QED-C: The Power of Policy and Partnerships
In this episode of ‘The Quantum Spin by HKA,’ host Veronica Combs chats with Celia Merzbacher, Executive Director of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C). They discuss how identifying the gaps – in technology, workforce and policy – can lay the groundwork for winning government funding and making significant advances in the industry.
Early in her career, Celia learned the power of policy. She worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as an Assistant Director for Technology R&D and was a vice president at the Semiconductor Research Corporation. Now she is applying those lessons to the quantum industry as the executive director of QED-C.
Key topics include:
- The evolution of the quantum industry over the past five years
- Networking benefits for QED-C members, and efforts to expand internationally
- A discussion about practical applications of quantum technologies, potential uses, and the importance of being ‘post-quantum’ ready
- An examination of the impact of export controls, regional investments in quantum, and the upcoming reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act
Looking ahead, Celia discusses QED-C’s focus on outreach, education, and developing a roadmap for quantum network applications. The episode concludes with reflections on the importance of consortiums in advancing the quantum sector.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Veronica: Hello, and welcome to the Quantum Spin by HKA. I’m Veronica Combs. I’m a writer and an editor here at the agency. I get to talk every day with really smart people working on really fascinating subjects, everything in the Quantum industry, from hardware to software. On our podcast, we focus in on quantum communication, and by that I don’t mean making networks safe from hacking or entangling photons over long distance, but talking about the technology.
[00:00:26] How do you explain these complicated concepts to people who don’t have a background in science and engineering but want to understand all the same?
[00:00:36] Veronica Combs: Today I am talking with Celia Merzbacher. She is the Executive Director of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C). Thanks for joining us today.
[00:00:47] Celia Merzbacher: Well, thank you for having me, Veronica. It’s great to be with you.
[00:00:47] Veronica Combs: HKA was one of the early members of the consortium and I know Hilary and Mike have always kept really close contact with you to make sure we know what’s happening in the industry. But you did not start your career with quantum computing. You have a PhD in geochemistry.
[00:01:02] Is that right?
[00:01:03] Celia Merzbacher: Yes, it’s been an interesting career path.
[00:01:05] I did start as an earth scientist and studied earth materials and then transitioned into man-made materials. And that led me to opportunities in policy related to nanomaterials. I was really doing nanomaterial science and got asked to go to the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House in the early 2000s to help launch the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and in many ways, the National Quantum Initiative today is modeled and learned lessons from the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
[00:01:40] After I left that position, I spent some time in an industry consortium of the semiconductor industry. So those experiences in whole government science initiatives, like the National Quantum Initiative, and in working with industries that are competitors in the marketplace but work together in a consortium to advance the field, are really critical to what QED-C is trying to do today.
[00:02:04] Veronica Combs: You’ve been with QED-C since I think 2019, which certainly gives you a longer-term perspective on the industry than lots of folks. What do you feel has changed the most over the last, what, five years now?
[00:02:17] Celia Merzbacher: It’s really a combination of investments that are being made by the government, or I should say governments, because many governments are investing in the science that’s showing so much promise here, but also by the private sector. Companies big and small, and just startups are seeing opportunities based on the scientific advancements in developing technologies and products and services that they feel are going to provide all kinds of benefits and advantages.
[00:02:49] So QED-C was really created to be joining or allowing for there to be awareness and information flowing between those. Investors, both the public and the private. So it’s very exciting to see the progress on all fronts, frankly.
[00:03:05] Veronica Combs: I think collaboration always gets you farther than just straight competition, what are some of the benefits that members get from being part of the consortium?
[00:03:14] Celia Merzbacher: It’s a very diverse set of benefits that the members get. And first, I should say, we have a very diverse membership. So while most of our members, and we have more than 250 today, are corporate, large and small, we also have university members and national lab members. And so, the benefits vary, but I would say at the top of the list are the networking opportunities and the ability to find collaborators and partners from other parts of the ecosystem. So if you’re looking for customers, if you’re looking for investors, if you’re looking for suppliers, all of those are represented at QED-C.
[00:03:53] It’s really a trusted community. And over the last two years, we’ve expanded to be more international. And so we have been expanding connections overseas as well.
[00:04:05] Veronica Combs: I feel like there’s a basic understanding of the idea of quantum computing, but there’s still a lot of room to grow in terms of the different modalities and sensing versus hardware and software.
[00:04:16] What do you find yourself explaining to people most often if you’re talking to someone who’s not really familiar with quantum computing?
