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  1. home
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  4. arrow_forward_ios 06
  5. arrow_forward_ios Australia to rethink its position as a global quantum leader

Australia to rethink its position as a global quantum leader

10 June 2021

Last century, Australia was an international trailblazer in quantum computing. Now we are falling behind the rest of the world. So what can we do about it?

Abstract computer chip and bright lights with map of the world in the background (blue tones)

Image: WallpaperTip

If Australia is to reinstate its position as a global leader in quantum technology, a clear quantum strategy, strong political leadership, and a focus on policy and public investment is needed, according to a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

The report compiled by ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC), An Australian strategy for the quantum revolution, argues countries with a substantial quantum portfolio will dominate the information processing space in the coming decades. And Australia is lagging behind.

Major findings of the report were discussed by coauthors and quantum researchers, Dr Simon Devitt and Dr Peter Rohde from the University of Technology Sydney, Professor Gavin Brennen from Macquarie University and Dr Tara Roberson from the University of Queensland, at an ICPC forum in Canberra last week.

Dr Devitt warns Australia is at risk of being crowded out globally,if we don't match the level of sovereign investment in quantum programs by other OECD nations.

“We still have the talent here, but we don't have the capital,” he says.

“And it's becoming harder and harder for us to compete, when corporations are pilfering talent left right and centre from Australia,”

"We've just got to take it to the next order of magnitude," he says. "If the rest of the world is going to increase [quantum] funding by a factor of 10 or 100, we've got to increase it by a factor of 10 or 100."

The first and foremost long-term goal is that we can't put ourselves in a position where we end up becoming purely a client state.

Dr Peter Rohde
UTS Centre for Quantum Software and Information

Emerging quantum technologies will transform many of our future industries, from healthcare and finance to communications and logistics.

Quantum cryptography for instance, creates encrypted codes that can’t even be broken by a quantum computer - a boon for the military and security sectors.

But while the future benefits are huge, Dr Peter Rohde warns Australia also needs the capabilities to manage potential threats.

"It's not just about 'We want to develop this technology and have it'," he says. "We also need to­­ be mindful of who we don't want to have it," 

"The first and foremost long-term goal is that we can't put ourselves in a position where we end up becoming purely a client state,"

"If you think of our reliance on silicon chips at the moment, we're completely dependent upon others,"

"[We need to] to position ourselves so that we're producing things and selling them to others, rather than licensing a cloud subscription service from a future quantum cloud provider,"

"Ultimately, economics is what determines strategic strength."

ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is urging senior policy makers to establish a national consolidated strategy to prepare Australia for the quantum revolution.

WATCH THE FORUM : An Australian Strategy for the Quantum Revolution, presented by the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre

00:03

[Music]

