Squirrel!

For Your Consideration: The Quantum Squirrel

¹

Inspired by his godfather, Dr. Bob Sutor, The Quantum Dragon is thrilled to introduce you to The Quantum Squirrel. The next time you think someone might ask you a question about your technology that will be too embarrassing to answer, just make sure The Quantum Squirrel is strategically waiting nearby. You know what to do!

This week’s IQT News:

• IQT NORDICS adds Q*Bird from Delft, Netherlands as an exhibitor at OsloMet University in Oslo

• IQT NORDICS adds Cantor Fitzgerald as the latest new sponsor for 2026 event

This week’s premium content:

• Origin Quantum’s “Origin Wukong 180”

• Jiuzhang 4.0

• Origin Quantum’s “SILICON EXTREME-Qiming Optical Quantum Computer”

• Juliang Guangqi

This week’s Friends of The Quantum Dragon:

• “Distributed architectures will be an important way to scale quantum technology....” by Zulfi Alam, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Quantum

• “Advanced materials and pharma are supposedly the first big application for quantum computing.” by Lawrence Gasman, Founder and President of CIR

• Advancing Quantum AI for Industrial Applications by Vardaan Sahgal, Quantum Solutions Head for The Washington Institute for STEM, Entrepreneurship and Research (WISER)

In this edition:

• You got to know when to hold ‘em….

• Full Scholarships for U.S. Military Families

• I haven’t seen those countries mentioned before.

• Global Salary Guide: Quantum Computing

• I just can’t do it, Captain. I don’t have the power!

• 2026: A Quantum Odyssey

• Quantum Computers, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

• I see a skull.

• What is PsiQuantum doing in Chicago?

You got to know when to hold ‘em….

Okay, okay, it’s not that kind of card game. Anyway, Entangled Cat is “an open-source quantum-computing-inspired tabletop card game.” With the disclaimer that I haven’t played it, it’s free to print, play, and presumably adapt. I’m awarding admittedly worthless bonus points for the Hitchhiker’s Guide reference.

Full Scholarships for U.S. Military Families

Thanks to the Frontier Technology Institute for offering full scholarships for “Foundations of Quantum Computing for high school students” for U.S. high school students who belong to U.S. military-connected families. If you pay for the course, thank you for supporting an organization that supports U.S. military families.

I haven’t seen those countries mentioned before.

“Santander seeks companies with the best solutions in quantum computing and artificial intelligence” is interesting, because the “Santander X Global Challenge | The Quantum AI Leap” is aiming at 10 countries, many of which are not routinely mentioned when we talk about quantum.

Global Salary Guide: Quantum Computing

After currency conversion, this partially supports what I already knew: US salaries tend to be higher than European equivalents. What I didn’t know was how close the UK is to the US. That said, this disregards cost of living and standard of living, which are far more important than raw wage information.

I just can’t do it, Captain. I don’t have the power!

In this 1:06 clip, Olivier Ezratty of the Quantum Energy Initiative responds to Frank Dekker about the economics of fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC) when you factor in classical computational resources, cryogenics, and electronics. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

2026: A Quantum Odyssey

What does gold nanocluster quantum computing technology have in common with the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Quantum Computers, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

“It’s Not the GPUs, it’s the Software: A Guide to How AI Data Centers Create Value” by Lawrence Gasman is seemingly not about quantum at all. You’re reading and reading and reading and then WHAMMMO! There it is. So, it’s the way that quantum is introduced that earns a spot in this newsletter.

I see a skull.

As a general rule, I link neither to popular science articles nor claims out of China. But in this case, the use of a skull to depict ghost imaging is admittedly imaginative.

What is PsiQuantum doing in Chicago?

I’m not the only one who noticed that if PsiQuantum is building “the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer” in Moreton Bay Central, where they haven’t broken ground yet, then what are they building at the well-underway site in Chicago? A non-useful NISQ computer? This link may require a Twitter account.

1. Image generated by Google’s language model AI.