A Personal Slice of Quantum History 

In 1995/96, around the time the first rudimentary quantum computer was built by a team at the University of Colorado, which included Chris Monroe, Founder and Chief Scientist of IonQ, and around the time Grover’s algorithm – used for quantum search operations – was conceived at Nokia’s Bell Labs, I began to become aware of a little-known, quite esoteric field at the time, known as Quantum Mechanics. It would be quite a few more years before its ideas took hold of me to the extent that they did, but eventually, the sheer magic of what I read blew me away, and I was hooked: Quantum tunneling (the ability of particles to pass through solid matter); quantum entanglement and non-locality (the ability of particles to affect each other even when separated at great distances); quantum superposition (the ability of particles to be in more than one place simultaneously), and so on… all seemed to hold the keys to the secrets of the universe. I began reading everything I could get my hands on, and especially the works of the late famed Stephen Hawking, who at one point taught at my university. I was lucky enough to attend a lecture of his at The Cambridge Union – the prestigious debating society of Cambridge University, of which I was then a member, as I remain today.

At the time, it was sheer curiosity for me. I did not for a second suspect at first that there would be any commercial application to explore. Back then, it was mostly books and journal articles, but in the late 2010s, just before Google announced that its quantum processor, “Sycamoreâ€, had achieved “quantum supremacy†(the feat of outperforming a classical supercomputer), the information landscape began to change dramatically: The news came hard and fast. It seemed as though every day a new breakthrough had been made, and suddenly it was not just theory and mathematics anymore, it was reality: the different types of quantum technology under development; the various approaches to constructing quantum information processors; the ever increasing number of established companies jumping into the race; the growing number of new companies dedicating themselves to developing the technology; and, most importantly, the people and talent involved in leading and aiding these efforts.

We are now at a point where these achievements will continue to grow exponentially year over year, much like they did with classical computing. We at Psirch have gone to great lengths to stay on the pulse of these developments, as well as the science behind them, and most importantly, the key talent involved. We look forward to seeing where it will take us, and you.

Psi you later,

Shai Phillips
President

Psirch
Your Quantum Partner