00:06

my name is daniel cave and i'm the

00:07

deputy director of aspie's international

00:09

cyber policy

00:11

center which now totals around 30 people

00:13

working across

00:14

cyber critical and emerging tech foreign

00:16

interference info ops and disinformation

00:18

issues

00:19

uh thank you very much for joining us

00:21

for the launch of our project a new

00:22

report

00:23

and australian strategy for the quantum

00:25

revolution and for the authors of the

00:26

report we'll introduce

00:28

uh in a little bit for flying down uh

00:31

here to join us and for tara online is

00:33

um i think skyping in from queensland

00:36

um before we begin the proceedings i'd

00:38

like to acknowledge and pay respect to

00:40

the traditional owners of the land on

00:41

which we're currently sitting

00:42

another wall peoples it is upon their

00:45

and ancestral lands that the australian

00:46

strategic policy institute is built

00:49

uh and as we share our own knowledge

00:50

with each other today may we also

00:53

pay respect to the long history of

00:54

knowledge sharing and the enduring

00:55

traditions of knowledgeable peoples

00:58

this is the only second time i think in

01:00

the last over a year now that i've

01:01

spoken to a room of actual people

01:04

as opposed to the never-ending cycle of

01:05

100 virtual events

01:08

uh where you largely don't see anyone on

01:10

the other side and it's really nice to i

01:12

think have this

01:13

hybrid model of events become the new

01:14

norm uh we're all here today in person

01:17

in a fully

01:18

very very covert safe room and i think

01:21

we have 150 or so people

01:23

joining us online and others will catch

01:25

up on youtube later so

01:26

i really like that model it caters to

01:28

everyone whether you want to turn up in

01:29

person or watch from your pajamas later

01:31

on i think it

01:32

it has a lot of traction the report

01:35

produced as a part of this project

01:37

makes a very strong and compelling

01:39

argument for a ramp up

01:40

in australian focus on quantum and that

01:43

would include a clear strategy

01:45

strong political leadership and

01:46

organized policy focus and public

01:48

investment

01:49

quantum computing quantum communications

01:51

and other quantum enabled technologies

01:53

will change the world

01:54

reshaping geopolitics international

01:55

cooperation and strategic competition

01:58

and as this paper argues in the past

02:00

australia has held a competitive

02:02

advantage in this space but is at risk

02:04

of falling behind and

02:05

really i think revealed through the

02:06

research and there are copies of the

02:08

report up front

02:09

has already really fallen behind the

02:12

report also i think very importantly

02:14

recognises that quantum is just one

02:16

among a number of critical technologies

02:18

and that a step change is needed in

02:20

australia's policy settings related to

02:21

critical and

02:22

emerging technologies more generally

02:25

it was really important to i think all

02:27

of us who worked on this project over

02:28

the last year to have a very sort of

02:30

policy

02:31

focused report and there was a huge

02:32

amount of back and forth between us

02:34

on the policy recommendations which i

02:36

think ended up coming out at three or

02:38

four pages or so which is quite unusual

02:41

we also went through about 10 internal

02:42

and external peer reviewers

02:44

which again is more than usual but we

02:46

wanted to make sure that this piece of

02:47

work was commented on not just by

02:49

quantum experts

02:50

but also those who work across the

02:52

critical tech field in the private

02:53

sector on the policy side and civil

02:55

society and so on

02:57

and this i thought was really important

02:58

so we ended up examining both the

03:00

opportunity and challenges that

03:02

quantum brings australia whether it's

03:04

from a university and research

03:05

perspective a business perspective and a

03:07

government and policy perspective

03:09

the way i'll run our event today is i'm

03:11

going to ask everyone uh

03:13

i've written here i'm going to ask

03:14

everyone on stage but you're already

03:15

here um

03:16

we're all we're joined by these three

03:18

entire virtually i'm going to ask them

03:19

one to two questions each

03:21

then we'll open it up to the audience so

03:23

please make sure as they're talking you

03:25

think of different questions that you

03:26

might want answered i want to make sure

03:27

we have at least 20 minutes for a back

03:29

and forth

03:30

i also i think can get questions online

03:32

and i have an ipad here that apparently

03:34

will feed me questions which is very

03:36

convenient uh and then we'll focus bang

03:38

on we'll finish bang on 6

03:39

30 so that we can um enjoy canapes and

03:42

drinks and sorry to those online who

03:44

don't get to participate in that

03:46

uh now to our panelists and report

03:48

co-authors

03:49

so simon uh at the end here is a senior

03:52

lecturer at the center for quantum

03:53

software and information at the

03:55

university of technology sydney

03:56

and co-founder and managing director of

03:58

the quantum consultancy firm

04:00

hbar tara online joining us from

04:03

queensland he's a researcher in science

04:05

communication and responsible innovation

04:07

working with the arc centre of

04:09

excellence for engineered quantum

04:10

systems and also csiro

04:13

i'm gavin here on my left is a professor

04:15

of physics at macquarie university

04:17

working in quantum information theory

04:19

he's also director of the macquarie

04:20

center for quantum engineering and a

04:22

chief investigator

04:23

for the arc center of excellence in

04:25

engineered quantum systems and then

04:27

peter in the middle there

04:28

is a senior lecturer in arc future

04:30

fellow in the center for quantum

04:31

software

04:32

and information at the university of

04:33

technology sydney

04:36

um simon i'm going to kick off and start

04:38

with you if that's all right

04:41

the report that that you've all produced

04:43

and that we're launching today

04:45

argues that australia has previously

04:46

held a global leadership position in

04:48

quantum

04:49

but is now being left behind could you

04:51

outline to us sort of what competitive

04:53

advantage australia has

04:54

has previously held in quantum and

04:56

arguably still holds some of

04:58

and why is it and how are we falling

05:00

behind the rest of the world in this

05:02

space

05:03

well i mean we got into quantum quite

05:06

early

05:06

um compared to other nations around the

05:08

world so the the center for quantum

05:09

computing technology

05:10

was first established as a special

05:12

research center in 2000

05:14

got kicked up to a center of excellence

05:15

in 2001 when the center of excellence

05:17

schemes came into

05:19

came into the arc funding paradigm

05:23

and as a part of that we grew very very

05:25

strongly so

05:26

sydney melbourne queensland perth

05:28

basically all the capital cities

05:30

um had a very strong representation in

05:33

terms of quantum experiments

05:34

for quantum computing communication

05:36

sensing and sort of the major platforms

05:38

that we've been doing

05:39

and consequently we ended up having a

05:41

huge impact on the world stage

05:43

so we basically invented optical quantum

05:46

computing

05:47

up at the university of queensland in

05:48

griffith we invented

05:51

the silicon paradigm for quantum

05:52

computing at unsw with

05:54

professor michele simmons and others and

05:56

we had a huge theory component

05:58

up at uq down at melbourne university

06:00

where i graduated from

06:02

and that sort of kept going throughout

06:03

the 2000s australia was a very

06:06

attractive destination for quantum

06:07

researchers

06:08

obviously academics in australia get

06:09

paid comparatively quite high

06:11

on world standards and it was it was

06:13

tough to get into the australian system

06:15

and actually participate in it

06:17

then what ended up happening was around

06:20

2013 2014 we started seeing

06:23

a much heavier level of investment

06:25

coming in both from

06:27

corporations the venture capital sector

06:29

but also

06:30

governments and governments that really

06:33

didn't have much of a quantum program so

06:35

the

06:35

most notable ones china so china came in

06:37

at about 2013 2014 and started dumping a

06:40

whole lot of money into it

06:42

and started training up a huge amount of

06:44

domestic talent

06:45

uh actually mostly through japan um and

06:48

what happened is is we haven't kept up

06:50

we haven't kept up with this level of

06:52

investment we're really at a risk now of

06:53

getting crowded out

06:55

globally because we're just not

06:57

competitive from a funding standpoint so

06:59

for example

07:00

as we detailed in the report australia

07:02

was sixth

07:03

in terms of sovereign funding uh in

07:05

terms of the oecd

07:07

prior to about 2013 2014 now we're last

07:11

and in fact we're the only member of the

07:12

g12 that doesn't have a national

07:13

initiative

07:15

um so basically all major countries have

07:17

announced something the americans have

07:19

announced

07:20

several major programs including the u.s

07:22

national initiative that was a 1.2

07:23

billion dollar project

07:25

the chinese have announced that they're

07:26

dumping 13 billion into quantum

07:28

the europeans have done a billion um the

07:30

french and the germans just on their own

07:32

have done two and three billion

07:34

respectively in the last year um even

07:36

the dutch

07:37

just announced in april that they were

07:39

going to put a billion dollars into

07:40

quantum computing on top of the european

07:42

flagship

07:43

so at the moment it's just becoming

07:45

difficult for us in australia to keep up

07:47

in the way that we sort of planted the

07:48

seeds for it

07:50

in the early 2000s we still have the

07:52

talent here but we don't have the

07:53

capital

07:54

so it's becoming harder and harder for

07:56

us to sort of compete with

07:57

you know either the corporations which

07:59

are pilfering talent they're frightened

08:01

center from australia so

08:02

amazon google ibm microsoft they're all

08:04

in the game

08:05

um or it's other national initiatives

08:09

that have huge experimental budgets or

08:10

theoretical budgets

08:13

so unless australia really sort of

08:14

decides okay we're going to have to do

08:16

this we're going to have to do this much

08:17

more seriously

08:18

now i wouldn't for a second suggest that

08:20

we can compete financially with the

08:22

level of china's investment or the u.s

08:24

investment

08:25

but we did a comparatively very good job

08:27

in the early 2000s

08:29

when it came to holding our own even

08:31

though

08:32

smaller population a smaller capital

08:34

base to play with

08:35

we've just got to take it to the next

08:36

order of magnitude if the rest of the

08:38

world's going to increase funding by a

08:40

factor of 10 or 100

08:42

we've got to increase it by a factor of

08:43

10 or 100. so that won't necessarily

08:46

match the other investments but it will

08:47

keep us in the game

08:49

tara i'm going to throw to you now

08:51

online

08:53

um in the public discourse around

08:56

critical technologies we hear sort of

08:58

bits and pieces about

09:00

what these technologies are and what

09:01

they're capable of

09:03

but how that is portrayed publicly i

09:04

think can be quite patchy and seen

09:06

through a particular lens so for example

09:07

how quantum may benefit

09:09

uh just the defense force or one

09:11

particular industry sector

09:12

what i think is often missing and this

09:14

came through a lot of your contributions

09:16

to the report

09:17

is how quantum will likely impact us on

09:19

a societal and individual level

09:21

could you run us through how you see

09:23

quantum impacting our society and us as

09:25

individuals over the next say decade or

09:27

two

09:30

so i think um first off we we

09:33

covered up a bit of a time frame um i

09:36

think in the report to try and give

09:37

people a little bit of scope

09:39

uh for for addressing where we see

09:42

near-term and then long-term

09:44

implications of quantum technologies um

09:47

i guess on the international scale the

09:50

important thing that i think came

09:51

through

09:52

is like we heard from the chief

09:54

scientist in march that

09:55

quantum is this particularly

09:58

game-changing industry for australia

10:00

but like any significant piece of

10:02

technology it needs to be developed like

10:05

responsibly

10:05

ethically and inclusively and if we've

10:08

learned anything

10:09

from the history of technology in

10:11

society it's like two key things

10:14

first that we're pretty terrible at

10:15

anticipating how technology can impact

10:18

us and second we can't just assume that

10:21

that's all going to happen

10:22

in some sense of public benefit so

10:24

trying to think through some of those

10:26

things is one of the recommendations

10:27

that we put into the report

10:30

the promises that we hear from quantum

10:32

technology use in society are really

10:34

broad and that's what makes them so

10:35

exciting so it spans these

10:37

multiple areas so healthcare all the way

10:40

through to financial services

10:42

telecommunications through things like

10:44

well weather modeling

10:46

but the conversation that we're not

10:48

having at the moment is really around

10:51

the public good of those technologies so

10:54

breaking down the motivations for

10:56

investment beyond just talking about

10:58

national security and economic gain

11:00

which you know those are not surprising

11:02

motivations for any national policy

11:04

in technology they're kind of the

11:06

default reasons for investment

11:08

um but i think we need a little bit more

11:11

so starting to look into more grounded

11:13

case studies about individual

11:16

technologies so if we're thinking about

11:18

those near-term

11:19

options looking at something like

11:21

quantum sensors and thinking about how

11:23

we see them in different areas like

11:26

civil engineering

11:27

in resource recovery and in autonomous

11:29

systems so three very

11:31

diverse kind of use cases just there

11:35

and then delving into who will be

11:37

impacted by that development in use

11:40

and taking our lead from the examples

11:43

from other novel technologies so

11:45

most prominently we've got artificial

11:46

intelligence and machine learning

11:49

where our understanding of the peoples

11:52

and the environments that we're going to

11:53

be most impacted

11:54

by those technologies came a bit late

11:56

and we had to be quite reactive

11:58

in our responses and mitigating ongoing

12:01

problems

12:03

we've also seen that a bit in energy

12:04

efficient technology so chibita

12:06

pathurasi

12:08

in in the us pointed out to congress

12:10

that research and development can be

12:12

really focused on feasibility and

12:14

economic gain

12:15

and inequities and innovation are then

12:18

addressed retrospectively with limited

12:20

success

12:21

so in the report the idea was that

12:24

there's a bit of a call

12:26

for us to be proactive as a nation about

12:28

what we're going to do with novel

12:29

quantum technologies

12:31

and and thinking about how we can really

12:32

benefit from it

12:34

so maximizing the benefits of the

12:36

technologies and bringing in

12:37

stakeholders to make it better

12:40

there are different tools that we can

12:41

use for that like inclusive design and

12:43

responsible innovation

12:45

and the policy recommendation was really

12:47

about making use of different expertise

12:50

in dialogue with government and policy

12:52

and industry

12:53

as well as everyone in quantum

12:56

to approach technologies uh from the

12:59

different viewpoints

13:00

and then establish a framework of some

13:02

principles for best

13:03

uh practice creation and then i think

13:05

use

13:06

so that we can prepare the tools and

13:08

processes that we need for governing

13:10

their introduction and use in in our

13:12

society

13:15

thanks tara i wish you were here with us

13:17

on stage today um

13:19

gavin i'm going to turn to you now um

13:22

there appears to be

13:24

this global race to build quantum

13:25

technologies sort of happening in real

13:27

time

13:28

um how is this race playing out around

13:30

the world and what strategies

13:32

at different countries around the world

13:33

employing when it comes to quantum

13:35

whether it's our allies or

13:37

or partner countries or countries that

13:39

are not our partners or our allies

13:41

and a chaser to that which really makes

13:43

yours unfortunately a three-part

13:44

question

13:46

is that in the report uh you all argue

13:48

that this is not just a race about

13:49

science and commerce but it's a race for

13:51

geopolitical leadership

13:53

what does that sort of really mean yes

13:56

uh it's a great question so in fact

13:59

yeah questions there is a real race and

14:02

you can actually see it played out

14:04

um so you know a couple years ago

14:07

google announced a quantum supremacy

14:09

experiments where they

14:11

they demonstrated in a 53 qubit

14:14

cubit is what we call a quantum bit

14:16

device

14:17

the sycamore chip which performed a

14:20

computation

14:21

which would be extremely hard to do

14:25

on our classical computers even

14:26

including supercomputers

14:28

and not long after there was a response

14:32

from

14:32

competitors there was a response from

14:34

ibm saying well let's think about that a

14:36

little more carefully maybe we could

14:38

alibaba had a response in china and then

14:41

of course there was an actual

14:42

experimental demonstration by the

14:43

chinese

14:44

of another problem that's very hard to

14:46

solve on classical computers

14:48

i should mention that both of these

14:49

problems the ones by the chinese and by

14:52

google

14:52

are completely useless as actual

14:55

computational problems but in terms of

14:57

demonstration it's a very

14:59

big technical and scientific advance in

15:02

demonstrating

15:02

control of quantum devices at the single

15:05

level to a point

15:06

where we could do something that just

15:08

could not be done on classical computers

15:10

in a reasonable time

15:11

and you're going to see this race

15:12

playing out a lot more so there there

15:15

are some big players

15:16

on the scene for quantum computing

15:18

there's

15:19

of course google ibm microsoft

15:24

and uh then then there are some

15:28

less well-known companies but they're

15:31

not no longer really could think of them

15:32

as startups but actually

15:34

large companies uh like psy quantum

15:37

which works on photonic quantum

15:39

computing

15:39

co-founded by two australians

15:42

experimentalists and a theorist

15:44

there is ion q based in the us which is

15:47

working with what are called trapped ion

15:49

quantum computers

15:52

and there's another company in toronto

15:55

um xanadu which was founded by an

15:58

australian

15:58

experimentalist began on photonic

16:00

quantum computing

16:02

um and it's

16:05

we don't know who's going to be the

16:07

winner we don't even know what

16:08

technology is going to win

16:10

but you really see it as a very

16:12

competitive race and

16:14

people aren't releasing all their

16:15

results it you know

16:17

a few years ago people were quite open

16:20

about saying what their technology could

16:21

do

16:22

now it's much more secretive you learn

16:25

as you go

16:27

because it's a big payout uh i could

16:29

just say like when i started out

16:31

my first postdoc fellowship was uh

16:34

funded by darpa to work on quantum

16:37

computer architectures

16:39

and that was in the u.s at nist

16:42

and the intelligence communities were a

16:45

big part

16:46

of getting the program started in the

16:47

u.s because they actually worked closely

16:50

with the scientists this is another

16:51

thing we pointed out in our report that

16:53

it's important

16:54

to open up these levels of communication

16:57

between the scientists and

16:58

the intelligence communities um but and

17:01

that was largely spurred because quantum

17:03

computers could be used to crap

17:06

public key cryptography which which of

17:08

course is used from everything from

17:09

credit card transactions to

17:12

uh you know attorney attorney client

17:15

privilege

17:15

documents which are secured uh

17:18

using publication cryptography that you

17:20

want to have secured for a long time

17:22

if a quantum computer comes out then

17:26

you've completely lost the privacy

17:27

associated with those kinds of documents

17:29

so it's a big risk and people you know

17:32

want to spend a lot of money

17:33

um but now uh yes

17:37

it's really unsure whether whether the

17:39

us is going to

17:40

have this kind of dominant position that

17:42

they've initially had because of the

17:43

initial investment

17:44

because of these big infusions of cash

17:46

in europe and in china

17:48

south korea and japan and we believe

17:51

that

17:52

australia should be one of these players

17:54

because we have the

17:55

intellectual capital people want to come

17:57

here

17:59

we just need the the political will and

18:01

the investor interest

18:03

um and to get into the third question

18:05

try to not

18:06

take up too much time yes so there are

18:09

there are a lot of uh consequences for

18:12

quantum technologies beyond just

18:13

cracking codes and just doing things

18:15

faster

18:16

so there's for example there's

18:20

quantum sensors which you know everyone

18:22

has a phone

18:23

which oftentimes has an accelerometer

18:27

and a magnetometer these devices that

18:29

help you navigate

18:31

and you know important issues of if

18:34

you're in a situation of

18:35

a gps denied environment because of some

18:38

attack

18:39

then quantum technologies can provide

18:41

you a way to

18:43

efficiently and accurately navigate your

18:46

your

18:46

your um craft um and

18:49

uh they can also use quantum sensors for

18:51

mining

18:53

so if you have a much better way to

18:54

determine where precious minerals are

18:57

you will have a strategic advantage over

18:58

your competitors which will certainly

19:00

play a role

19:01

for example in mining activities in

19:03

africa and other nations where

19:06

you you need to be the best the best

19:09

team around

19:10

to get the advantage of having access to

19:13

those

19:14

those minerals so

19:18

there are a lot of geopolitical

19:20

consequences as well

19:22

to movement towards digital currencies

19:24

because

19:25

suddenly you're going to have power of

19:27

computation determining

19:29

the value and integrity of currencies

19:32

and

19:33

who has access to the best computing

19:35

devices which will be quantum

19:38

will have an advantage in that sector so

19:41

yeah all these things become quite

19:42

interlinked in sometimes ways we didn't

19:44

anticipate years ago

19:46

it also sounds incredibly multi-sector

19:48

like this isn't just a defense issue

19:49

actually it'll be agriculture and

19:52

healthcare as you said strategic

19:53

minerals like a whole bunch of areas it

19:55

sounds like it will be really

19:56

impacted um peter lucky last and again i

20:00

think i've got a two header here for you

20:03

i wanted you to come in on what

20:05

specifically are the opportunities and

20:07

threats when it comes to quantum tech

20:10

from the national security defense and

20:12

intelligence space we have a whole

20:13

section that sort of zooms in on that in

20:15

the report

20:16

and then a follow-up and i'll remind you

20:19

of this if you

20:20

go deep on this first question um so

20:22

that we come back here

20:24

for the australian government um what

20:26

are the sort of

