Ashley Montanaro: Co-founder and CEO at Phasecraft: Turning quantum theory into software

0:00Ashley Montanaro:Hello and welcome to the Scaling Europe show. I'm Seb Johnson. Thank you so much for joining me. If you like what you see, please like, comment, subscribe. The more engagement, the more visibility, the better guests I can get and the better coverage I can provide of the European tech ecosystem. I would also like to say a huge thank you to my sponsors, Checkout.com, one of Europe's leading fintechs, and it is where the world checks out. And SurrealDB, the multimodal database for AI agent, which is partnered with thousands of the leading organizations, including the likes of NVIDIA and Samsung. So if you like both of those, check them out in the links below.

0:32Ashley Montanaro:Thank you very much. Hello and welcome back to the Scaling Europe show. I am Seb Johnson. I'm here with Ashley. Ashley, thank you for joining me. Hi, Seb. Thanks very much. It's great to be here. can you tell me a bit about facecraft you guys are kind of leading in the quantum space not just here in the uk but across the world you're building some really amazing stuff for those who haven't heard of you and what you're building can you just give a super quick intro yeah at facecraft we're developing quantum algorithms and quantum software so these are algorithms that run on quantum computers to make them do amazing things quantum computers are these fantastic devices that use quantum mechanics to do things that are beyond the capabilities of the world's best supercomputers.

1:15But today's quantum computers are still at a pretty early stage. So if you want to do something useful with them, you need to have incredibly efficient algorithms to run on them. And that's what we're doing at FaceCraft. We're developing algorithms to achieve useful results on quantum computers that exist today or in the coming few years to try to solve really important problems in areas such as materials, chemicals, design and discovery, and also solving hard optimization problems.

1:43Ashley Montanaro:So my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that you are building algorithms to make the current state of quantum computing work in a way that is genuinely useful, as opposed to, say, trying to fix or build quantum computers that might exist in 10 years. Yeah, that's right. So we don't want to wait around for the quantum hardware that we're going to have in five or ten years time which is going to be absolutely fantastic but we want to do useful things with today's quantum hardware which is already pretty remarkable it can already outperform the world's best supercomputers for some carefully targeted problems but we want to apply it to useful problems in a variety of different areas and that's what basically what we're doing day to day we're trying to be totally focused on this goal of achieving so-called quantum advantage And can you touch on a bit on some of those examples where we are seeing advances made by quantum computing and maybe where your algorithms are helping to solve real issues?

2:43Yeah. So the areas where we think that quantum computing is going to be really valuable is firstly, anything where modelling quantum physics is a really important task. And this includes things like modelling advanced materials for things like better battery cathodes or better solar cells or perhaps better catalysts and other clean energy technologies, even biochemistry that might be relevant to developing new drugs. and on the other hand another side of things where we think quantum computing will also be really valuable is solving problems where you need to find the best solution out of exponentially many possible solutions and this includes problems in areas such as logistics finance and also modeling complex energy networks and that's really interesting that goes right to the root

3:34Ashley Montanaro:of quantum computing, I guess, you know, especially the sort of many different outcomes, scenarios. Can you touch, like, are you able to, and this may be a difficult thing to do or a hard question, but for someone who's very new to quantum computing generally, can you touch on why it is so fundamentally different to classic computing and the supercomputers that we have today and why it's unable or why it's going to be in theory able to unlock so much more value and to work at such a higher level. So the key thing about quantum computing is it uses some really fundamental features of quantum mechanics to do things that you can't do with the standard or what we call classical physics.

4:14And this includes features such as quantum superposition, where you are in a state which is essentially a mixture over many different possible physical states of a system. So this lets you effectively do many things at the same time and also quantum entanglement which is a feature where if you have a physical system that's made up of many parts where you can't understand it in terms of each of the parts separately you need to think about the whole thing together and these two things together lead to exponentially increased complexity if you want to simulate what a quantum computer does using a standard what we call classical computer so the these fundamental features of quantum physics are why if you want to model as a very accurate uh way as something that's at the atomistic scale why you need to pay an exponential cost if you use a standard computer because nature is quantum mechanical and at the most fine-grained possible resolution um to understand very accurately the way physics behaves, you need to think quantum mechanically.

5:25So quantum computers can do this natively. And that's one of the reasons why if you write algorithms to run on quantum computers, they can do things that are just not possible with a standard computer.

5:35Ashley Montanaro:And what are some of the structural scientific barriers to getting quantum computers at the level that we want them to be at? It's very hard to build quantum computing hardware. And one of the main reasons for that is that if you want to maintain what's called quantum coherence that's interesting quantum effects in your machine you need to avoid uh in unwanted interactions with the environment around you which causes what we call decoherence which is basically that quantum superposition breaking down and producing something which is just a classical system in the end so you need to have something where on the one hand you can control it from outside to make it do what you want but on the other hand it's very carefully isolated from outside so you can avoid these errors that creep in and there is a way of threading this needle which is a technique called quantum error correction or quantum fault tolerance which enables us to build large-scale quantum computers which are protected against these errors but the downside is that quantum error correction comes with some pretty big overheads and so if you want to build a large-scale fault tolerant quantum computer then you pay a big cost in terms of the number of so-called qubits that that you need and also to some extent in the number of operations you need too so that's why our goal as a company is to initially do things with the quantum hardware that we have today which does not yet have error correction and fault tolerance built into it interesting okay that makes sense um You know, one of the big news stories that broke, I guess, reasonably recently, I think, at the end of October was all about Google's breakthrough.

