How 1QBit is Applying the Quantum Technology to Real-World Problems

Interviewee: Sasha Grujicic
Chief Strategy Officer, 1QBit
Interviewer: Tom Zuber
Managing Partner, Zuber Lawler

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Transcript

WE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING TRANSCRIPT WAS CREATED BY A ROBOT SO PLEASE FORGIVE ANY TYPOS.

[Tom] Hello, I’m Tom Zuber. I’m the managing partner of Zuber Lawler and I’m on the editorial board of dead cat live cat and online quantum computing magazine. And I’m here with Sasha Grujicic. And he is with 1QBit. We’re here to discuss 1QBit’s vision in the quantum computing industry and how they’re bringing quantum computing technology to solve real world practical problems. So Sasha, welcome. It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you.

[Sasha] Thanks so much, I appreciate being here.

[Tom] So Sasha, first a bit about you. I’d love to know, how did you come upon the quantum computing industry? How did you find yourself immersed in it?

[Sasha] Well, I came across the founders way back in 2010, we were classmates at a kind of post grad-ish program down at NASA Ames called Singularity University. And since that time, the founders had started 1QBit in 2012, off the back of an investment in D wave, which is a quantum annealing hardware manufacturer, and part of their investments was, Well, part of the nature of their investment was the desire in which to play around with the machines. So once they started to realize that those machines didn’t necessarily have software, they thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to be a software company in this emerging industry. We kept in touch over the years, and about two and a half years ago, I joined the organization, albeit from a different vantage point than most, I don’t have a degree in physics or mathematics or computer science.

[Tom] So as your speaking it reminds me a little bit, and I hope you don’t mind the comparison to Microsoft, right? When Microsoft, when the traditional computers were emerging on the scene there, Microsoft made a play and they said, we’re going to focus on the software and not on the hardware, we’re going to let IBM do that. And of course, Microsoft reaped the benefits that IBM became, obviously IBM, a great company in its own right. But Microsoft obviously reaped the benefits of focusing on the software. Do you talk about that?

[Sasha] Yeah, I mean, I’d love to think that we were, we’re on track to become one of the world’s largest companies, you know, but I think that the whole space is very, very early in its development. And I think that the nature of our position as an organization that is primarily a software company, is that we get to see the different hardware types kind of emerge through the different technical milestones that they achieve, and work with a lot of those organizations in which to achieve them. So we get this really wonderful vantage points, and experienced base being one of the earliest companies in this field, to be able to share that perspective, not only with, you know, people who are interested in doing experimental quantum computing, in that kind of fault tolerant gate model sense. But then also work with some of the harbor manufacturers to kind of glean some insight from our experience of eight plus years in the industry. So you know, we’ve seen a lot, we’ve done a lot. And, you know, it’s helps us assess the landscape, the maturity of it, and what types of adoption, we may want to encourage. And then also try to help to accelerate the development both on the hardware and software side of things.

[Tom] Yeah, very exciting. And so let’s talk about the software a bit for the audience’s sake. Can you describe in layman’s terms, what does 1QBit software do?

[Sasha] Yeah, so it’s not a singular piece of software that we’ve necessarily developed, we’re engaged in a couple of different focused efforts. So the first thing just as a couple points of distinction, one is, we really work on advanced and quantum computing, hardware and software solution. So we’re not even though we do a lot of work in quantum computing development, we also look at kind of the leading edge of classic classical based computation and ways in which that we can leverage them and apply those to high value problems that may seem intractable or unsolvable with the traditional kind of high performance computing capabilities that exist out there. And then we also work on the, you know, on the integration of quantum computers into those workloads. So the way in which that we see the future is very much through this kind of hybridized Koch compute lens, which is how to quantum computers and classical computers coexist and work in combination with one another to kind of solve some of these bigger problems. So when it comes to the high value, areas that that we’re most interested in, and I’ve invested in both software development, but also solutions based development in is in chemistry, that optimization and machine learning in AI, and I think those all exist on a bit of kind of a time horizon, the nearest term being the chemistry piece, the kind of next kind of maybe major milestone or category of capability that we hope that quantum computers will ultimately help us solve. And tackle around optimization and then eventually in terms of artificial intelligence and machine intelligence more broadly. But those things are always run through the lens of both advanced classical solutions working alongside quantum computers. So those things are, that’s kind of our philosophy of it and having a guess better been around the block for a little while, we get to derive a lot of a lot of experience and target what we think to be the most valuable use of this type of computation moving forward.

