Quantum Industry Conference Roundtable Dialogue Multiple parties to promote quantum technology to market
On September 21, 2022 Quantum Industry Conference, themed "Quantum Technology - Empowering the Future - Creating a New Era of Future Industry", was held in Hefei, Anhui Province. The conference was co-hosted by Hefei Municipal People's Government, Anhui Provincial Department of Science and Technology and China Telecom Anhui Corporation.
Experts, scholars and business representatives from the quantum information industry at home and abroad gathered to discuss the development trend of quantum technology in China and the road to future industrialization.
The conference also held a round table with the theme of "Layout of quantum industry, think about the future of science and technology". At the conference, Gu Chengjian, founder of the well-known quantum technology service platform GZH, as the moderator, together with Zhao Yong, vice chairman of KUGS Quantum Technology Co. Ltd., Zhao Bowen, General Manager of Anhui Guosheng Quantum Technology Co., Ltd. and Fang Zhenghao, Managing Partner of Shanghai Xiaomiao Longcheng Investment Management Co.
The following is a compilation of the roundtable conversations.
01One sentence summarizes the bottleneck of China's quantum industry
Gu Chengjian: Today's roundtable mainly fits the theme of the industry conference, we need to discuss the problems encountered by the industry and the new achievements of experts and entrepreneurs in their respective fields to share, I need to ask the experts and entrepreneurs a common question at the beginning of the forum. What do you think are the bottlenecks encountered by the quantum industry in China?
Gu Chengjian, founder of the well-known quantum technology service platform GZH
Zhao Yong: We just established a quantum science and technology industry-academia-research alliance, the alliance needs to solve the primary problem is systematization, science and technology achievements continue to emerge, the results as "points", how to connect the "line" into "surface "The systematization of such work in quantum science and technology is inexperienced and low referability, which is a big challenge for us.
Zilong Cha: There is a lot of space and hope for the future, but the road is difficult, and we need to work together. The biggest objective problem is how to make more people accept and promote quantum-related knowledge and applications.
You Lixing: I am currently engaged in the manufacturing industry, the biggest problem of quantum information industrialization is the weakness of the country's overall manufacturing industry, thus unable to provide strong support for the quantum industry.
Shi Tao: I think it is the problem of talent shortage, for example, the computer and AI industry has a technical ladder of excellent talent, the difficulty of the quantum track of the subdivision and long-term accumulation of talent is very scarce, but also hope that more outstanding young talent to join the quantum track.
Zhao Bowen: My biggest problem in the process from school to industry is the problem of thinking, the industrialization of quantum technology we often start from ourselves, have the technology want to apply in many aspects. I think we should observe the pain points of the industry, even if we have 18 skills, we need to find the problems, we should not take a hammer to see everything like a nail, but in turn we should take the technology into the market and customers, so as to solve the problems of customers.
Fang Zhenghao: We stand more in the perspective of investors to think about this issue, the current exit path of China's quantum industry capital is not clear. The lack of a capital exit path is currently one of the bottlenecks in the development of the industry.
02Quantum confidential communication
Gu Chengjian: May I ask Mr. Zhao, General Manager of Guodun Quantum, the global quantum confidentiality communication in China is in the leading position at the technical level, can you tell us more about the leading edge or first mover advantage of China?
Zhao Yong: The formation of the advantage has a certain background and serendipity, but of course there is also inevitability. We choose quantum communication as the starting point many years ago, on the one hand, from our own scientific research team, do optical origin, now the traditional communication light is a very important carrier; on the other hand, quantum communication and traditional communication is different, mainly in the information security aspects of the problem, we all understand the overall situation of our information security, may not be a strong, information security will be more passive, quantum communication Quantum communication happens to play a very important role in information security, and we will have more energy to choose this direction from the perspective of large demand. I firmly believe that Chinese people can walk in the forefront of the world as long as they work hard, but of course there will be more difficulties, because other countries are ahead in the field of natural science and technology for hundreds of years, and we just have the resources and ability to engage in this research, plus the results achieved in recent years from the individual scientific indicators to see all the good.
In terms of practicality, we have not only made breakthroughs in technology but also in application, so we are cooperating with partners such as China Telecom, and the more active traction projects will progress more forward. Put ourselves in the position of security, look at the international competitors, such as the United States own security capabilities are very strong, more will be concerned about how to obtain other people's information, more is a kind of attack behavior, on the contrary, we are defensive behavior, also created our positioning, more active technology and applications, and operators, partners in different fields, mature industries willing to quantum information security field Looking for the unique characteristics, is the way we are figuring out together, compared to in the international is also more advantageous than in the early days.
Zhao Yong, Vice Chairman of KUGS Quantum Technology Co.
