Brandon Severin

Founder of Conductor Quantum

Quantum Australia 2023

Sydney, Australia

  • Cathy Foley - Quantum in Action
  • State of the Nation - Panel discussion
  • Joel Wallman Keysight - bridging the gap between theory and experiment
  • Warwick Bowen - The potential for quantum in biotechnology
  • Panel - the role of government in quantum ecosystem
  • Barry Sanders - Quantum Canada
  • Jeremy O’Brien - PsiQuantum
  • Hon Ed Husic MP - federal minister for industry and science - Delivering on australia’s strengths in quantum technologies
  • Panel: Cyber security in the quantum age Alexey Bocharnikov, APAC Quantum Technology Leader, EY
  • Andrew Dzurak, CEO & Founder, Diraq - quantum counting private investment greater than $1B per annum
  • Panel: Australia’s strengths in quantum sensing > Andre Luiten, Managing Director, QuantX Pty Ltd;
  • Panel: Bridging the research to commercialisation gap > Clare Birch, Associate, Blackbird;

Cathy Foley - Quantum in Action

Quantum has entered the lexicon of marvel movies. You in industry need to be taking action now. Will Australia lose out on this race due to lack of investments? Even Singapore invests more than Australia in to Quantum apparently? How do you see cooperation with the United States and the UK.

State of the Nation - Panel discussion

  • Collaboration is a great way to find out where the market is heading.
  • International collaboration is just fun.
  • Australia quantum alliance sits under the Australia tech council.

Joel Wallman Keysight - bridging the gap between theory and experiment

  • How to build a quantum computer.
  • Keysight is originally under HP 15 hubs - global support network.
  • Acquired - Signadyne, Labber and Quantum Benchmark.
  • The quantum application: Quantum algorithms researcher developing quantum algorithms to solve real problems.
  • The quantum memory: Passing algorithms to fault-tolerance experts. Error correction involves encoding logical qubits, measuring syndromes, and applying correction operators.
  • Translating to physical control: Quantum control researcher developing signals for hardware (measurements, x-gates, Hadamard gates, etc.).
  • Translating to FPGA: Enabling efficient operation with real-time decision making.

Warwick Bowen - The potential for quantum in biotechnology

  • Biochemical dynamics span a vast range of spatial and temporal scales. life is motion in some sense.
  • Quantum market cap projected to reach $9B after 2030. McKinsey estimates the majority of the future quantum industry will be in biotech.
  • Partnership with IBM, employing their quantum computing technologies like optical nanocavities.
  • Enzyme catalysis - ammonia production is crucial for us; plants do it naturally.

Panel - the role of government in quantum ecosystem

  • Q-CTRL is Australia's first backed company.
  • It is a market failure when world-changing companies are not supported by private investors.
  • Community needs to articulate how their tech can be used to government more effectively.

Barry Sanders - Quantum Canada

  • Canada wants to create a DARPA-like agency but doesn’t want a pure defense strategy.
  • Quantum City - a world-leading quantum innovation hub in Alberta.

Jeremy O’Brien - PsiQuantum

  • Utility means error correction, which means millions of qubits.
  • Photons: Chips can be manufactured using mature semiconductor fabs. Photons do not feel heat and operate at less demanding cryogenic temperatures.
  • Solving the connectivity issue: approx 50x reduction in run-time for compiled fault-tolerant algorithms.
  • What is needed for photonic quantum computing to work? Lots of engineering challenges. Single photon generation purity at 99.9%.

Hon Ed Husic MP - federal minister for industry and science

  • 19k jobs by 2045 (conservative estimate, likely 50k). Could add $9Bn to GDP.
  • $1B fund, loans, bills and equity.

Panel: Cyber security in the quantum age

  • A quantum network will be more sparse than classical, meaning it may be possible to cut nodes off due to reduced redundancy.
  • QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) doesn't meet the assurance requirements of most western governments yet. PQC (Post-Quantum Cryptography) is the future.
  • Need to be able to change the underlying encryption algorithm when needed. This is hard.
  • Homomorphic encryption and blind computing: You don’t want the person performing your computation to know what you’re computing.

Andrew Dzurak, CEO & Founder, Diraq

  • Only 10^5 qubits are needed if the error rates are 10^-9.
  • Diraq wants quantum computer on a chip - similar to current computers.
  • History of 1998 to 2023 of work on Silicon. Get 9 logical qubits in 3 years.

Panel: Australia’s strengths in quantum sensing

  • If you are able to speak the language that industry understands, labs will find partners very easily.
  • Why quantum sensors: What do we do if GPS goes down? We need sovereign capability for time and location. $2B a day in Australia depends on accurate time.
  • Quantum sensors give an absolute result; they don't drift and don't need calibration.
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