20:27

the urgent or really critical gaps that

20:29

you think need to be filled here from i

20:31

guess a policy recommendation

20:32

perspective

20:33

so in terms of opportunities and threats

20:35

i mean some of them were alluded to

20:37

before

20:37

things like the ability to crack codes

20:39

it's pretty obvious that that poses a

20:41

significant

20:41

intelligence threat but also a huge boon

20:44

to anybody who possesses it

20:47

so you can immediately see that there

20:48

are some strategic considerations here

20:49

it's not just about

20:50

we want to develop this technology and

20:52

have it we also need to be mindful of

20:54

who we don't want to have it

20:55

but at the same time some of these

20:57

technologies also offset one another so

20:59

another big area of quantum technology

21:01

is quantum cryptography where we can

21:02

make

21:03

cryptographic codes that even quantum

21:05

computers can't break

21:06

so there's a potential method to bypass

21:09

the threat

21:09

of quantum computing in compromising our

21:12

codes of the past but at the same time

21:15

these things

21:16

naturally progress into one another

21:17

currently we're able to demonstrate

21:19

quantum cryptography quite well over

21:21

short scales and the chinese have done

21:22

it by satellite

21:23

over almost 2 000 kilometers within

21:26

mainland china

21:29

and that naturally is the type of

21:31

technology that later on will be

21:32

utilized when we build full-fledged

21:34

quantum computers

21:35

so you can't just deny single uh

21:39

use uh sort of um abilities of quantum

21:42

technologies they they all feed into one

21:44

another and there's a complex interplay

21:46

but the dominant one of course is the

21:48

economic interplay

21:50

because ultimately economics is what

21:52

determines strategic strength

21:54

so we want to be able to have mutual

21:56

benefit from others in the advancement

21:58

of these technologies in the same way

22:00

that we're all better off by the fact

22:01

that the whole world is connected on the

22:02

internet

22:03

that's undeniably mutual benefit but at

22:06

the same time

22:07

in with classical super computing there

22:09

are certain countries that we deny

22:10

access to for supercomputing facilities

22:12

because of potential malicious uses

22:15

so there's a very very complex dynamics

22:16

here which is why

22:18

it's not just as simple as we want to

22:20

pump more money into research and we

22:21

want to make sure that this is advanced

22:22

as quickly as possible

22:24

there needs to be unified consideration

22:26

in the same way that there is with many

22:28

other dual use technologies

22:30

what is our place in the world we're a

22:31

medium-sized economy we're not a

22:33

superpower we don't even get to dictate

22:35

the path here

22:36

we have to acknowledge where we sit in

22:38

the world and from that

22:40

also make diplomatic decisions how are

22:42

we going to form alliances in the future

22:43

given the huge

22:45

uh political influence that this kind of

22:47

technology could have

22:49

and the second question you said yes

22:54

um no that's all right um and it could

22:56

be unfair for me to

22:58

to pretend i'm asking one question each

22:59

when really there's two three probably

23:01

even four wrapped up in there

23:03

yeah what i want to know is you know

23:06

if you're up in parliament or you're a

23:08

senior policy maker across a range of

23:10

department agencies

23:12

and and they're suddenly told okay we

23:13

really need to focus on quantum

23:15

right where do you think the most urgent

23:17

gaps are the gap is that we don't do

23:19

exactly what you just said which is

23:21

having a unified umbrella that oversees

23:23

all of these things at this very very

23:25

high level

23:26

at the moment our approach is we pump a

23:28

certain amount of money into research

23:30

and development in this sector

23:32

there are lots of people that approach

23:34

people like us for advice on

23:36

how this might affect their future

23:38

business operations

23:39

financial optimization whatever the case

23:41

may be

23:42

all these different interests involved

23:45

and money being pumped into it

23:47

but not with any sort of cohesive

23:49

long-term vision of

23:50

what's the ultimate goal here it's not

23:52

just throwing money at things it's about

23:55

creating a domestic ecosystem which

23:57

satisfies the needs of the country as a

23:59

whole

24:00

and the same way with anything that has

24:02

strategic uh

24:04

importance it's not just you throw money

24:06

at it wildly

24:07

you need an overall goal of how does

24:09

this fit into our place in the world as

24:11

a medium-sized economy and alliances

24:13

that we have

24:13

how does this affect our future

24:15

alliances and diplomatic considerations

24:17

because we don't get to dictate the path

24:19

we're part of

24:21

the global economy and we're a

24:23

relatively small player in that but we

24:25

can't just go it alone

24:27

and what about just from a defense

24:28

intelligence and national security

24:30

perspective what do you

24:32

see as the sort of key policy makers

24:34

there and i mean

24:35

feel free to come in on this across all

24:37

four of you

24:38

yeah i mean that is uh from a national

24:41

securities perspective that is certainly

24:43

one of the most important ones to

24:45

defence and intelligence for

24:46

the sorts of reasons that we that we've

24:48

discussed um

24:50

and that's exactly why um it shouldn't

24:52

just be

24:53

allowed to be a free-for-all because

24:54

obviously some of these technologies

24:56

just like

24:57

back in the cold war the obvious

24:58

parallel is is nuclear technologies

25:00

it's hugely advantageous for certain

25:02

applications hugely detrimental for

25:04

others if they go into the wrong hands

25:06

and like any sort of dual use technology

25:09

it needs to be thought of in that kind

25:10

of framework where

25:12

how does this uh affect our alliances

25:14

and our and our

25:15

global diplomatic position

25:18

i mean i will just add to that that in

25:20

compare

25:21

in comparison to say the united states

25:23

or countries in europe

25:25

the defense and intelligence sector in

25:26

this country has not engaged

25:28

in the same way um as gavin said

25:31

um when this got started in the 90s and

25:33

the 2000s the us intelligence and

25:35

defects

25:36

defense sectors were heavily involved in

25:38

funding the research and supervising the

25:40

research and talking to scientists

25:42

um i don't know if you guys know i don't

25:45

know anyone in our community that holds

25:46

high-level security grounds

25:48

they can even have these discussions

25:50

with members of defence or intelligence

25:52

and say okay where do you see the

25:54

threats being and how does

25:56

how do you think quantum is going to

25:58

help you or how do you think quantum is

25:59

going to hurt you

26:00

uh in the long term um i don't know

26:02

anyone who has that level of engagement

26:04

and it's also

26:04

they're difficult to choose to fill

26:06

those ones because people in that kind

26:08

of position

26:09

can't just be your everyday sort of

26:11

intelligence

26:12

defense type of people they need to be

26:14

people with an intimate understanding of

26:16

of the nuance of this technology it's

26:19

very different to conventional

26:20

technologies that we're all familiar

26:22

with and there's an

26:23

enormous amount of nuance and subtlety

26:24

to it and so

26:26

people in those sorts of strategic

26:28

decision-making positions need to have a

26:30

clear understanding

26:31

of the nuances of the technology as well

26:33

which which is a difficult thing to fill

26:37

i'm gonna ask one more question and then

26:38

we've got quite a few questions coming

26:40

in on online and i'll also open it up

26:43

um before a couple you guys were talking

26:46

about

26:46

um you know heads of sort of these

26:50

quantum startup companies which really

26:51

aren't startups anymore and i don't know

26:53

if you did this deliberately but

26:54

almost everyone you mentioned was an

26:56

australian citizen who had co-co-founded

26:58

the company

26:59

started the company are any of these

27:01

people in australia

27:02

are they is the brain drain sort of all

27:04

happening to the us and europe

27:06

and what does it take to get to get

27:08

people back here

27:11

well yeah so the drain is to where the

27:14

money is

27:14

and also where the big fabrication

27:16

facilities are which is silicon valley

27:20

and the investors you know they're

27:24

willing to make that risk because

27:25

there's a big payout

27:27

and um and it's it's proven technology

27:30

you know it's built up

27:32

it's taken time but the principles are

27:35

correct

27:35

and it's past the test there really is

27:38

no

27:39

no fundamental obstacle to getting these

27:41

things built

27:42

um and uh yeah i think in australia

27:46

it takes it does take a national

27:49

initiative

27:50

but it's not just about the government

27:52

spending money it's

27:53

it's also about you know fostering a

27:56

culture with investors here who are

27:57

willing to

27:59

to you know make the leap and

28:02

and i just have to say that australia is

28:05

recognized as

28:06

as being a really great country to come

28:08

to i mean i i was attracted to come here

28:11

um i know many people around the world

28:13

in europe and

28:14

north america who very much like

28:18

australia

28:18

would live here but you know if they're

28:21

if they're involved with startup

28:22

companies uh

28:25

it's just easier to to go elsewhere

28:27

that's just the

28:28

the investments is is available there to

28:31

more jobs elsewhere yeah there's more

28:33

there's more jobs there um we have a

28:35

question from mark who's

28:37

uh watching online and he's asked when

28:40

you postulate a strategic race you have

28:42

to consider not only how useful the tech

28:44

could be but also how likely it is that

28:46

a competitor will gain that capability

28:48

far enough in advance of you doing so

28:50

that they will be able to use that

28:51

advantage

28:52

how likely is a major strategic surprise

28:56

that ends up making a difference

28:59

who would like a turn at that and tara

29:01

just throw your hand up online if you

29:03

want to jump in on any questions

29:05

and i'll throw specific ones to you well

29:08

i mean

29:08

certainly it can't be denied the chinese

29:11

level of investment into quantum

29:12

technology has spurred

29:14

a lot of the other investment into

29:15

quantum technology the americans did get

29:17

spooked

29:18

a little bit and sort of got caught a

29:20

bit on the back foot with their

29:21

initiative

29:22

um that sort of came on the back of sort

29:23

of the chinese announcements in regards

29:25

to

29:26

their push to to heavily industrialize

29:28

and commercialize their quantum

29:30

technology

29:31

and they have spent a lot of money in

29:32

that space

29:34

so again whether or not you want to say

29:36

we're at the stage now where somebody's

29:37

pulling ahead we're not

29:39

quite there yet in the sense that you

29:41

could say you know chinese technology is

29:43

significantly better than the americans

29:44

or significantly better than the

29:45

europeans

29:47

but i suppose that that is something

29:48

that's going to happen in the next five

29:50

or six years

29:51

um depending on whether it's the startup

29:53

space or the corporate space or the

29:55

sovereign space

29:56

now just also to be clear people see the

29:58

money that comes into google and comes

30:00

in from ibm and

30:01

the vc community but sovereign

30:04

investment still dwarfs

30:06

all of this the amount of money that

30:08

governments are spending onto their

30:09

national initiatives and their national

30:10

research programs are still much much

30:12

larger than what's coming in from the

30:13

private sector at this stage

30:15

so have we gotten to the point where

30:17

there could be a strategic surprise

30:20

in an adversary or a non-friendly nation

30:23

pulling too far ahead

30:24

no not yet in fact everyone's somewhat

30:28

level i would say um as gavin mentioned

30:31

there's multi-platforms for quantum

30:33

computing which

30:34

in and of itself is hard to explain

30:37

because people you know if it says

30:38

there's different types of computers if

30:40

it was your standard laptop you know

30:41

people would think oh okay it's intel

30:43

versus

30:45

power pc or it's mac versus windows but

30:47

it's all still silicon based technology

30:49

in the quantum computing space we have

30:52

seven at least systems that are

30:55

completely different from each other

30:56

some are based on particles of light

30:58

some are based on atoms some based on

31:00

all kinds of different things and so we

31:03

haven't

31:04

yet sort of filtered that out yet

31:06

everything's sort of about the same

31:08

most of these systems can reliably

31:10

produce qubits we can fabricate them we

31:12

can control them quite well

31:14

but during the 2020s that's going to

31:16

change by the end of the 2020s i think

31:18

we're going to have a much cleaner

31:19

outlook

31:19

of what's going to happen both in the

31:21

computation sensing and communication

31:23

space

31:24

do you think that cleaner outlook is

31:25

going to attract more funding from sort

31:27

of medium-sized

31:29

governments once they realize the

31:31

potential or a weak spirit

31:33

he is always an attractor nothing a

31:36

business likes more than there's some

31:37

sort of predictability

31:39

what's this really going to do for us

31:40

sort of but the fact that we can't

31:41

predict it at the moment does mean that

31:43

it's a blue sky investment

31:45

first yeah all right let's open it up to

31:48

questions i've got a few more coming

31:49

online

31:50

does anyone want to jump in did you want

31:52

to jump in there

31:56

thank you um yes i have a question

32:00

um we mentioned that goals for australia

32:03

as a

32:03

medium-sized economy um what sort of

32:06

goal do you think we should have

32:07

in this quantum world

32:11

so there are multiple goals but um

32:15

the first and foremost long-term goal is

32:18

that

32:18

we can't put ourselves in a position

32:20

where we end up becoming purely a client

32:22

state if you think of our reliance

32:25

on silicon chips at the moment we're

32:27

completely dependent upon

32:29

others the same applies to

32:33

so much technology software is easy to

32:35

make at home

32:36

but all of the hardware is effectively

32:38

entirely manufactured overseas

32:41

obviously there's a huge risk associated

32:43

with that if someone decides to close

32:44

the tap then you're in big trouble

32:46

um the same applies with any technology

32:49

and

32:50

the real profit making not just in the

32:52

monetary sense but

32:53

also in terms of the strategic

32:55

positioning comes in who is the supplier

32:57

not just who

32:58

buys it as a client and that's what we

33:01

have to avoid and why we have to get in

33:03

early

33:03

is to position ourselves so that we're

33:05

producing things and selling them to

33:07

others

33:08

rather than licensing a cloud

33:10

subscription service from a future

33:13

quantum cloud provider

33:25

well it's not as though we have the

33:27

ability to to have

33:29

any kind of complete market dominance in

33:31

this space just

33:32

because of our economic size we can't

33:34

possibly compete with large economies

33:37

but even though you can't dominate it

33:39

you can still play

33:40

um an integral role where you're you're

33:42

part of the dependency that other people

33:44

rely on

33:45

you don't you don't have to be producing

33:47

all the chips in the world

33:49

to play a part in the supply chain for

33:51

computers

33:52

so we need to have an integral role in

33:54

the production process

33:55

and the provision process but it's hard

33:57

to foresee exactly what that will be

33:59

do either of you want to jump in on this

34:01

and i thought we could also move to tara

34:03

as well about what the key goals are

34:04

from her perspective

34:07

i mean national coordination i think is

34:10

a is a key

34:10

goal that we would like to see certainly

34:12

as the authors of this report to come

34:13

out of this

34:15

i mean the evolution of quantum in this

34:17

country

34:18

and it's certainly not the fault of

34:20

anyone specifically or the community

34:22

itself it's the nature of academic

34:23

research in australia the arc is not

34:26

a huge budget there is a finite pie that

34:28

we're all playing with

34:30

and we england sort of come in the 2000s

34:33

um you know everyone was grasping at

34:35

this thing so of course that sort of

34:36

bifurcated the nation a little bit and

34:38

it did so a lot along state lines but

34:41

even

34:41

across universities i mean you have unsw

34:44

fighting with usage you have monash

34:46

fighting with melbourne and the second

34:47

tier universities come in

34:49

this is happened all over the world it

34:52

certainly happened in australia

34:53

the rest of the world seems to be

34:55

coalescing better

34:57

they seem to be saying okay you guys

34:59

were fractured in the 90s and the 2000s

35:01

because it was only a research program

35:03

you're all fighting over the same

35:04

research pie but now we're saying okay

35:07

we're going to put more capital into

35:09

this and we're going to actually force

35:10

you guys to get along

35:12

and coordinate a lot better i mean the

35:13

centers of excellence programs in

35:15

australia sort of do this

35:17

but they are limited they aren't you

35:20

know they're very very good from an

35:21

academic research point of view but

35:23

again if you look at the centres in

35:24

america or europe they're an order of

35:26

magnitude

35:27

more heavily funded they're an order of

35:29

magnitude more participants

35:31

um both from the standpoint of academic

35:34

faculty and industry partnership so

35:36

that's another key goal that we've been

35:37

looking for and hopefully can push with

35:39

this report and

35:41

all of these countries whether it's the

35:42

european union or the united states

35:44

they tend to appoint somebody so the

35:46

united states for example

35:48

it's the second person now they're part

35:50

of the white house office of science and

35:52

technology policy

35:54

but their job is to try and provide a

35:56

coordinated framework and bring these

35:58

people in together

35:59

um so i think that was one of our

36:00

recommendations in the report that we

36:02

were thinking of

36:03

you know as having somebody there and an

36:05

especially appointed role within

36:07

government to say okay the time has come

36:09

for the nation to come together

36:11

figure out how to do this on a national

36:12

level rather than you know state by

36:14

state and university by university

36:17

gavin do you want to add anything before

36:18

i jump over to you tara

36:20

uh no just well just say absolutely i

36:23

think that the national coordination is

36:25

very important

36:26

and also because it it gives you a

36:28

history

36:29

with different people coming in and so

36:32

you know people are they have experience

36:35

with what are the issues

36:36

they can also separate the hype from

36:39

reality and that takes someone who's

36:42

you know who's really a dedicated person

36:45

who can frequently talk to the

36:47

scientists

36:48

but also to policymakers yeah

36:52

tara what about from your perspective

36:53

because there were really big chunks

36:55

of the policy recommendations i'm

36:56

thinking at the end there that that you

36:58

worked on

37:01

so i guess sorry um in terms of

37:04

of goals for the nation if we're looking

37:08

at coordination

37:09

one of the options is is starting to try

37:11

and pick some of those

37:13

winners in the near-term technologies

37:15

and i guess you could look to the uk

37:17

for some examples there in terms of how

37:19

they used a hub

37:20

model to do that um it

37:24

it would be i think the thing i'm

37:26

hearing from stakeholders in the

37:27

community is thinking about how tech

37:29

transfer works

37:31

in our universities and our industry

37:33

sector is really important

37:35

as well as how we engage with industry

37:37

and and find those

37:38

um you know those use cases as proof of

37:42

concepts

37:42

in in different australian-based

37:45

industries i think that will be really

37:46

important thanks tara i'm going to jump

37:50

back online because the questions have

37:51

really been

37:52

banking up here it's making me a bit

37:54

nervous um

37:55

we have a question from michael has the

37:57

uk established

37:59

an overall integrated strategy for

38:00

quantum and are there direct

38:02

collaboration opportunities there for

38:03

australia

38:04

let's broaden that out because i

38:05

actually have another question i was

38:07

going to throw at all of you

38:08

um about let's broaden it out to um

38:12

are there direct collaboration

38:14

opportunities let's say for a fiver

38:16

the five eyes but also for sort of close

38:17

partners so i'm thinking sort of

38:19

india japan south korea taiwan

38:22

who wants to jump in first there well i

38:25

mean

38:26

we've had the collaborations for a long

38:28

time i mean to get to the first question

38:30

the uk has got

38:31

somewhat of a coordinated strategy as

38:32

tara mentioned it's the hub programs

38:35

so i think it's it's five hubs now that

38:38

they've got

38:38

around the uk i think it's five um but

38:41

they're all based out of a different

38:43

area of the uk so i think quantum

38:45

imaging is based out of

38:46

glasgow quantum networking's based out

38:48

of oxford

38:50

um but they've got multiple ones of

38:51

these that come under sort of the hub of

38:52

the

38:53

the quantum hubs program in the uk um

38:56

also included in this is is

38:58

in the uk model centers for doctoral

39:00

training um

39:01

in various topics across quantum again

39:04

sort of located at different

39:05

universities

39:06

so we've sort of taken a first step

39:08

towards that we've

39:09

announced where we started last year the

39:12

sydney quantum academy which was a state

39:14

government-funded effort

39:15

to try and do uh hdr and other higher

39:18

degree training

39:19

um in the quantum space but that's the

39:21

only one whereas the uk's got them

39:24

everywhere and it's not just for quantum

39:26

computing it's it's

39:28

for quantum engineering it's for a whole

39:30

bunch of other topics

39:32

um in terms of collaborations beyond

39:34

that again

39:35

as australia and australians have been

39:38

sort of scattered far and wide we all

39:39

have

39:40

collaborations overseas with various

39:42

countries such as this

39:43

um however it's it's getting a little

39:47

bit harder

39:48

because a lot of the opportunities that

39:50

exist in other countries

39:52

again sort of crowd us out and they

39:54

don't need us in the same way that they

39:56

did or they're not incentivized

39:57

in the same way that was before so for

40:00

example

40:01

um when amazon set up their quantum

40:04

division

40:05

the people who set it up we're very

40:07

strong collaborators with the head of

40:08

quantum

40:09

at aws and a lot of the people there we

40:11

know some of them are from sydney

40:13

they've been poached recently um

40:16

and aws i i think would love to come to

40:18

australia and set something up in

40:20

australia and say we'll have a

40:21

divisional office in sydney or i have a

40:22

divisional office in melbourne

40:24

but they have a much better incentive

40:26

structure in the us

40:27

so they'll do it at caltech same with

40:29

ibm and mit

40:32

they get sweeteners they get incentives

40:35

for doing it within the united states