[00:04:21] Celia Merzbacher: Well, I think that I always say the most frequently asked questions are what is it going to be good for? And when they say it, they’re usually asking about quantum computers.
[00:04:30] And when is it going to be here? In fact, just last night I was at a reception and I got that same question when I started telling people I’m in this quantum sector. Yes, QED-C is a source of credible information and initially we were helping make the connections within the consortium primarily.
[00:04:52] I think going forward, we’re going to do more and more communication to the broader public and policymaker and end user communities about the technologies and their potential. We have done a number of reports and studies, most of those are publicly available.
[00:05:12] Last May, we did a quantum tech showcase on Capitol Hill where companies came and had their technologies available for members of Congress and their staff to come and actually pick them up and talk to the companies that are making them. So I look forward to communicating even more broadly going forward because, especially our smaller member companies, they don’t have huge budgets for marketing and communications.
[00:05:37] I think QED-C can help the broader communication effort, and by being a collective voice, it’s more reliable or believable in some ways, than coming from one company.
[00:05:50] Veronica Combs: Right, right. For sure. So what’s your answer when people ask, what is it good for?
[00:05:55] Celia Merzbacher: I sometimes say, I don’t know the answer to either of those questions, what and when, but I think we’re getting more and more clarity and have some ideas about the likely applications that are going to be nearest term. Setting aside quantum computing, quantum sensing technologies are relatively near term, and some of them are being prototyped and even tested, in markets for applications like biomedical imaging and so on.
[00:06:20] On the quantum computing front, there’s a lot of expectation that quantum computers may be useful for things like materials, synthesis and design of an area that I’m excited about. But in some ways, I think that as the hardware and software are made available to people to use and think about how they might be applied.
[00:06:42] We’re going to learn that there are uses and applications that we really haven’t even imagined that are going to be incredibly impactful. Similar to, you could say, the internet and technologies that have come before.
[00:06:54] Veronica Combs: And, one thing that’s always appealed to me about the industry is the international nature.
[00:07:01] I’ve learned more about the places that have really good schools of physics than I ever thought I would. So, expanding your membership to have an international focus, what has that brought to the broader membership?
[00:07:12] Celia Merzbacher: That has been incredibly valuable, all across the board. In fact, from the beginning, when we were established, we were only open to U.S. organizations at the time, but there was an intent right from the beginning to over time expand, to include organizations from outside the U. S. as well. And that was because quantum really is a global field.
[00:07:35] It’s global in terms of the research. It’s global in terms of the innovation. It’s global in terms of the talented people. They’re all over and it’s global in terms of the markets and the supply chains. And for all of those reasons, it benefited the U. S. members to start to connect to those parts of the ecosystem outside the U.S. We do it in a very deliberate way.
[00:08:00] We identify countries. And we put them on a white list and we accept applications from those countries. And so we continue to add countries to that list. We’re looking to be inclusive of the communities as they develop in parts of the world, as long as they have shared values, obey the rule of law, respect intellectual property, and so on.
[00:08:21] We’ll continue, I’m sure, to expand over time. We have members now from about 20 different countries.
[00:08:28] Veronica Combs: Oh, wow. It’s interesting that you have a whitelist. That makes sense. So that you would have the first screen of who would be an appropriate member. I know that export controls have been a topic that’s come up recently and it seems to me it’s sort of a double-edged sword, right?
[00:08:42] I mean, you don’t want to stifle competition, but you don’t want to help bad actors get their hands on technology. So, what’s your perspective on export controls?
[00:08:51] Celia Merzbacher: Well, I think I can speak for QED-C members and for myself, export controls are an important tool in the toolbox for protecting technology that could be used in ways that are harmful for the nation.
[00:09:06] It is really a regime that is intended to prevent technologies from being used against us in a military way. It is very complicated when a technology is dual use. It can have both beneficial uses and applications as well as military ones. And so, the recent controls are the first attempt.
[00:09:27] And being done, I should say, in concert with our allies and partners. So that there are similar approaches being taken. And even provisions to allow for export without a license to countries that are taking those similar approaches. I give credit to the government for looking for ways to make it as sensible and practical as possible.
[00:09:55] That being said, there are requirements for reporting and for getting licenses to certain countries and so on. And QED-C will try to help educate its members and look for ways that we can perhaps make it as easy as possible for them to comply with those to submit, because the government doesn’t want to cause people to be so risk averse or conservative that they don’t hire people that they don’t go into business in areas where they think, Oh, I’m just going to have to get a lot of paperwork, to do business in that area. So we really do want to educate our members so that they can both comply, but do business at the same time.