[Tom] That was very helpful. Thank you, Sasha. And Sasha, one of the exciting things for me about the quantum computing industry is just, well, you’re sort of watching this toddler grow up, right, and you sort of don’t know what clothes it’s going to wear as a grown up and how it’s going to walk and talk and all of that you just get sort of notions of that, in that toddler stage, right. And I think the quantum computing industry is like that. And there are so many things that are happening in parallel in order to bring quantum computing, I think, ultimately to the masses, right. And I don’t know if you share that, that notion, but I know, I know many of us do, that, ultimately, quantum computers are going to affect our lives, just like the traditional computer affected our lives going back, obviously, decades ago. So on that note, one of the biggest obstacles to getting to that point in the industry, getting to that point, is finding ways to take this this spooky quantum technology as it is, and to apply that to real world problems, right? And your software does that. So it seems to me that that being one of the biggest obstacles toward mass commercialization of quantum computers, that you have a particular vantage point will let you speak to that. So in a nutshell, I’d love to get into some of the details of how you’re doing that, how you’re taking this spooky quantum technology, and applying that to real world problems. And I’d love to start if we could in the chemical space, right? Can you can you give us an example of something you’re doing to solve a real world problem?

[Sasha] Yeah, for sure. So I mean, I think that, you know, to level set, I think we’re, you know, we’re really in the early stages of this kind of this whole paradigm of computation. So it’s not, you know, we’re not in a production ready state where we can be deploying solutions, you know, that have kind of 99.9% uptime, and scale and replicable ability in terms of deployments that kind of, we require in industry or in governments to be able to kind of perform some of the tasks that we ultimately take for granted with the kind of computational resources that we have on our desks or in our server rooms, around the world doing a lot of these, you know, high value, high value, work. And the way to think about quantum computers today is that they’re largely experimental and the kind of the requirements to build these devices and control these facets of nature and matter at the lowest levels where they you know, the way in which things interact within the computer, a quantum computer specifically aren’t, you know, they’re not as, it’s not as obvious or it’s not as intuitive to the way in which that we see the world at our kind of macroscopic scale. So part of the reason why chemistry and chemistry simulation is so interesting is that because when you get down to the lowest kind of levels of nature, and you’re trying to create new compounds, or new pharmaceuticals, they all kind of are subjected to the same quantum mechanical effects that our devices are. So the reason why we think it’s really interesting to invest behind that is that when you’re dealing with all the kind of spooky effects, as you call it in chemistry, and you’re trying to model those spooky effects into a digital computer, or a classical computer, the size and complexity of trying to model all those spooky effects becomes immediately too immense for you to be able to compute in a simulation. So as a result of that, when you try to simulate chemistry, you have to deal with tradeoffs. So the tradeoffs being around precision, and speed, and scale and cost, right. So you have all of these different factors in a classical computational paradigm, when it comes to chemistry that you have tradeoffs. And when you get into the quantum aspects of it, you know, now you have less of a trade off because, you know, your, your, your problem and the weight exists and defines is exactly, not exactly but it’s very similar to the way in which that the actual devices are operating. So you can have, you can map your problem more directly. And as these devices as these devices scale in terms of qubit counts and reduction of processing time, you can simulate these kind of these molecules in a computer that you could never do that before. So the software solutions that were solution that we’re focused on here is actually A hybridized solute solution that takes advantage of cloud computing resources, as well as the integration of experimental quantum devices in solving these cappies molecular simulations. And I think that if you did a quick survey of the quantum computing industry currently, you would likely hear most people call out chemistry and molecular simulation as being the most kind of the shortest, or the nearest term opportunity for us to unlock value with quantum devices.