40:37

and while we have good talent in

40:39

australia and respected talent in

40:40

australia with these collaborations

40:42

that doesn't trump you know

40:46

a tax break for building a building at

40:48

caltech caltech research isn't good

40:49

enough

40:51

we don't provide that extra extra level

40:54

so certainly the emerging markets

40:57

particularly india

40:58

i've been looking at quite strongly

41:00

because india's announced a one billion

41:01

dollar

41:02

national initiative as in most countries

41:04

but they don't have

41:06

much domestic talent in india and when

41:09

china did it

41:10

when they started flooding capital into

41:12

their sector they ended up sending a lot

41:14

of their people to japan

41:16

so they flooded the japanese system with

41:18

post-docs with phd students who would go

41:20

into japan who were

41:22

again a country that got into this quite

41:24

early so they had a lot of experience in

41:25

it

41:26

trained up all their people and

41:28

basically said look

41:29

you get one nature paper or you get a

41:32

couple of

41:32

minor publications there's a

41:34

professorship back for you in china

41:36

immediately if you come home and they

41:37

did this aggressively

41:39

in the early 2010s so india could be

41:41

something for us

41:42

along those lines whether it's something

41:44

through a model like the sydney quantum

41:46

academy

41:47

um but to sort of say look you guys want

41:48

to gear up you want to build up your

41:50

domestic talent well partner with us

41:52

we've got the talent to do it and and

41:54

we're happy to do that

41:57

peter gavin anything to add yeah i mean

41:59

your reference to

42:00

the firewise network is a really

42:02

irrelevant one actually uh coming back

42:04

to the point i made earlier because

42:05

obviously that particular intelligence

42:08

alliance is what

42:09

dominates our our intelligence

42:11

operations and that's

42:13

obviously led by the united states being

42:15

the the largest party in that

42:17

um given that close knit arrangement for

42:20

intelligence

42:21

services between these countries it's

42:23

clear that

42:25

the quantum space is going to fit in

42:26

there in the future given its

42:28

implications for intelligence gathering

42:30

and the dominant power of the united

42:32

states in that alliance means that

42:34

a lot could be imposed upon us in the

42:36

way that we go about deploying quantum

42:38

technologies

42:39

and and who we allow to access them

42:42

in the same way that there are all these

42:43

other very strict arrangements in

42:45

intelligent sharing so those sorts of

42:47

alliances will play a very very dominant

42:49

role in how we go about pursuing this

42:52

and in other critical texts as well like

42:54

this isn't just a quantum thing do we

42:55

think that the five eyes in terms of

42:58

intelligence um gathering i mean it

43:00

seems particularly

43:02

relevant to quantum computing given its

43:04

ability to compromise certain codes and

43:06

uh and create new ones that are very

43:08

very secure

43:09

uh but but it does apply to other

43:11

technologies as well but i think to a

43:13

lesser extent given how ubiquitous

43:14

classical technologies are

43:16

yeah yeah i'll just just add that it is

43:18

actually pretty common for

43:20

us as researchers to be involved with

43:23

projects that are funded

43:24

through for example the u.s military

43:27

um and the u.s army has announced that

43:30

they're gonna you know have open calls

43:32

which will be available to australian

43:33

researchers

43:34

um but in terms of like a a more

43:36

coordinated efforts

43:38

towards you know like kind of a

43:40

manhattan project but between

43:42

five eyes company five eyes countries uh

43:46

i'm not privy to those conversations if

43:48

they exist

43:49

but it's an interesting idea

43:53

do you have any um questions out here

43:54

from the floor we've got gosh we've got

43:57

a lot

43:57

let's start over here and then we'll

43:59

make our way that way

44:02

um i think this question might be more

44:04

posed towards peter

44:05

just based on his discussion earlier um

44:08

but it's open to everyone um there's

44:11

been a lot of recent

44:13

discussion and research coming out about

44:15

how these new

44:16

critical technologies like quantum

44:18

computing might affect

44:20

our regional strategic stability um

44:23

especially in defense and intelligence

44:25

relating to how it might as

44:26

act as a force multiplier for um

44:30

nuclear forces possibly or even

44:34

conventional advanced conventional

44:36

weaponry um

44:37

do you believe that these threats uh to

44:40

strategic stability are real and could

44:42

australia have some sort of

44:44

impact in mediating these insecurities

44:48

possibly through a third-party um

44:51

mediation or negotiation

44:54

right so that that that's a good point

44:57

because um

44:58

inevitably in the future we are going to

45:01

have

45:01

quantum facilities on our soil and

45:04

certainly lots of intellectual property

45:06

where that position is is hard to

45:08

predict but we will have a significant

45:09

position

45:10

um and there'll be lots of smaller

45:12

nations that will want to

45:14

utilize the power of quantum

45:15

technologies but

45:17

can't afford it because it's going to at

45:19

least initially give it be hugely

45:21

expensive compared to the the sorts of

45:22

computing equipment that we use at the

45:24

moment

45:25

so you might be licensing it out through

45:26

a cloud service as we mentioned earlier

45:28

or

45:29

or renting it out whatever the case may

45:32

be

45:33

there's huge soft power in that right i

45:36

mean if you've got if you're surrounded

45:37

by developing countries uh

45:39

which we are um that would want to to

45:42

access

45:43

uh these sorts of technologies that's

45:45

perfect diplomatic soft power

45:47

to to make it available

45:50

at the same time it can be wielded

45:54

for as leverage by denying people the

45:57

access to it but of course

45:59

the more dominant your position is in in

46:01

terms of um

46:03

having ownership over this technology

46:05

the more leverage you have

46:06

for soft power or for any any sort of

46:09

diplomatic leverage

46:10

um but yes it will definitely play a

46:12

role uh but at the same time

46:15

they're inevitably going to be players

46:17

that are far more powerful and and well

46:18

equipped than we are

46:20

uh seeing us in exactly the same way

46:22

that i just described in relation to

46:24

other countries that we're related to

46:25

wanting to use soft power against so

46:28

so we have to also acknowledge what our

46:29

place in the world is and that we don't

46:31

get to be the pure decision makers on

46:32

our own

46:33

and it's inevitably in some sort of

46:35

cahoots with uh with our lords and

46:37

masters whoever that happens to be

46:39

i might continue on hillary there was a

46:42

gentleman there

46:43

yeah yes

46:56

i wanted to get back to your previous

46:59

question actually

47:00

um you can tell from my accent i'm not

47:02

australian i'm

47:03

french and i'm the scientific attache at

47:06

the french embassy and

47:07

my work is to foster collaboration

47:10

between france and australia

47:12

and uh in certain areas it's very easy

47:14

and in

47:15

quantum it's a bit more complicated uh

47:17

basically because

47:18

very often there are issues of uh

47:21

property intellectual property and so on

47:23

but as you said quantum is is

47:26

applicable in many different domains so

47:29

in your opinion

47:30

what's the the kind of domain where

47:33

international collaboration would be the

47:35

most uh easy to do

47:39

ah personally at the moment i think it's

47:41

still i mean

47:42

quantum key distribution is a bit

47:44

sensitive

47:45

um that kind of technology shows up on

47:49

on non-export lists already

47:52

but generally speaking there's not a

47:54

huge amount of security issues at the

47:57

moment that we find especially with

47:58

countries like france

48:01

we still have active collaborations both

48:03

with

48:04

multiple institutes in france and with

48:05

the startup community that's also

48:07

growing there quite quickly

48:09

um how this changes with your recent

48:11

initiative

48:12

um i don't know i'm not even sure that

48:15

the details have been fully worked out

48:17

yet with this with this new 3 billion

48:19

dollar announcement but our

48:22

our issues with collaboration at the

48:24

moment i don't think is security related

48:26

not yet um especially with the european

48:30

union it's a european union thing

48:32

in the sense that you know once you get

48:36

outside the eu framework

48:38

it's sort of disincentivized for the

48:40

collaborations to be there as

48:41

in the same way you know whether it's

48:43

nationality requirements

48:45

um or whether or not funding across

48:47

borders all that kind of stuff

48:48

so that's much more of an issue at the

48:50

moment we have some

48:52

security concerns at the moment but it's

48:54

only related to certain countries and

48:56

whether or not we can

48:57

basically have students have postdocs or

49:00

have

49:00

academic collaborations with some of

49:03

these countries that are very no go at

49:05

the moment when it comes to any kind of

49:06

technology not just quantum

49:08

but certainly the the collaboration

49:10

bottlenecks at the moment with australia

49:13

is not security related it's more about

49:16

as these

49:17

other entities grow and as other

49:19

countries grow in their investment in

49:20

quantum

49:21

again we're just being shut out we're

49:24

not growing with enough

49:25

comparative funding and with enough

49:27

comparative national coordination to

49:30

make it as attractive anymore as

49:32

say it was 20 years ago 20 years ago we

49:34

get a lot of collaboration with the

49:36

french or with the germans or

49:37

the british because we had an

49:39

exceptional pool of talent here relative

49:41

to our size but now that's diminishing

49:44

i would say that i think one area that

49:47

has

49:47

the most opportunity for useful

49:49

collaboration

49:51

is in establishing standards for

49:53

post-quantum cryptography

49:55

so there was there was a call by uh

49:58

nist in the u.s which handled standards

50:02

for

50:02

cryptography to uh as you know

50:06

to bring in ideas for algorithms

50:09

for things like digital signatures to

50:12

secure transactions

50:13

as well as public key cryptography which

50:16

would be

50:16

secure against quantum computer attacks

50:19

and they've gone through a couple rounds

50:20

and they've

50:21

whittled it down to a few good

50:23

candidates but in the end

50:24

it's going to take an international

50:26

agreement to accept these standards

50:28

and in france in particular has a very

50:31

strong

50:32

cryptographic community and i understand

50:34

that as part of the

50:36

um the postcovid investment into quantum

50:39

a large section of that is actually

50:41

going towards post-quantum cryptography

50:44

um and so uh you know that

50:47

that requires a level of trust between

50:49

nations

50:50

and it also takes a horsepower

50:54

it takes you know people putting a lot

50:56

of brain

50:57

power into trying to attack those

50:59

candidate algorithms

51:02

um to see if they really will withstand

51:05

quantum computer attacks and you know

51:07

there aren't that many people in the

51:08

world that can do this

51:10

so it you know it it takes some kind of

51:13

agreements and a level of trust

51:15

for us to be able to establish those

51:17

standards so that we'll be ready

51:20

and have a secure internet transactions

51:22

when quantum computers do come online

51:25

just um elaborating on what gavin was

51:27

talking about with post quantum crypto

51:29

which is

51:29

classical cryptography that is robust

51:31

against quantum computer attacks

51:33

um uh it makes the interesting point

51:37

that

51:37

this whole discussion about strategy

51:39

isn't limited just to quantum

51:40

technologies

51:41

but also it's interplay with classical

51:43

technology so i raised the

51:45

quantum cryptography uh as a technology

51:48

that offsets the power of quantum

51:50

computers to to crack

51:51

our cryptographic codes well so would

51:54

post quantum classical cryptography

51:56

but we haven't standardized it yet as

51:58

german pointed out

51:59

but that's an example of a purely

52:00

classical theoretical development

52:04

that could have massive implications for

52:06

this whole strategic dynamic

52:07

uh in terms of quantum computers ability

52:09

to to hack our codes

52:12

let's do two questions at a time now and

52:13

see if we can get through let's start

52:15

they're crazy

52:16

um so if we played a card to write and

52:19

developed an effective national strategy

52:21

do you think there's potential that it

52:22

could actually push australia into

52:23

becoming a large economy

52:25

i'll grab that one and then we might do

52:27

one more from the audience was there any

52:29

i did see oh yeah at the frontier

52:30

closing

52:36

thank you i'm actually keen to talk uh

52:38

to get your opinion on the skilled

52:40

workforce coming through like as you

52:41

said you're

52:42

very much focusing on the postgraduate

52:44

undergraduate

52:45

levels but we know that stem uptake at

52:48

schools

52:49

is very low it's dropping physics maths

52:52

advanced maths

52:53

well below you know getting below 10

52:54

percent of students

52:56

gender issues around who's doing the

52:58

maths and

53:00

physics so i'm keen to hear what your

53:01

thoughts are in terms of

53:03

expanding on what's in the report and

53:05

how to attract people to

53:07

um quantum that is perfect because

53:11

that actually duplicates a question

53:13

online and helps me a bit

53:15

tara do we want to let's start with that

53:16

last question with you

53:18

there is a similar question online about

53:20

how do we prepare the next generation to

53:21

understand this is an area worth

53:23

studying so i feel like the two of them

53:24

are

53:25

a good fit do you want to start with

53:26

that one and then we'll move back to the

53:28

other question

53:29

yeah sure so we know that diversity is a

53:32

problem in quantum

53:33

like all the way through from high

53:35

school students to

53:37

to our professors so absolutely a focus

53:40

area to try and increase

53:42

that pipeline in in a number of

53:44

different ways

53:45

in terms of education content one of the

53:48

pilot approaches that we've taken at one

53:50

of the research centers is to work with

53:52

teachers

53:53

to look at the curriculum and try and

53:55

embed

53:56

quantum related units into different

53:58

areas of study

54:01

that seems to be having a little bit of

54:03

early success and that there's interest

54:05

and the students are engaged with it and

54:08

i certainly find that lab tours when

54:10

they do come through with school groups

54:12

are very very enthusiastic back in the

54:14

day when we could have physical

54:15

lab tours so i think it's about really

54:18

looking at that from a national

54:20

perspective

54:20

and then working with the states and

54:22

territories in terms of education

54:24

to to embed um elements of that into

54:27

the curriculum just like we looked at

54:30

you know coding

54:31

for for kids as well so it's just one of

54:33

those subjects that we'll have to kind

54:35

of introduce

54:36

over time

54:39

let's jump here why don't we go straight

54:42

to the question that came in from

54:43

the back who wants to take that one

54:48

can you remember the title uh you know

54:50

you might have to repeat it especially

54:52

for me um it was more just if we

54:55

managed to address the um could we

54:58

become a large economy

55:00

it's hard to predict because uh it's

55:01

hard to predict what fraction of the

55:03

future economy will be quantum related

55:05

if you knew the answer to that then i

55:06

could answer it uh but but certainly

55:10

it's enormously important in making us a

55:13

on a relative basis increasing our

55:15

standing

55:16

um there's certainly no denying that

55:20

you know whoever gets in early in in

55:22

forefront technologies and dominates

55:24

those markets

55:25

they end up becoming hugely powerful

55:27

countries uh

55:28

silicon valley alone can almost

55:30

single-handedly

55:33

explain enormous strategic uh

55:37

power in the united states if they

55:38

didn't have silicon valley

55:40

that they would be nothing compared to

55:41

what they are so

55:43

that's that's exactly why we want to

55:44

foster an ecosystem here at home

55:46

the equivalent of a silicon valley and

55:48

in quantum technologies

55:51

but can we do that given it's it you

55:53

know just

55:54

as you said with your question are we

55:56

pumping enough people through

55:59

universities through the right research

56:00

institutes to study the right things

56:03

but it's not just about pumping out a

56:05

production line of education

56:07

yeah and and doing our normal issue a

56:10

normal business of exporting it back

56:12

overseas and just just taking the money

56:14

associated with educating people

56:16

you also want to make sure that they

56:17

have good reason to stay here and remain

56:19

part of the economy where

56:21

they're using that education which is

56:22

where the real money comes from

56:24

the money doesn't come from selling

56:26

degrees it comes from

56:27

utilizing the education that they're

56:29

provided with and

56:30

that that has to be magnetized yeah

56:32

there's four four people

56:34

four very talented people i can think of

56:35

just from the sydney area who left in

56:37

this past year

56:39

green cobra like flew overseas to take a

56:40

job which wouldn't have been easy either

56:43

okay and with two questions online this

56:45

is a very tough choice here

56:47

let's start with um alexander's he says

56:50

china has made a strong commitment

56:51

specifically to quantum communication

56:53

technologies

56:54

should australia likewise be pursuing a

56:56

specific area of application and if so

56:58

what

56:58

area of application like should it be

57:00

quantum communications for example is

57:02

that's one question

57:03

and then we're going to end on this

57:05

question which is i like this one what

57:07

do you think will be the novel this is

57:08

from james what do you think will be the

57:09

novel in direct benefit of quantum

57:11

technologies that we could use to engage

57:13

the public

57:15

what is the quantum version for example

57:17

of ubereats

57:21

so should we start with the application

57:23

are there applications that australia

57:25

should be focused

57:26

on you know should we be doubling down

57:28

on quantum computing quantum

57:29

communications

57:31

doing a little bit of everything i mean

57:34

the thing is that they're not

57:35

inseparable from one another because

57:38

they naturally feed into one another and

57:39

they're highly overlapping in the

57:40

underlying types of devices that you

57:43

need to need to build um so i wouldn't

57:46

separate them that way

57:47

um but i think it's fair to say that

57:50

quantum computing is

57:52

certainly from an economic and a

57:54

strategic perspective by far the most

57:56

valuable quantum technology that we that

57:58

we have in mind at the moment

58:00

it's also we're not clear yet really

58:02

about whether the approaches that other

58:04

countries are feeding into their

58:06

programs are ultimately going to be the

58:08

best like australia's

58:10

australia's not going to launch a

58:11

satellite constellation for quantum

58:13

we're just not going to do it

58:14

we we don't have the resources to put up

58:18

a satellite quantum constellation like

58:20

china or the us might do but that

58:22

doesn't mean that that's the best way

58:23

for us to do it

58:24

even from a technological standpoint

58:25

there are other methods for quantum

58:26

communications that might

58:28

turn out to be cheaper they might be

58:30

easier to build they might be more

58:31

compatible with quantum computing as

58:33

peter said

58:34

you know fundamentally built from the

58:35

same devices with with very little

58:37

modification

58:38

we still you know have only taken the

58:41

very first step

58:42

um as a world basically in regards to

58:45

quantum technology i mean the biggest

58:47

quantum computing systems are

58:48

50 cubits um they're not very big

58:52

people are not useful yeah i mean people

58:54

often say well

58:55

can you compare where we are with

58:57

quantum to where we work classically and

58:58

you get a range of answers

59:00

when you talk to people in the quantum

59:01

community oh we're at 1972.

59:04

or in 1954 or something like that but

59:07

again

59:07

50 cubits if we want to make the

59:10

equivalent two bits

59:11

okay when do we have 50 bits of

59:13

information

59:14

in some system vacuum tubes transistors

59:18

whatever happens to be you know we're

59:21

i would argue we're not even at the 50s

59:23

yet in regards to all of this

59:25

so it's very very unclear and i suppose

59:28

this leads into the last question i mean

59:30

if you're in 1950 would you predict who

59:33

eats

59:34

would you predict youtube that's not

59:36

what people are thinking about and

59:37

that's not what we're thinking about in

59:38

quantum either

59:39

and we're not predicting quantum uber

59:41

eats either yeah

59:43

i mean it kind of is already sometimes

59:44

your food arrives sometimes it doesn't

59:46

[Laughter]

59:49

but it never does both yeah

59:51

[Laughter]

59:53

all right i feel like that is the

59:54

perfect place to end we've really hit

59:56

um hit the finish line anyway thank you

60:00

very much everyone for joining us both

60:01

here and online

60:02

if we can end by giving our panelists

60:04

and tara up there a round of applause

60:07

that'll be fantastic

60:14

[Music]

60:25


WATCH MORE: Building a strong quantum industry for Sydney | City of Sydney’s Visiting Entrepreneur Program | Hosted by UTS in partnership with Q-CTRL

00:02

Hello all, I am Sarah Kinkel, I'm the Partnerships  Manager in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship  

00:09

Unit at UTS and on behalf of UTS and Q-CTRL  and the City of Sydney we are so delighted  

00:16

to welcome you here tonight to our panel,  Building a strong quantum future for Sydney.  

00:22

Before we start I do want to pay my respects to  the traditional custodians of the land on which we  

00:30

stand, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and  to acknowledge and pay my respects to their elders  

00:36

past present and emerging. So we are so thrilled  here at UTS to be participating once again in the  

00:44

City of Sydney's Visiting Entrepreneur Program.  This is a program that's been ongoing since 2017  

00:50

and in that time there's been over 70 events,  over 90 partner organisations and I know another  

00:56

13 events this year, and it's just such  a fantastic program that brings together  

01:01

the best of what Sydney has to offer and connects  it with, really the best of what the world has to  

01:06

offer so it's just an exciting global program and  it's so fantastic that it's been able to continue  

01:11

even in these trying times. And this year's  theme has been about the transformative power  

01:17

of deep technology, particularly about quantum  and biotechnology and about the new possibilities  

01:22

that these technologies will unlock for us. So  before we do get started tonight I also wanted  

01:28

to alert those of you who are interested that of  course this is one of a series of events and there  

01:33

are more upcoming. One in particular I wanted  to draw your attention to is taking place this  

01:39

Thursday on the 10th of June from 6.00 to 7.00.  It's free, it's online, words we all like to hear.  