Gu Chengjian: May I ask Mr. Zha of China Telecom Quantum, the most explicit scene of quantum confidential communication is information security, China Telecom as the earliest and largest operator to actively embrace the quantum field, the resources and rich experience in smart city, government, city construction, etc. From your point of view, what are the achievements of China Telecom Quantum in the downstream application field of quantum confidential communication since its establishment?
Zilong Cha: Although China Telecom was the first to participate as an operator, it has not been long about 2 years, China Telecom's investment in this part is also very large, plus in the national shield quantum and laboratory support, we have come all the way in the field of quantum communication is also very fast. We are also working on this area to meet the needs of more user scenarios, combining China Telecom's strengths and Guodun Quantum's technical advantages to do application product development. In the morning of the industry conference, we released both the Hefei MAN and the first civilian-grade Tianyi Quantum HD secret phone product. In fact, we have also developed many unreleased products located in our booth, such as secure encrypted intercom, Tianyi encrypted satellite phone, IoT products such as gas security IoT meter, including some IoT scenarios that will be put into use soon. For the government, financial institutions, enterprises with high security level, and any future scenarios and needs with data transmission and information encryption can be empowered. We hope to develop more application scenarios and products with more enterprises in the future and promote them to more people for use.
Cha Zilong, Deputy General Manager of China Telecom Quantum Technology Co.
03Quantum Computing
Gu Chengjian: Quantum communication and quantum precision measurement are still relatively ahead in terms of practicality, but the industry believes that quantum computers are at a relatively early stage, we are fortunate to invite the domestic research company of neutral atom, Mr. Shi, who has been working on neutral atom in recent years, what stage has the neutral atom quantum computer reached from the international and domestic perspective? And what will be the major achievements in the next 3 years?
Shi Tao: You may not know much about neutral atoms before, but our group has been working on neutral atoms since 1997, and this field has developed very rapidly in recent years with the progress of overall optical systems, circuit systems, and microstructure systems. The recent progress of the neutral atom quantum computer is very promising, we have overcome the precision light source, microstructure optics, optical tweezers technology and system pulses through years of efforts at this stage, and overall it is now in the stage of high speed development and explosion. The current results seen in the laboratory are promising, so we need to transform the laboratory advantages into engineering advantages, and engineering advantages need supply chain support from various industries, including vacuum technology, and the future of this track is still bright. We are also currently attacking such as two-bit gate fidelity and high interconnectivity.
Shi Tao, co-founder of CKKUYuan Technology (Wuhan) Co.
04Quantum Precision Measurement
Gu Chengjian: May I ask Mr. Zhao, the representative of precision measurement field, how does your field focus on and respond to the needs of customers?
Zhao Bowen: The field of precision measurement is to improve the accuracy of the traditional measurement field, I mainly focus on magnetic field measurement in combination with myself, and will do temperature measurement next. For the magnetic field part of our technology is now through our sensors to achieve smaller size, higher accuracy, greater stability, while doing light energy supply that is passive probe equipment, including measurement equipment at room temperature. Based on these our sensors have some unique advantages to deal with the traditional sensors and technology can not solve the problem, not to replace but to help solve more problems, for more complex, harsh scenarios, such as for higher voltage levels, high accuracy requirements of the current measurement, we also customize the development of the corresponding prototype, while for the probe location requirements are extremely high, have customized We have also developed customized prototypes for the probe position.
Zhao Bowen, General Manager of Anhui Guosheng Quantum Technology Co.
05Industry chain
Gu Chengjian: Today, Yu Dapeng, academician of the speech mentioned a very important point about the industry chain of the upstream core components, equipment to achieve domestic autonomy, today there is a representative of Mr. You, from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystems, engaged in superconducting nanowire single photon detector research, Mr. You can introduce the core position and importance of your products in the field of quantum communication, quantum computer?
You Lixing: We use superconducting technology to make single photon detectors to serve the whole field of optical quantum information, quantum communication is clear to everyone that the use of light as the main medium, basic optical quantum communication will use high-performance detectors, in addition, in the field of quantum computing such as "nine chapters" to achieve the calculation of light as a medium, quantum precision is the same. Single photon itself is the quantum limit of sensitivity of light measurement. Although the single photon detector is driven by the development of quantum information technology, but as a light detection technology can be used in a large number of a variety of extreme measurement of light, in addition to quantum information, there are space light detection, LIDAR and many other fields, as long as the need for weak light detection, single photon detection, can be used single photon detector.
Director of Superconducting Electronics Research Laboratory, Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chairman of Foton Quantum Technology (Zhejiang) Co.
You Lixing
Gu Chengjian: Quantum information technology requires a lot of core devices and equipment, and we are facing the problem of "zero" in many areas that we need to break through ourselves. Can Mr. Zhao of Guodun share with you how to establish cooperation mechanisms in organizing upstream and downstream cooperation, especially in downstream applications and upstream breakthrough of key devices?
