Traditional reporting brought to you by the most trusted dragon in the world, IQT Sunday Edition delivers a straightforward, authoritative summary of national and international mainstream media coverage of quantum technologies.

Quantum + AI Best Early Bird Rate Ends August 27

The third annual Q+AI has become a must attend conference for those interested in the convergence of quantum computing and AI. Over 80 speakers and numerous networking opportunities await attendees. Now is the time to consider registering to take advantage of significant early bird savings arriving August 27. And do not forget to RSVP for the annual dinner cruise on New York Harbor on the first night of the conference. The state of the art program has been planned by Bob Sutor and Brian Siegelwax. Bob is also overseeing Q+AI’s annual mentoring sessions. Overall Q+AI is one of the few “vertically focused” quantum events worldwide that also emphasizes networking opportunities. Do not miss New York’s top quantum computing event. Additional information for registration and sponsorship: www.iqtevent.com.

CNBC Markets

“‘Absolutely crazy’: Here’s what South Korean stock investors are doing in U.S. markets” notes that Korean investors “rushed” into US quantum stocks in late 2024.

Reuters

“How US military funding propelled China’s robot dogs” claims that China has gained market share in quantum communications, which is odd since nothing is commercially deployed.

Barron’s Technology

“IBM Clears Major Hardware Hurdle on the Path to Its Quantum Supercomputer” is paywalled, but it looks like it might misinterpret IBM’s recent announcement. “Cleared the way for interconnected processors” is hype when the announcement is about connecting cryogenic systems.

CNBC Europe Early Edition

“Quantum supercycle is right behind AI supercycle: Arqit CEO” is a 4:56 interview with Andy Leaver. Topics include quantum IPOs, the threat to RSA cryptography, Q-Day between now and 2029, quantum earnings (and orders), the UK and European quantum ecosystems, migration to the US, China’s shenanigans, and SPACs. Shoutouts include Rigetti, IonQ, Oxford Ionics (bought by IonQ), and Nu Quantum.

MarketWatch Dow Jones Newswires

“Infleqtion Shares Fall After Updating 2Q Financial Results” also reports that the company updated its annual revenue estimate from $43M to $45.1M.

FOX 32 Chicago

“‘Not a data center’: Quantum Park CEO on misconceptions about development | ChicagoLIVE” is a 7:53 interview with Harley Johnson in which he addresses some of the criticism of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park that was mentioned in “Join the Cat Side” just 3 days ago.

Financial Times: The best books of the week: Non-Fiction

“On Time by Jim Al-Khalili — at the border of science and philosophy” may or may not be controversial; I haven’t observed any physics folks commenting about it one way or the other. Its inclusion here is merely meant to point out that the author is enjoying some mainstream media coverage.

The Wall Street Journal Newsletters: Cybersecurity

“OpenAI Pauses Training Over Concerns About Safety” reports further down in the newsletter that US Senators Chris Coons (DE) and Mike Rounds (SD) introduced the bipartisan Quantum-Guard Act to help protect the electric grid from future cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQC).

CNBC Squawk Box Europe Podcast

“Heavily-leveraged Bitcoin shorts wiped out: Token Bay Capital” discusses, among other things, the threat of cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQC), as well as post-quantum cryptography (PQC) as an available solution.

WSJ Business

“How TCL’s Premium Pivot Reshaped the Television Market” mentions the seldom-reported-on quantum dot technology used in associated televisions.

The Wall Street Journal Newsletters: CIO Journal

“An Innovation Veteran on What’s Next in Enterprise AI” mentions that simulations can get so complex that they might not only need quantum computing, but that the convergence of quantum computing with agentic AI, robotics, and digital twins is interesting.

Barron’s Technology | Inside Scoop

“Infleqtion Stands to Gain $300,000 After Backer’s Trades Trigger SEC Rule” is paywalled, but reports that the company is going to receive unexpected funds due to the actions of a “major shareholder.”

Bloomberg Audio Studios

“Merryn Talks Money: What Happens When Quantum Computing Actually Works?” is a 38:08 podcast with Merryn Somerset Webb as the host and Daniel Doll-Steinberg, Co-Founder & Partner at EdenBase, as the guest. Honestly, I would need a transcript to figure this one out.

And that’s the way it is, Sunday, August 23, 2026.

The Quantum Dragon welcomes Cantor as a Presenting Sponsor of Q+AI 2026 (3.0): Uncovering the Coming Wave of Quantum + AI, which will be held October 25-27, 2026, in New York City, alongside its companion PQC+IQT conference on October 25-26. Cantor’s experts, of course, help their clients meet their financial goals. Troy Jensen, Managing Director, will be moderating Panel 5: Senior Executive Panel.

Cantor joins titanium sponsor SEALSQ, platinum sponsors C12 and QCi, and gold sponsors DLA Piper, QuintessenceLabs, Quantum Ready Solutions, and memQ.

