Podcast With Mike Hayduk, Deputy Director of the Information Directorate at the Air Force Research Laboratory

Transcript

Yuval Boger: Hello, Mike. And thanks for joining me today.

Mike Hayduk: Hello. Hey, thanks for having me. It’s an honor to be here today.

Yuval: The honor is mine. Who are you, and what do you do?

Mike: Yeah, I’m Mike Hayduk. I work for the Air Force Research Laboratory. I currently serve as the Deputy Director of the Information Directorate in Rome, New York. And I also serve in a different role, secondhand if you will, I coordinate the Quantum Information Science program across all of AFRL where I have research going on across multiple geographic sites and technological directorates.

Yuval: Why would the Air Force be interested in quantum, and which quantum is it? Is it communication or sensing or computing, or all of the above?

Mike: All of the above. Glad you asked that question. And that’s really at the heart of our quantum strategy at the Air Force. A little bit about AFRL, we’re a set of about nine different technology directorates plus our international locations. Each of those technology directorates has a different mission space, if you will. For example, in Rome, we work information technologies, at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, they work space technology, specifically space vehicles, other technologies there that relate to space. Materials and manufacturing in Ohio. So you see, there’s a lot of different technologies, technology areas across AFRL.

Now, if you cut to what we’re doing in quantum and why we’re interested. Because of those different mission sets, we’ve really broken our quantum program down into four main areas that we focus, quantum timing, quantum sensing, quantum communications and networking, and quantum computing. So four areas that we’ve binned our technologies into. To give an example of the depth of magnitude across AFRL, seven of our nine technology directorates work in one form or another of quantum information science, even if it’s at the basic research level, such as our partners at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research which includes our international offices, as well as going down to things, Sensors Directorate, Materials, and Manufacturing where they’re working new materials as well as devices to support some of those bigger application areas in timing, sensing, networking, and computing.

Yuval: And if you had to divide that by, is it third-third-third between sensing, communication, and computing, or is one more dominant than the other?

Mike: That’s a great question. We think of it more as technology maturity areas, and we do have pretty even split amongst the areas. Personnel-wise, working at… We generally have about 40+ AFRL employees, government employees working across those areas, equal amount of onsite contractors, and lots of partners worldwide supporting all that. But we really do think of it more on technology maturity areas, so timing, sensing more near term, and then networking further out, and computing along those same lines as maturity levels. I will say too and we can go into this a little more on the computing side, we rely heavily on our commercial partners and what’s being developed in the industry to be able to leverage those architectures, and specifically now NISQ-era type architectures. So we’re actually more looking at it on the computing side. We don’t build hardware, so instead, we look at the problem spaces, algorithms of interest. So that’s always a distinction I like to make upfront, the AFRL investment in these areas.

Yuval: And you’ve been in quantum for quite some time, so what have you learned in the last six months that you didn’t know prior?

Mike: Great question. I think I’ve learned several things. One of the things I’ve really started digging into a little bit more, even though we don’t research the area is post-quantum cryptography and how the Air Force is going to be using some of those algorithms once they’re out there, and how we’ll be able to deploy those systems further down the road. But very important to us as we think ahead here and certainly not necessarily specific to our quantum program but very much related and of high importance to us, and it’s shown right at the executive level with the national security memorandum NSM-10 for May of 2022, really putting a lot of emphasis on post-quantum cryptography amongst several other areas in quantum. So really highlights the national importance of post-quantum cryptography.

Yuval: If I remember correctly, AFRL looks at three main computing technologies, I think they were superconducting, trapped ions, and maybe photonics. If that’s correct, how did this decision come about, and do you expect to look at other modalities, whether silicon qubits or neutral atoms, or diamond vacancies? Tell me about the computing side, please.

Mike: Sure. So those three modalities, and yeah, I think we have an interesting story, and all three of those. But where we’re really looking to focus the development of that hardware in terms of applications is in quantum networking. And as we survey the landscape and look across the technologies that are out there, the state of maturity as well as critical expertise that we have on staff here, those three technologies made a lot of sense for us to invest in and to pursue as we’re looking to build a network. And each of them has their own strengths that we’re really looking to use and, if you will, exploit.

So for example, ion traps, a great memory source for us so we see that. When you think of networks, even conventional networks, you need storage, you need memory, so ion traps are providing that for us. On the processing side, how do you move data, quantum information, superconductors come into play there, excellent for their processing capabilities. As well as superconductors, obviously a lot of commercial investment there so something we’re very much leveraging. And then how do you actually move the information? Well, light, photonics, integrated photonics are really coming into play there and that’s a strong suit of theirs.

So, where we’re looking at these three main modalities, how do we then put them all together in a network? So very different technologies, being able to interface between those technologies is a heavy emphasis of research for us, given the different frequencies that they operate at, given different temperatures they’re operating at, different what we call it C-swap, size, weight, power and constraints, all those things, especially as we look to deploy systems for where the air force really come into play and they’re important for us.

