmaps and and I think think I hope everyone is successful and and this this potential becomes real. Okay. So in in general you think that in these public markets we are right now like kind of home for the quantum business and it's not like we're asking the the private retail investor to be patient and maybe get into the role that normally um only venture capitals were doing. I cannot make make make recommendation one way or the other how the the how the private investors or retail investors should should act or or not act. It's totally up to them. My my understanding my feeling is that um at the the value and potential that I recognize in this field I think generally everyone else have also recognized that and then they need and then people decide how to they want how they want to take um action on it. I think from what I see in the roadmaps from not QCI and ever all the other companies that I see it's the investment uh the investors in this need to show exercise patience on this but for the the technology to come to to its full fruition but I also am a believer in the in the quantum technology so that's great. Okay and um speaking further about the numbers and maybe a little bit about your competitors the biggest ones so um you know IMQ right now is crossing hundred million in the revenue um for the last year 2025 do have some live employment and they I think they're claiming they have 135 um clients um how do you think about that from QCI position uh and the perspective in in that race where some of these competitors have already uh maybe a significant uh head start uh yes and many of these companies have a lot much longer history than then QCI actually so they've been I think uh you mentioned D-Wave D-Wave has been in business for a very long time I think a couple of decades and and I and Q has had a head start uh compared to to QCI but QCI's technology is newer than everyone else's it comes with the flavor of practicality and volume deployment uh compared to the competitors so that's been our ethos to make sure that what we make is is practical and people can adopt and actually solve the problem uh we have demonstrated momentum uh in in our um in our revenue and all of it uh year over year as um and I think that's that's the momentum that we are hoping that we can we can maintain and we show uh we show much more growth in the in the in the coming months and years. So uh true some of some of our competitors are showing a large amount of revenue oh some of them mainly through the acquisitions that they have done but uh but I think we have generated the momentum and we can maintain the momentum. And you also had a very successful acquisition recently the one that we mentioned uh previously of Luminar as semiconductor and in fact I found some information um in the last quarter last year that your CFO um referenced some analyst report projecting 20 to 25 million um in annual revenue for 2026 just for from the acquisition which is I think very um very exciting and I wanted to see in what what do you think about this estimate is that reasonable because it wasn't like the formal guidance it was just something that you know some analysts projected so what should investor actually hold you accountable on this number or not? I defer that since we don't have a general guidance I don't think I can provide it right now right now. I'm sure the analysts have done their I'm hoping they have done their homework and the numbers that they've come up with are uh their opinion uh it's not something that scares me it's not also something that I feel like in a snap I can make that it's it's it's some something that we need to work on. If someone an analyst creates an expectation for us in the market uh we do see those and and we uh we want to make sure that we meet the expectations but that also guidance is not really something if we haven't put it officially out there I'm not in the position to to to provide it so yeah I understand but from your answer I I see that you are thinking you or you may think that this is um reasonable I know the analysts sometimes are wrong and both ways right people usually oh under they overestimate or so on but sometimes they underestimate and I think your last earning calls that only happened yesterday actually prove that right because the analysts were projecting for the Q1 for you 3.2 3.3 point three almost uh million million dollars in the revenue and you overexceed that or like around 10% so here we are any comments on that that's it was I was very happy to see to see the numbers and that is that's the part that I mentioned earlier that we are building the momentum and we are hoping that this momentum carries us away I believe in our mission and analysts again they are they are an observer of the market based on the data that they have they try to make predictions and we do hear the predictions and we we we do our best always to be able to meet the expectations and in this case we exceeded the expectations which makes us makes us very happy but again we are focused on on uh doing things the right way as initially I mentioned the scientific way that that gives us a proper planning for us to be able to deliver on the numbers that we say and be trying to avoid hype as much as we can we try to be to provide the most accurate data to the market for people to decide on their own what's what's the best for them. That's refreshing someone telling me we're trying to avoid the unnecessary hype. So do you think this number is actually setting the pace for commercial traction for the rest of the year? These are the numbers that I think we we can we can keep looking at and we can we can trace some of the a a good portion of the number has come through the acquisitions that we have done and the revenue generated by them I think over the course of the month and many years that are to come the quantum part of the business would start to generate more and more revenue at and could be assisted by the revenue that we are generating through our photonics company that that we have acquired. Okay. And from what I notice um QCI is not only um catching up on generating a quick revenue but you're also sitting on a lot of cash um right now if I'm correct that's a 1.5 billion in cash is this correct yes okay so um around around 1.5 around that so yes the question here I think will be how do you how do you feel about it and where is this um decision coming from to just sit on this cash? Are you maybe planning another acquisition? Is