You still have opportunities to register early and save, save, save. For sponsorship and exhibiting opportunities, contact info@3drholdings.com. The website currently lists 56 speakers and the event schedule.

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I had a chance to evaluate Haiqu’s circuit compression claims, and I quickly realized that comparing it to Qiskit would be insufficient. Everyone always compares everything to Qiskit. Everybody always beats Qiskit. Besides, the closest competitor for this task is QMill. You may remember QMill from “Compressing Shor’s Algorithm,” which featured Prof. Peter Shor in a corset.

• The hypocritical baseline was Qiskit without optimization. That’s optimization_level=0 for those who use it. Let’s just unroll the quantum circuit, then let Haiqu and QMill have at it.

• The target hardware for both was ibm_kingston, with its IBM Heron chip, and IQM Emerald. It’s worth noting that Haiqu works with specific backends, whereas QMill works with gatesets.

• The outputs allow more comparisons than these, but I decided early on to focus on circuit depth and 2Q gate counts as my metrics. We’ll just count headshots and bodyshots, and then we’ll go to the judges’ scorecards.

But first, I’m hungry. Let’s eat….

Grover’s Algorithm: Qiskit Dinner Party

Five years ago, I learned about what IBM called “Grover’s Dinner Party.” I converted it to OpenQASM 2, I renamed it the “Qiskit Dinner Party,” and I added it to my library. I’ve been using it ever since to evaluate a non-trivial percentage of some 300+ quantum technology products. The quantum circuit is neither tiny nor massive, so I started there.

• Haiqu ran for ~30 seconds, although that includes both IBM Heron and IQM Emerald. QMill uses LUMI or AWS supercomputers to compress circuits, and runtime can be set for hours. But to be “fair,” I set QMill to run for 1 minute for each backend. I also tried it for 30 minutes, but Haiqu still came out noticeably ahead on depth and 2Q counts despite consuming a fraction of the time. The results you see above used 4 QPUs for 6 hours, so increasing QMill’s iteration_time_minutes does not guarantee better results, at least not with this particular quantum circuit.

• Haiqu’s compressed circuit not only simulated correctly, it also returned correct results from ibm_kingston. That’s impressive. I don’t have an AWS account with which to test it on IQM Emerald, but the simulator and IBM Heron prove that Haiqu’s circuits still work after compression.

• QMill’s circuit simulated correctly. It works with IQM Resonance, IQM’s cloud, so you can use IQM Emerald for free. So, I did. The result was correct, but not as convincing as Haiqu’s execution on ibm_kingston. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison on real hardware, but the point of this exercise, between simulation and execution on IQM Emerald, is simply to demonstrate that QMill’s circuits still work after compression.

The bottom line, because Stone Cold said so, is that Haiqu won this first battle on both circuit depth and 2Q gate counts, while also executing noticeably faster. Importantly, both Haiqu and QMill circuits not only simulated correctly, but they also returned correct results on real NISQ hardware. The latter is not a prediction I made in advance.

QMill noted that the discrepancy in circuit sizes might be due to Haiqu using approximations versus QMill being exact; therefore, I am declaring this a legitimate Round 1. I’ve used “Round 1, fight!” as a subtitle on multiple occasions, but there will be a Round 2 this time, and maybe even a Round 3. The smaller circuit doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work, so Round 1 is just verifying that the circuits haven’t been butchered in the efforts to compress them.

Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE): LiH(6)

Most of my library is QPE, courtesy of the Classiq synthesis engine. This was meant to determine how far any particular software or hardware could be pushed. Can your product handle H2 with 1 counting qubit, O₂ with 6 counting qubits (the farthest I could push Classiq’s engine at the time), or somewhere in between?

“Go big or go home,” someone always says, so I started with O₂, aka molecular oxygen, with 6 counting qubits:

• Haiqu returned an error stating that the job exceeded the allowed time limit; however, it promised longer limits in the future. This is common, by the way, when alpha or beta testing.

• QMill returned an error that I had insufficient credits to run it.

So, I downgraded a bit to LiH, aka lithium hydride, also with 6 counting qubits. Although it is still a hefty quantum circuit, it requires only about half of the code as O₂ with 6 counting qubits:

• Haiqu needed a little over 6 minutes to compress the circuit for both IBM and IQM backends. Haiqu’s simulation results matched Qiskit’s simulation results, albeit much faster. Haiqu’s compressed circuit also executed on ibm_kingston, showing 011111:0.8567 as compared to 011111:0.976 with the simulator.

• QMill gave me additional credits by this point, and I executed it with 4 GPUs running for 6 hours on LUMI. The problem is that I can’t retrieve the results. It’ll either time out if I run it locally, or I’ll get logged out waiting for the comparison to load in the portal. They’re unable to extend that logout duration at this time.

The histograms are NOT in error, by the way. The differences between the code in my library and Haiqu’s quantum circuits are so extreme that you can’t see Haiqu’s bars on the histograms at all. And, again, I can’t stress enough that Haiqu’s compressed circuit executed well on real NISQ hardware. After evaluating 300+ quantum technology products, I very rarely say “WOW!” at this point, but that ibm_kingston result got a “WOW!” out of me.

