Venture with Grace
00:37:39 · Juha Vartiainen, Grace Gong
[00:37:39] S1: Let's say sometimes the customer feel more comfortable if there are some, let's say, maintenance people near them? So let's say technically that's not needed. So our quantum computers are very reliable. Let's say the uptowns are very high. They are almost maintenance free. They can run more than half a year without anyone really maintaining them. If there are no electrical blackouts or any particle, no earthquakes or something, so usually they can run. They're very boring in that sense. So they don't suddenly need like a PhD with a screwdriver next to them. But it's still often the customer feel more comfortable if there is some maintenance people there, or they can call them and discuss. And if they have any concerns, they can talk to them. We have now people both in US, we have Japan, some other countries where, let's say, so to make the customer experience better in that sense that they are served in the same time zone, close to them, possibly on-site, the right language and so on. So for those, let's say, psychological reasons, we have those people close to the customers. [00:39:07] S0: I wonder since we were just talking about you guys IPO recently, why do you guys choose SPAC versus a traditional IPO? Since I think SPAC typically takes three to six months and traditional IPO is six to twelve or something like that. And is there, I guess, why is the timeline kind of matters?
00:39:07 · Grace Gong, Juha Vartiainen
[00:39:07] S0: I wonder since we were just talking about you guys IPO recently, why do you guys choose SPAC versus a traditional IPO? Since I think SPAC typically takes three to six months and traditional IPO is six to twelve or something like that. And is there, I guess, why is the timeline kind of matters? [00:39:29] S1: That's a good reason. So somehow it's... Actually, several quantum companies have recently taken the SPAC route. Of course, we were considering all the options before selecting that. And I think it's... Yeah, the timing issue was an important point in this consideration. So of course, the SPAC doesn't always have the good reputation. You can also fail SPAC quite much. But let's say building the relationship to investors is very important and you can't link that even if you use the SPAC process. But let's say selecting a good SPAC for you and then also doing all the background work, investor relations, I think the SPAC can work also very nicely. [00:40:28] S0: For sure. I guess when comes to... It was when you guys were raising funding, I know that one of the later rounds, you guys were invested by ten, eleven and some other firms. And when people are investing in quantum computer, can you walk us through the conversation? What is the conversation kind of like? Because I highly doubt that there's a lot of VC that's experts in quantum computing, because I think it is [00:40:59] S1: a
00:40:59 · Juha Vartiainen, Grace Gong
[00:40:59] S1: a [00:40:59] S0: very popular industry today or very up and coming industry even compared to how popular AI is. Very important for the people who is in the cutting edge industry, but for the general public, people may not have enough knowledge. So I'm curious, what was the conversation kind of like to whether it's educate the VC market and then helping them see through this is a really important kind of category of things to invest in?
00:41:34 · Juha Vartiainen
[00:41:34] S1: That's a very good question. And the situation is changing all the time. So when we started talking to investors like eight, nine years ago, they were really smiling for us that what are you guys talking about quantum computing? What is that what it means? So we had to really educate the investors and tell them, give them a little bit the lessons from the basics of quantum technology and quantum computing. And that has actually changed a lot. So lately, I think many investors have heard about quantum computers. They have even invested on some quantum companies and they have their own experts in some bigger funds, or especially the funds who are... There are even funds who are focused on quantum investments. And then those ones who are not that familiar, they use some experts. And let's say, I think nowadays the quantum is, let's say, nowadays I don't need to anymore usually explain like what is the qubit and what is the quantum computing and how this whole thing is going to work. But let's say investors start to have the basic know how, maybe they have a little bit different view or we have to explain our business plan and why it makes sense, for example, to invest on on premise quantum computing and not only the cloud model and those kinds of things. Let's say we are talking very different things than a few years ago. Let's say investors have much better questions nowadays.
00:43:19 · Grace Gong
[00:43:19] S0: I wonder... So since we briefly talk about the quantum and the GPU space and data center in general, will quantum and GPU end up in the same data center? Or how does it actually physically work together?
00:43:37 · Juha Vartiainen
[00:43:37] S1: Yeah, there are a lot of ways how they can work together. And there are different modalities in quantum computing. So superconducting one is like 1,000 times faster than, let's say, usual atoms or ion traps. And that makes a big difference. So those guys with these other modalities can claim that the GPUs can help in quantum error correction, but the superconducting one is so fast that it doesn't work. But let's say there are those hybrid algorithms. So superconducting one is very good that you run one part of the algorithm with quantum computer, other part on, let's say, classical cluster, and you take those steps one after other. And very interesting things start to happen when you have a low latency. So you can connect the quantum computers to the supercomputers with low latency, let's say, in less than one millisecond. So you can start to have very interesting dynamics there. That's very promising technology. So collocating the quantum computers to the same data center together with supercomputers, GPUs, it's still a little bit like a research topic what exactly you can do, but we are going to see probably a lot of results in near future. So we have been integrating to more than 10 data centers already our systems, and there is a lot of investigations tests out there. A lot of these hybrid computations are probably starting to make some results soon. There was this thing like how AI can help in quantum, but there are also some very good ideas how the quantum can help the AI and supercomputing.