[00:10:37] Veronica Combs: That balance is so important. We were talking a little earlier, about electronic health records and I used to cover digital health and startups and when it used to be novel that your watch could measure your blood pressure or tell you something about your sleeping habits.
[00:10:50] Really, I had never thought about policy before as shaping behavior. You kind of, I think people tend to focus on, Oh, what’s the problem? It’s high blood pressure. Well, here, take this pill. Well, what if, you know, looked upstream or looked ahead. And so I’m curious, how you think about policy in terms of shaping the industry, like you said, not stifling, but also not enabling the wrong things.
[00:11:10] Celia Merzbacher: From my experience in the policy world, I learned a lot, and two lessons that were really key. One was how important preparation is. All of the stakeholders need to be thinking about what is needed. Where are the gaps? What are the pain points? How might policy decisions be used to smooth those out or ease some of those difficulties and challenges.
[00:11:39] And so, bringing in experts, doing studies and reports, and having ideas, so that when the opportunity presents itself, you’re able to step up and provide a coherent argument. So preparation is really important. And then timing and looking for those opportunities. I mean, just even every year, government agencies have maybe end of the year funding they have to spend.
[00:12:08] The timing to move in and say, here’s a proposal for something. If you’ve got some extra funds, maybe, we could pay for this or there’s a change in leadership of a committee or something happens in an election, the outcome, all of a sudden there are new priorities and you can move quickly and I’ll just tell a really quick story in the nanotechnology space.
[00:12:31] So the national nanotechnology initiative was actually announced by President Clinton at the very end of his administration. And it wasn’t really stood up until the following administration by President George W. Bush. But the planning had been done and the new administration was able to come in and take that proposal and run with it.
[00:12:55] And part of the reason that President Clinton chose to announce it was because there were funds available. This is the part of the timing that you could never predict due to the dot-com bubble. The government was getting a lot of tax revenues that they hadn’t projected or estimated, and they went back to the government agencies and said, does anybody have a new initiative proposal?
[00:13:17] We’ve got some extra funds. And so there were some studies that had been done on the opportunities in the nanoscience space, and those ended up being embraced and adopted and going forward. So that’s where the planning and timing and very unpredictable ways can be important in policy. And a lot of people think of science policy as science funding. That is a part of it, but there are other policy tools that can have a lot of impact for instance, tax policies. If agencies or if companies have the ability to get a tax credit for doing quantum or quantum research, for instance, well, that would incentivize more spending on quantum research.
[00:14:03] And so there are ways of putting policies in place that can incentivize investments by the private sector that can be very useful and impactful as well.
[00:14:14] Veronica Combs: Right. Like maybe funding pilot projects to test some of the new NIST algorithms or help people understand how to start using those or incorporating them into their infrastructure.
[00:14:24] Celia Merzbacher: Well, that’s exactly right. And that’s an important step in the process of being post quantum ready, because there is a threat from quantum computers.
[00:14:34] And we want to make sure that we take care of that. And with the announcement by NIST of these new post quantum cryptographic standards, now it is up to the businesses to implement those standards. And government policies could help again to incentivize that and make it easier.
[00:14:51] Veronica Combs: Are there any shovel ready quantum projects that you would like to see funded in the next few months if there happened to be extra money lying around somewhere?
[00:14:59] Celia Merzbacher: Well, QED-C was originally set up by the National Quantum Initiative Act that was signed in 2018. And if you go and read that, it says that the consortium is to bring together stakeholders to identify gaps and come up with gaps in technology, gaps in standards, all kinds of gaps, workforce, and so on.
[00:15:20] And identify strategies for addressing the gaps. But it didn’t give us the resources to actually fill the gaps. So we have to take those roadmaps, if you will, and get them in the hands of people who can fill the gaps. So again, we’ve done a number of studies to identify technology gaps, to identify applications that we think are most feasible and likely to be most impactful.
[00:15:46] And those can very much translate into investments by agencies. For instance, we did a couple of studies on how quantum could help manage the electric grid, which is something our Department of Energy cares about. And they took those opportunities that we identified and turned them into a call for proposals and funded some projects.
[00:16:08] And so we’re going to continue to identify those kinds of opportunities. We did one related to transportation. We did one related to biomedical sensors. And those align with other parts of government. And we do hope that we’ll be able to partner with them to perhaps fill some of those gaps.
[00:16:25] Veronica Combs: Yes, I read the sensing report from, like you mentioned, earlier this year. That was really helpful. Of all those the gap analysis and the different things that you mentioned. Are there any others that you would like to call out as particularly helpful reading for maybe someone, maybe a company or an executive new to Quantum.
