Georgia Technology Summit 2025: Dr. Rajeeb Hazra with Quantinuum

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Georgia Technology Summit 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center. This is Business RadioX. And now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live at the Georgia Technology Summit 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Dr. Raj Hazra with Quantinuum. Welcome.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I heard rumor has it you just got off the stage to give the keynote here.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: That’s right. I was on stage and I had the pleasure of talking about my most favorite topic. How is quantum computing going to revolutionize the planet and our lives?

Lee Kantor: Well, you know, we had Larry Williams on earlier, and he keeps mentioning quantum, quantum quantum, but he never explained it. Do you mind giving our listeners kind of a one on one 101 version of quantum.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Sure. Quantum computing is computing the way nature does. As you know, nature is computing all the time. Right. Keeps counts, does additions subtractions in its own way to make things happen for us? It uses physical things. Of course, nature does not need semiconductors. It has its own things and physical things like atoms and lights and photons to do its own computing. Quantum computing is trying to compute the way nature computes using physical objects like, again, atoms or photons of light, to implement computing in the style that nature uses computing for. The advantage of that is, you know, nature computes with very low energy. It computes very powerfully using paradigms that we don’t fully understand. And it represents things in a way that is fundamentally different than the human way of approximating them so it can get us to better results, more accurate results, but far more efficient use of resources.

Lee Kantor: So how did this come about? Like who connected the dots to say there’s a better way of doing things?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: You know, quantum physics has been around for a while. And, you know, the stalwarts of the quantum mechanics era, like Richard Feynman, once hypothesized that if you can, if nature computes, we should be able to do that as well. And that’s kicked off for many, many years now, this effort to go look at not quantum mechanics or making quantum computers, that is, building computers using the principles of quantum mechanics. That’s been a pursuit, a scientific pursuit. Now it’s become an industrial pursuit that companies such as ours and others actually building, harnessing control over quantum mechanics to build these computers. And these computers have gotten very, very capable and powerful already.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of, um. What stage are we at now? What can it do that’s different than what a traditional computer can do?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: So one of the first things is, you know, quantum computing was created for cryptography because it was such a powerful way to compute that it could encrypt things with much better keys. And, you know, if you didn’t have quantum computers, you could break those keys, um, or break the encryption. But, you know, it’s gone well beyond just cryptography. And the people, dark people do. And, you know, in, in the basements of buildings and stuff like that, it’s gone to where it’s now generating data on how chemical reactions happen, for instance, and simulating those kinds of phenomena that are actually fundamental for us to understand if we are going to use artificial intelligence and AI tools to understand and create and predict behavior. So just think of new ways to deliver drugs into your body, right? Creating new materials to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. How to generate water from water hydrogen so you can actually build hydrogen fuel cars. Understanding those things at a chemically accurate level, at a biologically accurate level, is what quantum computers can do that classical computers struggle to do, not just because they don’t have enough computing power, because the representation inside a classical computer is an approximation of that quantum phenomena.

Lee Kantor: So are we at a stage that it isn’t just kind of ideas in a person’s head, but it’s actually happening where there are drugs that are now being developed because of their leveraging this?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Absolutely. But we have from 20, you know, last year was kind of a turning point in the in the evolution of quantum computing because we built quantum computers that could not be simulated on classical computers. Up until then, every quantum computer someone had, you could simulate. So you could really not do anything unique for the first time in 2024, we have quantum computers that are generating unique data for the first time that you can generate with classical computers.

Lee Kantor: So if you had the so a classical computer, a traditional computer can’t do the things that are happening in a quantum computer. That’s what you’re saying, that there are now two different things. It’s not one thing that can simulate the other.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: So so yeah, that’s exactly it. The classical computers are not because of the computational power, but even the the mathematical framework that runs on it.

Lee Kantor: Is different.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Is different. It’s good for the world we see. Right. We can model streets and bridges and joints and junctions. Right. We can’t model how to hide very complex molecules interact in a reaction.

Lee Kantor: Right. So now with these computers you can do that.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: We can do that. And we can add that information as training information for AI agents that are now much smarter. As a result, understanding how chemical reactions actually work and therefore being able to predict new materials or classify. Materials more accurately than you could ever do before.

Lee Kantor: Now is it something that can the person do both? Can you be an expert in the legacy computers and the quantum, or it’s going to require a new kind of mindset in order to leverage quantum.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Quantum computing has its own things that you need to learn.

Lee Kantor: So there’s there its own language, there’s own way of doing.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: And own way of even thinking about the problem. What is a quantum algorithm is very different than a classical algorithm, but you raise a very good point. One does not. Quantum computing does not obsolete classical computing, because all of these use cases happen when classical and quantum computers are used together. Just just take the example of a classical AI engine, right. That’s trained with quantum data. So again the quantum computer is the input to the classical computer.