7:17Ashley Montanaro:I think it was to do with developing some sort of algorithm that enabled them, that was in there performing a task that was way above classic capabilities. Can you touch a bit about that breakthrough specifically and why that's important and how that relates to what you're building? So the work that Google did recently, which was very nice, was the demonstration of a problem that they solved on their latest superconducting qubit hardware, their so-called Willow family of chips. which was it was solving a problem which that all of the evidence we have says is very hard for classical computers even perhaps supercomputers and it's moving beyond what they did some years ago with their so-called quantum supremacy demonstrations in terms of being more easily verifiable using other other quantum computers like if you repeat the same experiment you should get the same answer and also being on a pathway towards practical applications so this i think is a really impressive result which shows some key you know steps forward in the field i think there are still more things that one might look for as we're heading towards genuinely practical applications for example some things that we could look for are demonstrating the discovery of new scientific knowledge using the quantum computer so getting an answer out which is something that we wanted to know for some scientific reason which we didn't know and which the quantum computer helps us to to get or and also even perhaps more than that solving a problem which is genuinely practically important a problem which people think okay i'm very happy to pay money to get the answer to that problem because it's something that's very valuable to me commercially perhaps so for us these two sorts of directions are ones which are very important and they're ones that we're really working towards in terms of our algorithmic development and also our implementation of those algorithms on quantum computing hardware platforms and so when that when you hear news about that about google's new algorithm is that something that you need to be like does that impact your day-to-day business or does that just still mean that you're focusing on your own algorithms that you you're trying to make very practical and applicable or you know does that fundamentally change the way that you're doing things i think it's great to see new ideas from the the community about new algorithms and new developments um it's also fantastic to see the level of excitement that was caused by this results and it was when there was in the press a lot it was really um exciting great to see that this has picked up and that people are really enthusiastic about latest results in quantum computing.

10:12I would say that this result in itself as such, you know, it doesn't change what we're doing, you know, directly in terms of the algorithms that we're developing and the work that we're doing internally, because in the end, we have our own ideas about pathways that we think are very important to head towards quantum advantage. But I think it's, you know, another a great sign of the developments in the field in terms of quantum hardware and also the ideas that people are having how to push that hardware forward.

10:44Ashley Montanaro:Amazing. No, that makes sense. It's become a very, like quantum has become almost like a popular science topic in a way that it probably wasn't five or 10 years ago. We're seeing a lot of like meme stocks almost of the big quantum stocks. And it's becoming, it's definitely becoming a hot topic. One of the things people are always talking about is quantum computing will eventually make everything that we know in terms of computer security completely redundant quantum computers will be able to break down and get into every single password and access everything how how realistic is that and what time timeline are we looking at so it is true that quantum computers can break the crypto systems that currently use to secure internet commerce and to secure certain bitcoin transactions for example but this is important to stress that the algorithm that's used for this shaw's algorithm is one which turns out to be somewhat harder to implement on a quantum computer than some of the other things that we've discussed like modeling and simulating quantum physics so i think it's going to be a little bit of time before anyone is actually using a quantum computer to crack a practically meaningful cryptographic system so i would say at least five years actually and this is uh good news because people are already developing so-called post-quantum crypto systems and rolling them out which are designed to be secure against quantum attack so i think that it's not it's it's not something that we need to be worried about today in terms of quantum computers cracking right now what we're doing on the other hand i think it's something an area which is where it's very important that people are thinking seriously about security in the future and people are moving away from crypto systems which are known to be insecure to ones which are we think secure against quantum attack.

12:43Got it.

12:44Ashley Montanaro:And I guess, you know, as quantum technologies get better and better, there should also be ways of using that new technology to secure in also new ways as opposed to just break in. But I want to get on to the round that you raised earlier this year. You know, you raised a really substantial Series B from the likes of people like, I think, Plural, Playground Global, some other great investors. In Europe, we've typically not been that good at investing in frontier technologies. I think in the last 10 or 20 years I'd love to kind of get into the round and I guess my first question would be like what what was it that unlocked that round for you what was it that gave investors the conviction that you were building something really meaningful here so I think the key thing is that our investors believe and we believe that we are the world's best team working on quantum software and quantum algorithms and also that this is an incredibly important part of the puzzle that is quantum computing.

