Samsung’s Catalyst Fund Co-Lead Francis Ho, PhD. Discusses Quantum Computing

(ZDNet) Samsung’s Catalyst Fund represents the technology giant’s venture capital arm that’s focused on core technologies that could impact its wide range of businesses.
ZDNet recently Francis Ho Ph.D., co-head of Samsung’s Catalyst Fund, to talk emerging technologies and investing.
Ho explained that the Samsung Catalystis uses  “startups as the crystal ball.” “They’re the ones that can look around the corner. So our objective is to partner with the best VCs to invest in the best startups, and then somehow have some kind of win-win partnership.”
Ho’s discussion of emerging technologies is extensive. IQT-News is focusing on the quantum technology discussion.
Ho said quantum computing is going to be a critical technology that will become strategic for enterprises and nations. The Catalyst Fund will be measured in its quantum computing investments but has invested in IonQ. He said:
“Quantum computing has become a technology that’s strategic at the nation state level. It’s national security level of technology. And that’s because if quantum computing works, and when it works, you can do things that are probably really, really hard to do without it. So maybe you can design better materials, better batteries, better chips. You can maybe improve efficiency for factory logistics optimization. You can maybe improve climate. So there’s so many things which involve complexity, manipulating many variables. You can design drugs faster if you can get quantum computing to work.
Right now there’s a huge interest in quantum computing, and along with that comes some risk of hype. It’s a very strategic technology, and we’re going to be patient about it, and we’re going to watch it and make some investments. At the right time, we can increase our internal development to match that.
Samsung is broad and so is its VC strategy. But the Catalyst Fund will touch consumer technologies for Samsung’s appliance and consumer electronics business, but also look for core technologies for its semiconductor unit. Catalyst Fund is also global so aims for startups around the world.”