00:00In a few days, it was meant to be today, weather has denied you, you're going to send up some
00:04of your technology to the International Space Station because we're updating quantum research in space.
00:10Why? What is it giving people?
00:11Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, Caroline.
00:14And let me tell you a little bit about Inflection just because that will help inform the answer.
00:17So Inflection is a quantum technologies company, and we create a suite of products all based on these quantum cores.
00:23And inside these quantum cores live millions of atoms, and we turn those atoms into all sorts of products ranging
00:28from clocks to sensors, like the one we're sending up into space, to computers.
00:33And the reason that matters is because they can do things that classical technologies can't do nor will ever be
00:38able to do.
00:39And so what we're doing is, in the case of sending this product up into space, is to replace some
00:44technology we put into space back in 2018 called the Cold Atom Lab.
00:49And what that is doing is doing experimentation on quantum, because you can actually experiment on quantum better in microgravity
00:55in space.
00:56And it's a proving ground for being able to sense what's happening on the world's surface or under the surface
01:01with extreme precision, or sense what's happening around to other spacecraft in space.
01:05And the level of precision that we can bring with quantum is orders of magnitude bigger than what you can
01:10do with classical technologies.
01:11ISS.
01:12ISS.
01:13Its role is changing.
01:14It is.
01:14So where next?
01:15There's a proving ground for the tech?
01:17Yes.
01:17There's a proving ground for where you put that tech?
01:19Correct.
01:19So in 2018, actually, Christina Cook, the astronaut who's currently on Artemis II, installed our tech on the ISS.
01:27And they've been working to make sure this technology works on the International Space Station, so a human in the
01:31loop.
01:31Next stop is to put what we call our quantum gravity gradiometer into a satellite, which we're working with NASA
01:37to do.
01:37And so we're taking it from research in space to an application in space.
01:41And what that quantum gravity gradiometer will do as it circles the Earth's orbit from a satellite is sense changes
01:47in gravity on the Earth's surface with extreme precision.
01:49And you can infer all sorts of interesting things by the way gravity changes.
01:54So you can infer the depletion of aquifers underneath the Earth's surface.
01:57You can see what kind of things are being built underneath the Earth's surface.
02:01Right.
02:01All sorts of very interesting use cases.
02:03Hey, Matt, go ahead and hold that up again, because Bloomberg Tech Executive Producer Jackie Lopez wants to see it.
02:08I think it's really important to – let's go back to basics.
02:11This is not about putting the quantum computer into space.
02:14It's about putting the sensor into space.
02:17That's right.
02:17Go back to basics for our audience and explain that for the data inputs.
02:20Absolutely.
02:21So there are two broad technologies that quantum can create.
02:25One is called a quantum sensor, and the other is called a quantum computer.
02:29Quantum computers are not yet useful.
02:31They will be very useful in the not-too-distant future, but quantum sensors are very useful today.
02:36And so what we do, it's the same underlying technology, the same componentry inside,
02:41but we can turn those atoms into extremely precise sensors to sense what's happening on the Earth's surface and the
02:46world around you.
02:47So in the case of what we're sending up into space, it's indeed a quantum sensor, Ed.
02:51Matt, real quick, who's the launch provider?
02:53Who puts you to orbit?
02:55So we're on a SpaceX vehicle, and then the spacecraft itself is made by Northrop Grumman.
03:02And real quick, what's that like, that experience as a customer, the door being opened to be able to get
03:08into orbit?
03:08It's incredible.
03:09I mean, we wouldn't be able to get this technology up unless the work that SpaceX and other folks are
03:16doing to make launches less expensive.
03:18And so our partners at NASA have been wonderful in getting that all set up for us.
03:21Can I jump in and just ask very briefly, from quantum clocks to what?
03:25Because everyone's like, when is there going to be a really useful quantum computer?
03:28IBM's saying 2029.
03:29Is that your business model?
03:31So the business model is, you know, you might say, what the heck does a clock have to do with
03:34a computer?
03:35They seem very different.
03:36Well, in quantum, they really aren't.
03:37Because what we're doing is we're taking advantage of the quantum mechanical principles of atoms.
03:41And then using those quantum mechanical principles and with slight tweaks to what we're doing with lasers can turn it
03:47into a clock or in more, call it precise use cases, turn it into a computer.
03:52And so the clock is in many ways a mini version of the computer.
03:55Your question, when will computers be useful?
03:57Well, the timelines keep coming in and coming in and the announcement that Google made on Q Day being here
04:02earlier and earlier.
04:02And Q Day is the day that we can break modern encryption with a quantum computer getting pulled into 2029.
04:07Our view is that quantum computers will start to be useful in the year 2028.
04:12Right.
04:12And that is at the, we'll get into what qubits are.
04:15But when you can get to 100 logical qubits, you can do interesting things with quantum computers.
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