World Quantum Day with Terra Quantum AG
World Quantum Day was launched on 14 April, an initiative from quantum scientists across the World and to celebrate the first global celebration on 14 April 2022, the Office for Alumni Relations caught up with CERN alumnus and CEO Terra Quantum AG to discuss the status quo of quantum technologies and its potential for commercialisation today.
For World Quantum Day, we want to delve into the current status quo of quantum technologies. and invited Markus Pflitsch, a CERN Alumnus and successful quantum tech pioneer, to join me in this conversation. With his scientific expertise and a background in banking and finance, he founded his own quantum tech company Terra Quantum AG. When we spoke previously, Terra Quantum AG had closed their initial funding and presented their first applied research results. In a matter of a couple of years, the company news was published, highlighting an impressive $75m Series A fundraise and real-world applications.
Markus, good to connect again. Congratulations on the Series A! I can imagine this support fuels your ideas even more. What’s on your plate right now?
"Thank you for having me Rachel! And yes, I am proud that we closed one of the biggest investment rounds in the global quantum tech space. The positioning of Terra Quantum as an end-to-end Quantum-as-a-Service company was really appealing to our investors. Now we need to build on that, investing in technology and also in our international footprint. As you know, we are headquartered in Switzerland, and now aim to open offices in Munich, Germany, and in San Francisco, USA. By now, we have more than 100 elite scientific experts working on our mission to unlock the potential of quantum to create benefits for society and industry already today. "
That’s good news for young talent. Quantum technologies really seem to have grown out of the research lab into real-world applications!
"I couldn’t agree more! Quantum is now. This is our claim and ambition to leverage the unique capabilities of quantum mechanics and bring real business advantage to our customers. This is also the very reason why I founded the company: to unlock business benefits through quantum tech already today. And thank you for mentioning the opportunity for young talent. Indeed, we are currently looking to fill positions for quantum engineers. It is an exciting time to work in quantum tech, also for people with a more business-related profile, as a quantum venture builder or technical writer, for example. I will make sure to share all open positions in our Alumni network."
Can you share a bit more regarding your current projects?
"Well, we have worked with a bank on a large-scale, real-world collateral optimisation problem. Collateral management is a key area of focus for financial institutions because of market dynamics and the significant opportunity to minimise funding costs, improve liquidity and reduce operational costs. Today approximately $19 trillion is posted in collateral with about 80% met sub-optimally with cash. The team showcased the advantage of our unique hybrid quantum computing approach in comparison to classical as well as best in class quantum algorithm approaches. We delivered a 6-basis points – which relates to 0.06 % – improvement in optimality and reduced solution time to one-tenth of that taken by other approaches. For example, a European bank that posts about €400 billion in collateral could generate a return of around €240 million through the funding efficiency improvement we provide!"
So, your signature quality is to merge existing high-performance computing and quantum computing to offer business benefits today. Is this hybrid approach to last in the future?
"Yes, this is the so-called hybrid quantum computing approach, and Terra Quantum specialises in it. When we talk about the potential of quantum computing, we need to admit that native hardware is still error-prone and needs to be improved – and we do see rapidly maturing quantum hardware and impressive progress in this space! The challenges lie in both science and engineering: how to best utilise and isolate quantum effects and build systems that can leverage these for computation. But no matter how powerful quantum hardware will become, we will always combine quantum computers with classical high-performance computers. Complex scenarios present different computing challenges that are best addressed with an arrangement that best harnesses both classical and quantum systems."
Let’s take a leap into the future. Where do you see quantum technologies making an impact?
"In terms of quantum computing, we will see almost every industry being transformed in the next ten years, with automotive, logistics, finance, pharma, energy and chemical industry amongst the most positively impacted. The key message here is to plan for application early. The time to leverage the inherent potential and gain an early hybrid quantum advantage is now: analyse current business challenges that are classically intractable and where improving performance is a decisive key factor, experiment on uses cases, and prepare for real-world applications. And of course, quantum computing is just one aspect of quantum technologies. We will see quantum security solutions being applied to protect data transfer and communications.
Utilising quantum effects, we will disrupt current classical physical limitations and stimulate further scientific progress. Our recent publication established a new benchmark for tomorrow’s nanoelectronics. Today’s stumbling block is the significant heat generated in the microchips during information processing. A common belief is that it is impossible to reduce this heat due to a fundamental limit on the minimum operating voltage of transistors. The hope has been that the rescue is the phenomenon called “negative capacitance,” which implies that contrary to standard behaviour, increasing the amount of charge involved in the switching process may decrease operating voltage. This, however, has been remaining just hope since there was no understanding of how the said property could become a reality. Our team resolved the issue and devised the ferroelectric-based transistor with negative capacitance. Our achievement is a breakthrough that converted the stumbling block into a stepping stone to miniaturizing nanoelectronics—moreover, our breakthrough brings ferroelectrics-based devices working at terahertz frequencies. This opens new technology horizons, enabling the broadest spectrum of applications ranging from low-energy intra-chip communications crucial for quantum computing to new unprecedented non-invasive medical diagnostic tools irreplaceable for early detection of cancer, arthritis, and blood testing. We are just at the beginning to bring quantum-enhanced products to the market. Exciting times!"
Lastly, from your perspective, what are some relevant applications for CERN that Terra Quantum could enable?
"Our strategic direction and research efforts at Terra Quantum towards leading the second quantum revolution complement the priorities set out in the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative (CERN QTI) roadmap very well. Today, our hybrid quantum tech-powered products are being used to advance our knowledge of quantum systems and fundamental physics. Our hybrid quantum algorithms in optimisation, machine learning and simulation can enable applications core to CERN’s activities in High Energy Physics. For example, hybrid quantum enhancements to Monte Carlo simulations for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) event generation or the scattering process and hybrid quantum neural networks for force fields generation. One notable opportunity for co-development is the question on how we could overcome the computational challenges that come with the High Luminosity LHC upgrade at CERN. Here, there is a strong need for faster particle track reconstruction algorithms that make it possible to understand particle nature, to speed up new particle detection processes and accordingly calibrate detectors. In fact, we have already explored new methods that address the trade-off between algorithmic quality and speed."
Really exciting times ahead for you and Terra Quantum. Thank you, Markus, for this expert insight and all the best for your future ventures!
"The pleasure is all mine! Was great to connect again!"