Shor’s Algorithm: Factoring 15

I’ve got more circuits in my library, but let’s face it, the granddaddy of ‘em all draws eyeballs to articles. And like most of the others, this circuit also came from the Classiq synthesis engine.

• Haiqu’s circuit executed on ibm_kingston. You can see the effects of using NISQ hardware in the results, but the top 4 measurement outcomes nevertheless matched the simulator.

• QMill’s circuits were larger than Haiqu’s after 4 GPUs ran for 6 hours on LUMI, and they did not execute well on IQM Emerald. There are multiple reasons why that might be the case, but it’s a moot point as long as Haiqu’s circuits are smaller and working. I exported QMill’s IBM Heron circuit for Round 2, for an apples-to-apples comparison.

This is a smaller circuit than LiH with 6 counting qubits, so you can see short little Haiqu bars this time on the histogram. And, once again, Haiqu’s circuit returned correct results on real NISQ hardware, which is astounding considering we’re talking about Shor’s algorithm, even though we’re only talking about factoring 15 at this point.

Shor’s Algorithm: Factoring 21

I did not have this circuit in my library, so I used the circuit in “Demonstration of Shor’s factoring algorithm for N= 21 on IBM quantum processors.” Notwithstanding that it uses a compiled version of QPE using relative phase shift Toffoli gates, it was the easiest-to-find example of factoring 21 with Shor’s algorithm, and it’s still a hefty circuit.

The primary reason why I’m including it is because it is showing my original prediction for this article, which is that Haiqu might excel with some circuits while QMill might excel with others. I’ve encountered that before, where the “winner” is not necessarily universal. In this case, even with the paper’s authors making the circuit as svelte as they possibly could, Haiqu and QMill both improved upon it, with QMill slightly edging out Haiqu when compressing for IBM, and with mixed results when compressing for IQM; the former had a slightly lower two-qubit gate count while the latter had slightly less depth.

That said, QMill’s circuit once again fared poorly on IQM Emerald, and there are once again multiple potential reasons for that. Haiqu’s circuit executed well on ibm_kingston, so Round 2 will have to use QMill’s IBM Heron circuit for an oranges-to-oranges comparison.

Other Observations

These will affect different users differently:

• Getting all 3 products to work in one environment was fun, in the most sarcastic sense of the word. Kids, don’t try this at home.

• Accounts matter. I used my IBM Quantum and IQM Resonance accounts, but I don’t have an AWS account. What you have will affect what’s accessible to you.

• There may be a point of diminishing returns, where you can use the LUMI supercomputer to compress QMill’s circuits with 4 GPUs for 6 hours, but the gains probably stop much earlier than that. With Grover’s algorithm, just looking at the histogram, there wasn’t a noticeable difference between running QMill for 1 minute, 30 minutes, or 6 hours.

Conclusion

As someone who writes for a living, I really ought to be more eloquent than the word “WOW!” would indicate, but I submit to you that it is fully descriptive of Haiqu’s quantum circuit compression software. I was impressed when Grover’s algorithm executed on ibm_kingston, but I was blown away when it handled QPE.

Nevertheless, QMill is a worthy competitor. It also demonstrated that it could execute a toy example of an FTQC algorithm (Grover’s algorithm) on NISQ hardware and retrieve the correct results. It also demonstrated that it can, as I suspected, eke out a numerical win, as it did with factoring 21 with Shor’s algorithm. Furthermore, let the record show that QMill allows you to consume the free credits that you can get from both IBM Quantum and IQM Resonance, and then might be worthy of your consideration.

Round 1 was a battle of quantity over quality, so Round 2 will take a closer look at the results.

Epilogue

As this article was queued up for publication, Haiqu launched a new academic program. If you’re a researcher, you can apply for free access to the platform.

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I’ve got places to go, people to see, and brand-spanking-new Alice & Bob swag to wear. For the record, The Quantum Dragon really wants his own t-shirt, but even he agreed that we wouldn’t want his wings to tear through Guillaume Gennet’s magnificent design. Even a firebreathing dragon doesn’t mess with Lord Vader.

This week’s IQT News:

• The Undisputed Top Voices in Q+AI and PQC

• IQT Sunday Edition

• Distributed Borg Drone Computing

• The World’s Leading Quantum Chemistry Clusters & Quantum Life Science Clusters

This week’s premium content:

• Guizhen Chip’s Qiming

• None-to-None Qubit Connectivity

• Pasqal-Aramco QCaaS Platform

• Dragons are apparently migratory.

This week’s Friends of The Quantum Dragon:

• “Technical leadership alone is no longer enough.” by Prof. June-Koo Kevin Rhee, Founder and CEO of Qunova Computing

In this edition:

• “You do not need a background in quantum to apply.”

