Inside Quantum Technology

The Music-Generating Quantum Dragon

Brian Siegelwax

Since the March 4 publication of “Advancing generative AI for music with photonics,” co-authored by Prof. Eduardo Reck Miranda and Brian Siegelwax, in the International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, The Quantum Dragon has been spending every waking hour composing new music using Quandela’s photonic devices.

Composed with Quandela’s photons, listen to Lumina Grooves 1, 2, and 3 from Prof. Miranda’s QUBISM album.

IQT NORDICS Announces that VTT has become an exhibitor/sponsor of the third annual conference taking place May 20-22, 2025

VTT headquartered in Finland has become a gold sponsor for IQT Nordics taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden this coming May 20-22. IQT Nordics is an annual event that rotates amongst Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Additional information about registration or sponsoring can be found at www.iqtevent.com.

QUANTUM + AI 2025 HAS ANNOUNCED EARLY SPEAKER ACCEPTANCES

QUANTUM + AI 2025 TAKING PLACE IN NEW YORK CITY IN OCTOBER ADDS FIRST 16 SPEAKERS

Quantum + AI returning for its second iteration this October 19-21 in New York City is pleased to announce the first 16 speakers. The organizers expect 60+ speakers during the event. The program is being organized by Lawrence Gasman and Bob Sutor. Q+AI has quickly become the leading event worldwide for discussion, networking and analyses about these dynamic technologies. Additional information can be found at www.iqtevent.com.

The 2nd Least Qualified Person in Quantum

I am honored and thrilled to announce that a VIP has officially promoted me from the least qualified person in quantum to the 2nd least qualified person in quantum. As a condition of this promotion, I have been requested not to divulge the identity of the new, undisputed least qualified person in quantum.

It’s-a me, Mario!

The Dungeon Master of Quantum Computing, Dr. James Wootton, doesn’t settle for good or even great, ladies and gentlemen. He demands nothing less than legendary, as is evident by generating a Mario level with an IQM quantum computer. The Quantum Dragon also demands the best and challenged Jumpman himself to a game….

Twitter found unusual activity on my account?!?!?

To be honest, I’d be alarmed if Twitter found usual activity on my account. If it’s only detecting unusual activity now, what’s it been doing for the past 5 years? But in all honesty, I know what this is about; I’ve been copying-and-pasting my rebuttal to everyone sharing Zuchongzhi 3 nonsense, and this has since happened a 2nd time.

Captain Okoli’s Magnificent Steampunk Quantum Engine

If you’ve been following the adventures of Dr. Nicole Yunger Halpern and her team, the sculpture has finally been unveiled. You can observe changes in color, and the sculpture is supposedly moving, although the latter is a little harder to tell due to the camera’s movements. This link might require a LinkedIn account.

The Dracarys Award: MIMIQ

For withstanding The Quantum Dragon’s relentless assault, I do hereby proclaim MIMIQ the third recipient of The Dracarys Award.

Squeezing Cats

Alice & Bob published a paper about “squeezing” cat qubits to further reduce their overall error rates. They can reduce bit-flip errors without increasing phase-flip errors, the usual trade off. I’m not 100% sure, but I believe that no actual cats were harmed in the making of the visual explainer that’s circulating on social media.

Congratulations, but more hype about reaching 1 million qubits when its own Contralto-A device has 17 qubits.

Can’t argue with that.

I would write that Dr. Bob Sutor and his Sutor Group Intelligence and Advisory made an excellent point, but isn’t that always a given? The companies that have qubits tend to have roadmaps toward more qubits, whereas companies aiming for millions or billions of qubits tend to have few or even none.

I’m blue….

Nah, I’m fine. And The Quantum Dragon is in good spirits, too, especially after catching a glimpse of ORCA Computing’s PT-2 photonic quantum computer. Not that it should be your #1 consideration when spending whatever this cost, but it’s a visually appealing piece of advanced technology. This link might require a LinkedIn account.

Here be dragons.

Thanks to Mark McGuire for bringing this to my attention. The Quantum Dragon wishes to formally protest Dr. James Palles-Dimmock’s use of “Here thar be monsters” when we all know it should be “Here be dragons.” To be honest, I’ve never seen him this outraged. This link might require a LinkedIn account.

So much for that idea.

One of the issues I’ve noticed with my China articles is that not every reader understands what they’re looking at. They don’t see why China’s systems are unimpressive. So, I had an idea for an “IBM vs. China” article, because the screenshots line up nicely. Unfortunately, IBM has adopted a similar “broken” topology, so I can’t make the point I was hoping to make.

Sels calls this response “a bit petty”, saying his tensor approach could easily scale further. The time to run the algorithm scales linearly in proportion to the size of the problem, he says, so there is no need to test larger problems. “If that would really make them [D-Wave] super-happy, and then they would say ‘OK, you guys did it’, we could do it,” says Sels. “I don’t plan to. I don’t see the point.”

D-Wave Smackdown

I really don’t like to give D-Wave any real estate, but this paragraph quoting Dr. Dries Sels deserves inclusion in this newsletter. I would extend it a bit further, actually, and argue that there’s no point even reading D-Wave’s papers at this point, let alone using their hardware. In fact, the company hasn’t earned a D; it should be called F-Wave.

Not That Xanadu

You might read or hear a rumor that Xanadu closed at the end of 2024, and Obi-Wan might say that this is true from a certain point of view. However, it wasn’t the Xanadu that you’re thinking of—unless you’re thinking of the tournament game center named Xanadu, in which case, yes, it’s the Xanadu you’re thinking of. Otherwise, it isn’t.

Zapata AI Job Seekers

If you were laid off by Zapata AI and would like a free listing in this newsletter, please reach out and let me know. I’ll maintain a list in The Quantum Dragon until everyone on the list has been gainfully employed elsewhere or is otherwise no longer actively job seeking. I might extend this offer to all job seekers, but I’ll start with these layoffs.

Quantum Noise Detector

Alan Ho and Prof. Michael Biercuk inspired the Resuscitated Quantum Bullshit Detector, but the original(?) has resurfaced on Bluesky. It’s back to reposting a simple “bullshit” or “not bullshit,” so The Quantum Dragon will continue to monitor for challenges, controversies, and debates under this new name from Dr. Bob Sutor.

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