Now as we look to build our network, I think you hit upon something really exciting and interesting. We’re starting out with those technologies but we’re not limiting ourselves to those technologies. So we’re really looking to build a network, start deploying things from an Air Force and Space Force perspective. But as our network matures, as we get comfortable with those technologies to tranduction between them, we really envision and I love this vision from our team, is a plug-and-play type of network where we can bring some of these other systems in, even bring in application area such as different sensors, clocks, and really put them in there. So we’d love to… As things mature and even as certainly some of these technologies that you mentioned such as nitrogen vacancies, neutral atoms, maybe become stronger, more mature, we’re absolutely open to looking at those.

And I think one of the things here certainly is the expertise of our team. I’m really proud that we’ve built it up in those specific areas and just seeing the interplay now and really looking at systems engineering. So we’re looking at… I mentioned earlier how we can start… From an Air Force perspective, moving systems from a lab out into the field, this is really important to us to bring together not only our quantum physicists but our algorithm engineers, our systems engineers, really multidisciplinary asset to the development of that network.

Yuval: To the extent you can tell me, how large is the team? And even more importantly, how can external vendors collaborate with you? Is there a process? Is there a proving site? Is it just looking at the government RFQ requests? How does that work?

Mike: Yeah, there’s a lot of great ways to work with us, with the Air Force. That’s one of the things that I really try to preach if you will and push forward, is that the Air Force just like our sister services, just like our other government agencies that we work closely with, we can’t go at this alone. So going back to 2018 or so when the National Quantum Initiative Act was signed and brought together the different US government agencies, and then DOD became a part of that a couple years after that, it’s really served as a mechanism that if we’re going to get to wherever we want to be in terms of US development, we not only need to bring in our other government agencies or partners, we really need to bring in our international partners as well. And along those lines, industry, academia play a really strong role for us.

So I’ve been very fortunate and blessed if you will, that our team across AFRL is great at engaging these different partners across a variety of entities, pulling in those technologies for us. So to get specific, there are absolutely many different ways that you can work with us. The best way is to reach out to myself, our scientists and engineers that folks may be familiar with at the different geographic sites that we’re doing these different technologies. You can start with me, I’ll funnel you the right way or have a conversation. We do this all the time, and that’s a great way to look at things. Academia and students and interns, we have a strong summer program, summer faculty fellowships, summer interns. We hire a lot of people, and I’ll specifically talk about our information directorate. We hire a lot of folks to work on networking problems across those technologies as well as the quantum algorithm piece.

How to engage. We also have educational partnership agreements that we work with universities that allow us to really engage and have deep technical discussions and exchange of technologies. We do grants with universities, contracts with industry as well. You can go through our normal BA process, our request for proposal stage folks might be familiar with. But before we get to that, I think it’s important to really learn at a deeper level AFRL’s interest levels in those technologies. So I really encourage folks to reach out, have a conversation with me, have a conversation with our scientists and engineers, and get a better feel for our interest areas, that then allow us to engage. And now there’s no doubt about it, we do engage with a lot of partners across, and I mentioned those four different technology areas. I’m always, I said earlier, blown away by how many folks we’re able to engage with, and that just becomes a force multiplier for us.

You also asked about the size of the team. We have about between 40 and 50 government folks that work on these different technologies across those sites. Continuing to grow. So for example, here in the information directorate, we have about 20 people working quantum networking and quantum algorithms. And then we always supplement that by onsite contractors, postdocs, students, faculty, our other industry partners that are working side by side with us. And the bottom line is we’re very fortunate to really within AFRL to be hands-on with this technology, and that’s great to see and it’s so important to do that. So as we look to move the technology out, we really have a very deep fundamental understanding of the technology and it’s applications and its implications as well.

Yuval: It sounds like you are a center of excellence not just within the Air Force but within the government as a whole. So if I switch gears to quantum cryptography for a second, a couple of weeks ago there was this article I think, from a Chinese institution about how the encryption could be cracked quickly or quicker than previously thought. How was your day when it was published? Were you bombarded by people saying what’s going on and is this real and so on? Tell me about that, please.

Mike: Yeah, sure. So that article certainly generated a lot of interest in the community. And, of course, we had our technical folks right on top of it, looking at it, analyzing it. Also read and talked to some other of our partners out there. Scott Aaronson had a nice piece on it on his quantum computing blog that generated a lot of interest. So those are the type of things that we generally look for. We know what’s occurring now, the whole store now, decrypt later], it’s always of concern that’s being done out there. So we definitely have our eye on it. Obviously, as we move towards quantum computers becoming a reality, that’s going to be… We’re going to probably see more and more of papers like that. We’ll continue to look at it, analyze those papers and see where the state of that technology’s at. And it does just drive forward the national level investment here in the US post-quantum cryptography, algorithms, encryption techniques to really get those rolling out there sooner than later. I think that’s critically important to us.

