SandboxAQ VP of Product, Nadia Carlsten discusses Quantum and the year ahead

Please give us a little introduction on your current role and what you do.

I am the VP of Product at SandboxAQ, a company that spun out of Alphabet to tackle big challenges using quantum and AI. I am responsible for managing product development across all our product divisions, which currently include quantum sensing, simulation, and security. I am an engineer by training, but my career has focused on commercialization of emerging technologies and bringing new products to market. I was previously Head of Product at the AWS Center for Quantum Computing.

What do you consider your biggest professional achievement to date?

That I've had a hand in developing and launching products in all 4 main areas of quantum: quantum computing and quantum networking (at Amazon), Quantum Sensing (at SandboxAQ), and Quantum Security (DHS and SandboxAQ).

What are you most excited about for quantum in 2023? What predictions do you have for the year ahead?

The economic climate has made it a rough year for tech in general, and of course that affects quantum. That being said one of the things that keeps me excited about the field is talking to quantum startups. We have a Strategic Investment Program at SandboxAQ, where we invest in companies that are developing quantum technologies that will be important to the ecosystem. We've already made 2 investments (Qunnect and EvolutionQ), and I'm looking forward to identifying more companies to invest in 2023.

Where does your organization sit within the quantum ecosystem?

We have multiple product divisions addressing different sides of quantum, so that makes us a bit unique in the quantum ecosystem. On the security side, we help customers manage encryption across their systems and help prepare them for the migration to post-quantum cryptography. In quantum sensing, we build both hardware and software to take advantage of quantum properties for better magnetometry, which can be leveraged for multiple applications, including navigation and medical sensing. Our simulation work similarly has multiple possible applications and verticals, but currently we are focusing on computational chemistry.

What do you think the key challenges of working with quantum in the NISQ era is?

Educating customers about what is actually possible with quantum computers today. On one hand quantum computing has a lot of promise for disrupting many industries, but realizing most of that potential will require fault tolerant quantum computers with many logical qubits, and that’s still years away. So we shouldn't dismiss quantum computing, but we should be realistic about timelines, and talk realistically about what we can actually do with the imperfect noisy qubits that are available today.

How many qubits do you see us reaching in the next year to 18 months? Will they make a difference?

There will be quantum processors with more physical qubits than are available today. There will not be a meaningful difference for practical applications until systems offering logical qubits become available.

Hear Nadia talk more about quantum's future here

How do you think quantum will impact on cyber-security? Do enterprises need to be approaching this challenge now, or is that hype?

Quantum computing is already impacting cybersecurity, in that it is a topic that is on the mind of CISOs and other cybersecurity professionals. Encryption underpins almost every aspect of living and working in modern society, so we can't just ignore a mode of computation that impacts RSA, the most widely used form of encryption. We can debate about exactly how many years away we are from cryptographically relevant quantum computers, but for many organizations that deal with sensitive data, there is no choice but to start tackling it now. And that's what we're seeing with our customers: whether they are expecting mandates about post-quantum cryptography or not, many organizations find it useful to start managing encryption better now.

In terms of finding the right talent; how are you going about the looking for the best people to work on your product?

I look for people that want to work on impactful products. The products we are building are not easy to build, so they need to be really excited about the mission. We hire people with many different backgrounds, not just quantum, and while a lot of people that work at SandboxAQ are technical, it's not a requirement for all roles. We work very closely with many universities, including through our residency program, to help build a pipeline of talent for quantum and AI.

Do you see quantum as a service becoming a major trend? Do you think most quantum will be from the cloud?

It depends what we mean by "quantum"! There is certainly a case for Quantum Computing to be cloud first, since cloud makes it possible for more users to access hardware that is not easy to buy, build, or maintain on-premises. For Quantum Sensing there isn't that hardware barrier, so the ability to connect between sensors with quantum networking for example will be more relevant than the classical concept of the cloud.

How do you see quantum working with AI and machine learning?

The premise of SandboxAQ is that combining the power of quantum with AI can lead to impactful solutions for our customers. One example of this is our Quantum Sensing products: the hardware leverages quantum to do better magnetometry, but it is AI that helps get meaningful data out of the quantum sensors by improving the signal to noise ratio.

What are you looking to showcase at our show in Boston this April?

I will be speaking about the intersection of quantum computing and security, I am on a panel titled: “What is the role of the CISO as we near quantum advantage?” on April 26

Who are you looking forward to meeting?

I am looking forward to catching up with many colleagues from different areas of quantum, as well as conversations with customers and partners that will be attending the conference.

Nadia will be speaking at Quantum.Tech USA on April 26. To hear from Nadia next week, register here.