00:00Talk to us then about the implications of this deal.
00:02One billion U.S. dollars, you're deepening your partnership in that part of the world.
00:06Why and what is it going to lead to going forward?
00:11Tom, it's wonderful to be with you and particularly feel the energy of the Qatar Economic Forum behind me.
00:18So let's get to the deal.
00:21This is continuing what has been tremendous momentum and interest around quantum.
00:26In Qatar, the deal is all about building and accelerating the commercial impact of quantum technologies in the many sectors that are represented not only in Qatar but in the region.
00:39From energy production to health and life sciences, financial systems.
00:45The billion dollars is to accelerate that ecosystem through getting to primarily three things.
00:51One is around getting state-of-the-art infrastructure into Qatar and the region.
00:55Number two is actually building the solutions and use cases that are going to be deployed and do their part of the digital transformation.
01:03And third, and least but not certainly the last, is workforce development.
01:08You know, continuing to build the workforce of tomorrow that are aware and become experts of AI plus quantum.
01:16That is what this deal is.
01:19And it's really a strategic investment by the country in order to kind of transform their economy, diversify their economy and become a world player in the AI plus quantum world.
01:33Raji, what is your current best assessment in terms of providing scalable, large, commercially available quantum computing?
01:42What is that time frame looking like right now?
01:47Well, Tom, if you had asked me that question two years ago, we would have said, you know, sometime in the early 2030s.
01:54This is how fast technology moves for us in the quantum space.
01:58We are now looking at having, you know, very critical standpoint of having 100 logical qubits.
02:05I mean, that's typically accepted by the community, by the technologists as a tipping point for being able to do interesting things like discover new materials, you know, find large solutions in graphs and those kinds of things.
02:20We are on track to, as we've disclosed, to get that in early 27.
02:25So that's a five to six year acceleration of our technologies.
02:30As you saw, may have seen, the QBI DARPA bid is actually another place where we are engaged in bringing that technology to market in large, scalable, industrial fashion.
02:42We feel very comfortable that that future has been brought in by at least three to five years and we are leading it because we have the proof points of systems today that are well on the path to creating that class of scalable systems.
02:57So it's not a question of if, that was a question two years ago.
03:00It's not even a question of when anymore.
03:03We are pretty clear that by the end of this decade, we are in very, very useful, scalable, industrial scale quantum computers.
03:13OK, very interesting.
03:15So the time frame has been brought forward.
03:16It's an increasingly competitive space, Rajiv, of course, as you know.
03:19You claim to be or your team claims to be leading on this front in terms of quantum computing.
03:24What happens in terms of the competitive landscape?
03:26Do you look for acquisitions?
03:28How do you see that playing out?
03:32That's great.
03:33You know, as we build out the technology, it's still primarily a technology-driven business.
03:37We feel very comfortable about our technology and our technology lead.
03:42Look, if it goes by what quantum computers can do and what they're really useful for versus kind of science experiments and one to two, you know, splashy news items, we are well ahead.
03:54We feel very good about the technology path.
03:56We're also de-risking that technology path as opposed to others who may be looking at it as a collection of big Hail Marys that come together in the end.
04:05And so we have been, this is our fourth generation quantum computer.
04:08We have been on that path of actually de-risking and showing how that technology can scale, mature, and deliver increasingly powerful results on a commercial basis.
04:18So I feel very good about being a full-stack company, having the technology lead, having the software and the hardware work together, and most importantly, having the customers along with us that are essentially going to use AI and quantum to re-transform their businesses.
04:35And where does that leave your IPO plans?
04:41So we're looking, as we've made public, you know, the quantum stocks have done a very nice run-up, lots of interest, technology has come in.
04:50You know, 25, 26 should be a very, very interesting time for us from that perspective.
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