Yuval: Do you also collaborate with, say, NIST on post-quantum cryptography standards? Are you part of the standards evaluation or expressing your opinion on what algorithm is better than others?

Mike: So that’s a great question. So we really rely heavily on what NIST is doing. And then from the Air Force perspective, the permanent defense perspective, all our systems that we use need to be certified, that of course, makes sense. National Security Agency is responsible for that, so they are the ones who really work closely witnessed on those algorithms. And then the testing, the rollout, the deployment if you will, is then where we come into play. And because of that and because of our limited research dollars and our need to focus on specific areas, we don’t get into that and to see where there’s research areas but look more towards keeping an eye on it. We always call it a watch area for us, what’s being done, and then how then do we work on deploying that in a bigger picture for the Air Force.

Yuval: You mentioned the Space Force. It would seem to me that if you’re sending a satellite up and it has cryptography, that’s going to be really difficult to change, certainly that difficult or impossible to change the hardware. Does that impact the directions that you’re looking at in terms of what near-term versus long-term solutions?

Mike: Yeah. And I think that’s just paramount not only to air systems, space systems as we think about the digital Air Force, how best can we do a lot of things in software, and I’m talking broad there not any specific type systems and modular architectures. Those are things that we always look to and think about, because as we know, hardware upgrades are difficult, whether it’s in an enterprise system, air platform, space platform, very difficult to do given the long lifetimes of these systems. So moving more towards software implementations, wherever we can across systems is very important to us. And that obviously allows for quicker updates and something we need to do, especially as you think about digital systems, digital architectures, and they need to constantly update and move forward. And as a whole here in the information directorate, even just outside our quantum program, that’s something that we’re always thinking about and working towards.

Yuval: As we get close to the end of our conversation today, I was curious, what would you like industry to work on, perhaps in a faster pace than you see people working on today?

Mike: Yeah, there’s great questions there. Maybe I would bin it three or four different ways, one is maybe big picture architectures. Obviously, there’s a lot of commercial investment in the quantum computing area, so obviously, we wanted that to go forward and the different technology areas we want that to continue to move forward and really to grow ideally. And then sitting on top of that, application areas for quantum computers, as the hardware scales, I think everyone appreciates the fact that we’re going to see more and more applications. So we want to see heavy industry investment in working those application areas, those algorithm pieces that will ultimately very much benefit us in the Air Force. And networking areas, certainly working on applications of quantum networks are very important to us. And then, as I talked about earlier, big area where we’re looking at is transduction, going between the different modalities, the different frequencies, the conversion areas. That’s critical for us, the transduction piece.

And then maybe at the lowest foundational level, continued investment in R&D and supply chain development. That’s going to be very important. I’m fortunate enough to sit on the steering council for the Quantum Economic Development Consortium working with Celia Merzbacher, under her leadership. And I just love being on that committee because that’s where we really look at problems, supply chain. And as the systems scale up, you really move away from just thinking about things from a quantum physicist perspective, but more from an engineering perspective. So having industry work on things, high-speed electronics, vacuum systems, cryogenic systems at all scales is very important to us as well. So we always have this feedback loop that we think about, and those are the critical areas for us. But love to continue to engage with industry, and so encourage folks to reach out to us as well to have those conversations.

Yuval: And a hypothetical question, if you could have dinner with one of the quantum greats, who would that person be? Dead or alive.

Mike: Dead or alive? Yeah. Wow. There’s so many people that I think about there. Easy answer, of course, would be Richard Feynman May. I’d love to talk to him. But person I really enjoy talking to and hearing speak is Professor John Preskill, CalTech. Just his knowledge, his expertise across multiple areas. And I think really what I like about the perspective he brings is he sets reality into it. And that’s one of my jobs here in AFRL, understand what quantum is bringing to reality to it and countering the hype. And Professor Preskill just has a great way of doing that and portraying that, and getting people excited but in the right lanes and knowing that we have to be in this for the long haul.

Yuval: What’s the best way for people to get in touch with you both to learn more about your work and as well as perhaps to brief you on what they’re doing?

Mike: Yeah, I think the best way would be… I speak in a lot of events, so you can catch up with me there. But I’m on LinkedIn, look me up, Michael Hayduk under Air Force Research Laboratory. Find me there, shoot me a message, I always get back to folks. And then, if it makes sense, we’ll have a deeper conversation, have some information exchange. And I spend a lot of time really talking to folks, which I enjoy. And then making sure at the same time, pulling in the right members of our tech team, and then we can continue to go from there.

Yuval: Excellent. Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining me today.

Mike: You’re very welcome. Thank you.

Yuval Boger is an executive working at the intersection of quantum technology and business. Known as the “Superposition Guy” as well as the original “Qubit Guy,” he can be reached on LinkedIn or at this email.

March 6, 2023