I try to keep these podcasts to about 20 minutes, but Q-CTRL just has way, way, way too much going on. So go grab yourself a fresh cup of Joe, kick back in your favorite chair, and relax as Alex Shih, VP of Product at Q-CTRL, and I speak about Q-CTRL’s growth, Ironstone Opal for GPS-free navigation, Boulder Opal for quantum control, Fire Opal for error suppression, Black Opal for learning, and so much more.

Alex Shih (LinkedIn)

Q-CTRL (website)

Q-CTRL (LinkedIn)

Ironstone Opal

Boulder Opal

Fire Opal

Black Opal

I couldn’t find everything I referenced during the recording, but here’s a bunch of stuff I’ve written about Q-CTRL over the years. Now that I look at the list in its almost-entirety, I’ve probably written more about Q-CTRL than any other company, quantum or otherwise. This is definitely not a complete list.

5/25/2026 Q-CTRL’s Fire Opal on IonQ [premium]

3/29/2026 #wellplayed [premium]

3/24/2026 #82: This podcast is out of control. But, fortunately, ....

1/14/2026 Q-CTRL Open Controls [premium]

12/23/2025 The Great “Bring-Up” Debate

10/12/2025 Q-CTRL’s Black Opal’s “Ask AI” [premium]

8/19/2025 Q-CTRL’s Scale Up Removes Pain Points

8/17/2025 You’ve got questions? [premium]

8/5/2025 Q-CTRL’s Quantum Navigating Dragon

4/14/2025 The Q-CTRL-Stumped Dragon

2/4/2025 One of the Most Valuable Learning Resources

1/1/2025 The Dracarys Award: Fire Opal

6/6/2023 Quantum Beast

12/29/2022 Quantum Phase Estimation!

12/27/2022 Grover’s Algorithm with Fire Opal

12/25/2022 Classiq with Fire Opal

12/24/2022 ibm_nairobi vs. Fire Opal

12/19/2022 ibmq_belem vs. Fire Opal

12/15/2022 Review: Q-CTRL Fire Opal

11/23/2022 Quantum Sliced Bread

4/29/2022 What I Learned From Fire Opal…

4/17/2022 Q-CTRL’s Multi-Qubit Circuit Simulator

4/16/2022 Review: Black Opal’s “Programming” by Q-CTRL

4/15/2022 Review: Black Opal’s “Control” by Q-CTRL

4/14/2022 Review: Black Opal “Speedup” by Q-CTRL

3/9/2022 Q-CTRL’s Fire Opal is Awesome

1/8/2022 Practicing with Q-Ctrl’s Black Opal

1/5/2022 Review: Black Opal “Noise” by Q-Ctrl

12/22/2021 Review: Black Opal “Entanglement” by Q-Ctrl

12/21/2021 Review: Black Opal Circuits by Q-Ctrl

12/20/2021 Review: Q-Ctrl’s Black Opal Tutorials

11/5/2021 Why I Believe Q-Ctrl

Jay Guilmart, Lead Product Manager of Quantum Computing at Q-CTRL, will be speaking at Q+AI 2026 (3.0): Uncovering the Coming Wave of Quantum + AI, which is coming to New York City October 25-27, 2026.

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I spoke with Rebecca Krauthamer, CEO and Co-Founder of QuSecure, about the implications of the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) market splitting between early movers and laggards on the laggards, the bestowing of US military standards for QuSecure’s civilian customers, the difference between NIST standards and US military standards, the benefits of AWS Qualified Software Certification, why Forbes keeps recognizing QuSecure as one of America’s Best Startup Employers, and more.

Rebecca Krauthamer (LinkedIn)

QuSecure (website)

QuProtect R3

QuSecure Careers

QuSecure (LinkedIn)

#303 America’s Best Startup Employers (Forbes)

Rebecca Krauthamer will be a speaker at PQC+IQT, which is coming to New York City on October 26, 2026.