01:46

And its title "In science we trust". You'll have  the opportunity to join Ilana Wisby the CEO of  

01:50

Oxford Quantum Circuits and a panel of thought  leaders exploring the many dimensions of ethics  

01:55

in a technological world. If you are interested in  registering for that you can go to city.sydney/vep  

02:04

On that note our hashtag for tonight is  #VEPsyd which weirdly did not get updated  

02:11

in that slide panel for the people in the room,  but it is #VEPsyd. So we are here tonight to talk  

02:19

about building a strong quantum future for Sydney,  to talk about why this industry matters for Sydney  

02:24

and Australia. About the amazing foundations that  are being laid now and the great work that's being  

02:29

done now today, and about how we can continue  building that momentum towards the future.  

02:33

So without further ado I'm going to hand over to  our panel's moderator Dr Michael Hush the Chief  

02:38

Scientific Officer of Q-CTRL to introduce our  panellists and take us forward. Thank you Michael.

02:47

Thank you very much for that introduction. So  yeah today we're going to talk about building  

02:51

a strong quantum industry for Sydney, hopefully  going to address some really important questions  

02:54

about what's going on right now and what we can  do to do better as a city. I'm Dr Michael Hush  

03:00

so I'm the Chief Scientific Officer at Q-CTRL.  I currently look at all of the research going  

03:05

on at that company and I've also actually  spent some time as an academic in Australia. 

03:09

But today is not about me I'm just a moderator.  It's about our fantastic panel which I'd love to  

03:13

introduce now. So first we have Chris Ferrie, he's  an Associate Professor at the Centre for Quantum  

03:18

Software within the University of Technology  Sydney where we're currently located. He  

03:22

obtained his PhD in quantum information from the  Institute for Quantum Computing at the University  

03:27

of Waterloo in Canada. He specialises in the  theory of quantum characterisation and control, 

03:32

and many of his theoretical protocols have  moved into practice, being implemented in  

03:36

laboratories worldwide. Chris is a gifted  scientific communicator having published over  

03:40

50 children's books in science, which have  been translated into 15 languages and have  

03:45

sold more than five million copies worldwide. I  have of course here one of his wonderful books,  

03:51

not set up at all! Quantum Computing for  Babies, which I highly recommend that  

03:55

you have take a look at it at your  closest bookstore if they still exist.  

04:01

Then Chris is a creator of many of our  educational innovations in quantum science  

04:05

in both the classroom and out, and he is  actually a quantum education advisor at Q-CTRL.  

04:11

Next on our panel we have Biliana Rajevic. Biliana  leads the development and implementation of Sydney  

04:17

Quantum Academy's engagement strategy. She  has worked in both large global organisations,  

04:23

boutique firms, and startups in New York,  London, and Sydney. She has more than 20 years  

04:27

experience spanning investment banking, investor  relations and software development products.  

04:32

Prior to SQA Biliana was on the leadership team  of an Australian AI startup leading corporate  

04:37

and technology partnerships, GTM execution  and capital raising, and Biliana received her  

04:42

MBA degree from Cornell University. She also  has a book coming out... no, that's [laughs]

04:50

But she's got a great amount of expertise both  outside of simply the academic sector but also  

04:56

crossing between the two, so it's  really great to have here as well.  

04:59

Next we have Nathan Langford. Nathan Langford is  an ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor in  

05:05

the Faculty of Science at UTS, where he leads a  research group on quantum circuit science at UTS,  

05:11

and a new state-of-the-art cryogenic facility  for studying superconducting quantum processes.  

05:16

Nathan is also in the Centre for Quantum Software  and Information. After graduating from his PhD at  

05:21

the University of Queensland in 2007, Nathan  worked in leading experimental quantum science  

05:26

research groups across Europe before returning  to Australia to take up a lecturing position  

05:30

and Future Fellowship at UTS. He has a broad  background in quantum technologies ranging across  

05:35

widely different experimental platforms as well as  theoretical research, and his research currently  

05:40

focuses on superconducting quantum processes to  simulate exotic physical systems. Nathan is also a  

05:46

keen science communicator and was once runner-up  on "I'm a scientist get me out of here". It's  

05:50

great to have you on the panel of course Nathan.  Superconducting cubits are such a big topic as  

05:54

well in quantum computing, so it's great to have  that expertise. And next we have Michael Biercuk,  

06:00

he is the CEO and Founder of Q-CTRL, a quantum  technology company and a Professor of quantum  

06:05

physics and quantum technology at the University  of Sydney. In his academic position he leads a  

06:10

research team as Chief Investigator in the  ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered  

06:14

Quantum Systems exploring the role of control  engineering and quantum coherent systems.  

06:20

Michael earned his undergraduate degree from the  university of Pennsylvania and his Master's and  

06:24

PhD from Harvard University. He has a research  fellowship in the Ion Storage Group at NIST,  

06:29

Boulder and has served as a full-time technical  consultant for DARPA, helping to steer government  

06:34

investments in quantum information and advanced  computer architectures. Michael is also a SXSW  

06:40

and TEDx presenter alumnus, with a multi-time  Australian Museum Eureka prize nominee and winner.  

06:47

Great to have you here Mike. And finally we have  Simon Devitt. Simon Devitt is a Senior Lecturer in  

06:52

the Centre for Quantum Software and Information  at the University of Technology Sydney, and  

06:57

Co-Founder and Managing Director of the quantum  technology consulting firm H-bar. Completing  

07:02

his PhD in 2008 in quantum engineering he has held  research positions at the University of Cambridge,  

07:07

the Japanese National Institute of Informatics,  Keio University, and Japanese National Lens,  

07:12

Riken. His expertise is in quantum computing and  communications, architecture design, quantum error  

07:17

correction and quantum algorithm compilation. He  has worked with numerous corporations and VC firms  

07:22

on their expansion into the quantum technology  space, and advised multiple government agencies  

07:27

on multi-award, million-dollar R&D initiatives.  In 2021 he was awarded the inaugural Warren Prize  

07:33

from the Royal Society of NSW for his service  to global quantum computing development.  

07:37

Great to have you here as well Simon. So  we clearly have quite a range of expertise  

07:41

in the panel, from everything from industry  through to academia to the bridges between.  

07:46

But enough from me, let's say  some things from the panel.  

07:49

So the first question, which I'd like to  get perspective from both Mike and Simon,  

07:54

who might give us the kind of experimental versus  theory side is, what is quantum technology?

08:01

I assume this is on, oh yes it is. Everyone's  holding quantum technology in their pocket.  

08:06

Every single phone you have, every  single watch you have, everything's  

08:10

all based on quantum technology. We sort of  make this distinction now we try to sort of  

08:15

tell people, sort of lead them into what quantum  technology is by making the distinction of the  

08:18

quantum technology that exists in the 20th century  and the quantum technology that we're all trying  

08:22

to build now in the 21st century. So 20th century  quantum technologies you're all familiar with.  

08:28

Transistors, they only work because of quantum  mechanics. The laser only works because of  

08:33

quantum mechanics. Medical imaging, MRIs only work  because of quantum mechanics, but they're working  

08:40

basically through the quantum mechanical effect  of billions upon billions upon billions of atoms. 

08:46

The actual properties that they have  and how these things act as say switches  

08:50

in the context of transistors occurs because  of quantum mechanical properties, but we're  

08:55

not exploiting quantum mechanical properties  directly. Whereas the second generation of quantum  

09:00

technology that we will work on, whether it's  computing, communication sensing, what have you,  

09:05

this is all based upon exploiting the actual  rules of quantum mechanics at the subatomic level,  

09:10

whether it's atoms, whether it's particles of  light, and that opens up a range of possibilities  

09:16

in computing, sensing and  communications that just isn't possible  

09:21

when you think about classical transistors or the  digital world that came about in the 20th century. 

09:25

This is why it's so interesting and  so important in this century that this  

09:29

technology is actually moving forward because  the first generation of quantum technologies led  

09:33

to the digital revolution, so what's the second  generation of quantum technologies going to do?

09:41

Hello, let me let me give a couple of additional  perspectives. Obviously everything that Simon has  

09:48

said is almost verbatim what I would say  in this kind of setting, except much more  

09:53

eloquent than I would. I think, here's an analogy to try to bring home that point. 

10:00

The way we build technology today, by analogy,  is a little bit like building a sand sculpture.  

10:08

We take a giant pile of stuff and if we  learn the right rules we can shape the  

10:12

stuff into the form that we want. Whether you're  a really skilled artist and you shape that into  

10:19

you know, a sculpture of an amazing castle,  or Freud and his patient in a sand sculpture  

10:25

you know, you're always still using the  properties of the big pile of stuff.  

10:32

And so it shouldn't escape your understanding  that if instead of looking at the giant pile  

10:36

of stuff and what you can do with it, if  instead you look at the single grains of sand  

10:41

you'll see that when you look closely enough, it's  not just a homogeneous pile of tan sand, instead  

10:48

you see that there's a new level of complexity  that was just not visible to you when you only  

10:53

look at the giant pile. When you look at the  individual grains you see that some are seashell  

10:57

and some are stone, some are transparent, some  are opaque, some are rough, some are very smooth  

11:03

and absolutely none of that is visible to you  when you only look at the giant pile of stuff. 

11:08

And so the transition that we're making that  Simon alluded to of what we talk about now  

11:12

in the 21st century of quantum technology, is  about looking at the individual grains of sand  

11:17

and building technology from the individual  grains of sand. Those are the individual  

11:21

quantum mechanical systems. In the 1980s  and the 1990s we learned that you could  

11:27

get down to isolate individual grains of  sand in this analogy. Individual atoms,  

11:33

individual elements of electrical circuits  that obey the rules of quantum mechanics.  

11:38

And what we've been working on since then, is  putting that phenomenology, all the complexity  

11:44

we find when we look closely enough to work. Now  let me expand one step further on Simon's comment.  

11:51

in addition to things like lasers and transistors  and computers, there is actually one bit of  

11:58

quantum technology that meets the definition  that I think all of us would use for this 21st  

12:02

century or second quantum revolution which has in  fact already changed your life, and that is GPS.  

12:08

GPS works because of atomic clocks. Atomic clocks  give us a very very stable tick that comes from  

12:16

inside the atom and we can only, only access  that tick if we use quantum mechanics to do so.

12:26

Now just think about how GPS has changed  your life, did you get here using  

12:29

Google Maps? Did you use an Uber? Think about  all the location-based services that are tied  

12:35

back to this first true application of what  we would collectively call quantum technology.  

12:42

That's just the first thing that  we thought of right? And now  

12:45

our interest in our excitement is about  everything else that we can build from there.

12:53

Those are some great answers, and again that's,  I think it's the first time I've heard an  

12:57

explanation of quantum technology without jargon  like entanglement, superposition and coherence  

13:01

so great work there. Trying to continue that  theme of accessibility so everyone has an idea  

13:06

I think another really great way to understand  how quantum technologies affects us is talk about  

13:11

applications. So for the rest of the panel, would  you mind telling us about what particular quantum  

13:16

technology has an application that you're  really excited about? Nathan you wanna go  

13:20

first? All right. Okay, so I think for me, the  most exciting quantum technology applications  

13:30

will be those that arise out of quantum computing  and in particular to use quantum computers  

13:37

to model the behaviour of really complex  physical systems. So it turns out  

13:44

that modelling a large chemical or biological  molecule, or an exotic material like novel  

13:54

superconductors, is actually something that's  really super hard to do on a traditional computer  

14:01

and in fact a significant fraction of the  world's annual supercomputing capacity  

14:09

gets used to do exactly this sort of  in-silico molecular modelling every year.  

14:15

But because quantum physics underpins and drives  a lot of the key properties of these sorts of  

14:22

systems, it turns out that quantum computers  are actually really well placed to take up this  

14:32

challenge, and in fact do it a hell of a lot  more efficiently than a traditional computer,  

14:39

and the potential payoff here is really huge. Imagine if you could find a more efficient way  

14:46

to make fertiliser than the  century-old harbour process  

14:50

that's still in use and consumes some few percent  of the world's global annual carbon budget.

14:59

Or imagine if you could dramatically  reduce the amount of time  

15:03

and money it takes to develop and test  new vaccines and new therapeutic drugs  

15:11

by using a quantum computer to artificially test,  to simulate and test these new potential molecules  

15:22

and chemicals that people want to use in  these contexts, and in doing so cut out  

15:28

a huge amount of the expensive labor-intensive and  you know, necessarily hit-and-miss lab synthesis  

15:38

and testing that costs a huge amount of money  for the pharmaceutical industry every year.

15:44

And that's the sort of area where we  hope quantum computing can take us. 

15:49

So Biliana are you all so excited about  quantum computing, or a different technology?  

15:55

What I'm excited about is a little  bit of what Nathan touched on  

15:59

something that is near and dear to my heart,  is the life sciences industry and the potential  

16:04

of faster drug development and the trickle-down  effect that that can then have on the society  

16:10

for people getting life-saving treatments  or affording life-saving treatments in time. 

16:14

And also the idea of potential personalised  medicine therapies. Chris what are you  

16:21

thinking? Yeah so I mean obviously I agree. I  think when we, the typical answer you hear is  

16:31

that quantum computers will be used to solve  kind of abstract problems, like maybe we'll  

16:34

multiply matrices faster, or it could help with  machine learning and I think that may be true but  

16:42

it's these spin-off effects like when the first  atomic clock was invented, nobody thought that  

16:49

what we really want is Uber, nobody thought that  that's what we were planning on doing, right? So,  

16:55

and it's not us, it's not the people deep into  the research that it's going to come up but those  

17:00

ideas, it's it's going to be the community of  people that come into the field afterward or now  

17:07

that come up with these ideas and applications  that we could never dream of because we're deep  

17:11

in the weeds trying to multiply numbers faster.  And one of the other points that I wanted to  

17:18

make about physics, if you think about what we're  trying to do, we're going to build a device and  

17:28

it's going to be a device that we can't really  explain the inner workings of in great detail.  

17:36

A quantum computer will be a black  box and you can't look in the box,  

17:39

if you look in the box you'll break the  computation. So what's in the box will be  

17:45

a new state of matter something new in  the world that's never existed before,  

17:50

that we will have created, and I think that's a  really interesting thing to think about, that a  

17:56

lot of the technology that we've created over the  past was to help us go out and explore the world,  

18:02

and these technologies were great at going out  and seeing what was already there. Whereas now  

18:08

we're going to build and design the world at the  most fundamental level and what we find there  

18:16

may be incredible, it will certainly be a paradigm  shift in all of science. So that's what I'm most  

18:22

excited about. I just wanted to pick up one  one extra thing to drive home this point about,  

18:27

you know the unknown applications being  maybe the most exciting. The first digital  

18:32

electronic computer was called the ENIAC  that was at the University of Pennsylvania,  

18:36

it's the first computer that really looks like the  computers we use today. It had digital encoding,  

18:42

the encoding was electronic, now that the  hardware was different obviously. It was publicly  

18:48

released in 1947 but the spec for it was like  1943, that's when the money started coming  

18:54

into Pen' to build it. Anybody know what the  application that they proposed was? It was only  

18:59

one, it was only one application for the world's  first computer, first electronic digital computer.  

19:06

Calculating artillery shell trajectories. That was  the only thing anybody thought was valuable enough  

19:12

to build what is now the information revolution,  right? And so I think, you know, we have really  

19:20

exciting ideas about things to do with quantum  computers but I think they're they're going to  

19:25

look pretty silly in 30 or 40 or 50 years when  we start actually running these things at scale.

19:33

Just following up on that, I think one  of the really interesting things about  

19:37

exactly this point with quantum computing is  that quantum computing, quantum computers as  

19:43

Chris was saying, are kind of the ultimate  in complex matter systems, and in some sense  

19:51

one of the big challenges about building a quantum  computer is you can't know what's going on inside  

19:58

otherwise you break it, and and for a quantum  computer to be interesting it has to get big  

20:04

enough that it's doing stuff you can't do on a  traditional computer. So kind of by definition if  

20:11

we build this quantum computer large enough to be  interesting we are not going to be able to easily  

20:17

predict and know what is going to happen with  the understanding that we have at the moment.  

