The Silicon Breakthrough That Could Scale Quantum Computing

Our next guest joins us now.

Say hello to Andrew Gak.

He is CEO and founder at DRC.

I've been looking forward to this conversation about quantum computing all day long.

Thank you for being here.

Well, firstly, thanks for having me on the show, uh, JD.

So, um, I got so many questions.

Let's start with the white paper.

You're out with a new quantum computing white paper.

What is it called?

What's it all about?

So Dirac is a company that's developing quantum computers based on standard silicon chip technology, and this allows us to scale the technology much faster than any other technology out there.

So in just the way the standard way that silicon chips can have billions of transistors on them, quantum silicon chips can have many, many millions of these quantum bits.

So it means you can scale incredibly rapidly.

And provide commercially powerful quantum computers just in the next couple of years while driving the cost down.

So, in just the same way as the standard semiconductor industry has used Moore's law to increase the scale and drive down costs, with quantum computing, we're riding that Moore's Law curve, scaling curve upwards and the cost curve downwards.

And where can people go if they want to see that white paper for themselves and learn more?

So Direct.com, our website, has a wide range of publications on it, including our white paper that's coming out.

And, let's take a small step back, because I think a lot of people are maybe hearing more about the world of quantum computing really in earnest for the first time, let's say the last 18 months.

They're trying to figure out what it means in terms of their own understanding of energy and what quantum means.

I admit, I think the first I really heard of it were the.

Ant-Man movies from Marvel all those years ago and since then I've been dialed in.

Make this make sense as a newly emerging technology.

Yeah.

So you know, like new emerging technologies, the history usually goes back a long time.

The idea of quantum computing actually goes back to the 1980s, where the idea was how do we actually use computers to simulate nature.

Actually describe the way atoms.

And molecules work.

Quantum computers use quantum physics to allow us to do that, so they actually go well beyond the power of artificial intelligence and any classical computing.

They allow us to do lots of calculations in a powerful way to solve problems that currently can't be solved with existing computers.

So just as one example, um, the design of pharmaceuticals.

I mean, obviously incredibly, Important to find pharmaceuticals to, you know, kill off pathogens and disease.

At the moment it costs around a billion dollars for a pharma company to design a new drug.

With quantum computers we have the ability to drive that cost down and to find those solutions much, much faster.

So it's a way to model nature, model molecules in a way that is just not possible, even with the most powerful.

I get a lot of questions from investors and day traders out there.

They want to learn about the splashy quantum stocks.

These are very high beta, AKA high volatility names I on Q, we getting, etc.

Looking back at the last 52 weeks, I, I was surprised to see how many of them are underperforming, even the broader S&P 500.

What do you see in terms of price action for these companies in the quantum space that trade publicly?

Well, there's a lot of volatility in part because firstly there's not a lot of knowledge about quantum computing generally as you were saying before.

Secondly, we hear a lot of announcements, you know, there's a lot of noise from the companies about recent technical results, but what investors should be focusing on is what companies, what. can really produce powerful scalable quantum computers for the future.

So, uh, people have to look a bit past that noise, particularly investors that are looking at long-term solid investments.

So obviously, volatility is great for day traders, but for people who are looking for those long-term secure stocks, look at the technologies, That can actually scale all the way, in the same way as silicon scaled for modern computing.

Can you talk to me a bit about how you see the work for you and your colleagues in Australia and here all around the world at Drac, how do you fit into this conversation?

So Dirac's been working previously, I, I was a professor at a university in Sydney, um, and you know, and worked for a quarter of a century developing this technology.

We founded the company 4.5 years ago and now spread across the Pacific.

So we've got operations here in Palo Alto's headquarters, Chicago and Los Angeles.

In Australia we've got Sydney and Melbourne.

100 strong staff, currently a private company, and our focus over the next couple of years is to deliver our first product of a powerful quantum computer that will show genuine commercial value to our customers.

So when we're looking not at near term hype, we're looking at getting serious quantum computing out there of genuine commercial value.

We've had our heads down focusing on that in the last couple of years.

We hear a good bit about so-called quantum breakthroughs, seemingly from news cycle to news cycle.

Are there, are there certain, pardon me, are there specific milestones that matter more than others?

What are some of those top milestones that you look for as an industry expert?

The most important milestone, the one that's really going to make the difference for the market, is when quantum computers can generate more commercial value than it costs to own or operate them.

At the moment, the quantum computers that are out there from all the companies are well below that mark.

We're focused on that and investors should be looking at companies that are really focused on delivering that, so DARPA here in the United States have a massive program specifically focused on, Uh, funding companies who are looking to solve that problem, what they call utility scale, when a quantum computer generates more commercial value than it costs to own and operate, and you know when you're looking at some of the um revenue from publicly listed companies at the moment, obviously, Well below the actual operating costs of those companies.

Sure.

Andrew Dra, CEO and founder of Drac, I am really grateful for your time.

Congratulations.

Thank you for making all of us smarter about what all this cool stuff means.

Really grateful for you being here.

Thanks so much, JD.

Thank you.

Anytime you're back in New York, please come back on the show.