Quantum in the Kitchen

Dana Z. Anderson, ColdQuanta Inc., and the JILA Institute, University of Colorado Boulder

Not infrequently I face a blank stare as I explain to a quantum curious that they can look to clocks to understand what quantum technology will do for the world.  These days my listener is often a computing enthusiast — for them quantum computing is akin to rocket science; clocks are something for the kitchen wall.  Humankind’s most quantum “thing” today is a clock. I expect many in this audience know the connection, both historical and physics, between timekeeping and quantum computing, but many a quantumian citizen is at a loss.  I myself believe that quantum technology will change the world and clocks are the forebearers of things to come.  With a rearward glance toward the revolutions engendered by the transistor and by the laser, I have come to suppose, even assume, that by 2040, quantum technology will be found in every industry, every vehicle, and every kitchen.  The comment is intended not as hyperbole, but as an acknowledgment that today’s quantum technology is surely primitive, and there is a lot to do to drive down the price of a useful quantum box to the cost of a toaster. There is an implied roadmap of sorts, to move us from the exotic of 2021 to the everyday of 2040. Those that are placing large quantum bets, however, expect to see quantum technology solving meaningful problems in well shy of 20 years.  Hence governments, federal agencies, and companies like ColdQuanta are pressing to develop hero systems such as quantum computers, networks, and communications systems. But what I would like to talk about from here is more about putting quantum clocks in the kitchen than it is solving the world’s most difficult problems per se. 

The kitchen quantum of 2040 relies on an ecosystem involving everything from manufacturing to retail sales.  The challenge facing the 2021 ecosystem is that quantum science and technology remains unfamiliar, intellectually difficult, technically difficult, and expensive.  Starting with the UK government’s quantum initiative in 2014, governments around the world began to invest in quantum workforce development through universities, cultivating the commercial supply chain, and promoting the development and acquisition of quantum technology for compelling end use cases. ColdQuanta has been in the business of cold atoms for 14 years: we have shrunk the size of a Bose-Einstein Condensation Machine from two full optical tables to the size of a small refrigerators and soon to the size of a 5071A cesium clock.  We have put cold atom quantum systems in orbit on the International Space Station, flown them on small airplanes, and enabled them in scientific laboratories around the world. We are by no means alone in making quantum technology available to the community, yet quantum remains too difficult, too expensive, and for many, too risky to pursue. 

In next few years we will see quantum technology brought to the cloud. ColdQuanta is already doing this, and I know that other companies, research groups numerous educational programs around the world will be doing the same.  The intention is to lower the barrier to entry, to lower the risk of quantum exploration, and to enable quantum innovation by stakeholders that otherwise have no access to quantum technology. The effort really simply mimics the goings-on in quantum computing, where there is already an ecosystem of hardware providers, software providers, and researchers and applications engineers covering an incredible variety of disciplines.  We will thus be seeing the same cloud-accessibility for non-compute applications of quantum including sensing, communications, networks, signal processing… perhaps even appliances for the kitchen.