Lee Kantor: But then, is there going to be a time when quantum is going to replace the legacy where the quantum is going to be? The quantum AI is going to be the one dealing with what quantum is originating.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: There will be some problems where it will be more advantageous to run it on a quantum computer versus a classical computer. But for the broad, vast scale of things, particularly where AI is the computational agent, we foresee a very, very long time of coexistence of both kinds of computing. It’s the one plus one greater than two. That’s really the magic here.

Lee Kantor: And a very long time in today’s world. Is that a year like what is very long? What’s the what’s a very long time look like in your world?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: A very long time is decades, if not centuries.

Lee Kantor: So it’s a long, long time.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: It’s a. Yeah, it’s a long, long.

Lee Kantor: Things are moving pretty quick.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Yeah, that is true in technology. Things move very fast. But we’re talking decades, if ever.

Lee Kantor: And then when do you see a time when quantum is going to be just. We won’t be talking about it as this mystical thing that it’s going to be just part of the workflow.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: That era is we are at the beginning of that era. As I said, last year was kind of a watershed for both hardware and software to to be at a place where you could start looking at real problems to solve, like designing new drugs, like designing new chemicals. And so I think this will be very much in the next by the end of this decade. Certainly we would have we the general public will be able to say, and that thing was created with the help of a quantum computer and without it couldn’t have been done. So within this decade, we will have its ChatGPT moment.

Lee Kantor: Okay. So we’re not at a ChatGPT moment where the.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: We are very close to and have glimpses of. And that’s why companies like us are working 24 over seven, 365 to pull that future in.

Lee Kantor: So you’re just trying to accelerate to get here as fast as possible.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: As fast as humanly possible. A quantum leap forward, no pun intended.

Lee Kantor: So now, in your business, um, who is that ideal client? Who is the the, uh, person or the company that needs to be partnering?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: So that’s the beauty of quantum computing. It’s not a niche. So my ideal clients are are big companies that are driving at the forefront of transportation, finance, energy, bio and life sciences. These are all companies that are in the discovery of new things. That is what drives their business forward. And that discovery needs a constant fuel of AI plus quantum in order for them to accelerate their business, differentiate their business, and win.

Lee Kantor: And then are you finding that they’re all open to conversations, or are some of them more, you know, are you getting that the typical early adopter laggard kind of model even?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: We are certainly seeing a growing interest in quantum across the board. There are certainly folks who are moving faster than others. There are the early adopters. There are the the trailblazers, if you will. But in general, if you saw the industry five years ago, there were literally the Lewis and Clark’s who on any given day you could say, are they wise or foolish? Uh, but today it’s an industry that is accelerating to either lead or catch up.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those kind of, uh, points of inflection where you better pick a side if you’re not leading your of a.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: It is definitely at a point where if you’re not considering how quantum effects your business, you’re probably late.

Lee Kantor: So you got to pull the trigger. Like this is where you.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Have to pull the trigger. You have to start understanding quantum computing. You have to start building your workforce within the company to understand how to use quantum computing, and then engage with the quantum industry to start doing use cases and experiments to then build your conviction. It is no longer about the next to next business cycle. It is.

Lee Kantor: You can’t wait to see what your competitor’s doing or it’s going to be. That’s right.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: That’s right.

Lee Kantor: So there is a cost of inaction.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: There’s a cost of inaction. There’s I would say the adoption of quantum and AI is going to be a tectonic decider, shift decider between people who were winners of the last era versus the new winners and those that have aggressively taken on the AI plus quantum mantra, if you will, or challenge have the best shot at being the winners again.

Lee Kantor: And second place it’s going to be it’s almost going to be last place if you’re not going to win this.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Well, yeah, that’s that’s what the last 50 years of technology has taught us. Right. It’s very hard to be it’s very expensive to be a fast follower in this business.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So, uh, if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Well they’re certainly welcome to come to Quantinuum.

Lee Kantor: Mhm.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: And uh, because one of our corporate strategic objectives is not just to build the best hardware and software in the world, but to also ensure that we can help the world educate themselves on quantum. So we run hackathons, we run quantum readiness programs. And our website has a wealth of information on use cases and technologies in the quantum space. Great place to get started. Then, of course, there’s a lot more to do, hopefully hands on.

Lee Kantor: Now, where are you based? Here in Georgia. Where are you based?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: We are based. We are a worldwide company. So our headquarters in Colorado, we are. And but we have eight locations all over the world. In three in the US, uh, three in the UK, Germany, Japan. And we are expanding very rapidly. So maybe Georgia is well on the cards.

Lee Kantor: So why was it important for you to come to the Georgia Technology Summit?

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: It was important to come here because I love the idea of being able to continue to talk about the possibility that quantum computing will have in every industry. And I love talking to those in forums that are looking at where to go next. Not trying to just preserve a legacy, but create the next one. And forums like this is a perfect place where you bring in the companies in a in a collaborative atmosphere. The leaders of these companies thinking about not just what they do well, but what they need to do well next. And being able to have that dialog.

Lee Kantor: Well, Raj, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra: Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Georgia Technology Summit 2025.