Ant Computational Advantage

If everything beats quantum annealing, then ants must too.

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The Quantum Dragon has a combinatorial optimization problem to solve, and he turned to the ant queen for help. The only other option given to him was quantum annealing, which has failed him time and time again. Well, The Quantum Dragon ain’t too proud to beg, and he, for one, welcomes our new insect overlords.

QUANTUM + AI (2.0) OCTOBER 20-22, 2025 REGISTRATION OPENS WITH SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS

The inaugural 2024 event was a fabulous success! The 2025 conference already has a large plus as Quantum + AI expert and author Bob Sutor is joining with our Lawrence Gasman to create a comprehensive program. Early Bird advance registration offers a huge savings of 60 percent. Additional information about tickets or sponsoring can be found at www.iqtevent.com or emailing info@3drholdings.com.

IQT NORDICS 2025 ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL SPEAKERS

Jorgen Ellegaard Andersen of Qpurpose, Kristine Helen Falgren of Danish Quantum Community and Johan Felix of Quantum Sweden Innovation Platform are speaking at IQT Nordics taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden, May 20-22, 2025. Early registration pricing is available as well sponsorship opportunities. Additional information can be found at www.iqtevent.com.

Zapata AI Job Seekers

If you were laid off by Zapata AI and would like a free listing in this newsletter, please reach out and let me know. I’ll maintain a list in The Quantum Dragon until everyone on the list has been gainfully employed elsewhere or is otherwise no longer actively job seeking. I might extend this offer to all job seekers, but I’ll start with these layoffs.

• Shawn Gibford Industrial PHDc: Quantum Applications in the Life Sciences

• Dr. Francesco Benfenati Quantum Solutions Engineer

• CONGRATULATIONS, Dr. Yanbing Zhou!

Ant Supremacy

Dulwich Quantum Computing jokingly pitched ants vs. D-Wave, and my money would be on the ants. D-Wave supports limited problem sizes and consistently underperforms classical solvers on execution times and accuracy. I haven’t deliberately experimented with ants, but D-Wave’s track record is 100% blemished.

Germanium Valley

You’ve no doubt heard about Silicon Valley, but did you know that Groove Quantum is proposing a germanium analogue? That may or may not be tongue-in-cheek, but it’s at least proposing germanium spin qubits. Either way, the analogy and the video are both worthy of inclusion here. This link might require a LinkedIn account.

But I'm still using the HTML code I painstakingly crafted in 1993, a vestige of the web's early history.

1993 HTML

Prof. John Preskill’s website migrated to a new server, but you already knew that because you’re statistically likely to be following him. But did you expand the thread to see that he’s still using the same HTML since 1993? I still use 1997 HTML for new content because it’s all you need.

Dance Revolution?

Dr. Jonathan Reichental is promoting “a non-technical introduction to quantum computing.” I can’t see too much of it, but it seems to be well illustrated. But the reason why it’s in this newsletter is because of the music. This link might require a Twitter account.

The YEAR in Quantum Computing

If you spent 2024 in a dragon cave and missed absolutely everything that happened… good for you. That’s The Quantum Dragon’s favorite place to be. But if you now want to get all caught up, don’t fret. This edition of Sergio Gago’s Quantum Pirates is the year-in-review you need to start 2025 in-the-know. The AI podcast version of it is here.

Level up your intelligence.

My kids and I started playing Welcome to Bloxburg on Roblox, and the game gives your character a fully-furnished, fully-customizable starter home. I noticed that a book titled Quantum Chromodynamics comes standard on one of the bookshelves. Reading the book while sitting down refreshes both your “fun” and “energy” bars.

Vote for 2025's Theme Song

Jack Krupansky has suggested a motivational theme song for 2025, offering Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” But if everyone listens to Marvin Gaye all year, they’ll be procreating instead of working. I’m counter-proposing a theme song with a quantum theme; which one gets your vote?

That’s gonna leave a mark.

Unfortunately, this story is paywalled. But if you can see it, you’ll find a scathing article on Jack Hidary and SandboxAQ. The Quantum Dragon breathes fire, and even he can feel the heat coming off of this. The following phrases are all out of context, of course, but they’re legitimate excerpts.

• “embellished some of its success”

• “a few of the companies … said they were not customers”

• “difficulties commercializing its technology”

• “laid off most of its sales staff”

• “exaggerated what the company’s products could do for customers”

• “internal tool for forecasting potential sales was overly optimistic”

The Dracarys Award: Fire Opal

For withstanding The Quantum Dragon's relentless assault, I do hereby proclaim Fire Opal the inaugural recipient of The Dracarys Award.

Hey! Where’s my qubit?

You’re probably aware of quantum error correction (QEC), at least at some level, but how do you detect and correct errors if your qubits are physically not present? Atoms like to dubstep out of arrays, but new research can detect these drops. Kudos to Sandia National Laboratories for the catchy title and effective workforce analogy.

Scaredy Cat

Throughout 2025, QuEra will be sharing a monthly “LEGO-inspired illustration of a quantum concept.” This first one represents superposition using Schrodinger's legendary cat, and boy, does the cat look terrified by what is about to happen. This link might require a LinkedIn account.

Science Joke

If you need a joke for your next talk, presentation, panel, or whatever, this one ain’t bad. This link might require a Twitter account.

Go Toe-to-Toe (With)

An “English idioms” account explains this idiom in one line; just five words, to be precise. It then follows the definition up with a three-line example of its usage that smacks around one of Google AI’s quantum computing claims. This link might require a Twitter account.

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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.

• If you peruse Twitter for a while, you can find quantum stocks being confused for cryptocurrencies. I saw Rigetti’s ticker referred to as a “shitcoin.”

• Time to invest in quantum stocks? Jim Cramer uses phrases like “too much optimism,” “that day is just not near enough to justify the current valuations of these stocks,” “very big losses,” and “very much in its infancy.”

1. Image generated by an AI model provided by Microsoft Copilot.

2. Image generated by an AI model provided by Microsoft Copilot.