[Tom] But fascinating stuff here, right. And one of the things that is difficult to grasp is the notion of software interacting with these quantum particles that are taking the place of traditional bits in a computer. Right. And you’re dealing with things that are so small operating in such cold temperatures, and how does that interface really happen there? And that’s difficult, I think, for most folks to get their mind around, including me, right? And so that, I find that that to be fascinating. How about in the area of optimization AI? is there’s obviously a lot of overlap between AI and quantum computing, and, and one is going to feed the other I think we were many things in in profound ways. So what are, can you give us an example of a practical problem that you’re solving in that area? optimization AI?

[Sasha] Yeah. So in the world of optimization, I think we’re still again, in the experimental phases of what you can ultimately deploy on quantum computers. So the, you know, we can look at, let me just draw a slight distinction here, because I think it’s, it’s important that, you know, when we talk about cubic counts, and when I’m referencing quantum computers, I’m really talking about fault tolerant devices, or even these disk based devices, these, these noisy intermediate scale quantum devices, where the qubit counts are in the like, double digits. And, you know, those, the fact that we’re still at that small level, and of cubic counts, kind of restricts our ability to run any sophisticated optimization kind of optimizations on those device types. That being said, you know, there are that we’ve done some experimentation in the financial sector with a client of ours to do things like strategic asset allocation. So targeting, you know, in that instance, we used, we worked with ion cue to target their device and start to do kind of what would what an asset allocation optimization exercise look like on that device. Now, it’s, it’s very small scale, and you can only factor in so many variables. But I think what’s incredibly important, and I think this is important for the industry more broadly, is that when we think about formulating our problems to target these devices, as you described, it’s not really intuitive, that, you know, you have to kind of program the actual computer, or you have to formulate your problem in a way that takes the integrates things like, you know, the tour, almost like the network facets of the way in which that you build your qubit gates. And, and take advantage of the kind of the scale up from a memory perspective. So why it’s important for industries to start to kind of lean forward into this into this into this industry, in terms of quantum computing, is that the problem formulation piece is counterintuitive, just like quantum mechanics is counterintuitive. So when we’re testing things like how do you optimize a portfolio, you know, you have to think about these things slightly differently. And it’s important to build up those capacities within industry so that as these devices scale, and you start to take advantage of the massive, you know, speed ups and scale ups of these devices, you know, you’re at the ready, and it can offer you a tremendous competitive advantage, because that scale up and that speed up in terms of your ability to simulate a bunch of different combinations can offer you, you know, a point of advantage. And that’s why you see so many banks interested in the space. But one other small point of distinction is that, you know, not everything has to be cooled to you know, zero Kelvin in which to be controlled, we do have, you know, devices and device approaches, which are more stable at room temperature. So we don’t have to do everything in that kind of in the superconducting realm of quantum computing development, there is trapped ions, this photonics called atoms, different approaches.

[Tom] Very helpful. Thank you, Sasha. And on that note, with the innovation that’s obviously happening there, forgive me, I’m an IP attorney. So I’m going to ask an IP, legal question I resist. So on that note, one of the things in the United States that’s that makes things difficult for software companies per se, that it’s difficult to get patent protection, traditional patent protection for software related interventions, right? And I’m sure you’re at least somewhat familiar with that. So on that note, given that you’re a software company, per se, but you’re doing all of this interaction with things that are more physical Including the quantum computers themselves. How much are you investing? When I say you, I mean 1QBit investing in protecting the innovation that’s clearly happening there?