• PhDs really do need to apply.

• PsiQuantum’s blueprint to build a quantum computer.

• Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief… I Mean an Electron”

• Jerry Garcia worked at TOPTICA Photonics?!?!?

• 15 new companies, but only 6 are worth mentioning.

• Shape the Security of Tomorrow

• Uh-oh, it’s magic!

• 50% off qBraid credits

• Quantum’s Big Money Moment

• How much is it?

• Going to the Chapel of Quantum in Barcelona

• Not Roblox, too!

• Others have notes...

• Nu Quantum’s Distributed Borg Drone Computing

• Brian Lenahan’s Poll Results - Rebranding FTQC

• We’re… #73 in Sasquatch/astrology!

• “Let us introduce you to Hafeez’s bunny!”

• Becoming Deliberate

• Quantum Noise Detector

“You do not need a background in quantum to apply.”

This is a job posting for a Deputy Head, Office for Quantum, for the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. You need to be “an exceptional leader with an interest in how government can thoughtfully steer the development of a critical technology in the national interest,” but a quantum background is somehow optional.

PhDs really do need to apply.

Diraq’s “PhDs Need Not Apply: How the Quantum Workforce is Maturing” is a notion that has circulated for at least a few years now, but in practice, PhDs are still very much in demand. What you really want is for your competitors to lower their respective bars while keeping yours high.

PsiQuantum’s blueprint to build a quantum computer.

This is a nice, digestible, 33-second visual explainer of what PsiQuantum’s got going on under the hood.

Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief… I Mean an Electron”

Prof. Marius Grundmann, CEO of SAXON Q, uses a featured image that is one dragon short of something I would definitely use. The article itself may not be for laypeople, but it’s a fascinating read for those with at least high-level familiarity with the various quantum computing modalities. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

Jerry Garcia worked at TOPTICA Photonics?!?!?

I don’t know if seeing The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia in a comic strip says more about the fine folks over at TOPTICA Photonics or if I need to keep a more watchful eye on The Quantum Dragon, but I’m sure science would indeed be a whole lot more fun with Mr. Garcia in your cleanroom. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

15 new companies, but only 6 are worth mentioning.

“Quantum Australia reveals $83.1M economic impact and 15 new quantum companies,” but congratulations are only in order for FeBI Technologies, QFactorial, Space CoLAB, Quantum Lock, Gridstate Photonics, and Cirnetiq. No one else made the cut for this article. Better luck next time?

Shape the Security of Tomorrow

The Baltic Dual Use 48-hour Non-stop Hackathon Sprint includes quantum as 1 of its 5 pillars. Interestingly, the website only lists post-quantum cryptography, ultra-sensitive quantum sensors, and secure communications. I can’t help but feel like something is missing….

Uh-oh, it’s magic!

What the heck is a “magic state?” If you don’t know, I’d say the best high-level explainer I’ve seen thus far is in Yuval Boger’s “Quantum Bits.”

50% off qBraid credits

Nanoacademic’s Nathaniel Vegh will talk about LatticeMind, an “agentic AI assistant for atomistic simulation,” and then demonstrate it live on the qBraid platform. qBraid will be offering a discount on credits, presumably so that you can play along. I don’t know about you, but given the opportunity, I always play along in real time.

Quantum’s Big Money Moment

The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of a recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report made it into last week’s IQT Sunday Edition, but Bill Bell’s “Enterprise quantum spending exceeds government spending for first time” makes a point that I don’t recall seeing in the WSJ coverage.

How much is it?

Marin Ivezic shared an interesting observation in “The Merchant QPU Market – Who Will Actually Sell You a Quantum Processor,” that QuiX Quantum actually published prices for its Alquor 2.0 8-mode, 20-mode, and 32-mode photonic QPUs. I’m not going to go as far to say that I’ve never seen pricing, but it’s definitely a rarity.

Going to the Chapel of Quantum in Barcelona

Thanks to Mike Kilroy of HKA Marketing Communications, The Quantum Dragon thinks that Qilimanjaro is operating an actual medieval chapel at Spain’s Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and he flew right out of his cave to go take a look. All I could do was scream after him, “Bring back some serrano ham!”

Not Roblox, too!

It may initially seem like a silly topic for The Quantum Kid; after all, don’t we have bigger things to worry about than gaming platforms? But if you pause for a moment and think about how much money actually passes through that platform, you may realize that we may be collectively overlooking some juicy targets for bad actors.

Others have notes...

Yuval Boger uses self-deprecating humor to promote that QuEra is looking to hire a Senior Product Marketing Manager. Personally, I would love to use more self-deprecating humor in this newsletter, but I’m just not funny. The Quantum Dragon is hilarious, though; you ask him! This link may require a LinkedIn account.

Nu Quantum’s Distributed Borg Drone Computing

Imagine a distributed quantum computing network as resilient as the Borg. Even if you lose a node, a QPU, the quantum information is preserved and can be recovered, allowing computation to continue and complete.