20:25

And this is going to require a completely new  way of looking at it, a completely new breed of  

20:31

programmers and data analysts to both control and  then analyse what's coming out of these machines.  

20:44

And that's going to be, I mean that's something  that we can't possibly know about, like  

20:48

that's something that's going to happen and  emerge over the next few decades, I guess.

20:55

So there were some amazing applications there,  

20:57

from health to other unknown  applications as well .

21:01

I'm gonna ask this question to the two people who  have companies which are based around quantum,  

21:06

the quantum technologies. I'm sure this is  a question you both relish and loathe, but  

21:11

when will we see the benefits  that we've been just described,  

21:15

what is the time horizon for these  outcomes? That's to Mike and Simon. 

21:21

Well I mean Mike already alluded to it, we  already have. We already have seen the benefits  

21:26

when it comes to atomic clocks, timing standards  which leads to GPS. Now hidden within that  

21:33

question is when are quantum computers going to  display benefits? That's what people are really  

21:38

asking, when is a quantum computer going  to be something that's going to be useful  

21:42

for any kind of commercial or scientifically  useful application. Again it kind of  

21:49

it kind of misses the point, because  building a machine that can give Summit,  

21:56

the supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Labs  are run for their money, in any computation is  

22:01

that a benefit? I think it is. This is the Google  supremacy result that was done a couple years ago,  

22:07

50 quantum bits gave the world's largest  supercomputer that is used for nuclear weapons  

22:12

calculations a run for its money. I think that's  a benefit already. It's already telling us how to  

22:17

engineer these systems and it's now gotten to the  stage you know, I've been in quantum computing for  

22:23

about 15 years now, it's now routine. It used  to be to build a qubit in the lab was a major  

22:29

effort for a new academic that was starting up.  These days you can order them online just about.  

22:35

Okay that's a benefit in my mind. When the systems  are going to get large enough that they're going  

22:39

to become commercially competitive, that Pfizer  or General Motors or GEE is actually going to be  

22:46

buying super computing time on quantum computers  to do their calculations, I mean you get a range  

22:51

of answers depending on who you're talking to. If  you're talking to people with companies they'll  

22:56

put the timeline a bit shorter than people are in  academia, but nobody knows, nobody really knows.  

23:01

We're hoping to see good commercial applications  or at least demonstrations of the building blocks  

23:06

of commercial applications within this decade. Now  I don't want to speculate anywhere beyond that.  

23:12

I mean who the hell knows we could  all be gone by the end of this decade  

23:17

so you know, but I'm a pessimistic guy. [Laughter] Are you really? I think maybe a different way of  

23:29

phrasing the question is like, when  do we expect some company to make  

23:35

ungodly amounts of money from the work that  they're doing building some quantum thing?  

23:42

You know Simon is quite right that you get more  pessimistic answers from academics on average,  

23:47

you get more optimistic answers from  industrialists on average you know it's  

23:52

a little bit like picking stocks, the reality  is nobody knows if it's going to go up or down,  

23:56

nobody exactly knows as Simon was saying what  the timing is going to be. I mean based on the  

24:01

pace of progress that I have seen based on my time  building quantum computers for the last 21 years  

24:06

and the time that I spent in government supporting  this I legitimately think that we're getting to  

24:12

the point where in the like five to eight year  time horizon, we're going to start to see quantum  

24:16

computers that outperform, you know, conventional  machines for tasks that people care about.  

24:22

Right? There are scientifically interesting tasks  like the quantum supremacy experiment that have  

24:26

indirect benefits, and then there is the like,  when do I design a drug on a quantum computer? 

24:32

You know, that threshold I think is in this  five to eight year timeline. But what to me is  

24:36

also exciting is that everything we're learning  about building quantum computers actually falls  

24:40

into another category of applications that  we don't hear as much about it's not a sexy  

24:45

called quantum sensing, which is taking the fact  that quantum hardware is really really fragile.  

24:49

One reason it's really hard to build these big  systems is that it breaks very easily, right,  

24:53

it just turns back into garbage. Well you can kind  of turn that on its head, you can use that as as a  

24:59

benefit, as a technological capability to detect  very small signals. In particular very small  

25:05

magnetic signatures, maybe you want to do mining  exploration, very small gravitational signatures,  

25:10

turns out you can measure ocean currents  directly, you can map ocean currents with  

25:16

gravity from space. Right? And so quantum sensors  that leverage this weakness as a strength,  

25:24

given application or given opportunity for  applications that deliver on your time scales, and  

25:28

the reason is that very coarsely a quantum sensor  is a lot like a one quantum bit quantum computer,  

25:34

it's like a quantum computer with one element,  and we're really good as Simon was just saying,  

25:38

even at making them in like the most junior  academics intro lab, they they can make a qubit  

25:44

and we know a lot about how to manipulate them and  operate them, and so I'm particularly bullish on  

25:49

this next few years about the emergence of quantum  sensing applications for a range of activities and  

25:55

in particular we focus in Q-CTRL on navigation, building new kinds of navigation technologies that  

26:01

work in the absence of GPS, so do, it's called  "dead reckoning navigation", measure where you're  

26:07

going and where you are even without a GPS beacon.  Right, I think that's great to like hear about the  

26:13

timelines I think we've established pretty clearly  now what the quantum technologies are and their  

26:17

applications. Let's bring it down to a smaller  scale now and talk about the city of Sydney. 

26:22

I think this question is best for Biliana. So  you've got expertise at the Sydney Quantum Academy  

26:26

of sitting in between, in Sydney sitting in  between industry and academia. So what would you  

26:32

say are the current advantages that Sydney as a  city has in the quantum space? Yeah so I think one  

26:37

of the things that many people don't realise, that  Sydney has one of the highest concentration if not  

26:43

the highest concentration of quantum scientists  and talent in the world ranging from experts with  

26:51

decades of experience, to early and mid-career  researchers, to PhD students and also the emerging  

26:58

talent at the undergraduate level. Last year  UNSW was the first university in the world  

27:05

to offer a Bachelor's of Engineering undergraduate  degree in quantum engineering. And then you have  

27:12

the organisation like the Sydney Quantum Academy  where the quantum community is banded together,  

27:17

together with the NSW Government to show their  support of continuing to develop this PhD talent.  

27:25

Plus we are looking for ways to  actually help upscale the entire,  

27:30

you know corporate workforce at various levels,  and none of this would be possible if we didn't  

27:36

have this deep expertise on the ground. Yeah I think that's a really good  

27:40

foundation and I'll kind of broaden out  the question of the rest of the panel,  

27:44

really to the core question that I wanted to ask  today about how how we as a city of Sydney can do  

27:52

better to grow our quantum industry.  So this is a question for everybody.  

27:57

There's a lot of emphasis on industry  academic collaborations and policy  

28:01

is this the right end result we should be  targeting? Are there good examples worth emulating  

28:06

out there already? And how can Sydney do better? Do you want to volunteer to go first, Nathan?  

28:14

Yeah this is a really interesting question  I think. For me, quantum technology  

28:21

is something that really exemplifies the very definition of a deep tech  

28:27

development field, and by deep tech what I mean  is a field which really combines critical elements  

28:37

from bleeding edge research science, and big tech  scale engineering development. And that means that  

28:47

on their own a research scientist would really  have no hope of trying to build a quantum computer  

28:54

without the, sort of, the scale and the investment  and the process optimisation that industry can  

29:03

help bring to the table. But at the same time you  can give us all of the undergraduate engineering  

29:12

graduates in the world, and without  the world's best research scientists  

29:21

being able to bring those conceptual shifts  and the really transformative, out-of-the-box  

29:31

innovation that you get from pursuing those  tangential research paths, the industry actually  

29:38

really struggles to follow, when you're developing  a product it's really hard to, kind of follow all  

29:46

the tangents. And that's absolutely critical in  this space at the moment, and we're really seeing  

29:53

exactly this interaction at the moment in our  field. What started as basically an academic  

30:00

pursuit in the mid 1990s, is now getting huge  interest from industry around the world. And I  

30:09

think in my field, my particular experimental  area there's a really good example of this,  

30:15

which is that John Martinez at the  University of California Santa Barbara  

30:24

had like, he's really one of the key founders of  the area of superconducting electronic circuits  

30:31

for quantum information processing, and about  10 years ago Google effectively adopted his  

30:39

entire research group into Google.  [Michael: "Bought"] Yeah bought, and  

30:47

you know, they were already doing  amazing science in the Martinez Group  

30:52

but since they joined Google  it's been really exciting to see

30:57

the transformation they have taken to the  next level, where the the sort of stuff  

31:03

that they can do is really is changed  by the fact that they're now embedded  

31:09

in the sort of massive corporate machinery that  a company like Google can bring to the table.  

31:16

But even though this is  kind of the fairy tale story  

31:19

of academia/industry collaboration in some  sense, I guess I would say that maybe this is

31:26

not the example that we want to follow,  that we should be trying to follow. I mean  

31:31

let's face it how many Googles are there?  How many groups, academic research groups  

31:36

are there like John Martinez's group? This  is a really really hard thing to replicate.  

31:42

So actually I think I would argue that one of the  things we should be trying to do really really  

31:50

hard especially in Sydney and around the  world, is that we should be trying to  

31:58

really strongly support the academic groups  at this point, because as industry expands  

32:06

they are going to need, like industry needs  people and that's great for all the academics and  

32:11

research students to have possibilities to go  off and join really exciting companies and stuff  

32:17

but as industry expands, so is going to expand  their need for more talent, and if we don't  

32:25

really strongly try to expand the  support for academic research groups,  

32:30

then what starts as a, you know a healthy  flow of people from academia to industry, 

32:36

could become an exodus that could be really  damaging, and I think that as I said before,  

32:42

deep tech really needs the sort of, the  slightly less constrained research paths and  

32:48

the more out-of-the-box thinking that you're  able to pursue as an academic researcher,  

32:54

and then that's a really critical thing to bring  to the table for quantum technologies and quantum  

32:58

industries for the coming decades. So I actually  think we should be really strongly trying to  

33:03

expand our support for young, up-and-coming  researchers in the academic space. People who,  

33:12

and the last thing I'll say is like, the people  who will be making the discoveries in 10 to 20  

33:16

years that will be really profoundly changing  the path towards quantum computing they're  

33:21

not going to be people, I don't think, who are  currently working in the big current groups now.  

33:27

They're going to be people who've come through  groups that haven't even been established yet.  

33:31

And this is why I think it's really important  to support the young people coming through.  

33:36

Do you want to give a point for that  Mike, from your industry's perspective?  

33:39

I will give a point from an industry perspective,  it is not a counterpoint. I think, so the first  

33:45

thing is, Nathan hit the nail on the head with one  thing, but I wanted to give some context why does  

33:50

this question come up a lot, it's because this is  a policy question. What should the government be  

33:56

doing? What should the government be investing  in? And right now the government in Australia  

34:00

is pushing very hard on uh supporting industry  academic collaboration, right? Now my personal  

34:06

view is that this is focusing on the means and  not the end. The end that we want is a vibrant  

34:13

industrial you know R&D and technology sector,  where science turns into products and outcomes,  

34:21

right, that's what we want, and I think we've  narrowly focused on one mechanism to support that.  

34:28

Now the other thing is you don't make industry  policy by looking at Facebook, right? You don't  

34:33

look at that and say, oh we're just going to make  more of that, right? You may say, well we'd love  

34:37

to have more companies of that scale, we'd love  to have more companies that are as successful,  

34:42

have the same market cap, but you don't  look at the outlier and say we're going  

34:45

to make policy around that. You try to make  policy that has broad-based impact, and in my  

34:52

view when we look at industry and academia and  collaboration in particular in Australia, the  

34:57

the policy perspective is is quite simplistic,  and it's really like, on a scale of like, smart  

35:09

to dumb you have academia, then there's this like  clear threshold and then you have industry above.  

35:16

That's the policy perspective. Industrialists,  they're dumb, academics are smart but academics  

35:21

are also if you make another access that goes the  other way from like impact, high impact to low  

35:26

impact it goes the opposite direction, academics  have no impact, industrialists have big impact,  

35:31

it's completely stupid but this is the  perspective. And so I think we need to change the  

35:36

narrative to make sure that people understand that  it's not just like you take some people from the  

35:40

smart category and some people from the not smart  but high impact category and you put them together  

35:45

and everything gets fixed. Instead we have to  look at like how different industry is. Yes you  

35:50

have rent seekers who make money by investing  in property just before there's a development  

35:56

application that builds a train line nearby,  you have plenty of that and we can't fix that.  

36:00

But you also have companies like Simon's company,  like my company that are research driven, and I  

36:06

would say the reality is we don't, in air quotes,  we don't "need" industry collaboration, just like  

36:13

successful research groups like Nathan's don't  "need" industry money, right? There can be  

36:18

circumstances where it's beneficial but just  saying, well all we're going to do is focus on  

36:24

the the engagement and the collaboration part and  then everything else will take care of itself,  

36:28

it ignores reality, it ignores the fact that these  programs like the CRC Scheme have been around for  

36:33

decades and have not fixed the problem. The ARC  Linkage program has been around for a number  

36:38

of years and has not moved the needle at all  on improving commercialisation outcomes. So,  

36:43

you know they talk about the definition of  madness, this discussion falls into that category,  

36:48

so I think we need to elevate the level of  discussion and look at a diversity of ways  

36:54

to support both the industrial  research and the commercialisation,  

36:58

as well as providing robust support  for fundamental exploratory science.  

37:05

I mean Michael's completely right in this.  There is a real problem at the policy level  

37:10

as to industry engagement; industry engagement, we  don't care how, we don't care why, we don't care  

37:15

any kind of details it's just industry engagement,  and it ends up being a focus of academics as to  

37:20

who you can engage with and what companies you can  deal, with but in the quantum space I always like  

37:25

to point out when I'm talking about this, is that  while the industry side and the corporate side  

37:31

and the VC side might be the most visible, it's  not the most heavily invested part of quantum.  

37:37

Governments still vastly vastly outweigh the  funding that's coming into the quantum sector,  

37:43

I mean just in the last year we've had  the French announce a three billion  

37:49

dollar initiative, we've had the Germans announced  two billion dollar initiative, we've had the Dutch  

37:52

announce a billion dollar initiative. The dutch,  this is a country of the same size as us, the same  

37:58

GDP as us, the same very very good talent base as  us, and they've already got a one billion dollar  

38:04

European Union international initiative but they  still thought, well we'll throw another billion  

38:09

dollars into this. Australia did a very very  good job in the late 90s and early to late 2000s  

38:17

really punching above our weight, that's why  we have such a strong talent pool in Sydney  

38:21

and throughout the country, but as Biliana said,  Sydney's got a very very high concentration, that  

38:25

was because of Australia making a dedicated choice  early on to say, no we will fund this, but the  

38:31

rest of the world is ramping up, the rest of the  world is saying, no we're going to go 10x we're  

38:34

going to go 100x on top of the funding that we  put in the early 2000s, and Australia is sitting  

38:40

here twiddling its thumbs. Now the industry only  comes, the startups only come when you're sitting  

38:45

there and you've got a good talent base that are  sitting there and you've got basically a surplus,  

38:50

and we don't really encourage spin-outs very  much in Australia, I mean the quantum spin-outs,  

38:56

you know not counting H-bar because we don't  do technology we're a consultancy firm,  

39:01

but if companies actually building stuff there's  Q-CTRL, there's SQC, there's Quantum Brilliance,  

39:09

Quintessence doing communications, and then a few  companies doing peripheral technologies, sort of  

39:15

support technologies or device technologies.  That's quite bad considering the impact that  

39:20

we had in the early 2000s. And if you just look  at the Australians scattered far and wide, I mean  

39:26

talk about industry collaborations I mean it's  industry poaching, I mean the University of  

39:30

Sydney lost two faculty members just in the last  six months to Amazon, who knows if that's the  

39:36

end of it. That's the industry collaboration that  we're seeing. Now for the researchers it's great,  

39:43

you go join one of these big corporates, you get  a salary bump, you might get to go back home,  

39:47

but certainly I don't want that. I'd like it to  happen here in Sydney because I like Australia  

39:55

but I'd much rather see us grow as the rest of  the world is growing on this stuff, and then  

40:00

foster these kind of spin outs or these industry  collaborations just as a natural consequence,  

40:04

rather than insisting that without any government  support everyone must have an industry partner,  

40:10

which just doesn't work. I mean at UTS QSI for  example we do quantum algorithm development.  