that a signal to the market that um you know there is stability in the company so so so so the the retail investors don't need to worry or is there maybe some complication maybe some people ask a lot of questions like why do we sit on this cash? What's your perspective on that? So a good uh thing about having the amount of cash as we have is it enables us you use you use the right word stability it enables us to be able to plan long term and be able to well plan on that and try to execute on on that long term plan as opposed to trying to be reactive like every quarter to without much cash every quarter looking at our expenses and all of it and try to cut costs here or there and and and try to to survive through the business. Now we are past the survival mode and we are in the thriving mode. And that's what this cash enables us to do is to to be able to thrive responsibly as opposed to thrive too fast or too slow. So acquisitions was part of our strategy when we did the financing round and it may or may not continue depending on how the plans are going. But again this this this money is the part that gives us the flexibility to be able to have long-term visions and execute accordingly I'm I'm really excited about that and I hope um you know I shouldn't probably say that but I'm also a shareholder um but we will cut we will cut we will cut I'm very excited okay let's talk a little bit right now on what's going on on the public companies in quantum industry because this year is it's very busy not only for QCI but for everyone else and looking at all the pure play quantum companies going public right now we have only this year Inflection Xenadu Horizon Quantum already listed IQM Pascal are on the decks or starting racks and there's obviously this elephant in the room which is continuum filling it um it's S1 right and uh again some analysts estimating the valuation very very high I saw number between 10 to even 20 billion which is huge. So I wanted to ask you how do you look at the overall competition here? Is it it is good for QCI because it's it's it grows the whole pie or it may be hurtful because suddenly there's you know more other places or other horses to put your quantum bet if someone is doing it. So it's good to have competition it helps us focus and make sure that that we can deliver on our vision and of our version of the quantum in quantum products and quantum industry the more the competition you you you typically it makes you nervous because we are like okay am I gonna be the winner I I want to be the winner and and there is uh it kind of like it is exhilarating because now you know that if you don't deliver then there are others that may may eat your lunch. So it has that effect to it as well. What's what uh with all these competition the way that it's gonna work for us is to help us just focus on our vision and make sure that we deliver on the promises that that that we make and be able to develop be part of the quantum um ecosystem and that's something that is that is critical for the quantum industry there is no quantum market or there was no quantum market a few years ago and it's it is in its infancy so there needs to be a host of infrastructure and ecosystem in place for for any of these companies to survive. None of them would survive on their own and uh that's why the competition is good for it's it's gonna drive the innovation it's gonna uh drive novelty and business models and all of it which if there was one or two companies there you wouldn't have had that and I think good for all the companies that they are trying to to bring their technology showcase it to the public market and secure investment and I'm sure the the public market has its own gauges of of figuring out who is going to be the winner and who is not there is a very thriving community of quantum enthusiasts online that that they try to keep each other informed uh and it's it's nice to see that such a thing exists. That's good. And I actually I'm glad you said this because I wanted to ask you about the quantum hype right now and there's more and more of that. And um you emphasized today during our discussion multiple of times that you as a company as a QCI is very responsible in both developing um the the technology but also setting up the KPIs and the targets and selling your technology. I wanted to to ask you what do you think about this hype? Is it like ahead of reality is behind reality or is roughly I don't know aligned? You know the hype always comes from uh the word people use hype when when they are they have some uh anxiety or uh about what is gonna happen in the future and they are like okay it's hype hype because it's not not gonna exist in the future uh I I don't look at it that way it's it's people are enthusiastic uh about the quantum uh industry they recognize the potential and since no one has a crystal ball to really tell what is gonna happen tomorrow or five years from now then that that anxiety kicks in and then starts people start labeling these as hype or non-hype. What I see is that there is a lot of potential in this market and uh in the quantum industry and the amount of technology that is being developed to address of the grand challenge of making a quantum computer it's it's a lot of IP that is being generated among all across which solve not only quantum problems but it probably has applications in many other fields. So there is a lot of interest in the quantum industry and at the end of the day it's not only going to uh it's focused on the quantum but it's going to have a lot of derivative products and technologies that comes out of it that is going to be used for betterment of humans human life. So uh from that perspective I don't know I mean you can look at it as like the time that people were working on like taking the shuttle to the moon or or or or or all of that. A lot of technologies that NASA used to develop that mission is the ones that have found application in people's daily lives. Now I I don't know whether quantum industry is at at the same scale or or not but what I'm seeing the kind of technologies that we are trying to solve and address that has a lot of value beyond just the quantum technology. So this this is much much larger than quantum itself. And you mentioning um the NASA as an example and I I think I agree with you that in the next decade or two we will see a lot of application of quantum technologies not only computing but all technologies in our daily life but you mentioned NASA and