Brian Lenahan’s Poll Results - Rebranding FTQC

I have an answer to the question, “So, what can we call this magnificent achievement when it arrives?” We shall call it: “quantum computing.” How can I possibly know this? Well, I’m not typing this with a “fault-tolerant laptop,” ladies and gentlemen; I’m just using a laptop. Fault tolerance is implied, assumed, and taken for granted.

We’re… #73 in Sasquatch/astrology!

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal seems to be poking fun at the inverse relationship on social media between popularity and actual knowledge of quantum theory.

“Let us introduce you to Hafeez’s bunny!”

I don’t know how an outside-the-box rabbit is helping Iga Hafeez of Kampala, Uganda, study concepts in physics, but if the Global Quantum Mechanics Challenge adopts it and adds it to their website, I’ll add it to the Quantum Animal Registry. This link may require a Facebook account.

Becoming Deliberate

Thanks to Mark McGuire for sharing Noah Warren’s Substack. A recent graduate with a plan to found a quantum startup, he’s documenting his journey of building a lab in his apartment. It’s all short notes thus far, but it’s definitely a curious read as you scroll down, including tracking, for some reason, his hot beverage consumption.

2

Quantum Noise Detector

Alan Ho and Prof. Michael Biercuk inspired the Resuscitated Quantum Bullshit Detector, but the original(?) has resurfaced on Bluesky. It’s back to reposting a simple “bullshit” or “not bullshit,” so The Quantum Dragon will continue to monitor for challenges, controversies, and debates under this new name from Dr. Bob Sutor.

• TechDefused’s “WiMi says its quantum AI can tell one handwritten digit from another” is refreshingly critical of an announcement, instead of simply regurgitating it.

• The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park is under fire for a variety of reasons, including its impact on the environment, the needs of Chicagoans in terms of utility bills and the “displacement of longtime neighbors,” the appropriation of state and city tax dollars, the granting of county tax incentives, opposition to “military-backed billionaires,” and, of course, antisemitism.

1

When Captain Jean Luc-Picard’s Federation Starship Enterprise first encountered the Borg, a cybernetic multi-species hive with a collective identity and technological assimilation, one of the first things the Borg did was to beam one of its drones onto the Enterprise, where it began scanning one of the computers. After Security Officer Worf managed to disable that first drone, the Borg quickly sent another to replace him and complete the mission.

Understatement: It went downhill for the Enterprise and the Federation after that.

This is analogous to Nu Quantum’s new research on “Tolerating Device Failure in Distributed Quantum Computing.” You have a Borg collective, a network if you will, of distributed QPUs working together, and you lose one of them for whatever reasons. The reliability and elasticity of the hive, the distributed system, exceed that of its subcomponents, allowing the preservation and recovery of quantum information after unplanned failures.

How does it work?

This approach requires quantum error correction, which encodes many physical qubits as a logical qubit. The logical quantum information is encoded across a wide network, as opposed to on a single node, thus circumventing total information loss upon a single node failure. The information is then transferred to a replacement node when it comes online.

Each drone, I mean QPU, is therefore swappable or replaceable mid-operation with minimal impact on logical error rates. Operations can continue. And like the Borg collective, increasing the size of the quantum error correction code across more QPUs increases resilience and availability further. Furthermore, like the species-agnostic Borg, this technique is modality agnostic.

Conclusion

This research makes the argument against putting all of your proverbial eggs, or qubits, into one proverbial basket, or QPU. Like a hard drive, or any other hardware for that matter, it can fail. As you grow a business, you don’t save all of your data onto one hard drive; you set up RAID, which encodes your data across multiple hard drives. If one should fail, it is replaceable mid-operation, the data gets rebuilt on the new hard drive, and you carry on. So, why would we plan for hours or days of continuous quantum computation on a single computer and risk having a single point of failure squander it all?

We won’t.

The future is distributed quantum computing. Resistance is futile.

Traditional reporting brought to you by the most trusted dragon in the world, IQT Sunday Edition delivers a straightforward, authoritative summary of national and international mainstream media coverage of quantum technologies.

CNBC The Tech Download

“Europe has plenty of startups. Why are there so few tech giants?” is a 40-minute interview. Skip to 21:50 for an AI-generated overview of quantum computing, 23:17 for the threat to encryption, 24:04 for investment in quantum computing, and 33:35 for the interview proper. The interview covers the potential arrival of Q-Day as early as 2029, promising use cases, and the investment landscape. Riverlane and Nu Quantum get shoutouts.

Reuters

“US officials work to close supply chain gaps as foreign investment grows” mentions that Finland-based Bluefors acquired a “quantum refrigeration company” in Syracuse, New York.”

Reuters

“South Korea unveils future technology drivers, targets moon landing by 2030” reports that “the government aims to develop a domestic error-corrected 100-qubit quantum processor by 2029 and become the world’s leading ​quantum-chip manufacturing nation by 2035.” While the former aspiration is aligned with many of the industry’s roadmaps, the latter aspiration is remarkably ambitious.

