Qunnect CEO expect to see quantum communication technologies and protocols debuted in 2023

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

I’m the CEO of Qunnect, a Quantum Networking hardware company located in Brooklyn, NY. I was a physics professor at Hunter College, CUNY before founding my first company in 2012. I met the scientific founders of Qunnect while I working with an economic development technology innovation seed fund for the state of NY. They invited me to join the management team in January 2020. Together we crafted the vision to create a full-suite of server rack-mounted products (no exotic cooling or vacuum support) to enable distribution of entanglement over standard telecom fiber. My day-to-day role is management of our team, finances, strategic initiatives, investor relations and operations.

What do you consider your biggest professional achievement to date?

Attracting premier investors who led/participated in our first priced round of $8.5M in Q4 2022.

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

Numerous government fiber testbeds are coming online, supported by the US Dept. of Energy and EURO-QCI as well as private testbeds, like the one Qunnect has built in NYC – GothamQ. I anticipate we will start to see a number of quantum communication technologies and protocols debuted in 2023.

Where does your organization sit within the quantum ecosystem?

We are a quantum communications company focused on supporting distributed entanglement protocols. The long term vision is distributing entanglement between quantum devices, often called the “quantum internet”

Will 2023 be a year we come closer to quantum advantage for enterprises. If so how?

Quantum advantage in communications is distributing entanglement at distances longer that the direct fiber transmission loss. While these protocols have been demonstrated in laboratories connected by fiber spools, there are numerous hurdles to performing this in deployed telecom fiber. By EOY 2023, Qunnect intends to demonstrate entanglement swapping over 68km on GothamQ. Stay tuned!

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

For companies in quantum communications, an open challenge is supporting low-loss/high-efficiency connection of quantum processors. To achieve larger multiples of qubits (versus larger numbers on a single processor)

Learn how major companies are overcoming challenges in quantum

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

This is not my specialty. I think the quantum computing industry should be careful about advertising outrageous claims to continue to foster investor excitement.

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

Quantum communications will have an impact on cyber-security. The ability to send secure keys between users has applications in finance, critical infrastructure, and of course, defense.

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

The SPACs and large investment rounds in quantum computing led to rapid scale-up in their workforce. We cannot offer competitive salary/packages to some of these companies. We have been fortunate to recruit talent who are excited by our vision and will compromise on the numbers.

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

Quantum computing will be in the cloud if the hardware continues to require the infrastructure and highly-skilled maintenance of the current devices. Quantum networking is not in the cloud, but has the potential to allow users to securely connect to the quantum computer in the cloud.

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

In quantum networking AI/ML can be used to optimize the performance of permanent hardware installations in noisy environments.

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

Qunnect will be demonstrating our metropolitan scale product suite on the GothamQ testbed in 2023 and plans to launch the commercial availability of the associated product bundles.

See what Qunnect will be showcasing at Quantum.Tech Boston here

Who are you looking forward to meeting?

Investors and potential strategic partners

Quantum.Tech covers quantum computing, cryptography as well as sensing; what area are you most excited about and why?

None of the above – we are interested in quantum networking. Cryptography is a subset of quantum networking applications and will likely be the first wide-spread use case of quantum networking. However, the bigger vision on quantum networking is distribution of entanglement between quantum computers and quantum sensors.

Noel will be speaking at Quantum.Tech Boston on day 1 (April 25) and will be presenting the keynote 'Crypto Showcase; 3 Communications and Cryptography solutions providers showcase their innovations . Showcase 1:'

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