previously also emphasized how big role um the government is placed on the market when they saw as a first the potential in in applications and I know you had some cooperation with NASA in the past I'm not sure if it's if it's currently still there but can you tell us a little bit more if government is still a customer and what do you do for them and if the cooperation with NASA is still on? We do have uh government customers it's all NASA then the program that we work on is on and we we have one through our TFL and we have we are working with NIST and government is important and quantum technology is something that along with AI the the governments all across around the world have recognized its uh potential and what it can do. Again it's people understand the potential sometimes the technology takes lags the potential by a few years but it's it's gonna happen and trajectory for humans is always positive hopefully so uh the governments have recognized that and that has because of that backing it helps quite a lot by people by de-risking the commercialization and making sure that people spend the due time on the development of the technology and addressing the challenges right now for it to become real tomorrow. So government involvement like it's is certainly something that is very positive. That's perfect and must be also very exciting I guess not everyone can come back home and tell their kids hey we're working with that is working for NASA right? Yeah. But I wanted to ask you do you think this is actually an advantage of QCI the fact That you are a local company and some companies that are waiting in the pipeline to, you know, or entering the public market, they are foreign company. And so do you think being a local giving you this advantage for the future government contracts? For the future government contracts, I mean for our future contracts, one way or the other, government or commercial, I cannot make make a comment right now. But us like QCI being a US-based company, that gives us the advantage of knowing the market in the American market, which is a very large market. And that market has many as sectors to it. It has a banking sector, it has a commercial sector, it has the government sector, and all of them are sizable customers. And we are working on being able to address the problems for each sector properly. So being a US-based makes working with the US government easier. Doesn't mean that it's just a business that we can be we can just win easily with without addressing a problem. So our focus is to make sure that from our government customer to commercial customer to every sector, our identify the problem worth solving and then make sure that our technology can bring an advantage, an unfair advantage to that sector. So similar concept, similar idea for by approaching the business gets applied to the government and non-government sectors. And obviously the post-quantum cryptography, which feels like a pretty close, near term, uh concrete revenue opportunity that can be can be cashed. And um speaking of this, I wanted to ask you actually how do you position yourself as a QCI primarily on the market? Is it a security company, is it the quantum computing company, or is maybe, I don't know, photonic company? We are a quantum photonics company. So so we use photonics with the quantum flavor and and we try to address the problems that exist uh that are worth solving, that we know that our our technology can solve that with an unfair advantage compared to legacy technologies. So as it goes to security, yes, we can we can have solutions there that would give provide you a full secure solution enabled by quantum technology. Doesn't mean that necessarily we are a cybersecurity or security company. Again, the core part of our technology is quantum photonics, and that's that's who we are and the technology that we develop. And then now in there is the element of technology, and then there is the element of product and what the market pool is. So my job, part of my job is to actually go and translate what the market wants to to our technology team and in the connect the two through through the right product. Okay, and you mentioned also something very interesting about the American market, how diverse and and big the market is itself. And I also see and observe the market reports that are issued by um different players and how the numbers are actually changing. This is like incredible. I mean, I find in in McKinsey, I think, reports previously that they were estimating the quantum computing vendor revenue will be at uh 4.4 billion by 2028, which I personally think is is very underestimated, considering what's going on in both the revenue but also the valuation of the quantum computing that we will talk today. But BCG actually announced well announced published in in their report that the technology will create between 400 and 850 million billions in total economic value by 2040. And I think they also said that with 9270 billion flowing to hardware and software providers. So that gap between the what the vendors are getting paid and the value they unlock for customers is enormous. I wanted to ask you how you look on these numbers and what feels closer to you observe the market. So the the early stage adoptions, that's that's that's where the for from the early adopters, that's where the smaller numbers come from. But there will always be typically there is a point that you go from the adoption into actually or the early stage adoption into widespread adoption. And that's the part that always kicks in and and or when when it kicks in, that's where the the bigger numbers come into play. Now, the the report that you said with the big numbers was uh looking into like the economical opportunity integries, and that was a very big number. And between where we are and where we are can be there, I don't think the adoption of the technology would have happened linearly because if it happens linearly, that number wouldn't uh we wouldn't reach. But it's typically the case that these transitions are nonlinear or exponential. Uh, everyone talks about the hockey stick because of that. Yeah, yeah. And everyone waiting for this GPT moment in the quantum world. Yes, everyone is waiting for that chat GPT moment for quantum. We certainly hope that that uh that it happens. That's I mean, that's why I'm in this business. Doesn't mean that I have a crystal ball for the future, but I have I think that um that the potential for this technology is so