Barron’s Technology Earnings Report

“Infleqtion: Losses Are Growing but So Is Its Crucial Federal Quantum Business.” is paywalled but notes that revenues from federal contracts are increasing while the company reports widening second-quarter losses.

Barron’s Banks

“Bank of America Pledges $250 Billion for Critical Infrastructure, AI” is paywalled, but notes that the US federal government is not alone in strengthening quantum computing’s supply chains, among other industries’ supply chains.

Reuters

“Strong majority of Japanese firms have yet to fully embrace AI: Reuters poll” reports that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi intends to boost domestic investment in quantum technologies, among other industries.

Reuters Exclusive

“Microsoft retreats in China, but AI boom helps it keep a window open” notes that Microsoft President Brad Smith told US lawmakers in 2023 that the company does not conduct quantum computing research, among other things, in China.

CNBC Tech

“From Apple to Ford: How Chinese tech is becoming harder for global companies to ignore” notes that US restrictions on investing in certain Chinese advanced technologies, including quantum technologies, began with Huawei being blacklisted in 2019.

The Wall Street Journal Newsletters: CIO Journal

“Allstate CEO’s Message on Quantum Computing: ‘Get on the Train’,” besides cheerleading the technology, reports that Allstate has a growing 10-person team on the one hand, but consumes only a small-but-important sliver of his time on the other.

Fortune Crypto - Quantum Computing

“‘The great quantum migration’ is coming as more than $2 trillion in digital assets is at risk—nearly the entire value of the overall crypto market” is paywalled, but the line “Quantum computing is coming for your crypto” is indicative of the content.

The Wall Street Journal Technology: CIO Journal

“Businesses Are Spending Big on Quantum” overlaps the article with Tom Wilson, CEO of Allstate, but dives ever-so-slightly deeper into the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report that it mentions. It also mentions HSBC and EY in addition to Allstate.

CNBC The Tech Download

“Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser’s AI warning: The revolution is real, but so is the bubble risk” provides a link to the CNBC The Tech Download podcast listed at the very top of this newsletter.

Reuters

“Institutional investors reveal cautious approach to tech favorites in US quarterly 13F filings” misuses the phrase “quantum of (AI) spending,” which I’ve previously encountered only on X. Nowhere else. Just X. Reuters needs to nip that in the bud real quick.

WSJ Podcasts Tech News Briefing

“TNB Tech Minute: Businesses Are All In on Quantum” recaps the same Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report that’s already mentioned in 2 CIO Journal links above.

And that’s the way it is, Sunday, August 16, 2026.

The Quantum Dragon is compiling his list of the Top Voices at the intersection of quantum technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as in post-quantum cryptography. It’s “undisputed,” because no one in their right mind argues with a firebreathing dragon. His list is still growing, but thus far he has confirmed:

• Carlos Moreira, CEO, SEALSQ

• Reza Azarderakhsh, CEO and Founder of PQSecure and Professor at FAU

• Jeroen Bakker, Partner, Seed Investments, Novo Holdings

• Yuval Boger, Chief Commercial Officer, QuEra Computing

• Scott Buchholz, Quantum Computing Lead, Deloitte Consulting LLP

• Bruno Couillard, CEO & CTO, Crypto4A Technologies Inc.

• Juan Cruz-Benito, AI for Quantum Product Owner, IBM Quantum

• Michael Cubeddu, Co-founder & CTO, Aliro Quantum Technologies

• Pierre Desjardins, Co-founder and CEO, C12

• James H. Dickerson, Director, ASCET Center of Excellence, ASTM International

• Michaela Eichinger, Product Solutions Physicist, Quantum Machines

• Russ Fein, Managing Director, Corporate Fuel Partners

• Charles Foley, Chairman & CEO, memQ

• Nicholas C. Fuller, VP of AI & Automation, IBM

• Pranav Gokhale, CTO & Co-Founder, Infleqtion

• Jay Guilmart, Lead Product Manager of Quantum Computing, Q-CTRL

• Isaiah Hull, Co-founder and CTO, FirstQFM

• Mike Jennings, Partner, European & UK Patent Attorney, UPC Representative, Venner Shipley

• Troy Jensen, Managing Director, Cantor Fitzgerald

• Sam Kearney, Haiqu

• Mike Kilroy, Executive Vice President/Group Director, Technology, HKA Marketing

• Jonathan King, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Atom Computing

• Rebecca Krauthamer, Founder and CEO, QuSecure

• Ethan Krimins, CEO & Founder, Quantum Research Sciences

• Subodh Kulkarni, President and CEO, Rigetti Computing

• Steve La Barbera, Media Consultant, Quantum Technologies, FTG Media

• Stefan Leichenauer, Vice President of Engineering, SandboxAQ

• Austin S. Lin, Head of the United States National Committee IEC/ISO Quantum Technologies (JTC 3)