[00:16:42] Celia Merzbacher: I think what we call use case reports are perhaps the most high level in a way and help to answer that question. What is the technology going to be good for? Scanning the executive summaries of all of those different reports would give somebody a better understanding of the breadth of uses. We’re getting a new project underway that I’m excited about, which is going to develop in partnership with one of our university members, the University of Arizona, to develop a roadmap for quantum network applications. There’s been a lot of focus on quantum computing and some on quantum sensing, but we haven’t studied so much the applications of quantum networks.
[00:17:26] The University of Arizona has a center that’s working in that space, and they did a first edition of an application roadmap, and they were interested in partnering with QED-C to do a sort of 2.0 version it’ll be very interesting to identify use cases, and then the next step is to identify what the requirements are for each of the quantum networks that would be developed for a use case.
[00:17:53] So this is where I think it’s important to understand, especially at the early stages, that the type of quantum computer or the type of quantum network that will work for a particular application might be different. The speed or the size or the accuracy or something, some characteristics of the performance will need to be optimized or engineered to improve one characteristic, perhaps at the expense of another.
[00:18:22] In the long run, we may have very general purpose, one-size-fits-all technologies. But at the beginning, it’s quite possible that we will have more customized application specific systems. And I think that it’ll be very interesting with this networking roadmap to understand how that might look in the networking space.
[00:18:45] And we hear about that also in the quantum computing space, that there may be different types of quantum computers that are better for certain applications.
[00:18:53] Veronica Combs: There’s a company in Northern Indiana working with some Chicago labs to build a quantum network across the top of the state.
[00:19:00] And, you know, Purdue is involved in that as well. So even Indiana can be part of the quantum revolution. I live in Indiana, so.
[00:19:08] Celia Merzbacher: Absolutely.
[00:19:09] Veronica Combs: Always looking for ways to uphold the Midwest.
[00:19:10] Celia Merzbacher: Yes, it is. That’s an important point there. I think one of the sort of changes that I’ve seen within the last year is the amount of regional activity going on and investments being made by states and the federal government too has a number of regional hubs and programs that are aimed at more regional investments.
[00:19:29] And so we’re seeing those centers of excellence start to emerge. And, that’s very exciting as well.
[00:19:37] Veronica Combs: So you mentioned the National Quantum Initiative Act, and I believe it needs to be renewed. Is that right? What’s the status of that and what do we need to do to make sure that gets renewed?
[00:19:48] Celia Merzbacher: You’re right. The original legislation, the National Quantum Initiative Act of 2018, authorized the program for five years. And so that period has already expired, and it doesn’t mean that all of the good work that’s going on comes to a halt, but anything new will need to be included in the reauthorization that’s working its way through Congress now and the reauthorization, based on what we’re hearing, may add things like more emphasis on workforce development and commercialization, because that really wasn’t heavily emphasized, in the original bill.
[00:20:31] A lot of the investment, of course, in university research is developing skilled workers, educated workers, but there’s a need really to connect that well to the needs of the industry and to perhaps coordinate it better across all of the activities that are taking place. The commercialization was still a glimmer in the eye five or six years ago, and now it has come much farther.
[00:20:56] And so likely there will be additional efforts to connect what’s going on on the science side with those applications. And there’s an increasing interest, I think, in international collaboration. So, all of those kinds of new activities would benefit from authorization in the next five years, by getting the bill passed.
[00:21:18] We’re very excited and optimistic about that. I think there is broad support for it. But we’re in that season when it’s hard to get things done.
[00:21:26] Veronica Combs: Yes. Yes. I think we’re all counting down to the election and hoping it turns out in a positive way for our country.
[00:21:33] And I know, one good thing about next year for sure is that it’s the international year of quantum. Quantum physics is, or quantum mechanics is 100 years old next year. And I know that companies around the world are planning different celebrations. Is QED-C planning anything?
[00:21:49] Celia Merzbacher: Well, we’re very much involved in supporting it.
[00:21:52] The QED-C deputy director is on the steering committee for the International Year of Quantum. And we’re going to be holding one of our meetings in March in conjunction with the American Physical Society meeting, which is a big event and the American Physical Society is very involved also with the International Year of Quantum.
[00:22:12] UNESCO is the organization that’s promoting this and that’s sponsoring it. And they really are about global involvement, and not just those who are already part of the community, but new members, reaching out across the world to get young learners, to get teachers, to get entrepreneurs and others excited about quantum.
