WHY THE QUANTUM INDUSTRY NEEDS AN APOLLO PROGRAM

Transcript Deep Pockets

Episode 4

Bob Sutor

Petra: Welcome to Deep Pockets with Petra Söderling, the show about governments and innovation. With each episode we bring you a person and a topic that is part of this larger concept of how countries and regions can create economic advantage by investing in innovation. We're now in season 4. 

Can you believe it? I call this season the random rendezvous. After organizing, scripting, interviewing, editing and marketing 27 episodes, I wanted to give myself a little slack. This season I will invite interesting people I meet online in events or through work. It will be an open mic approach, no scripting, no theme, just me and the guest talking about whatever we feel like, for how long we feel like. 

Our theme song is by New Orleans Jazz icon Leroy Jones. I hope you enjoy this and other episodes. If you work in quantum technologies, I could introduce my next guest. In the style of David Letterman, my next guest needs no introduction. But for those who don't work in quantum, I am excited, overjoyed and a little bit proud to introduce Bob Söder. Bob is a tech executive. He's an author, advisor, keynote speaker, analyst and a professor in the areas of quantum computing and AI. Bob worked at IBM for 39 years and three months before joining the quantum startup company Infliction a couple of years ago. Today he contributes his insight and foresight through the Futurum Group as the VP and practice lead for emerging technologies. Welcome to Deep Pockets Bob. 

Bob: Thank you. I'm pleased to be here. Thank you for having me. 

Petra: I realized actually after inviting you, I should have invited you to season three the last season where I was interviewing nonfiction authors because you also are a nonfiction author. Let's start with your book, Dancing with Cubits. Tell us how and why you wrote the book. 

Bob: I tried very hard to make sure it was nonfiction actually. As you mentioned, I was with IBM for over 39 years. The last area I worked in was quantum computing. So around 2015, 2016, I was the head of the Mathematical Sciences Department in IBM Research. 

I had about 300 people. But I noticed way down at the other end of the building and we were in Yorktown Heights, New York for those of you who may know this, the research headquarters. Down the other end of the building were the physicists. People actually built things. Who also had things that exploded sometimes. 

So I didn't mind they were down at the other end. And through a reorganization, my team reported into the same vice president as the quantum computing. And so I started hearing more about it and I heard about how IBM put the first five qubit quantum computer up on the web May 4th, 2016. Yes, it's May the 4th be with you for Star Trek fans. 

They did that on purpose. But even though I was a mathematician by training, I knew nothing about this. My life had never intersected with anything whatsoever quantum. And if you start looking at that, you learn very soon that, oh, well, you know, it's based on this idea of quantum mechanics, which is one of the strangest areas of physics. It started about 1900 and completely upended our view, our model of the very small. 

And it had its detractors. Albert Einstein never was comfortable with quantum mechanics. But people started realizing as it was developed by around 1980 that these classical computers that we have do not do a good job with certain types of problems. So in particular, chemistry problems, emulating the physical world to do computations. So people pointed out that, you know, if you had a computer that was based on these quantum principles, just as chemistry is based on quantum principles, it would work out a whole lot better. 

So anyway, fast forward, I start looking around. I want to learn this. And suddenly it seems like, oh, no, I didn't have four years of physics. And I felt fairly confident, of course, in my mathematics. You know, I do have a doctorate in mathematics, but there was no book I felt for people like me. 

So I decided I needed to write the book. And that was the first edition of Dancing with Cubits. And when was this? And this was, I started writing in 2018, it was published in 2019. OK. And so it's very much for people who really starting with the type of math that they took when they were a teenager. I don't teach it to you the way you were when you were a teenager. But there are certain aspects that you just must learn that sometimes when teaching quantum computing, people just throw at you complex numbers, the square root of minus one probability, all these things like this. So I wrote the book. 

It was very well received. The title Dancing with Cubits. I came up with there's this concept in quantum called entanglement, where two particles or two computational units, cubits somehow get so correlated that they no longer operate independently. So if you think of how something proceeds, while you're doing operations to these, think of a computation, every once in a while, the cubits come together and then they separate. And so there's this dance of the cubits. 

Petra: So that was that was my name. Time went by. You know, there were choices when I made the book about what I could include, what I couldn't include. And then about two years ago, I realized I really should do a second edition because some things I thought might no longer be relevant or still relevant. And of course, you know, there were maybe a couple things I needed to fix. 