• Jie “Roger” Luo, Cofounder and CEO, Anyon Computing Inc., Anyon Technologies

• Nardo Manaloto, Managing Partner, Qubits Ventures

• Cezary Mazurek, Computer Scientist, Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center

• Michele Mosca, Co-founder, President and CEO, evolutionQ

• Ramis Movassagh, Senior Director in Quantum Finance, IonQ

• Richard Murray, Co-founder & CEO, ORCA Computing

• Rika Nakazawa, Chief Growth Officer, EigenQ

• Kris Naudts, Founding and Managing Partner, Firgun Ventures

• Reza Nejabati, Head of Quantum Research and Quantum Labs, Cisco

• Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, Founder & CEO, Nu Quantum

• Simon Pamplin, CTO, Certes

• Matt Perkins, Media Specialist, Virgo PR

• Chris Porthouse, Chief Product Officer, Aegiq

• Jonathan Reiner, Director of Product Solutions, Quantum Machines

• Charles W. Robinson, Public Sector Leader IBM Quantum Computing & World Wide leader Quantum Safe Team, IBM

• Anurag Saha Roy, Chief Product Officer, Qruise

• Lekshmy Sankar, Head of Quantum Security, KPMG (US)

• Brandon Severin, Co-founder and CEO, Conductor Quantum

• Jyotsna Sharma, Program Director, ARPA-E, US Department of Energy

• Brian Siegelwax, Caretaker, The Quantum Dragon

• Yong Meng Sua, Chief Technology Officer, Quantum Computing Inc.

• Bob Sutor, CEO, Sutor Group Intelligence and Advisory LLC

• Christopher Tam, President and Head of Quantum Innovation, BTQ Technologies

• Aleena Taufiq, Senior AI Product Manager, Verizon

• Ton van ‘t Noordende, General Partner, Ground State Ventures

• Robert Wamsley, Quantum Ready Solutions

• Barbara Widholm, Vice President Emerging Technologies, State Street

• Bill Wisotsky, Principal Quantum Systems Architect, SAS

• Joseph Wolfe, Attorney, Patent Development and Strategy Group, DLA Piper

• James Wootton, Chief Scientific Officer, Moth

• Yilun Xu, Research Scientist, Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

• Eddy Zervigon, Chief Executive Officer, Quantum Xchange

Conveniently, they will all be speaking at Q+AI 2026 (3.0): Uncovering the Coming Wave of Quantum + AI, which will be held October 25-27, 2026, in New York City, or its companion PQC+IQT conference on October 25-26. To hear them, you still have opportunities to register early and save, save, save. For sponsorship and exhibiting opportunities, contact info@3drholdings.com.

Following the announcement that Qunova Computing appointed Jake Hwang as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Board Member, as well as Evan Kang and Woomin Kyoung as Business Development Executives, Prof. June-Koo Kevin Rhee, Founder and CEO of Qunova Computing, provided this exclusive comment:

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Thanks to Anthony Lawrence, I discovered “Energy-independent total quantum transmission of electrons through nanodevices with correlated disorder” by M. A. Novotny, which defines quantum dragons as a “wide class of nanostructures with correlated disorder…, [that] can have strong scattering…, [and that have] the same electrical conductivity as a ballistic nanodevice.”

This week’s IQT News:

• QUANTUM + AI NEW YORK OCTOBER 25-27, 2026 -- EARLY BIRD ENDS 27 AUGUST

• IQT Sunday Edition

• Podcast #88: It’s already blinking red.

• IQT Summarizes Funding Sources, Quantum Tech Configurations & Long-Term Market Focus of 15 Nations Developing Quantum Chemicals & Quantum Life Science

This week’s premium content:

• Arqit (ARQQ) $7M Investor Settlement

• Quantum Fidelity-per-Cost

• qBraid’s Trending QPUs

• Rigetti’s Institutional Investors

In this edition:

• #79 Rising Bestseller in Technology

• Prof. Amit Hagar’s Original Sin

• Dr. Bob Sutor said the quiet part out loud.

• Prof. Eduardo R. Miranda is breaking the walls down.

• How to Commercialize Quantum Computing

• Carlos Moreira is taking a bite out of the Big Apple.

• QuTech’s Cups and Balls

• Let there be light.

• Quantum Music Estimation

• Equal1 wants to RacQ and roll all night…

• Wait, what am I volunteering for?

• Yuval Boger’s Error Threshold

• Podcast #88: It’s already blinking red.

• You wouldn’t like IBMers when they’re angry.

• The Other “Post-Quantum”

• Quantum Noise Detector

#79 Rising Bestseller in Technology

Leaderboard placements can be fleeting on Substack and everywhere else, so I’ll share this while I can and take the opportunity to say, “thank you.” The Quantum Dragon might already be off the list by the time this publishes, but my appreciation will remain in perpetuity.