[00:22:37] So getting involved is easy to do. You can go to the website, which is quantum2025.org and learn more there about the activities that are being planned or to roll up your sleeves and lead something.
[00:22:51] Veronica Combs: So, in addition to being election time, it’s starting to look ahead to 2025. And as I mentioned, there’s the International Year of Quantum next year. Are there any projects in the works or developments in the industry, or anything you’re keeping your eye on just in terms of what’s looking promising for next year, or just a part of the industry you would like to see grow more?
[00:23:10] Celia Merzbacher: We’re going to hopefully see the reauthorization of the government program, from QED-C’s point of view. We really want to continue to expand not only our membership, but our outreach and our ability to educate and inform.
[00:23:27] Just as an example, we have a public facing program called Quantum Marketplace, and that is a webinar series that is available to the public to come and hear about the industry, learn from a selection of our member companies in a particular area, and ask questions and engage with them. And, that’s been very effective at raising visibility of our members, especially some of the small companies, but also educating folks out there.
[00:24:00] Veronica Combs: Yes. We’ve talked to our clients about getting a jump on the International Year of Quantum celebrations, and I often mention education.
[00:24:07] You know, this is a good time to do an infographic or an explainer or, or an interview, is there any barrier to understanding about the quantum industry that you would like to see a company or a group take on?
[00:24:17] Celia Merzbacher: This is another area where we’re going to try to do some very strategic work, to be more effective in reaching the end user communities.
[00:24:28] So if you talk to the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, or a bank, or pretty much any business that depends on information, that would be pretty much every business. They often say, well, I’ve heard about it and it sounds like it’s way in the future. And so I’m going to wait until it’s a little bit nearer term.
[00:24:54] And oh, by the way, I’m very distracted right now by AI. So, that’s all true. And what we need to be doing is explaining why they should maybe put a toe in the water sooner, in order to be ready, because it’s not going to be as simple as, oh, now I take all of my software and programs and applications and port them over to a new quantum computer and hire somebody who maybe knows how to run a quantum computer.
It’s really going to involve thinking about the use of technology in a new way. And so to be ready for that kind of thinking, you really need to start getting a little bit of in house expertise. Now, join organizations like QED-C perhaps, or go to events where you can educate your team and your strategic partners on what the technology might do for you.
[00:25:54] And start establishing relationships with some of the businesses that are likely to be your suppliers or your sources of technology in the future. I think that’s an important area where QED-C would like to engage and go to those communities and talk to those decision makers more directly.
[00:26:15] Veronica Combs: I was thinking about a slightly different end user group, but software engineers or algorithm writers, because like you said, it’s not just, I mean, it is learning a new computer programming language, but it is a different kind of computer that you’re interacting with. So I’ve been thinking about how you could build those communities and get people interested in starting developing some in-house expertise.
[00:26:35] I think it’s one of those situations where, today you might be very hesitant to make the investment, but future you will be very happy if you know something about quantum computers in a couple of years when things really start to scale.
[00:26:47] Celia Merzbacher: Absolutely. And the workforce pipeline is not very big right now.
[00:26:52] So, that’s where there’s also a role of government to invest in the software and the algorithm development and the computer, the quantum computer science research so that those graduates have some understanding and can go out into the workforce and help to ultimately use the technology.
[00:27:11] It seems sort of backwards to have people developing algorithms today, but in fact, there are quantum simulation tools that can be used to test and develop software at this point, and as the hardware gets better and better, there will be more resources available for the software folks to actually run their algorithms on real machines.
[00:27:32] Veronica Combs: Lots to look forward to, so many exciting things ahead of us. I really appreciate you taking time to talk with us today. I think consortiums are such an important way to move the industry forward and to, like you said, build international relationships and just get the industry scaled up to where it will really start making a difference.
[00:27:49] So thank you so much for your time. And, I hope to see you at a QED event soon.
Celia Merzbacher: Thank you, Veronica. It was great to talk with you today.
Host Veronica Combs is a quantum tech editor, writer and PR professional. She manages public relations for quantum computing and tech clients as an account manager with HKA Marketing Communications, the #1 agency in quantum tech PR. You can find them on X, formerly known as Twitter, @HKA_PR. Veronica joined HKA from TechRepublic, where she was a senior writer. She has covered technology, healthcare and business strategy for more than 10 years. If you’d like to be on the podcast yourself, you can reach her on LinkedIn, Veronica Combs, or you can go to the HKA website and share your suggestion via the Contact Us page.
October 10, 2024