13:42The way we often put it is that there are really only two key problems within quantum computing. One is making the hardware more performant and the other is making the software more efficient. And we are working on one of those two. And historically, we've seen that actually the gains you can get from better software and better algorithms far outstrip the gains that we've got from Moore's law and other technological improvements and is also the case that you can make these breakthrough improvements in algorithms and software complexity without needing gigantic amounts of capital you just need to have an incredibly strong team and some really good ideas that can push the boundaries of what's possible so that that i think is the conviction that our investors had that we're the team that's going to be doing this and that this is the right direction to push on to make

14:35Ashley Montanaro:quantum computing uh real amazing and you know you raise a lot of money how are you thinking about spending that money are you is it about uh building out more of the hardware infrastructure and doubling down on relationships with maybe hardware vendors is it uh hiring more of that top academic talent to bring on board and to help you crack the problems is it more go-to-market trying to you know help sell the real solutions to people in pharma materials energy that kind of stuff how are you thinking about spending or deploying that capital so it's essentially all of the above um so an important thing for us is the the talent and team aspects like it's really critical that we do have the world's best people on our team and we have a fantastic team we're planning to continue to grow that um it's also important to us to have access to the world's best quantum hardware and we're already working with the likes of google continuum quera you know ibm like really all of the world's top quantum hardware providers and we are planning to continue to to do that we've got some great relationships with them and also the go-to-market aspect that you mentioned that we as a company have been really focusing on r &d a lot and over recent years because we felt that it's really critical to develop the technology to a certain stage before it's time to start commercializing that technology but we do now think that our technology and the quantum hardware that it runs on have now got to the stage where it is right to be thinking much more about commercializing that and to starting to work with partners to really solve very interesting and important problems that they have.

16:24Ashley Montanaro:And is that a key requirement or milestone, you think, to unlocking the Series C? I think it is really important for us and for the rest of the industry, the quantum industry, to show that we are working towards genuine commercial value in what we're doing, that this technology is not just a science experiment, but something that could be genuinely useful for that aren't end users. So although we've just closed Series B, I'm not thinking about Series C yet. I think that this is an absolutely critical time for the whole field as we do transition more and more from science experiments to genuine utility.

17:07Ashley Montanaro:And what role do you think, I mean, obviously your Series B was from VC's private capital. What role do you think governments should be playing in this role of not just quantum, but all kind of innovative or frontier technologies. Are you happy with the amount of funding that these technologies are getting from the governments or should they be doing more? Government has been very important for us over the years. Historically, we've had a fair amount of non-diluting funding via research grants. And more recently, we had a government contract for our work on quantum enhanced optimisation, where we were developing a tool which used our advanced quantum enhanced optimization techniques to accelerate the solution of problems in energy networks that was working together with a national grid ESO and yeah that was a government contract and in future I think government contracts will continue to be important for us and this I think is a key way in which government can support quantum startups and deep tech industry more broadly.

18:15It's by acting as a customer and helping to develop the market for the technology that startups in these areas are developing, which is sometimes quite an early stage. It's a question of really sort of priming the pump to get the industry more broadly comfortable with this and to demonstrate that, yes, we can do some really exciting and important things now and not needing to wait for another five years plus. So for me, that's an important way in which government can play a role. That and where it's appropriate, also direct investment as well.

18:56Ashley Montanaro:Absolutely, yeah. The combination I think is essential. And before we wrap up, I wanted to kind of get your personal experience. You know, you are an academic, you know, in the truest sense of the word. And you've now become, you know, the leader of a company that could have huge commercial implications. And it's a very different world. You know, I think your previous background, I think you were lecturing and now you're running a business. How have you found that transition? Yeah. So the co-founders of Facecraft, Toby Kubit, John Morton and I, we're all academics. working in quantum computing when we started Facecraft.

19:34And for me, at least, it was a very interesting transition. I think one thing that I noticed at the time, which was a bit of a surprise, is how many of the skills that you learn as an academic actually are relevant to being a startup founder. Obviously, as an academic, you have to communicate your work a lot. You have to build up a team. You have to be comfortable with getting grants or research funding, one kind or another uh managing that um and you know there's a whole host of skills which are very transferable um there are some other things where you um you have to learn a different vocabulary and a different way of working really in the startup world to what you have in a university but i think it can be incredibly rewarding um i mean just one example i often think about is that uh at facecraft we've managed to put together a team of amazing scientists ranging from material scientists to quantum algorithms designers to coders and various other skills as well and it would just be an incredible challenge to put together that kind of team in academia simply because in academia people are far more specialized if you're working in a maths department it's going to be hard to get a top quality material scientist to join you there but you can do that in a startup and you can work in this incredible focused way that you just can't do so easily in an academic group

20:54Ashley Montanaro:And, you know, final question, I guess, because I know we're out of time, but do you think the UK and Europe more broadly has an opportunity to lead the global market in quantum, especially given our incredible kind of academic roots? yeah i don't see why not um in quantum software specifically i think there aren't any structural reasons why europe and even the uk can't be a world leader in this area um and i think if you look historically obviously the uk's had a number of really great companies working on things that are you know computer technology but much more let's say ip rather than manufacturing that technology and i think that um there's no reason why the uk can't have the world's best and most successful quantum software company with the right support love it well look actually thank you so much for joining me i think what you're building is so interesting and really at the forefront of science and technology and i would love to see you know a uk company uh lead the world in this space and i think you guys have got a really good good shot at it um so really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me with me today great thanks so much it's really good to chat thanks bye-bye