[Sasha] Yeah, I mean, I think it’s important to I think what’s interesting when we have these discussions, you know, quite a lot, and don’t worry about being an attorney talking about quantum computers, I’m an advertising guy talking about quantum computers. So we’re probably confusing everybody at this stage. But that’s fine, we’ll fix it in post, as we say, the, the, from an from an IP perspective, I think that, you know, as you start to develop these kind of novel approaches, or innovations around the applications of these devices, no, it thanks a lot of questions as to what the future value is going to be. And oftentimes you’re taking, you know, educated guesses as to whether or not what you’ve developed is going to be the thing, or it’s going to be another one of those things that is not as relevant as, as you had hoped. And when you think about the, the value of the industry, you know, in the end state, you’re likely going to be able to, and this is true of most industries is that like, the value will likely kind of gravitate towards the extremes, meaning the kind of the device and the software that’s interacting with the device, and then the outcomes in which that it’s creating. So, you know, for us, when we think about our kind of core IP strategy, you know, we really look at it through that lens, which is, if the value on the front end of investing heavily in chemistry is the fact that you can reduce, you no longer need labs, and you can start to simulate all your, all the molecules through your laptop. And that brings reduces the cost of research and development and material discovery and can generate all kinds of efficiencies and green materials that can, you know, radically kind of change the world. You know, that’s where that value lies. So it’s really about trying to assess where you anticipate the value to lie. And I think that, you know, I mean, I think, from my personal perspective, like owning IP and or rent seeking kind of capacity isn’t contributing value to the industry, more generally. So yeah, that’s kind of the way we think about it. And I think about it.

[Tom] Very good, and on that note of innovation, I, we say, okay, we’re going to make software that’s going to interact with these quantum computers to solve practical problems. And that sort of sounds straightforward enough, but there are obviously 100 million problems that need to be solved between here and there. So on that note, is there one particular challenge technical challenge that 1QBit had to overcome since the time you’ve been there that you’d like to talk about? Because I personally be very interested, just in hearing an example of that?

[Sasha] Yeah, I mean, I think that it’s, you know, it’s never just the one thing, right. And I think that if, if I were to, you know, the chemistry folks would be like, hey, know, the stuff that we’re doing and chemistry is the one big technical hurdle like the fact that you can, you know, you can, you can use quantum computers and classical computers side by side in a particular software solution is, you know, we solve that big technical challenge, which is a big technical challenge. The hardware team would talk about know all the error correction and noise mitigation strategies and the products associated with how to architect your hardware is the, you know, the most appropriate technical challenge and then our healthcare team would be like, we’ve actually deployed an AI solution in radiology, and we’re actually saving lives. So like, no. So I think that there’s, it’s hard to just, you know, distill it into one because I think our organization in spite of being like 140, people actually have small teams that are dedicated towards overcoming some of these technical barriers of adoption. You know, that all being said, I mean, even the stuff we’re working with our end customers on in terms of how to formulate their problems in a way that targets these advanced and quantum computing solutions, is no small feat. Like it’s not, it’s not a trivial thing, transferring, you know, the, all the challenges you have in railroad scheduling from the people, the trains, the tracks, the locations, the timing, the cargo, the how you pack the cargo, like formulating an optimization based solution in which to generate, you know, upwards of 30% of efficiencies, you know, in an application by using computers is a huge feat. So, I mean, you know, it’s like trying to pick between your kids and they’re not even my kids. They’re just kids that I get to play with in the playground, at 1QBit.

[Tom] Thanks Sasha but let’s talk about the quantum industry in general. What, how will quantum computing affect practical, everyday human life within the next 5 to 10 years in your view.