Zhao Yong: From the upstream point of view, there are many scientific and technological achievements, mainly from our experts and academicians and the top teams in the world. But the upstream traction alone is not enough, the other end is very important is the application, we now hope that the upstream and downstream can be pulled, the middle chain has the value of existence. When it comes to applications in different areas have different characteristics, such as quantum communication and quantum computing, compared to the mature industry chain is not particularly clear, both need to develop new markets, manufacturing raw materials and equipment are not specifically for quantum communication and quantum computing complete foundation. The cost of doing quantum communication in the early days was very high because raw materials and equipment were not available in bulk and on a large scale, so now quantum computing will also face such problems. From the demand and scientific research results continue to emerge, from these two ends we come together to pull the industry chain, will everyone's energy converge in the quantum industry chain this piece, the industry chain ultimately need the foundation, mature results. Of course, quantum precision measurement has its own advantages, the market has been widely available, measuring the magnetic field, gravity, current, electric field these, now there is a new ability to measure more accurate, fine, relatively speaking, communications and computing is facing the industry chain is still a big problem, need to figure out and encourage. We are very confident that we hope we can work together.
Gu Chengjian: Mr. Zha of China Telecom Quantum, you mentioned how to improve the awareness and acceptance of downstream applications from the perspective of customers, can you share your experience from the perspective of China Telecom Quantum?
Zilong Cha: I think this question is more like whether the chicken or the egg comes first. The basic idea from the perspective of scientific research is to sell what we have in the market and what customers have to use, I come from an operator who works with quantum information and think it is more important to focus on what customers need and what kind of problems we can solve. Benefit from the situation to proceed smoothly, but also by virtue of the industry-academia research together to promote.
Gu Chengjian: You are very right, our products and technology are very good, but let customers accept to use and buy also need a continuous reconciliation process.
Zilong Cha: You mentioned the technology, from theory to practice need a long process, a mature technology used in different customers will be different, so need to continue to optimize the user experience better. The quantum industry has just started, I hope that all companies grow together, so that more people know about quantum, use quantum, we complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, even competition is okay, because the oligarchs alone can not grow, only under the continuous competition to force themselves to let the technology grow, so that customers really use it, and then the industry can expand.
Gu Chengjian: Mr. Shi Tao, as a representative of quantum computer, what have you done in terms of industry chain cooperation and what are your views on the construction of industry chain ecology from the perspective of China's overall industry?
Shi Tao: We have recently talked with top pharmaceutical companies, and now it takes about 10 years to develop a new drug and the overall cost is over 10 billion RMB. The core of new drug research and development is to manufacture and develop the structure of small molecules, and there is no better way to optimize it. There has been a great deal of research on the properties of quantum computing, and we have discussed with prospective pharmaceutical companies, an industry with exponential improvements in efficiency, willing to make any attempt: because such an attempt, an innovation would be a huge leap for their own efficiency as well. We have also recently been exploring the advantages of neutral atomic systems in biomedicine, artificial intelligence, topological problems, logistics and path optimization problems, all of which go hand in hand.
When D-Wave goes public, it will have about 30 Fortune 500 customers in its 2021 annual report: their core is also exploration and quantum crossover applications. The core logic of the national major science and technology projects, for example, the application unit must be promoted together with the original technology companies, engineering companies: the application of traction and demand, and the technology side of "up to do" is a two-way domestication process.
Gu Chengjian: Quantum computer from the physical level, still belongs to the early stage. How to work with downstream applications at this stage?
Shi Tao: Applications include multiple levels: exploratory applications, technical applications and commercial applications. In the early stage of technology, we should find some exploratory applications, and only when the "first crab eater" is rewarded will there be technical applications, and finally we will promote towards commercial applications. In short, we are still very optimistic about quantum computing.
06 Investment perspective
Gu Chengjian: Mr. Fang of Miao Longcheng just said that the biggest problem of investing in quantum information technology is that there is no good exit channel, so what is your investment logic?
Fang Zhenghao: When we first invested, we had a belief that the quantum information field is one of the few fields in China that is on par with the international high-end level. In some high-end manufacturing fields, China is about 30 years behind Europe, Japan and the US; however, in the quantum field, China even has comparative advantages in some fields, and there are only a few large countries in the world that can develop this industry.
The second point is that in the field of quantum science and technology, once other countries have made breakthroughs, information security, information anti-security, natural science, computing and communication and other engineering levels will produce crushing advantages. Therefore, quantum technology has to be developed, must be developed, can not lag behind.
The third point is that the threshold for technology entrepreneurship in this field is very high. Entrepreneurs have very high academic insights in their respective fields of expertise, and the talent resources that can do this are very scarce.
Therefore, even though there is uncertainty in the current market in terms of future exit channels, we believe that the quantum field will definitely develop and have capital dividends.
