Interview | Nir Minerbi, Co-founder and CEO at Classiq
Nir Minerbi, Co-founder and CEO at Classiq shares his thoughts on what he considers will be the biggest impact Quantum technology will have on his industry, the biggest challenges facing the adoption of Quantum technology in 2021 and an example of how his platform has been used by a new customer.
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What do you think are the biggest challenges facing the adoption of Quantum technology in 2021?
From the enterprise point of view, the quantum software bottleneck is probably the major challenge in the adoption of quantum computing (while wishing the hardware providers lots of luck). Not only there’re very few quantum algorithm developers available, even leading-experts are straggling, as the quantum software stack is in its infancy, and the development is limited to gate-level programming and tuning of known algorithms and building blocks. Therefore, it’s almost impossible to develop useful, scalable and novel quantum circuits, which is the main task of an enterprise quantum software team.
Can you share an example of how your platform or application has been used by a new customer?
Feel free to include any feedback or practical examples. Classiq builds the top layer of the quantum software stack, bringing automation and synthesis to the quantum algorithm design process and enabling scalable and industrial quantum software development process.
In the last few months, the Classiq platform was used by several users in a very different stages of their quantum journey – both quantum experts and domain experts which are not quantum experts.
After few weeks of training and getting used to the platform, the users reported a significant improvement in the efficiency of their work – automation allowed them to achieve in a very short times optimized and functional quantum circuits that would take months to create before.
On top of efficiency, some of the users were surprised to realize that programming at a higher level of abstraction didn’t damage resource optimization. On the contrary – as they could embed in the high-level model of the circuit the specific characteristics and constraints of the specific hardware, the circuit was synthesised highly optimized for the specific architecture.
Top tips: What is the best single piece of advice you can give to an enterprise looking to start their Quantum journey?
My main advice would be – Just do it. It’s probably not too early, and definitely not too late.
You can do it internally, without dedicating large budgets on consultancy and services. Let your domain experts work with the right products that will enable them to explore the possibilities and design quantum algorithms to your needs, and you’ll find that eventually, it’s not that far from the usual enterprise IT practices.
If you look 5 years into the future, what do you consider will be the biggest impact Quantum technology will have on your industry?
Without underrating the algorithms and use cases that are already known (and each of them are, indeed, a revolution) I believe that the best is yet to come. As this industry will emerge and the quantum software stack will mature, we’ll be amazed with novel, groundbreaking industrial algorithms and use cases, that we can’t even start to imagine today.
What are you most looking forward to at the Quantum.Tech digital event?
The Quantum.Tech digital event is a great opportunity to take a glance of the entire quantum computing ecosystem and appreciate how fast it’s shifting from an academic endeavor to an industrial, scalable, and value-centric effort. I’m looking forward to meeting with the people who lead this emerging industry and shape together the future of this exciting field.