[Sasha] I mean, I think don’t think you’re going to see it, I think that’s probably the best way to answer that question is that it’s going to be the, it’s going to be the things that operator unlock, you know, some of the novel innovations in the world that you ultimately appreciate, but will probably be the unsung hero in the background. So if you’re looking at things like, please desalinization of water, and there’s a particular, you know, approach or technology that’s been developed off the back of, of, you know, quantum computation in terms of like, what’s what, you know what’s required in which to desalinate water, so you can have clean potable water from the ocean, then, you know, there may be instances where you see the applications of quantum computers and that capacity, or if you see, you know, generating, you know, large scale efficiencies in the way in which that emergency services tap into disaster response, right, your ability to do these high powered simulations, or common tutorial optimizations, in particular facets of, of the world, you know, through simulation, I think is where you’re going to see the impacts, but you’re not going to turn around and say, like, you know, as a regular person on the street, like, thank God for quantum computing, because now we’ve had reduced, you know, the, you know, the duration of getting emergency relief into this kind of part of the Americas that has just dealt with an earthquake, you’re going to probably think, the fact that we were able to, you know, all the people and the resources in which to get there. So, I think it’s going to be more of an unsung hero in the background of a lot of these things, especially in the kind of five year time horizon, I think when you get to like the 10 plus year horizon, I mean, it becomes total speculation, and then your sci fi, guy. So I mean, I think the way to, you know, what, what our hope is, is just, you know, advancing machine intelligence, you know, through the kind of leveraging of these types of resources to kind of improve the way in which that we all interact with society and technologies moving forward.

[Tom] Do you think that quantum computers whether, it’s 5 years, 10 years, be mass commercialized, so to speak?

[Sasha] I think maybe I guess the answer, I think most of the, one of the questions that it’s a prevailing question is, in the industry, and even outside the industry is what is this stuff good for. And I think we have a sense of what the ultimate applications will be for quantum devices, as they, you know, achieve that fault tolerant at scale 99% uptime type of milestones in terms of development. But the nature of the devices, as we understand them today are still very new to us. And much like quantum mechanics is counterintuitive. Trying to understand what quantum computers can ultimately do in the world is also counterintuitive, because you have to kind of deprogram the way in which that you look at things through this very deterministic lens, and start to think about things through a probabilistic lens, which begs all kinds of questions. So I think that there may be some kind of chance that every one of us will have a quantum computer and are kind of on our desktop or in our laptop. I just, you know, what, what we would use those for, I think, is part of the exciting reason why you’d want to get into this industry is, you know, how do you start to leverage these emerging capabilities to do things differently than I’ve been done before?

[Tom] You know, it’s fun to think about Moore’s law in this context, right? Because it’s tempting to dismiss Moore’s law and can that really go on forever? And at the same time, here we are, and it seems perhaps it can, and every time you think you’re going to hit a wall, then there’s a new innovation, nanotechnology should obviously take us to another exponential curve, and so on and so forth. So then you will wonder is Moore’s Law going to continue to apply to quantum computers so you compare the cell phone that we have today to the computer that took the man to the moon and took up the whole room and it’s a million times more powerful and extrapolate forward and if you do the same thing in quantum computers, are we going to have something sitting on our desk, like an apple 2E that does what quantum computers do and obviously you’ve got all kinds of issues. I heard your note about not having to be at four Kelvin and so forth in all circumstances, but still there are those hurdles and it’s just wonder how long is Moore’s Law going to hold true?

[Sasha] I mean, my perspective on that is that they’re the levels. So first and foremost, big I mean, we keep bumping up against it. And I think that the interest in computation as kind of a general you know, facet of our society and economy is going to continue to gain in Trusting gained traction. I mean, you look at the machine learning and deep learning field as it exists today, it’s, you know, maybe 10, or 100 folds, you know, more advanced than it was even a couple of years ago. And even there where we see these beautiful, you know, beautiful outcomes of simulate, you know, of computers that are beating humans in particular, you know, games are, we’re seeing the advancements of robotics in controlling things that that kind of a human like level, you know, the computational cost required to do some of those things are so immense, that it becomes, you know, you start to bump up against what you can actually do that’s meaningful and novel, and impactful, but in accordance with that is the levels of investment and interest that you’re getting from, you know, governments and universities and people to get involved into things like artificial intelligence and machine learning. And those things are interrelated with quantum computing in many facets. And I think that if we think about it from a more broad perspective as to what drives the acceleration, or the doubling of computational capability with Moore’s Law, a lot of it has to do with the commercial realities are the, you know, the investment realities that are associated with it. So I think that, you know, collectively, the world believes in computation and is investing accordingly. So I don’t imagine it’s going to slow down anytime soon, because the stakes are so high.