A few sections I needed to add reorganize a little bit. So in March of this year, the second edition of Dancing with Cubits came out and I have, it's been very well received. And it has. 

Petra: It has. Yes, I've seen that on LinkedIn. I actually, I did an audio version of my book recently and I realized, oh, my book is so obsolete already. It's been out just over a year, but it's amazing how quickly some things. 

Bob: It's a real challenge. Yeah. So I want to ask you, one of the things what I love about quantum is that it's a natural science because we both worked in computer science all of our lives. And whenever people ask me, can you explain what this quantum thing is all about? I always go to the narrative that it is, it's not computer science. It is not computers that are made out of plastic and metal and things. And then we try to write some code and put some intelligence in it. It is nature, the way nature exists. 

And it's just us manipulating it and trying to make the nature work for us computationally or mathematically instead of creating something, an extra layer, if you want to say something truly artificial, which is also why I'm way more excited about quantum than artificial intelligence, to be quite honest. Oh, okay. Okay. 

Petra: Yeah. I mean, they need each other, I'm sure. 

Bob: But eventually. Eventually it's on the other side. 

Petra: You used the word emulate. I noted down, you said computer science is emulating the physical world. So quantum is not emulating anything. 

Bob: It is. Well, when you do a model, for example, right? First of all, physics is just a model. You know, physics is not truth. Physics is just how we think it works, right? It's a bunch of equations and things like this. But then when you go over and say, well, I'm going to somehow emulate or simulate in a computer, you're taking it yet another step, more removed, right? In order to try to understand how it works. So chemistry, I mean, the goal is to do chemistry in a quantum computer instead of in a laboratory. And that, you know, we expect to be much faster. 

Petra: Yeah. Let's take a step back. We will come back to quantum, but I still want to kind of pick your brain and learn from someone who's been at IBM for almost 40 years. 

You've, you've seen everything. You basically worked for this company who created the IT industry. Is there anything that you are specifically proud of or something that you just remember as these pivotal moments in history? 

Bob: That's a very interesting question. One thing I always did notice is you never know about those moments when you're in them. You need to have some time perspective on it. 

Five or 10 years have to have to come by. I'd say my career was in three parts. The first part was in research. 

And that was really understanding. Well, there was the mathematical side, but you and I share some background in standards in the late 90s and early 2000s. And that was the point where people were trying to figure out how to use the web for business. You know, originally it was literally just a bunch of web pages. I mean, you could almost just visit them all. 

You have an hour, you can visit every web. Print them. Yeah. That's why people did that. 

That was very funny. They would print out web pages. Yes. So in the late 90s and early 2000s, the work was being done to create standards. And there were several different flavors of them, but now, of course, we use a common set. So transforming the web itself, which was disruptive into a disruptive business tool. The second phase of my career was more on the business side. I was a corporate and the IBM software group. And there I would highlight the move to open source and the move toward royalty free standards. Because before that, people thought about intellectual property, corporate intellectual property. You know, it's mine, all mine. If you want it, you have to pay for it. 

Right. And, you know, the business model got more sophisticated saying, well, all right. You know, if I actually give away this code, if I allow people to freely use interfaces, well, this can actually help make a market. And I hope I do well. And if I don't do well in this market after I've given this stuff away, well, shame on me. It's my fault, right? 

Petra: Yeah. So more love you share, the more love you will receive. 

Bob: That's right. And so it was really, even though, of course, we had Linux and a few things in the 90s and before, this was really when open source standards exploded. And it was an international effort. 

I traveled the world, you know, talking about standards. And then in research, the third part when I was IBM, we did a lot of things, which are now called AI, you know, whether you like it or not, they were called AI. But then it was the move into quantum. 

And so if I really had to pick one area in my entire IBM career, it was quantum. And it was the last part I worked on, but it was so nice. You know, I mentioned I started the book in 2018. I was 50, I was 60 years old when I started that book. And it was so nice to go back and be able to bring my mathematical knowledge back into what I did in my day job. 

Petra: I'm sure that's very comforting to some of our listeners who might be in their 40s, early 50s, struggling like I'm done. 

Bob: It's still in your brain. It's still in your brain. I just use it. 

Petra: Okay. So we've had, even before today, we've had interesting discussions about the birth of new industries. You mentioned where I worked on the mobile phone smartphones. And today my point of view is the government's role in the birth of new industries. 