40:16

Nobody in our centre is really keen on  industry collaboration because it doesn't  

40:21

match our research programs, the people  who are doing algorithm development at UTS  

40:25

are not really interested in what's  going to happen in the next three  

40:29

or four years and optimising financial  portfolios, that's not their interest,  

40:33

that's not what they're trained to do, so there  is this issue. Can I say, and that's okay.  

40:40

We need people who think on 30 and 40 and  50-year time scales, I mean I run a company,  

40:46

I'm an industrialist I have a short-term time  horizon and I need people like Simon who say  

40:51

what are we going to do with this technology  that you're enabling in 40 years, right?  

40:55

If we don't have this diversity of time scales  in our R&D portfolio everything falls apart. And  

41:00

what's really important to add to what Simon said,  is that the people at UTS who are working on this  

41:05

stuff, they're like world leading in this area.  This is not people who are doing something that's  

41:12

not considered important or like, they are really  at the head of the game, but it's just they're  

41:19

playing a game as Mike said that's two decades  down the time horizon. Chris did you want to  

41:25

make a comment? You are one of the people that  they're talking about right now as someone who's  

41:28

at UTS working with industry today. Yeah I think  that something practical for me and it sounds like  

41:37

that would help with a lot of these problems is  bringing in students at the undergraduate level.  

41:46

I don't have enough PhD students to send out into  industry, how do I get them? Well right now they  

41:53

can't come from overseas, so where are they going  to come from? They need to come from Australia.  

41:58

so we need to get high school students,  people that want to upskill into our  

42:04

undergraduate programs, UNSW has an undergraduate  program in engineering and quantum computing,  

42:10

UTS has an undergraduate program, you  can get a bachelor of computer science  

42:14

with a major in quantum information science  at UTS. We need people into these programs and  

42:21

where they will go from there, they might come and  join our research groups, they might go and join  

42:28

companies, but we just don't have enough of  those people there, so we need to somehow  

42:35

encourage, incentivise people at that low  level, and this isn't going to solve the  

42:40

problem today or tomorrow but an undergraduate  degree is only four years, so we can solve,  

42:46

start to look forward to this problem being solved  four or five years from now if we can get students  

42:50

today in into these programs. And for those  students it's probably worth saying that,  

42:55

I mean quantum technologies is, you know it  could be a bit like the NASA space program,  

43:01

there's a lot of stuff that can come out of this,  even if you train and you get a degree bachelor of  

43:05

computer science and quantum information science,  that doesn't mean that that's the thing that you  

43:10

have to do for the rest of the career. You're  going to be getting a huge amount of really  

43:14

useful skills that will be, you know we don't know  what the spin outs are going to be, that are going  

43:20

to arise from this massive research program that's  happening. So there's a huge horizon there. Yeah I  

43:25

mean, I don't think you can find an example of  someone who got a degree in quantum computing  

43:31

and didn't end up being successful. Getting  a technical degree is pretty much a guarantee  

43:38

for, you know employment or probably happiness  I think? We're all pretty happy. I mean yeah we  

43:45

all got degrees in quantum computing 10 years ago  I think... Before we get too philosophical about  

43:51

the decisions I've made in my life, I've noticed  a theme that's developing, we really are talking a  

43:55

lot about how industry and academia are connected  through the talent ,the talent that goes through.  

44:00

So I have like another question for Biliana, how  do we build wider quantum literacy and the right  

44:07

talent pipeline to support both researchers  and entrepreneurs? Yeah so I think you can  

44:12

end up with a wide spectrum of quantum literacy  and I think we have to as educators think about  

44:18

how can we develop the right talent for their,  I mean the right content for the right people.  

44:24

The CEOs and the CEO and the board level, what  do they need to know in order to understand how  

44:30

this emerging technology is going to transform  their industry, their company, their workforce  

44:36

and how can they continue to drive change with  the organisation? The classical developer, how  

44:43

do they need to be retrained to have the right  future technical skills? People working in quantum  

44:51

adjacent industries or people working at, you  know companies such as Q-CTRL who are not quantum  

44:56

scientists but who are always working with them,  what level of knowledge do we need to get them at?  

45:02

And then how do we deliver this? You know, how,  what's the right mixture of in-person teaching  

45:08

versus online? You know, how do people ingest  knowledge and information nowadays? Look it's  

45:15

definitely a tall order for the educators, but  I think that's okay this is, this is a long-term  

45:21

game. And then to your point earlier in terms  of we need to look at the top of the funnel,  

45:25

how do we entice people to actually study these  subjects? And I think one of the things we need  

45:29

to do is we need to demonstrate, as much as you  don't want to work with collaborative industry or,  

45:36

looking at the term [Simon: I did not say, I did  not say I didn't want to [laughter], I collaborate  

45:39

with industry all the time] We need to make clear  connections between what you're studying today  

45:45

and there's going to be a job there waiting for  you, four to five years from today, not just in  

45:50

academia but with industry, and for that we need  these collaborations to actually explore these  

45:56

future use cases so that companies are going  to understand what are the skills they need  

46:02

to look for and hire for, four, five, ten years  from now. Yeah let me, I'll pick up on that and  

46:09

I'll actually highlight a relationship that Q-CTRL  has with Chris, I mean it was it was highlighted  

46:13

before that Chris is a quantum education advisor,  Chris is an academic at UTS. Q-CTRL has a lot  

46:21

of talent in web development and professional  software engineering and back-end engineering  

46:26

and product engineering and product design  and user experience and user interface design,  

46:30

and we decided to get together and build something  kind of new and different, and that is an EdTech  

46:38

tool that leverages the best practice in product  design and user experience, but is informed by  

46:46

education and education focused research. I mean  maybe do you want to say something about some of  

46:50

the content development that we're doing together?  Yeah so I think this is a great point and I think  

46:55

it hits upon a lot of things, like one of them  is that when we think about the collaboration  

47:02

between researchers and industry in deep tech we  imagine like, there's geniuses that are gonna go  

47:10

behind some lab door and they're gonna, you know  that's the only way in which we could collaborate.  

47:16

But there's lots of ways to collaborate and one of  the ways in which we're collaborating is providing  

47:22

new innovations in quantum education, and before  I said you know, what I want is students but  

47:30

you know, that's putting my academic hat  on because that's what we do right? We  

47:34

work at a university and we need students to pay  fees so that the university can bear salaries,  

47:40

but also to help us do research, that's just one  side of it right? But everyone can and should  

47:47

be educated in quantum technology, just like I  teach my children how to code, I teach toddlers  

47:53

my toddler how to code with a little robot and a  little thing right, you could have said the same  

48:00

thing about conventional computing 50, 60 years  ago, saying you know, it it takes experts and  

48:08

people with a lot of expertise to do this. 60, 70  years later we're not teaching toddlers to do it.  

48:14

So we can do this but we need innovations and  that's what what we're doing at Q-CTRL with this  

48:22

collaboration is coming up with new innovations  to teach not just students not just experts  

48:31

about quantum technology and quantum computing.  Yeah an important point is that we're trying to  

48:35

leverage the expertise of both sides. Chris is  an expert in the science communication part,  

48:39

I mean he's obviously an expert in research as  well, in the content, what should be taught,  

48:43

how do you teach it in an effective way. We are  experts in building products, right? And I can  

48:48

tell you from my time in universities dealing with  web interfaces like Sydney student for you know,  

48:53

online student management, that universities  are not good at product development right?  

48:57

they're not good at software engineering. And  so this is an opportunity where we bring kind  

49:01

of the best of both worlds and then we  end up testing the new technical product  

49:07

in an education setting, we'll be using it in  UTS's coursework in the future right? It's a  

49:12

really cool example of a collaboration that is  more than just, you know "we buy your science".  

49:18

Maybe or "we buy your education" right?  Maybe there's one last thing that we can  

49:22

to add to all of these I mean these are all  great points, but one thing that's particularly  

49:28

important for Sydney I think, so I'm going to  use a buzzword and if you've ever written a  

49:32

grant application or something then then you  will know this buzzword is vital importance  

49:38

to your survival and that's interdisciplinarity,  and it gets applied everywhere. But the thing is  

49:44

that quantum technologies is one of the most  interdisciplinary fields that's out there okay.

49:53

Vital to our survival, you know started out as  mostly physicists but now we have engineers,  

50:00

we have computer scientists, we have  mathematicians, we have chemists,  

50:04

we have financial analysts now getting involved,  it really is massively multi-disciplinary, and  

50:11

one of the super exciting things about Sydney is  that we actually cover a huge amount of this space  

50:21

in one place. We have experimentalists  and theorists, we have people from lots of  

50:27

different experimental platforms, we have computer  scientists, mathematicians, chemists, physicists,  

50:32

engineers all working at world leading levels in  this area. And one of the key things if you want  

50:38

to get people involved in the industry and bring  in the talent and improve the quantum literacy,  

50:45

is you have to talk across these disciplines,  and one of the really huge challenges when you're  

50:51

working in the science research space is when you  have to, you know be a physicist and start talking  

50:57

to a microwave engineer, you're using completely  different language. And we're getting this,  

51:02

we're all kind of getting used to this, but it's  happening again as you go to, academics start  

51:06

talking to industry people, as you get the  education people talking to the web designer  

51:12

people, there's, each one of these situations  requires building a new language to talk between  

51:20

these different cultural groups, if you like.  And this is something that I think we need to do  

51:26

and it's something that in Sydney I think we're  really well placed to make a really great stab at.  

51:34

Yeah it's really about... it's really about  the people and the talent that you have.  

51:37

And so I guess this brings us to, we're almost  at the end of the official questions and then  

51:41

there'll be a second section where everyone in  the audience has a chance to ask some questions.  

51:46

But there has also been a really big challenge  in the quantum industry and that's diversity.  

51:50

Diversity it has many benefits as we all  know, in terms of improving the creativity  

51:54

and productivity in a company, but it's becoming a  real challenge for the industry as a whole. So one  

52:00

last question for the panel is how can we improve  diversity in the quantum technology industry?  

52:06

Perhaps Biliana would you like to start? Oh look  I think there's no doubt about that we need to  

52:15

really increase the number of women in STEM  and quantum, I think everybody agrees on that.  

52:21

But I think it's also important to  understand that there are currently  

52:25

women in the field who have already self-selected  and we need to make sure that they stay there,  

52:33

develop mechanisms to ensure that they  don't, you know that they don't leave.

52:41

And find ways as a company, I guess you have  to take a stand and decide what do you stand  

52:46

for? Stay true to your ethos, and develop  ways to measure your progress and have the  

52:52

periodical sanity checks. But what I do also  want to mention is that, like Jack Nicholson  

52:59

said in The Departed "nobody gives it to you, you  have to take it". And so you, we, you as women,  

53:07

we have to seek out these situations, seek out  opportunities where we can have an opportunity to  

53:14

show our skill set, raise our profile. Sometimes  we have to go outside of our comfort zone. Hello,  

53:24

you know? But it's really really important that we  take that initiative. And another thing that women  

53:32

should be thinking about is if you're already in  the quantum field, if you're already out there in  

53:39

the workforce you have actually earned a seat at  the table. And so you have to show up to work with  

53:45

that mindset, you have to show up to that meeting  with that mindset, you have to write that email  

53:51

with that mindset. Does anyone want to  offer a perspective from academia as well?  

53:56

Yeah I guess, so I mean we actually you know  seriously discussed whether we should even,  

54:03

you know ask this question in this  panel, I mean obviously here we have  

54:08

from the academic side, four middle-aged white men  [Chris: speak for yourself, middle-aged, come on!]  

54:15

Sorry, sorry you're already there Chris. But like,  but I think it's really important that we ask,  

54:23

it's a hard question, there's not an easy answer,  but it's important that we ask this question and  

54:29

from from the university academic side, like  to think what can we do and what are we doing?  

54:36

And I think like if I start from the kind  of local area, most local past, where  

54:42

the sorts of things that I'd like to try and do  or we would like to do and see whether we're- and  

54:47

a really important thing is we have to listen we  have to keep listening as we do all of this stuff,  

54:51

there's no point in just going oh we think this is  how to solve it and just do that. We have to keep  

54:55

listening because we're not the people who are,  like we need to make sure that this is actually  

55:00

working for the people it's supposed to work for.  And diversity in gender is a massive problem in  

55:05

quantum but there are lots of other diversity  issues that we're getting, indigenous people,  

55:11

the general cultural diversity. So starting at  the top we've got, like at universities there's  

55:16

kind of a, we have to think about what culture  we want to create, and you know, we know that  

55:24

funding is in a really constrained environment at  the moment and if you want to try to adjust the  

55:29

balance of for example gender, one you know, you'd  like to be able to hire more women but you know if  

55:36

you replace people who were there then this is a  slow process that takes many many years while you  

55:43

wait for people to leave, and if you want to  try and just add more women then it requires  

55:48

significant expansion and COVID and blah blah  blah, this makes that all really difficult.  

55:55

But what we do need to do I think, is think about  when we are making those decisions, that is a  

56:01

time when we can influence this. And we have to  think about what tools are we using to make those  

56:08

decisions, and really like how do we measure  people's success? What do we mean by success?  

56:14

How do we judge other people's success? And we  have to think carefully about what metrics we use.  

56:20

Universities love metrics, scientists love having,  

56:23

putting numbers on things. But just because you  can put a number on it doesn't necessarily mean  

56:28

that that number is fundamentally useful.  So for example judging how many people,  

56:34

how many papers people have published, when we're  judging candidates in the room we have to remember  

56:39

that the metrics that we are using are estimating,  are not just a product of someone's talent  

56:46

but also a product of luck, huge role that  luck plays in your career, and opportunity.  

56:53

And we're really, when you're appointing  someone you're trying to judge future success,  

56:58

you're not trying to judge how good their  opportunities have been, you want to know if I  

57:02

give them this opportunity who is going to create  the best outcome. So this is something that we can  

57:08

do, I mean this is, we have to make, we have to  try to drive this cultural change at universities.  

57:14

But in the shorter term I think nobody's, you know  we have a, we have an issue with gender diversity.  

57:22

You can't just put advertisements out there  and hope that people are going to come.  

57:26

I think you really need to go out and get  people, you need to go out and find people  

57:31

that you want and really try to nurture them and  bring them in. And there's lots of ways of doing  

57:37

that but the undergraduate path that Chris  was talking about is a really important one,  

57:41

the last few years the Sydney Quantum  Academy, also some of these centres,  

57:45

the Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems  have been running summer projects and  

57:52

I've been, I've had three or four female students  coming do summer projects in my group in the last  

57:59

couple of years, and this has been fantastic,  and these these students have been fantastic.  

58:04

And I really hope, this is a longer term approach  it doesn't solve my problem now right today,  

58:09

but I hope that over the next couple of years  these people are going to turn into PhD students  

58:15

in my group or someone in industry or whatever.  And the last thing is that we can't solve this  

58:21

problem completely until we also go out and  really change the cultural mindset that STEM  

58:29

is or is not a place for women, or is or is not  a place for indigenous people. And we need to,  

58:37

and that's where we need to get out with  the science outreach at every opportunity  

58:40

and talk to primary school students, talk to  high school students, talk to their parents  

58:45

talk, to the school administrators who  are advising people on career outcomes,  

58:49

and say anybody can do this, and not only can  anybody do this we actually really desperately  

58:55

need and want people to come in with different  perspectives. Biliana talked about the women  

59:01

being here who have already self-selected, but in  some sense to get through in the current system  

59:09

that is a selection process of a certain type,  we miss out on so much talent that comes with  

59:16

really different perspectives and that's what  we really want to be trying to capture I think.  

59:22

Unfortunately I don't have much more time for that  really important question but I think you really  

59:25

spoke quite eloquently and I think everyone here  on the panel agrees it's like a real challenge  

59:28

that we're working on, but it's great to hear  there is a lot being executed right now to try  

59:32

and change it, and I'm sure we'll continue to try  and come up with new ideas to solve it. If we can  

59:37

try and get a quantum computer to work I'm sure we  can tackle this problem. So now we'll move on to  

59:42

the final section. So I've put up a QR code, it's  also available on zoom for those who are following  

59:48

online. Just get out your cameras and look at  that link, it'll give you the ability to submit  

59:54

questions to the panel. We'll use the last 10  minutes we have here today to address any of your  

59:58

questions. I think I'll start the first one, so I  had some, I've got some pre-compiled from before  

60:04

the invite. This is probably for Simon because  I think I might know what the answer is. What's  

60:09

the most important thing in quantum tech that's  not being talked about as much as it needs to be?