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I spoke with Denis Mandich, CTO of Qrypt, about his former-CIA point of view about quantum and cryptography, how Qrypt generates identical keys at multiple endpoints, why a non-certified single QRNG isn’t good enough, how the emergence of entanglement-based quantum networks would change his sales pitch, Nvidia’s role in Qrypt’s non-computing quantum technology, non-cryptographic QRNG applications, and more.

Denis Mandich (LinkedIn)

Qrypt (website)

Qrypt (LinkedIn)

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I spoke with Jason Lynch, CEO of Equal1, about the actual size of the Bell-1 silicon spin quantum computer, when we’ll see a breakthrough in qubit counts, quantum networking the devices together, shrinking the system from 22U to 6U, power consumption, democratization, and more.

Jason Lynch (LinkedIn)

Equal1 (website)

Equal1 (LinkedIn)

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I spoke with Toby Cubitt, Co-Founder and CTO of Phasecraft about why we need algorithms when we don’t have hardware to run them on, a claim of 43,000,000X greater efficiency, the skillset needed to do what they do, quantum phase estimation (QPE) without controlled unitaries, the secret ingredient of their secret depth-reducing sauce, and more.

Toby Cubitt (LinkedIn)

Phasecraft (website)

Phasecraft (LinkedIn)

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I spoke with Eric Hay, Senior Vice President of Field Engineering at Quantum XChange, about single-use private keys, the prevention of retrieval after they’ve been used, secure key exchange, the architectural solution to the potential vulnerability in post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) protocols, the continued use of symmetric keys on the same channels on which they were exchanged, and more.

Eric Hay (LinkedIn)

Quantum XChange (website)

Quantum XChange (YouTube)

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I spoke with Matt Rijlaarsdam, CEO and Co-Founder of QuantWare, about trying to be the Intel of quantum, mass production versus custom foundry and packaging services, the advantages of a 3D chip architecture, a bold claim about “exponentially more compute power per watt and per dollar,” the upper limit of qubit density, physical footprints, and driving down prices.

Matthijs (Matt) Rijlaarsdam (LinkedIn)

QuantWare (website)

VIO 40K (news release)

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I asked Mr. Carman about teaming up with QuantWare and Q-CTRL to offer the Quantum Utility Block (QUB), Qblox Qubit Lab, Oxford Quantum Circuits’ (OQC) logical qubits, market leadership, physical footprint and power consumption, and the strategy behind hosting webinars. I apologize for some minor audio issues that I couldn’t edit out.

Gregg Carman (LinkedIn)

Qblox (website)

Quantum Utility Block (QUB)

Qblox Qubit Lab

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC)

Quantum Builders webinars

Elevate Quantum and Partners Launch the Nation’s First Quantum Open Architecture System in Colorado

Energy Department Announces Partnership with FermiLab and Qblox toManufacture Foundational Quantum Control Platform for U.S. Research and

Innovation

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I asked Mr. Stimers about the consequences of hype, how the government polices attempts to circumvent export controls and immigration restrictions, the potential for quantum navigation sensors to become mandatory, the current role of diversity in subcontracting, the convergences of quantum and AI and space, and the legalities of selling US quantum companies to overseas buyers.

Paul Stimers (LinkedIn)

Holland & Knight (website)

Quantum Industry Coalition (website)

Cantwell, Young, Colleagues Introduce Bipartisan National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act

A bill to reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative Act, and for other purposes.

National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act of 2026 – Section Summary

Powering the Future of Quantum

Cold Atom Laboratory

DOE Releases Updated Agency Structure and Organization Chart

Department of Energy Organizational Chart

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Filed under: Quantum Policy • Government Regulation • Technology Law

Dr. Walborn and I spoke about the use cases of quantum random number generators (QRNG), self-testing and certification, the underlying mechanism for guaranteeing randomness, API versus on-premises options, and Sequre Quantum’s plans for integrating its QRNG into its own post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and/or quantum key distribution (QKD) solutions. Most importantly, I picked up a new phrase that I am going to use and abuse: “quantum imposter.”

Dr. Stephen Walborn (LinkedIn)

Sequre Quantum (website)

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