[Tom] I agree with that. So let’s say that you had $10,000, to invest in a Canadian in a 100% Quantum focus company, not 1QBit. And we’re not talking about larger companies that have quantum computing divisions, but talking about bonafide, pure thoroughbred quantum computing companies, would you? And you may not want to answer but I really push you to try and answer besides 1QBit. What company would you invest in? And why?

[Sasha] I mean, one, that’s a terribly unfair question. Part of the reason why we’re agnostic, and try to work with everybody is, as you know, precludes me from taking investment positions, in the ones that, that we’d like the best, I mean, look, there’s an emerging ecosystem, I think, in Canada, Canada is probably one of the it’s been around for a couple of years. And it’s and it’s focused on, you know, particular approach with regards to quantum computing development. D wave is, you know, we were, you know, founded kind of by an investment in D wave, so there’s no, they’re a bit more established and, but more at scale. So I don’t know if my $10,000 up is useful to them as it might be to a company like Zanado, by the way Zanado also raised a bunch of money. But I think what’s really exciting, and I think that, to slightly take this kind of question in a different direction is that, you know, we’re deeply involved in things like, the creative destruction lab. So CDL is a whole quantum programming, which we’re involved with, and we, you know, a lot of our team members who are far more technically proficient, you know, spend time with people in CDL, to help conceive of their current strategies and new solutions and new products that they want to, you know, bring to market in a quantum computing realm. So I think that, you know, we’re cheerleaders for the whole ecosystem. And I don’t think that if we took that $10,000 and divided it up by 10,000, gave everybody a buck would make much impact. But let’s just say if there was a an ETF that was, you know, the quantum computing and Canada ETF, we put $10,000 in that.

[Tom] Very good. And then that was a fair answer to an unfair question. So let’s talk about ethical concerns for a bit because obviously, this year on quantum computers potentially are so powerful. What does that do to privacy? And online security and so forth? So how concerned should we be about those issues, privacy security issues in the context of the of the future power of quantum computers?

[Sasha] I mean, ethics, I think are important in every aspect of society in the development of technologies, especially ones that are super, that have a potential impact that the ones that we are talking about, could potentially have. And I think that from a security perspective, there’s many organizations that have very specific targeted solutions for this kind of inevitability of RSA encryption, you know, falling prey to quantum computers now, I think that in the reason why that that is a future risk is that you know, we use prime numbers, you know, we use pick two prime numbers and it gives you a really long other number. And that gives you kind of like your shared code as you transmit data, you know, using RSA encryption across you know, your By so to your bank and so forth. And the reason why quantum computers are you know, a threat to that is because you can factor prime you can you can factor big numbers and determine what the kind of those two prime numbers are, which are, frankly, the kind of keys to unlock that encryption. Right. So I think that there’s definitely a realistic or potential threat there. Just think that the ability in which to step you know, step around or step sideways against those threats. There’s plenty of technologies and approaches I think you can employ that don’t require you to do something as radical as rip out all your servers and fundamentally, kind of transform your nature and the way in which that you interact with people. So I think that, you know, from a security of data perspective, I think that there’s plenty of room to innovate in those aspects that would render maybe some of that kind of requirements from a quantum computer that could eventually kind of deal with the decryption of that information. I think there’s plenty of strategies and ways in which and smart people that are working on that currently. So I think it’s less of a threat than we maybe think it is. But again, I’m not a cryptographer. I’m also not a physicist or mathematician. So don’t take my word for it.

[Tom] So and you may not be able to answer this question Sasha. And so I’m going to ask another unfair question, though, which is, can you tell us about a practical problem that you’re working on solving today? Meaning 1QBit is working on solving today? Because I’d love to hear about that, too. If you can’t talk about it.