And for you, I'm assuming it's the decades at IBM. So we both have a little bit of perspective how this could play out for quantum. Tell us how you see things moving forward for the quantum industry. 

Bob: So let's start by just level setting a little bit about where we are today. So I mentioned earlier than in 2016, so now more than eight years, IBM put the first quantum computer on the cloud. It wasn't the first quantum computer, but it was the first one that was widely available. The first thing that you could call a quantum computer was incredibly tiny. 

And by the late 1990s, IBM has built the largest system today, an experimental system, a chip they call Condor that they released last year. It was about 1100 qubits. A qubit is short for a quantum bit. It's the basic unit of quantum computations. So just like classical world a bit is zero or one. A qubit is the corresponding thing, although it's much more sophisticated mathematically and what it can do. 

And that's what brings the power. But nevertheless, if you look across all the announcements, you see, you know, this company has 56 qubits. This company has just done this with 20 qubits. Here's a new chip with 10 qubits. You can buy something with nine qubits. 

Okay. But how many qubits do we actually need to do something useful and practical? I use this as a rule of thumb, 100,000. So here we're talking double digits versus at least 100,000. 

And you will always find somebody who say, oh, but we could do this, that and, but it's all theory, you know, by doing this, we can use slightly fewer. And I'm actually being very generous. I think it's going to be a lot more than 100,000. But the point is the difference between two digits, number of qubits and 100,000 is vast. It's not just a question of manufacturing more qubits. 

Right? You don't need, if you needed more widgets, you need 100,000 widgets. Well, you gear up a factory, you make 100,000. That's not how this works. And it's even much more complicated than classical expanding. 

Your listeners may have at some point increased the memory in their laptop or their desktop, pop it open, you get a new larger chip, you take it out, you put it in and there you go. Quantum does not work that way. All these qubits have to somehow engage with each other in different ways. 

They have to dance, right? And so how are we going to go from these, these double digits or even triple digits, right, to 100,000? So what I'm seeing right now is that governments around the world, because there's a lot of money in particular countries, the United States, UK, France, Australia, Japan, many countries, keep pouring money into this first stage of quantum. 

So if there are, you know, I'm going to make this up. If there are 10 steps we have to do to get to the final big, useful quantum computer, they keep pouring money into step one, variations of step one. So there's this breadth to it and there's this hope that, oh, well, if we give a lot of money to a lot of people, somebody will come up with something great. But who is going to do the technology we need next? Who is going to connect these quantum processing units together, right, to, to successively build larger and larger systems? 

systems. So I've been using an analogy with the US Apollo program in the 1960s. And let me say right off, I am American, you know, I love space, I love NASA and rockets and all these sorts of things. 

But please don't take this as a US centric, just think of it as a dedicated program. 1961 US President, John Kennedy said, we will send, well, men to the moon and back safely by the end of the decade. And lo and behold, eight years later, they did. Now, if you look at the computing systems involved, it's like scary to think that that's what they did, but they did it. 

But here we are, right? Years into the quantum computer, this movement, technological movement, and we don't have a big enough practical, enough quantum computer. So evidently, going to the moon is a lot easier than building a full scale quantum computer. So this idea of a moonshot is like, no, no, moonshots easy. Yeah. We don't want to do a moonshot. 

And so what we need is a combination of government investment, along with private investment at the right time to start really focusing and putting an effort into the most promising technologies. You don't have to pick one or two. In the Apollo program, it was three phases, Mercury, Gemini, and then Apollo where they landed on the moon. In the Mercury program, it was the, it was really like, let's look around, what do we have? Oh, we have those missiles. 

Can we adapt a missile and put somebody and put a person in orbit? We've never done that before. So it was trying out lots of odds and ends to learn something about this. Of course, we were in the space race with the Soviet Union. So there was pressure there. The Gemini program was, okay, folks, let's get serious. What's the list of things we have to figure out how to work? Well, we have to have two spacecraft being able to dock when they were in orbit, because that's the way Apollo worked. 

They've never done that before. So it was a very systematic list of how to scale the program and put in place all the technologies, develop and put in place all the technologies. And then ultimately, Apollo was the going to the moon, putting them all together and successfully doing this. So I think we're right at this cusp between the Mercury and the Gemini programs for quantum computing. That is, you're starting to see a few technologies that are starting to reach across. They're saying, okay, now we're getting practical. We're learning more about cooling. We're learning more about scaling. We're learning more about quantum networking. But there's too much continued investment in Mercury in the first one, in the basic technologies. We have to move unless you have a 200 year program to get a quantum computer. 