high that we can have uh have have like that moment coming in the happening in the coming years. Okay, but what will happen because I I guess you also um do some analysis and the risk analysis and so on. Um what will happen if this promise in quantum computing is not delivered commercial promise by I don't know, 2030. Um what then the future of QCI will look like? Um so the the 2030, there is nothing magical about year 2030 or 2029 or 2031. Um it's it's a round number that people like to refer to. Um I think they're far, far away. Yeah, and and but but but um but if you look at what I think um I hope I'm not wrong on this one, but IBM I think predicts like, or uh not saying I IBM, the DARP DARPI in their quantum uh initiative program that they had, the quantum benchmarking initiative program that they had, they were looking for a utility uh-based quantum comp or quantum computer with a utility into in early 2030s. So there is there, and we are in 2026, so there is uh a number of years before before we get there. But as it goes for QCI, one of the reasons that that we are targeting practicality of the quantum technology is to bring in value and business value today. If we had focus only on uh gate-based or universal quantum computers, I don't think necessarily our products would would generate that utility scale anytime by 2030s. But the way that we are approaching it, like we're looking into the risk mitigation, we know that the current version that we have, being an analog quantum computer or application specific, it may not solve all the problems, but it will be very useful for addressing some of the business issues that currently exist, or at least show that we have utility today. So that's the way that we are thinking about it. And uh it and we are de-risking that, let's say, potential or the hype that that exists around the quantum quantum market. We have and we have also the diversified product offerings. Uh, that also helps. And on the quantum sensing, we didn't get to talk about that part much, but there is some uh there's there are products there, and then there are products on our quantum communication as well. So it's a diversified product offering, is another way of mitigating the risk. That that's what I thought. I was thinking basically about the photonic foundation and the chips that you produce and so on, that that could be actually um a really good diversification that a lot of the quantum companies simply do not have. That is that is correct. And and that's a unique technology that that we have for particularly for tin film, lithium, naivate, also on the photonics, the luminar semiconductor acquisition and new crypt acquisition. We have a foundation on photonics as well that all of those would would uh leverage, gives us leverage into developing products that are useful and practical for immediate need as opposed to let's say five, ten years ago. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so sticking with the photonics, I wanted to ask you because you spend most of your career in uh photonics, and most of people, I guess, outside of our industry, outside our bubble, have no idea what those words actually mean. So I would love to ask you if you had to explain photonics to let's say a curious 12 years old, what would you say? I say photonics is the science and engineering of manipulating rays of light, also known as photons, in a way that they do useful operations for humans, for for people. Whether you can transfer information through them, whether you can turn the light on the ceiling, all of those are part of or your LEDs on the ceilings or the displays that are in front of you are all part of the engineering known as photonics or photonic engineering. Uh basically being able to manipulate light to for the betterment of human beings. So that's that's the photonics. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. And um, I had the last question. We usually, you know, I'm asking my my guest about prediction, but I think we we kind of touch a lot during our conversation. So I'm gonna skip that. But I wanted to ask you if there is anything about QCI that you wish more people understood, and maybe something sometimes this is getting lost because of the you know noise of being a public stock company and so on. So if you personally would like people know something specifically about QCI, what would you say? That's a very interesting question. So, what is what is unique about QCI is the wealth of knowledge and also a very dedicated team that exists within QCI. And if people would come and see like the team that we have here and how dedicated they are to this mission that we have, I think that's something that I would like people to learn and know more about QCI. It's one of the best teams that I've been part of and have been working with. So uh it's very it's a very great experience waking up every morning and come and see here my colleagues and the team, and I just continue working because they are also putting their life into this and they believe in it, and makes me want to dedicate more of my my time and life to this. That's a beautiful word, and it seems like a beautiful company culture that you have there. So, congratulations. And can you tell us um how many employees do you have right now and where are they located? Um right now, give or take, we are around 200 people, and uh our offices are we have two offices in our headquarters is in Hoboken, New Jersey, right across the river from New York City. That's a beautiful, beautiful place. So um we are also hiring anyone who is listening looking a little bit. Guys, the opportunity is here, yeah. Yes, uh, we have a second location in New Jersey, we have uh a couple of locations in Massachusetts around Boston and in Tempe, Arizona, as well as Santa Barbara, and we have also Chicago as another office with a new crib acquisition, and we have people folks working in Washington, DC area. So Alderman, an older one is but also, yeah, you mentioned Santa Barbara in Chicago and obviously Arizona. So, guys, if you're looking for a job, whenever you are, doors are open. Okay, um, yeah, thank you so much. Uh, it was a pleasure uh likewise to host you in uh blonde and quantum. So thank you. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, bye. 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 another podcast and help more people discover the quantum world without needing to untangle the theoretical physics. See you next time! Unless the captain first.