[Sasha] Yeah, I mean, I can speak about it in general terms. I mean, I think that as it relates to quantum computing, obviously, we have the chemistry software that we’re developing, and that targets quantum devices and renders them very useful in in, in simulating molecules and determining the ground state of those molecules. So I think that that’s a real world practical application, we’re also doing work in the hardware space. So we’re working with hardware manufacturers to deal with some of that kind of noise that emerges from trying to control these, you know, this, these very low levels of matter and deal with things like error correction, or even architectures or the way in which that you build your gates between different cubits you know, all of those strategies and kind of requirements of building these devices are there and it requires, you know, a village in which to be able to try to solve for that. Because, you know, there’s different kinds of technologies and strategies that emerge from different corners of the world, and the team and the work that we’re doing that space is targeting, specifically, kind of some of those quantum computing challenges. So it’s like the real world and they’re practical, they’re just not in the like, you know, does it does it make fortnight run faster on my device? Probably not, and not in the anytime soon. So it’s probably going to be a less of a kind of a sexy story to tell your kids about, you know, the work he did on quantum computers today.

[Tom] Fair enough, but still pretty awesome. So the most important question of this exchange, what’s your favorite movie? And why?

[Sasha] Okay. He tried to he tried to pin me down and force me to give you a sci fi example. And I immediately rejected the old that’s the only question I rejected in the list. The I mean, for me, it’s, stand by me. So you know, being born in whatever 79 and being a bit of an 80s and early 90s brat, I mean, it’s a beautiful movie. It’s an incredible story. It’s you know, it’s coming of age story of four boys. So it’s got a whole bunch of resonance for me personally. It’s Yeah, and it’s just got so many life lessons all kind of embedded into one beautiful narrative. And you know, the voiceover is wonderful. The conclusion of it is wonderful. You ever even have a computer at the end, as he finishes the story, so it’s not a handwritten book. So I just it to me, it’s a very, it’s just a beautiful, beautiful movie and a beautiful story. So it’s always ranked at the top of my list.

[Tom] I agree with you there, Rob Rotter, did a great job on that movie, he directed it. It also was River Phoenix is I think it was one of his early movies, and he was a real talent. It’s a shame. We lost him as early as we did. So Sasha, that was a wonderful interview and entertaining and educational. So I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. And thank you for all the work you’re doing with one qubit. Really.

[Sasha] Yeah, my pleasure. And you know what, it just occurred to me, I’ll tie it into sci-fi for you. Will Wheaton was on Star Trek next generation Will Wheaton was also in Stand by me. So there we go. We got your sci-fi connection. I love it.

[Tom] I appreciate that very much, sir. Thank you.

[Sasha] Well, thanks for your time. Appreciate the questions.

[Tom] Thanks so much, Sasha. Really appreciate it. Talk soon.

Sasha Grujicic - Guest

Chief Strategy Officer, 1QBit

Sasha is an award-winning technology and strategy executive who works with Fortune 500 companies to deliver exponential growth powered by the new, digital economy. Having overseen annual revenues of close to $200 million and managed over 1,500 employees globally Sasha has worked the world over integrating the worlds of technology, business, policy, media and ideology to develop lasting solutions that balance societal, human and financial impact. Actively working on solutions that range from the future of advanced and quantum computing, Machine Learning and AI, global corporate transformations and new product development, Sasha has worked with some of the world’s biggest companies from London, New York, Paris, Boston and Toronto. Sasha also served as an editor and interviewer at the Lab Magazine where he develops features with the world’s greatest intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman.

Tom Zuber - Host

Managing Partner, Zuber Lawler

Tom focuses on intellectual property litigation and deals, and has advised some of the most iconic companies in the world on their global intellectual property portfolios. He is an avid futurist immersed in emerging industries and technologies, including quantum computing. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, and a summa cum laude B.S. in biomedical engineering from Rutgers University.

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