Entangled Things

In Episode 152, Emma Rosenfeld, Research Scientist at Google Quantum AI, joins Patrick and Ciprian for Google’s first appearance on the show. Emma traces her path from mechanically exploring quantum systems at Harvard to quantum sensing at Google X and quantum computing at Amazon before arriving at Google. The conversation digs into quantum error correction — what it is, why it was the field’s saving grace, and where the experimental evidence now stands across multiple hardware platforms. Emma explains T gates and why they present a unique challenge inside most error correction encodings, before walking through Magic State cultivation, a technique developed by her colleague Craig Gidney that significantly reduces the resource cost of creating T states, and its recent experimental validation on Google’s Willow processor. The episode closes on the honest assessment of where quantum algorithms stand, what quantum computers will realistically be a surgical tool for, and why overpromising is one of the field’s biggest risks.

In Episode 151, Abhi Chopra, Founder and CEO of BQP, joins Patrick and Ciprian to make the case for a different way of thinking about quantum. Rather than chasing quantum advantage as a blanket claim, BQP takes a problem driven approach — identifying which parts of a workflow benefit from quantum inspired or quantum native computation, and meeting engineers where they already work. The team dig into BQP's OneCore Engine, its native integration with MATLAB, and why circuit depth rather than qubit count is the real bottleneck for complex simulations. Abhi shares two concrete examples: a propeller design project with drone company Modobolo that produced a patent pending 3D printed design, and a Space Force SBIR award where quantum assisted machine learning reduced a model from 6.9 gigabytes to 3 megabytes for deployment at the tactical edge. The episode closes on IBM Ventures' investment in BQP and why the quantum and AI convergence is starting to look like it did on the wall.

In Episode 150, Colton Dillion and Rick Carback of Postquant Labs join Patrick and Ciprian to introduce Quip Network, a decentralized, open source protocol designed to commoditize quantum compute the way CUDA democratized GPU access. The team dig into the four core problems facing quantum today: unclear benchmarks, high education costs, closed ecosystems, and fragmented talent. Quip Network addresses these by creating a bid based marketplace where quantum operators can monetize unused capacity, and consumers can access compute without needing a quantum PhD. The conversation covers proof of useful work, where solving optimization problems and random circuit sampling both benchmarks hardware and earns compute credits, as well as how hybrid quantum classical computation fits into the architecture. Rick weighs in on the cryptographic timeline, estimating a 10% probability of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer by March 2028, and what that means for securing Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets today. 

Quip Network hub: links.quip.network
Quantum Doomsday Clock: quantumdoomclock.com

In Episode 149, Patrick and Ciprian take stock of where the money in quantum is flowing. The conversation covers IBM's plan to invest more than $10 billion over five years, the US Department of Commerce's nine letters of intent totaling over two billion dollars under the CHIPS Act, and QEra's $230 million raise with Nvidia involvement. The team dig into which modalities are getting the spotlight, why neutral atoms are drawing attention, and what Microsoft's Majorana 2 bet could mean if it holds water. The episode closes on the bigger picture — whether we're nearing a defining moment for quantum like ChatGPT was for AI, the geopolitical dimensions of the race, and the importance of getting to the quantum-born generation.

In Episode 148, Gustavo Cancelo, Senior Scientist at Fermilab near Chicago, joins Patrick and Ciprian to talk about QICK, the Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit, an open source platform developed at Fermilab that has become a widely adopted tool for quantum control and readout across four continents. Gustavo walks through what quantum control actually involves, why calibration and characterization are as important as the qubits themselves, and how QICK's MIT license and affordability have lowered the barrier to entry for universities and startups worldwide. The conversation covers QICK's reach into quantum sensing and networking, including dark matter detection experiments, before closing on QICK 2 — a next-generation version with onboard AI engines and low-latency inter-box communication designed with quantum error correction at scale in mind. Large industry partners including Microsoft and HRL have recently adopted QICK, and QBlocks has acquired commercial distribution rights ahead of the IEEE QSC conference in Toronto in September (https://ieeecsc.org/event/conference/2026-ieee-quantum-week)