CEO of Israeli Startup That Stunned the Quantum Industry: "We Didn't Believe We Would Succeed"

Dr. Asaf Sinay, CEO of the Israeli startup Qedma, finds it hard to understate the scientific experiment he conducted jointly with IBM, which stunned the expert community in the quantum industry last week. "It is no different from an athlete winning a gold medal — it is the kind of achievement for which people should call and congratulate us," he says in a conversation with Globes.

Last Thursday, IBM, a partner and investor in Qedma, published the results of a study that may be a significant milestone in the maturation of quantum computing. It involves a new method of calculation that does not use standard silicon processors, one that could significantly accelerate global computing power, lead to accelerated drug development, and even to an all-powerful artificial intelligence (AI).

The study documented for the first time the achievement of what is known in the industry as "quantum advantage" — the ability of a quantum computer to outperform a powerful supercomputer with 700,000 core processors — and in the process, solve a physical problem that no one had solved before.

Qedma Identity Card

• Field of activity: cloud service that improves calculation efficiency in quantum computers.

• History: founded in 2020 by Prof. Dorit Aharonov, Prof. Netanel Lindner, and Dr. Asaf Sinay. Employs 40 workers at the Exhibition Grounds (Ganei HaTa'arucha), 18 of whom hold a PhD in physics and mathematics.

• Data: raised $31 million from TPY, Glilot, IBM, and Korean Investment Partners.

Qedma conducted the experiment on a quantum chip developed by IBM using superconducting technology, but to ensure the quality of the result, Qedma managed to replicate the experiment on a quantum computer operating on a completely different technology ("trapped ions") — performed on a computer of the new player on the New York Stock Exchange, Quantinuum.

"We received the same result and the same efficiency on both different computers — it is as if a SpaceX and a Blue Origin spacecraft took off into space together and arrived at the same point at the same pace," the company said.

Astonishment in the scientific community, indifference on Wall Street

For Sinay, this is a groundbreaking experiment because it is the first time that the most significant problem of quantum computing has been solved: the "noise" — inherent in the instability of the tiny particles that power quantum computing, such as electrons, ions, atoms, or photons. Qedma developed software and algorithms capable of neutralizing those noises and increasing the stability of quantum processors, which until now could not reach satisfactory results on their own without suitable software.

Although the experiment was conducted not within the framework of academia but by two commercial players, Sinay reports astonishment in the scientific community and a joint intention of the companies to publish its results in a leading scientific journal.

"We proved a scientific quantum advantage — not yet a commercial one," he admits. "But the results pave the way for quantum computing to reach that point within about three years. The AI revolution has led to the fact that most of the revenues of chip companies like Nvidia come from AI, but quantum computing will lead to the fact that the revenues of companies in the field will come from at least five channels: the financial market — with an improved ability to build an investment portfolio; the drug development industry; the development of special materials; artificial intelligence; and cyber — with applications such as encryption and decryption."

However, at this stage, it seems that investors found it hard to be impressed: IBM stock rose by about one percent during Friday, Quantinuum stock remained unchanged, while the QTUM ETF, which tracks quantum stocks, rose by less than one percent that same day.

The physical problem that no one managed to solve

To prove "quantum advantage," IBM and its Israeli partner sought to solve a physical problem that no one had managed to solve before them: how millions of electrons in a certain crystal react to a light beam shining on them, like a laser beam. The answer to this question could lead to new breakthroughs in the field of electricity or heat conduction.

"Classical computing can perform a simulation of a relatively low number of electrons but not several tens or hundreds at once," says Sinay. The experiment, conducted on the IBM chip, proved that the behavior of the electrons does not change in a state of many tens, hundreds, or even millions of electrons. The research was conducted in a laboratory in Japan that was among the few in the world to possess a standard supercomputer, an IBM quantum computer, and a Quantinuum quantum computer — something that gave scientific validity to the experiment.

The initiative for the experiment, Sinay reveals, came from the Israeli company: "The steering wheel was in our hands, but we held conversations with IBM and the partners in Japan until the small hours of the night to understand what needed to be changed and what adjustments to make. We did not imagine that we would succeed when we set out, and the number of times we thought it would not work was very large. Only when we received identical and surprisingly good results on the two different computers did we understand that it had succeeded."

Sinay (43), a graduate of the Talpiot program and holder of a PhD in quantum physics from the Weizmann Institute, worked as a salaried physicist at the reality glasses company Magic Leap — which dramatically reduced its activity after raising $3 billion. However, Sinay used the sad turn to return to the field he loved: quantum physics.

"I asked two of the greatest experts in the field in the country what they would do today if they were starting a software company — and both gave me the same answer without knowing what the other had answered," says Sinay, "and it is that it is possible to perform error correction in reliable quantum computers using software — but that AI will not bring this solution, but years of research and development." The two were Prof. Dorit Aharonov from the Hebrew University and Prof. Netanel Lindner from the Technion — today they are two of the founders at Qedma and Sinay's partners.

"An IPO is an option, but not now"

Sinay is not rushing to join the volatile Wall Street market. Quantinuum stock, the latest and most successful of the companies in the field to go public, has already fallen by a quarter of its IPO price — which took place only two months ago. For him, an IPO is not on the agenda until the company proves a commercial "quantum advantage."

"Investors are approaching us who want us to go to Nasdaq. I see good companies on the stock exchange, and also companies that are at an earlier stage compared to us and their technology is not mature enough, or those that do not have good enough quantum computers. An IPO is something that is an option, although not now, but one can already see the 'hockey stick' of the quantum industry exploding," he says.

"When will the first application that sweeps the market arrive? It is hard to know, but in the financial field, there are banks that already have teams of quantum algorithm engineers preparing for this era. Banks like JPMorgan, which employ dozens of physicists in the field, will earn more in building investment portfolios than banks like Bank of America or Goldman Sachs that do not hold such teams. Sometime, the algorithm that will cause this competitive advantage will be found, there will be those who will exploit it, and there will be those who will miss the train."