How did I get roped into moderating a conversation about quantum technology at an AI conference?
“Transformative technology doesn’t become transformative when we invent it. It becomes transformative when we adopt it.”
Lisa Lambert
IonQ
It’s a great question, and the answer has more to do with the potential intersections between the two technologies than any revenge on the part of ALL IN’s organizers after I asked them to ‘mix it up’ with my panel moderation this year.
They’re both potentially transformative technologies, and much can be gleaned by identifying their similarities. All tech tends to be lumped together in the popular consciousness, so it can be helpful to spend time understanding how AI and quantum are fundamentally or functionally different.
That’s how I found myself at Canada’s largest AI conference this year talking to a trio of quantum leaders—Xanadu’s Nikki Bhatia, Nord Quantique’s Marc-Antoine Lemonde, and IonQ’s Lisa Lambert—alongside CGI head of AI Chris Juryn, about where the two technologies intersect.
They’re both fields with equally ambitious goals—AGI and fault-tolerant quantum computing—that require significant capital investment and R&D. But I found myself most compelled by the potential differences: the specific problems quantum will be built to solve (that AI can support) and how that might aid commercialization of the technology, even if it never has a ‘ChatGPT moment’.
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There are also a few very obvious differences between the two sectors that might have less to do with the underlying technology and more with who is building it. Despite similar capital requirements, the quantum industry has not promoted a FOMO or FUD hype chamber to aid with fundraising. And unlike their AI counterparts, quantum leaders have not fundamentally lost control of the technology they’re building.
Why? And will these key differences last, or is quantum still too early to be as out of control?
I posed the question to my wonderful panellists, and they offered thoughtful and nuanced answers. So let’s dig in.
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Feature image courtesy ALL IN.