Right? You have to start investing in what we need next and what we need after that and what we need after that. It's always tricky between governments and private investing, right, as to who should do what. A lot of times one party thinks it's the other, but they must get together. 

Petra: So, but who in this case is the JFK? Who is the person who's going to say that is our goal? That is the big Heriot-Dash's goal that we're going towards. Is it Bob Sutter who testified in Congress and had something to say for the Congress members? Or is it the White House Office of Science and Technology? Or who is it? 

Bob: I think it will be a mix of some of the larger companies, you know, those who've already gotten involved. So, the IBMs, the Googles, the Microsofts, the Amazons and so forth. I think they have the capability of in time and investment of doing this, but they don't represent everybody in the world. 

They don't represent every country. I know you're very interested in this notion of sovereign technology, right, so for a given country or region. Well, that doesn't mean you just sit back and say, okay, big company, I'll wait till you give me everything you want. So, it's all these local smaller companies. So, I think in that regard, so you'll have some of the big companies, big public companies, I think it's going to have to be government programs. I think it's going to have to be industrial policy. That is a government that's going to have to say, this is worth investing in, just like with the Apollo program. It was a U.S. government. Now, it was not without controversy. Right? I mean, a lot of people said, why are we spending the money to go to the moon when we have all these problems on earth? 

Well, that always happens. But I think we need a dedicated effort and whatever government or region you want to choose, it could be the U.S., it could be the EU, it could be a country, whatever. I think we need a government choice to say, look, we're going to stop just throwing lots of money into the wind and hope somebody comes up. We're going to have, you know, there'll be a quantum czar, I say sometimes, right? A single person that will bring together the resources across the agencies, talk to private companies, private and public companies, right? 

And get the job done, the full plan in time. Stop looking at the breadth of technologies. Look at the depth through time. Because I might want to say there are other countries around the world who I'm pretty sure have a very well-designed program year by year to create a fully functional quantum. 

Petra: I have a question for you about France, where I'm living currently. They do have, they had this France 2030 program, like many other countries have, China, Saudi Arabia, it's very, very clear goals. And they have launched something called the Proxima Program, sounds like the Apollo program. And they said that was inspired by the ultra program of the British during World War II when they tried to crack the German encryption. Anyhow, so the goal of this Proxima program of France is to have at least two prototypes of universal quantum computers with 128 logical qubits by 2030, extending to 2048 logical qubits by 2035. So my question to you, this is the mercury phase. Do you agree? Because it's so or not? 

Bob: Well, it's a little bit more. I would say those numbers are too small. First of all. What about the years? 30 and 35? It's going to be tight. It will be tight. So why don't I say this is the first time you've used this term logical qubit? Yes. And let me apologize on behalf of the quantum industry for our having different flavors of qubits. We have physical qubits, we have logical qubits, and then we have types of qubits like superconducting and diamond vacancy and ion trap. And it goes on and on and so whenever one says the word qubit, you almost have to say, all right, stop right now. What type of qubit? So the things we make in quantum computers today, think of the actual bits and things like this, the storage units, the qubits, these are physical qubits. So these exhibit the properties from physics and quantum mechanics. The problem is, because the world is quantum at the smallest level, and you're trying to use these same principles for computation, the environment, nature wants to mess up your calculation really. If you shine a photon, for example, a single photon of light at a quantum unit, it will totally destroy it in terms of the computation. So nature in the environment wants to interact with your physical qubits, which are also quantum. So there is noise, and we can reduce the noise relatively well, and we start using words like fidelity. 

The closer to 100, your fidelity is whatever it means, the fewer errors you have. But there are schemes of saying, you know, what we can do is we can take a bunch of these physical qubits, and by carefully doing some coding, you know, software with this, we can have it pretend to be a perfect qubit, that there are no errors. This is what we call a logical qubit. No errors, or they happen like one every quittrillion times, you know, very, very, very tiny sorts of errors, sorts of things. So these are logical qubits. So the question is, how many physical qubits do you need to create one logical, perfect virtual qubit? Lots of lots of argument there, lots of vendor jockeying back and forth. 