Prof. Amit Hagar’s Original Sin

If memory serves, this article includes the first biblical references I’ve encountered in quantum. Beyond “The Original Sin” in the title, there’s also an illustration with an apple and the use of the word “baptized.” If that wasn’t enough, the article is also a fine history lesson on quantum error correction.

Dr. Bob Sutor said the quiet part out loud.

Dr. Bob Sutor, who is best known as The Godfather of The Quantum Dragon, although I might be a little bit biased about that, shared that he does technical due diligence on top of all of his more visible activities, such as his prominent role in conferences and podcasts. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

Prof. Eduardo R. Miranda is breaking the walls down.

This is a short interview with Prof. Miranda conducted after he became a finalist for the Falling Walls Foundation Breakthrough of the Year in Art & Science award. The Falling Walls Science Summit is named after the fall of the Berlin Wall, though, not the fabled Walls of Jericho.

How to Commercialize Quantum Computing

The full title of this C-Suite Brief is “Gregg Carman: How To Commercialize Quantum Computing Before Fault Tolerance Arrives,” and this is a question I ask on a regular basis. I’m not selling anything, but I actively wonder how it’s being done considering the state of what’s out there.

Carlos Moreira is taking a bite out of the Big Apple.

The video clip is meant to showcase the size of SEALSQ’s Quantum Shield QS7001, but it also shows a bite being taken out of the apple being used for a size comparison. Appropriately, the company’s CEO will be taking a bite out of the Big Apple when he keynotes Q+AI and PQC+IQT. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

QuTech’s Cups and Balls

Not content with merely computing with electron spins, QuTech is now shuttling them around like a quantum cups and balls trick. Unfortunately, we can’t visualize electrons, but the 3:12 video includes some really zoomed-in images of the chip. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

Let there be light.

For the 2nd biblical reference in this newsletter, and possibly the 2nd in the history of this newsletter, researchers at the University of Ottawa and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light are entangling photons of natural sunlight. It looks like the potential application would be non-terrestrial quantum key distribution (QKD).

Quantum Music Estimation

It’s not actually called that, but “Teleportation game: quantum teleportation in multi-agent systems for interactive music” by Prof. Eduardo R. Miranda and Dr. Scott Oshiro combines quantum phase estimation (QPE) with quantum teleportation to compose music, and that’s just fascinating.

Equal1 wants to RacQ and roll all night…

According to Equal1, deploying a quantum computer is as easy as rolling it in and then plugging it in. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

Wait, what am I volunteering for?

I was sent a link to a LinkedIn post that linked to a “PROJECT-Q Volunteer Registration Form.” Since I only left the form open, I later searched for more info to share here and found an LGBTQ youth program. The “passionate volunteers” are being sought by this PROJECT-Q, though.

Yuval Boger’s Error Threshold

I finally got to a page in “Quantum Bits” that covers a topic I’ve also written about, thus giving me an opportunity to shamelessly plug Mr. Boger’s book and my article “A Nightmare at the Threshold,” which is about the Niels Bohr Institute and Quantum Machines, at the same time. Pretty efficient, eh?

Podcast #88: It’s already blinking red.

I spoke with Rebecca Krauthamer, CEO and Co-Founder of QuSecure, about the implications of the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) market splitting between early movers and laggards on the laggards, the bestowing of US military standards for QuSecure’s civilian customers, the difference between NIST standards and US military standards, the benefits of AWS Qualified Software Certification, why Forbes keeps recognizing QuSecure as one of America’s Best Startup Employers, and more.

You wouldn’t like IBMers when they’re angry.

IBM Research shared that the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) being taught by Prof. Bruce Banner in Spider-Man: Brand New Day is an actual subject of research using its quantum computers. Just make sure you’re doing yoga or something if you decide to pick it up. This link may require an X account.

The Other “Post-Quantum”

The “post-quantum” in post-quantum cryptography refers to after we have cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQC). Mark McGuire doesn’t actually use the term, but he’s essentially introducing a new concept of post-quantum: what’ll come next? Manual —> digital —> quantum —> string?

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Quantum Noise Detector

Alan Ho and Prof. Michael Biercuk inspired the Resuscitated Quantum Bullshit Detector, but the original(?) has resurfaced on Bluesky. It’s back to reposting a simple “bullshit” or “not bullshit,” so The Quantum Dragon will continue to monitor for challenges, controversies, and debates under this new name from Dr. Bob Sutor.

• Wired’s title says it all: “Microsoft’s Quantum Chief Doesn’t Care That Scientists Don’t Believe His Results.”

• Rebecca Krauthamer (LinkedIn)

• QuSecure (website)

• QuProtect R3

• QuSecure Careers

• QuSecure (LinkedIn)

• #303 America’s Best Startup Employers (Forbes)

Rebecca Krauthamer will be a speaker at PQC+IQT, which is coming to New York City on October 26, 2026.

Dragon Castle by Makai Symphony | https://soundcloud.com/makai-symphony
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Dungeons And Dragons by Alexander Nakarada | https://creatorchords.com
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