Somethin’ strange in the (Quantum) neighborhood…

How established must an industry be to become a target for disruption? Not established at all according to William Hurley, known amongst friends and colleagues as “whurley,” a serial entrepreneur and founder of the disruptive quantum computing firm Strangeworks. 

Pushing technology to new limits and operating at the edge of what is possible is his standard MO, and that hasn’t changed even when confronted with some of the big guns who are incumbent in the quantum space.

"I've been excited about quantum computing since 2011,” says whurley. “I'm not a quantum physicist. I'm a software developer. I'm bringing a tech entrepreneur's approach to this space."

Strangeworks is taking a common sense perspective to quantum computing.

"We have focused on three practical goals,” whurley added. “First, we saw a need for someone to build the developer community and to provide them a tool to access the technology. Second, to advance, the industry needs unified metrics and standards. Third, we have taken the approach that quantum computing needs more collaboration and accessibility. Our first step is to release a free developer environment with a hardware-agnostic tool on our website."

Collaboration and access are two things that quantum needs to advance, which is the underlying principle of the Strangeworks platform and its partnerships. 

"When we started we partnered with stackoverflow to build the quantum computing developer community,” whurley continued. “In just over a year we have grown to more than 5,000 users. The community needs a tool to do the work and being software developers, that's what we can do to advance quantum." 

Strangeworks wants to build the tools that make quantum accessible now and valuable in the future. It’s first product is a flexible developer environment with a vendor-agnostic approach to hardware. The company wants to get all the tools in one place and provide an environment that fosters experimentation, collaboration, and discovery.

Its collaborative approach is already paying off, and according to whurley, the surge in interest from the industry has been encouraging. “We are getting a lot of interest from big players in aerospace, energy, pharma and finance, to name just a few industries. But, I think soon there may be a quantum winter. Investors will pause for breath and take stock of the market. Only those start-ups who are funded at the appropriate levels will survive and thrive after that shake out.”

Don’t bet against Strangeworks being part of that group of survivors as it employs a pragmatic, common-sense approach that may well bring about a revolution in quantum computing. 

For questions or feedback, please contact Amit Das: amit.das@alphaevents.com

To visit the Strangeworks website: https://strangeworks.com/