60:17

Geez, what's the most important?

60:22

I don't really, that's a good one I really don't  know. There's a whole bunch in quantum tech  

60:28

that should be talked about but isn't, I'm not  sure which one's the most important. [Michael:  

60:31

what's one example then?] Well we still  have a problem with managing expectations.  

60:36

We've been talking about it for 10 plus years.  Manage expectations, manage expectations or we're  

60:43

all going to get into trouble and in  some respect I think it's getting worse.  

60:48

Whether this is a function of the massive  increase in corporate involvement, or whether it's  

60:54

the startup community and the investment community  getting in, I really think we've gone a little bit  

60:59

downhill. And you know, some players are  worse than others, I won't name any names  

61:06

[coughs: IBM] but we we really have a hard  time when it comes to, and I suppose I just  

61:13

did what I'm gonna criticise by having a go at  somebody, which I probably shouldn't have done.  

61:20

So yeah, managing expectations are still a  real issue. Now we have been seeing a subtle  

61:24

change in language coming from, most notably  Google but Site Quantum's done the same,  

61:30

and we're starting to see a shift. So we've been  dealing with quantum computing especially, sort of  

61:35

this nisq nisq nisq nisq nisq, this sort  of near-term, small-scale chipset stuff,  

61:39

which was always a bit tenuous from a  from a scientific perspective, basically  

61:43

you have to get quantum computers to a certain  size and to get quantum computers to that size  

61:48

you need error correction which means you need a  lot of qubits to do interesting algorithms. And  

61:52

there was this push early on of what could  we find that was like a killer app, using  

61:57

you know 50, 100, 150 qubits in any given system.  But that question was floating around in 2003,  

62:05

2004 when I started my graduate degree and  we never found an appropriate answer for it.  

62:10

Luckily we have been starting to see some language  changes that are sort of pushed by the corporates  

62:15

a little bit more, to say no look we really are  dealing with large-scale machines for these things  

62:20

to actually become useful, and maybe that will  help change the zeitgeist a little bit and sort,  

62:24

of again put people into a more realistic  framework of what's going on quantum.  

62:31

Certainly my interaction with the VC community  has been quite interesting, when they sort of  

62:35

started getting into this in about 2015-ish,  2014, 2015 when you started to see more VC  

62:43

firms getting interested in quantum technology,  and it's a consequence of how the valley works,  

62:48

I mean they really did look at it as just another  app, rather than it's the app and it's the phone  

62:54

and it's the telecommunications grid and it's  every chipset that you put into the phone,  

62:59

kind of technology, but that's slowly coming  around. The more reputable quantum startups  

63:05

out there, they've done a much better job  at managing expectations but you know the  

63:10

snake oil salesman you've always got to watch out  for. And because the industry is not very big,  

63:15

I mean for example those of us, me and my partner  at H-bar we can pretty much manage the entire  

63:23

ecosystem at the moment, it's not large enough  that it's just things that we can't keep track of,  

63:28

we know most of the companies even the new ones  that come along, it's still very very small.  

63:33

But the problem with that is that the snake oil  salesman can have a very large impact that needs  

63:39

to be pushed up against and needs to be managed  by the reputable startups and the reputable  

63:44

corporates. So I wish that would accelerate more,  in some sense it's getting better but I'm also  

63:51

worried that it is in fact getting worse. Maybe  I'll add, I'm not too concerned about about the  

63:58

impact on investors. I'm not too concerned  about a little bit of this inside baseball,  

64:04

"what's going on in our community". I am concerned  about geopolitics. And quantum technology comes up  

64:10

a lot in geopolitics and the reason for that  is that the upside potential is enormous,  

64:15

both in technological capability and potential  financial gain, it is extremely difficult to  

64:21

understand for almost everybody, right, especially  a lay audience, and certain nation states have  

64:28

made this a public priority. Now when you combine  those things with what Simon was just referring to  

64:33

which is the fact that it's easy to craft false  narratives or narratives that are misunderstood,  

64:39

we see that people who you know  manage fighter jets and decide where  

64:46

army battalions are going to go, they get  misinformed by some of these geopolitical  

64:52

considerations, and that really terrifies me. I  had a General not long ago explained to me, it's a  

65:00

retired Australian General, explained to me, like  wax poetic about how China has this unbelievable  

65:06

stealth defeating quantum radar and what it  really is is China made a national priority  

65:11

out of investment in quantum technology, it is a  real strategic research priority. They made some  

65:20

questionable pronouncements in state media that  were designed really to shake things up, and  

65:27

the western media like ate it up, and it's just  like fundamentally untrue, this technology doesn't  

65:33

exist. And you know actually the same week that  this General was waxing poetic to me about it,  

65:38

the inventor of the concept, a guy at MIT named  Jeff Shapiro wrote an article about how quantum  

65:45

radar doesn't and can never work, right, I mean...  But that concern has infected the people who send  

65:54

men and women to war. That to me is actually quite  terrifying, and it is an area where I think that  

66:00

taking back the narrative and keeping it tied to  reality is actually a responsibility for for all  

66:05

of us. I'll just remind everyone you can actually  upvote the things that you're most interested in  

66:11

hearing about, so I also recommend that everyone  jumps in and just has a look at what questions  

66:15

are available. So this one I'll leave open, this  is a big question, how will industry address  

66:21

the potential nefarious applications of quantum  computing computing? For every noble quest several  

66:27

are determined to use these developments  for not necessarily the best of mankind.

66:35

Anyone want to take that one? I mean I'll go  ahead. Well I guess one thing that I would say  

66:40

is that at the moment the whole industry  academic space in quantum technologies  

66:48

is in a bit of a kind of a luxury state, in  the sense that industry is really desperate  

66:56

for academic involvement and to be benefiting  from academic results, and they're also really  

67:06

keen to share what they're doing. So there is a  lot of what's happening in quantum technologies  

67:13

that is still really open research and public,  and where companies like Google and IBM  

67:22

are taking their systems and publishing papers  to discuss how they're doing what they're doing,  

67:29

what they're doing, what the outcomes are. So one  of the things that you can do is just shine the  

67:37

cold light of day on these things and make sure  everything is out there in the public domain,  

67:41

that helps. Now of course I don't know how  much stuff is going on behind closed doors,  

67:47

maybe we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg  who knows, but I think that actually at the moment  

67:54

the vast majority of what's happening in the  quantum technology space is in the public domain,  

67:59

and that I think really helps with that. I was  gonna say one of the things that we've started to  

68:04

really think about is responsible quantum and how  can we actually get together now to sort of help,  

68:11

I guess learn from what we've seen in AI, learn  from what we've seen in BioTech and can we figure  

68:16

out a way to position ourselves better? And  we're taking initiatives to actually lead  

68:21

that conversation later this year. But I think  really thinking about identifying some of the  

68:28

risks, understanding and prioritising those  risks, and based on impact to society, impact  

68:34

to you know, what have you not, because this is  not a technology that's coming tomorrow, so we  

68:40

do have some time to you know, still think about  it and think through the implications, and I think  

68:46

understanding which risks are emerging,  which risks are just make believe right now,  

68:53

and start addressing them through conversations,  through responsible quantum regulation policies,  

68:59

and what have you. I mean I'll say, I'll take  a slightly different view. Anything worth doing  

69:06

can be turned into a weapon, right?  Anything useful can be turned into a weapon,  

69:10

and I think it is valuable that people think  about the counter proliferation questions,  

69:14

how do we ensure that there's ethical development  the technology? That we you know protect personal  

69:20

data? I think it's useful that people think about  that, I don't think it's useful that it becomes  

69:24

like, everybody's responsibility is ethical  development of quantum technology, like we don't  

69:30

know what that looks like, it's also not an  area of expertise. And I think you do see that,  

69:35

there have been failures in say, conventional AI  that was just brought up about algorithmic bias  

69:40

and things, they were in part identified by parts  of the community who are specialists in like,  

69:46

"wielding technology for good", in air quotes.  And I think that the lessons we've learned there,  

69:52

that supporting people who want to pursue these  questions and want to proactively come up with  

69:57

solutions, that I think is a very good way of  approaching it. As opposed to the the, you know  

70:04

more simplified version which is everybody has a  responsibility for building ethical frameworks. So  

70:08

I don't know anything about ethical frameworks  and technology but there are people who do,  

70:13

and I would strongly encourage them to be  supported to come up with potential solutions  

70:17

that others can implement. Could I just add that  I think one of the ways which we can combat this  

70:25

is probably the same answer to how we combat it in  conventional technology, that's education not just  

70:31

of people in the field but of everyone, so that  everyone understands what's at stake, otherwise  

70:38

a government or a company can just craft their own  narrative and tell the users of their product that  

70:46

the government's wrong, or the government can say  that someone else is wrong and if the population  

70:51

has no clue one way or the other and they  just trust what's coming through their feed,  

70:56

then it doesn't matter what we do in a sense, in  the field. So we need, everyone needs to sort of  

71:04

understand what's at stake and I think you know,  that is going to be a huge problem because not  

71:11

everyone even understands what happens when they  click accept when they turn on their phone for the  

71:17

first time, and then when it comes to you know,  giant important policy decisions people are lost  

71:23

and they don't seem to actually care. So I think  educating people on what this technology does,  

71:32

what it's meant for and how it connects to you  know, what's important to you, your values your  

71:37

needs is going to be, I mean it's important now,  we're not doing it now, but it will be important  

71:43

for quantum technology as well. I think we've  got time for one last question, there's been  

71:47

quite a popularity around basically students  asking questions about the quantum industry.  

71:54

I've summarised them in sort of two ways, one is  how are we going to convince students to join the  

72:02

quantum industry considering it's so small, and  that there's been statements about those students  

72:06

then being poached? And then, if you are a quantum  student what do you think they should be studying?  

72:13

And then finally, if you're not necessarily  a quantum student do you think is there a  

72:16

position for people without quantum degrees in the  industry as well? Well I mean students are already  

72:24

very very enthusiastic about doing it. I mean we  see it at UTS in the engineering and IT faculty,  

72:29

we have internships going and we always  get a huge response coming from students  

72:35

who aren't trained in physics, aren't changing  quantum, so there's always a place for them.  

72:41

Certainly, and I'm sure Michael will say  more about it, I mean what fraction of  

72:46

the Q-CTRL team has a background in physics  and quantum? I assume it's not the majority.  

72:52

It is but... [laughter] But I think maybe... Sorry  that was not fair of me. I think to your point,  

72:59

it is important that Q-CTRL is approximately  50/50, people with quantum backgrounds,  

73:05

we do operate the world's largest team of PhD  level quantum control engineers, and people with  

73:10

product background, people who have never ever  worked in quantum before, they came to Q-CTRL,  

73:15

people who are web designers and graphic designers  and user interface designers and web developers,  

73:21

all these things. So I think there are many many  opportunities, and if you want to upskill then  

73:25

I'll promote this thing that Chris and I, Chris  and Q-CTRL are doing together, it's a product  

73:30

called Black Opal, it'll be out soon, it's like  Duolingo for quantum, you want to get up to speed  

73:35

it's a great way to do it. But we also are very  keen on just advertising that, man if you come  

73:42

from a background that's peripheral and you  want to work in this industry, the salaries  

73:46

are outrageous, like the amount we pay people  is ungodly, watching my budget like vanish every  

73:52

month in the bank account, because it is in  demand from us as employers. We want people to  

73:59

come into this, and that's on the technical side  and on the more product-y side. So it's a great  

74:04

industry to get into. Yeah and the other thing  is like, there is a massive demand for people  

74:11

with quantum expertise worldwide at the moment,  at universities but also in all of the industry  

74:21

players that are involved, they are all looking  for people and a lot of these people are going, we  

74:26

need people with quantum training and it's really  hard to find them. Microsoft in Sydney, I've heard  

74:32

people from Microsoft in Sydney on many occasions  go like, we want people with more training,  

74:36

we will partner with organisations who can help  us get people in who have more training. So if  

74:45

you choose as a student to do a technical degree  that has some quantum technology involvement  

74:53

and some pathway into quantum, your technical  skills at the moment will be very much in demand,  

75:02

and that's just for the people who end  up inside quantum. And as we said before  

75:07

the sort of stuff that you learn, the sort of  deep tech skills that you can learn on how to  

75:15

merge leading science with complicated  engineering and industry type development,  

75:26

these skills are in demand everywhere. I  mean, they always talk about how you know,  

75:32

people with physics backgrounds end up getting  employed by consultancy firms, it's not because  

75:36

they know how to solve Maxwell's equations. And  the same thing will be true here, like if you  

75:42

get training in some sort of area of deep tech  where you really, you've shown that you can master  

75:48

some like deep science and at the same time the  kind of engineering and industry type component,  

75:57

I'm pretty sure that in many different areas where  those things are important, they're just going to  

76:02

want to lap those people up. I was going to say,  for those who don't want necessarily to stay in  

76:09

academia or who don't want to be a deep tech  people, there will be opportunities for you as  

76:14

quantum consultants, there will be as quantum  product managers and product developers. I'd say  

76:21

to the questions of what subjects or what to  study, try to sprinkle some psychology and  

76:27

communications into your highly technical degrees,  do some public speaking or things like that,  

76:33

so you can actually be the translator, be  the go-between between the various sort of,  

76:40

ends of the spectrum, because I think  those people will be in high demand.  

76:46

Can I, I'll just point out that if you come  to UTS and you come to learn quantum at the  

76:52

undergraduate level, you're not a "quantum person"  that's pigeonholed in quantum technology, right?  

76:58

You're an engineer, and on top of  that you're a computer scientist,  

77:05

and 10% of the courses you took were in  quantum. This is what a specialisation is,  

77:10

right? Those are all specialisations, whether  you come and specialise in data analytics  

77:15

or machine learning or you know, architectures,  computer architectures, whatever the  

77:21

specialisation is that's you know 10%, you're an  engineer, right, but you have this specialisation.  

77:28

And so you can come and you can study this  exciting field that gives you lots of, a breadth  

77:34

of skills that you won't be able to get anywhere  else, that you can apply outside of quantum,  

77:40

and it's exciting. And I would just say, like to  which, what you should study as well as studying  

77:49

all those, basically I think you should study  the thing that you love the most, because it's,  

77:58

like quantum is so interdisciplinary  you kind of hoist anything into it.  

78:03

If there's something that you really love  and you really like the idea of quantum,  

78:07

study the thing that you love and work out how to  get that element of quantum in there whether it be  

78:12

through engineering or through finance or through  chemistry or whatever, because there is a pathway  

78:20

there, we're trying to work on that in the Sydney  Quantum Academy as well, but there is a pathway  

78:24

there, do the thing that you want to see. We don't  know, like we came the boring path into quantum,  

78:32

we don't know what the interesting parts into  quantum... [Michael: again speak for yourselves!]  

78:36

But like, we want the new people to show us what  are the interesting combinations they can put  

78:46

together. They have, just really quickly, I just  finished teaching last semester "introduction to  

78:51

quantum computing" and the students, what they did  to learn their first subject in quantum computing  

78:57

was they built a quantum video game, and they  taught me things about quantum computing that I  

79:02

didn't know, I couldn't have thought of. It'll  be showcased, I'll write a blog post about it,  

79:08

but it'll be showcased later and you can see  quantum tic-tac-toe and a quantum music box and  

79:13

all sorts of interesting applications of quantum  technology that I guarantee you Google and other  

79:19

people just aren't thinking about. Yeah I think  that's a really great positive way to finish,  

79:24

a lot of opportunity and clearly a great space to  be in so I highly recommend everyone listening to  

79:28

get involved. So that finishes the main section,  let's thank our esteemed panel. [Applause]

79:39

For those online you can log off and have a  drink, and for those here we've got a bar open  

79:43

if you want to jump on. Sarah do you want to say  anything fun? No, great. So please stick around  

79:48

and say hello to all of us, we'll be happy to  have a chat. Thank you very much for coming.

READ MORE: The ‘second quantum revolution’ is almost here. We need to make sure it benefits the many, not the few

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