There's a lot of research. For a long time, the guide has been, we need about 1000 physical qubits for one logical qubit. So given your numbers, 128 logical qubits using that calculation, it would be 128,000 physical qubits. And when we start talking, I said most of people have like double digit qubits. So 128,000 versus 50, 75. 

That's a big difference, right? And so we will see. Now there is research, you know, there are lots of different schemes to do these perfect error corrected qubits. And saying, oh, we need far fewer, we need one tenth of this, prove it. Yeah, right. Research is great. 

Keep doing it. And maybe will only be 100 or 500. But nevertheless, the number is quite big. And let me just one more warning as if you read about logical qubits, it's not a standardized definition. The way I have used it is, I think a good way of thinking about it, but sometimes providers fudge the definition a little. So I kind of have a half logical qubit. 

Petra: But I want to take a step back a little bit from the numbers and the technology. I have a philosophical question for you. And I was thinking for you, is all of this all of the Apollo program, the quantum industry and making it happen? Is it for you a race between nations? Is it a race between humanity and us not destroying the planet? Or is it just a race of becoming better people and finding out more about our environment? Or is it something else? 

Bob: For me personally, it's about scientific innovation. And I always do this. My degree is in theoretical mathematics, not applied theoretical mathematics. So I am perfectly fine with science that somehow helps us understand the structure of everything we talk about behind physics, behind everything like that. Again, personally. Now, I do recognize that I have worked for companies and companies kind of like to make money. 

And so if you work for a particular company, they do related to products and things like this. I think ultimately, I don't know if it's five or 10 years, but once the century really gets on toward this mid-century, quantum will be, it will be combined with classical, but it will truly, I think, be the major computing accomplishment for this century by the time. I won't be around to see it in 76 years, but nevertheless, I think we will see that. 

For countries, it's part of, the computer industry is very cyclical. You can look back and say, oh, yeah, okay. We're now entering one of these phases. This is how it's going to play out, right? 

And this is what's going to happen. Every country, every region wants to have their own technology. They don't want to be left behind. 

Put a point on it. Not everybody wants to import everything from the United States. And so when these new technology comes along, they say, hey, we want our own quantum computer, right? 

We think we should have this. This has not always been successful if you look at the computer industry today. And of course, there are people who make them outside the United States. 

That was just an example. But countries want that sovereign aspect. We think quantum is going to be important for new innovations, for creating new products, for optimization, for AI, for cybersecurity. And they say, we don't want to be beholden on some other country who may or may not give us this technology. Some will fail because it will just be too big a job. 

But think of the supply chain. If you can't be essential to yourself or a complete quantum computer, can you be essential to the world and certain aspects of what people need to build these next generation? Can you be essential in terms of the software? And once again, software is kind of uneven as to where a lot of it comes from. So there's lots of chances, but not every country will have that super powerful quantum computer that they develop inside their borders. So treaties are important. AUKUS is important. All of the ones, 4i's, NATO, they're all pouring money into this. So it's a more solid and more complicated question, but drive that innovation. 

Petra: That's a great answer. Okay. Last question. And I asked this question of all of my guests. What does the future hold for Bob Souter? What gets you excited? 

Bob: Well, I'm very excited. I've been in the industry for 41 years now. So I don't have a 20-year plan anymore really in terms of working or 30-year plan. So I tend to think, oh, okay, 10 to 15, at least I can be optimistic and think about that. I like working at the forefront. I've always liked working at the leading edge and certainly quantum is there. I am very interested in AI, beyond the hype. 

Gen AI is fascinating technology, but it has to settle down a little bit for this. So for me personally, I want to keep nudging what I term the Apollo program for quantum. I want to pushing those ideas. I want to try to influence people to do that. 

And I'd like to work with the individuals, the companies that are creating what I consider the most critical technologies to do this. So I want to stay in the game intellectually. It's fascinating. It's wonderful. It's business, it's science, it's math, it's everything. So it's a great place to be right now. 

Petra: This has been a Deep Pockets conversation with Bob Souter. Thank you for being here today. My pleasure. Great to see you. You've listened to Deep Pockets with Petra Sördelling. To subscribe to content, please go to PetraSördelling.com. The wonderful music you heard is by Leroy Jones, an iconic New Orleans jazz-holer-fame trumpetist. 

You can find this and other Leroy Jones tunes at your favorite online or offline music store. Thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe, like, rate and share our episodes. It means a lot to me and to my guests. Thank you.