Fang Zhenghao, Managing Partner of Shanghai Xiaomiao Longcheng Investment Management Co.
Gu Chengjian: Please ask two questions. First, quantum computers are still in the early stage and the technology development has not yet reached the convergence stage, is the cost higher for investment institutions? Second, the cycle of frontier technology is long, does capital have the patience to wait for the development of the technology?
Fang Zhenghao: There are three areas of quantum technology: communication, metrology, and computing.
There are already precedents of successful listing in the field of communication and strong government support, so our judgment in this field is: it is worthy of layout, but we need to find new application scenarios and technologies to enhance differentiated development.
At the quantum computing level, in the short term, it will have application scenarios in scientific research; in the long term, it has the potential to subvert the current classical computers. This is one of the few industries where China is expected to achieve trillion dollar giants. So although there are more technical routes, we believe that it has great room for development; from this level, the early layout is expected to yield very significant returns.
The third area is quantum precision measurement, which will land relatively more quickly. The United States already has a large number of quantum precision measurement procurement projects, and in recent years there are also many related commercial attempts in China.
Overall, even though it is difficult for investment institutions to choose the right specific direction, there will be tens of thousands of times of space in terms of the general direction of quantum technology development, and we are laying out one by one.
07How to go from laboratory to market?
Gu Chengjian: May I ask Mr. You Lixing, what are the tips and suggestions for starting a business from a researcher to an entrepreneur?
Lixing You: Nowadays, the state encourages researchers to start their own business. I also have two identities: research and business. We have been promoting the industrialization of scientific research for about 5 years.
The success rate of entrepreneurship is not easier because of the research status. Take the peacock's opening screen as an example, when scientific research issues a paper, it is the frontal moment of the peacock's opening screen; while in industrialization, what is shown to customers is mostly the peacock without the opening screen, or even the back part that is not shiny enough when the screen is opened.
The second point is that doing scientific research is different from industrialization: industrialization does not necessarily care about originality, but more about the ability to engineer; we need to change the thinking of 0-1 to 1-N. When I first started to do industry, I was doing it with the reputation of scientific research: because most of the customers of the goods are also my peers in the scientific research circle.
When we do industrialization, we will face the competition from international counterparts, and there will be a lot of high-end equipment. Today, a lot of research equipment comes from imports, and we need to compete with the strongest rivals in the world: the field of quantum technology is also where we have a chance to gain an advantage. So, I would also like to call on you to give priority to supporting domestic high-end equipment.
Gu Chengjian: May I ask Mr. Fang Xiaomiao Langcheng what problems scientists will encounter when starting a business from the investment point of view? Can you give some advice to scientists?
Fang Zhenghao: We are a fund that invests more in scientists' ventures in China, and we have invested in dozens of companies since 2015, whose founders are all professors and scientists. To sum up, there are generally three major bottlenecks.
First, most scientists have a certain misalignment between their abilities and entrepreneurs, and lack engineering and management experience.
Second, many scientists start their own business both, and also, and also: they want to keep their positions in research institutes units, and at the same time, they want to start their own business outside the system, and they do not have the means to devote all their energy to this one energy of entrepreneurship.
Thirdly, scientists have a weak ability to integrate resources: lacking the "ability team" to do well in R&D, sales and marketing.
Accordingly, what do we suggest? First, scientists need to have a wide range of possibilities, to be able to learn particularly well and to quickly fill in the gaps. Second, if a scientist is unable to devote himself/herself fully to the venture, we would like the scientist to leave his/her original organization; if there is a real difficulty, we would like the scientist who cannot work full-time to retire to the "second line" and let the full-time team of the company do their best. The third is the integrity of the team, which is our great concern, we will also help scientists to set up the executive team.
08Advice to the quantum industry
Gu Chengjian: A sentence summarizing the future development of the quantum industry advice. Take GZH as an example: photon box is committed to quantum field of production, learning, research services, and industry development is highly compatible.
Zhao Yong: As a practitioner in the quantum technology industry, he firmly believes in it from his own perspective.
Zilong Cha: As a pioneer of quantum industry promotion, we hope more and more people will understand quantum information science and enjoy the achievements of quantum information science.
You Lixing: The future has a long way to go. I hope all my peers will remember that the future is bright if we keep our feet on the ground and look up to the stars.
Shi Tao: I have been studying physics for more than 20 years since I started; in the future, I want to keep going for another 20 years!
Zhao Bowen: Startups need courage and determination; every one of our products is solving actual pain points and will face some difficulties. As long as the ideas are not backward, there are always more solutions than difficulties.
Fang Zhenghao: Quantum technology is a journey with a bright future, twists and turns, and a long and hard to see end. We hope that in this voyage, we can become the captain's trusted second-in-command and accompany them through the journey.
