The New Quantum Era - innovation in quantum computing, science and technology

Sebastian Hassinger

Your host, Sebastian Hassinger, interviews brilliant research scientists, software developers, engineers and others actively exploring the possibilities of our new quantum era. We will cover topics in quantum computing, networking and sensing, focusing on hardware, algorithms and general theory. The show aims for accessibility - Sebastian is not a physicist - and we'll try to provide context for the terminology and glimpses at the fascinating history of this new field as it evolves in real time.

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20 episodes
Updated July 27

Episodes20

Newest first

July 27 · 41 min
Building the U.S. Quantum Supply Chain with Kate Timmerman
Days after the CQE-led Bloch Quantum Tech Hub secured $55 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to build a domestic quantum supply chain, Kate Timmerman joins Sebastian to explain what that money actually does — and why the Midwest, no
July 20 · 43 min
The Open Source Substrate for Quantum with Ben Castanon
What does it take to build durable open-source infrastructure for a field that hasn't yet delivered on its biggest promises? Ben Castanon, the first-ever CEO of Unitary Foundation, joins Sebastian to talk about the structural funding gap facing quantum op
July 13 · 49 min
Quantum Cameras and Sub-Diffraction Imaging with Johannes Galatsanos
What if a camera could skip the JPEG entirely and process photons at the speed of light, extracting information that conventional optics leave on the table? Diffraqtion co-founder and CEO Johannes Galatsanos joins Sebastian to explain how a quantum-inspir
July 6 · 1 hr 19 min
Episode 100: Live at Barnes & Thornburg — Reflections on the First 100 Episodes
For the 100th episode of The New Quantum Era, the microphone turns around. Bob Karr — partner at Barnes & Thornburg, co-chair of the firm's Quantum Technology Industry Group, and lead architect of the *Quantum Law Navigator* — invited Sebastian to Chi
June 29 · 38 min
Quantum EDA for Ion Trap Design with Daniel Faircloth
What if the bottleneck in scaling trapped-ion quantum computers isn't the qubits or the lasers, but the design software underneath them? Daniel Faircloth, PhD, co-founder and CTO of Nullspace, joins Sebastian to explain why ion trap engineers have been fo
June 22 · 42 min
Electrons on Superfluid Helium with Nick Farina
What if the path to a million-qubit processor doesn't run through silicon defects or massive wire bundles, but through single electrons floating a few nanometers above a film of superfluid helium? Nick Farina, co-founder and CEO of EeroQ, joins Sebastian
June 15 · 45 min
Quantum Drug Discovery and the Path to Advantage with Sabrina Maniscalco
What does it actually take to run a quantum-classical workflow on a real cancer drug — not hydrogen, not a toy molecule, but a photosensitizer already in Phase II clinical trials? Sabrina Maniscalco, CEO and co-founder of Algorithmiq, joins Sebastian to u
June 8 · 46 min
Funding the Quantum Middle: Series A/B Capital with Kris Naudts and Zeynep Koruturk of Firgun Ventures
Quantum computing has plenty of seed-stage capital and a handful of growth-stage giants — but the Series A and B rounds in between are where promising companies stall. In this episode, Sebastian sits down with Kris Naudts and Zeynep Koruturk, co-founders
June 1 · 54 min
Quantum Book Launch with Yuval Boger
Yuval Boger — Chief Commercial Officer of QuEra Computing and one of quantum's most prolific podcasters — joins Sebastian for a crossover episode that doubles as a working session between two people trying to make quantum computing comprehensible. They co
May 25 · 38 min
Fault Tolerance for Quantum Inputs and Outputs with Matthias Christandl
What happens to fault tolerance when a quantum computer's job is not to spit out a classical answer, but to produce a quantum state that gets sent somewhere else — to another core, another machine, or across a network? Mathias Christandl, professor at the
May 18 · 42 min
Philosophy of Physics Meets Quantum Engineering with Elise Crull
What does philosophy of science actually *do* for quantum technology at the moment quantum mechanics is being asked to deliver? Elise Crull — historian, philosopher of physics, and 2025 APS Fellow — joins Sebastian to talk about how interpretive choices a
May 11 · 37 min
The Quantum Control Stack with Niels Bultink
Every quantum computer — superconducting, spin, trapped ion, or neutral atom — depends on a layer most people never see: the precisely timed electronics that play qubits like a microwave-frequency piano and read the answers back. Niels Bultink, co-founder
May 4 · 38 min
Hardware-Faithful Digital Twins for Quantum Computing with Izhar Medalsy
Quantum hardware iteration is gated by the simple fact that real QPUs are expensive, scarce, and noisy in ways that generic simulators don't capture. In this episode, Izhar Medalsy, co-founder and CEO of Quantum Elements, explains why the industry is stil
April 27 · 45 min
Are We Computing Quantum in the Wrong Base? with Ivan Deutsch
Every commercial neutral-atom quantum computer today encodes information in just two energy levels of an atom that has many more — strontium has ten nuclear-spin levels, cesium has sixteen. Ivan Deutsch, one of the founding theorists of neutral-atom quant
April 20 · 41 min
Quantum Chemistry's Classical Limits with Garnet Chan
One of the most-cited arguments for near-term quantum advantage in chemistry just got a rigorous classical answer — from one of the world's leading quantum chemists. Garnet Chan's group at Caltech solved the FeMo-cofactor ground-state energy problem class
April 17 · 1 hr 2 min
Quantum Open Source with Will Zeng and Ziyaad Bhorat
Quantum computing is drawing billions in investment, but the open source software layer that could make it all work is falling through the cracks. Who fills that gap — and why should philanthropy care?
April 7 · 40 min
Simulating Quantum Materials with Arnab Banerjee
Can a quantum computer reproduce what happens when you fire neutrons at a magnetic crystal? Arnab Banerjee, the experimentalist who discovered the first signatures of a Kitaev quantum spin liquid, just proved it can — benchmarking IBM's Heron processor ag
April 1 · 37 min
Quantum Advantage Achieved with Dominik Hangleiter
Has quantum advantage actually been achieved — or is the field still arguing over its own milestones? Dominik Hangleiter, one of the leading theorists working on quantum computational advantage, joins the podcast to make the case that it has, explain why
March 23 · 37 min
Scaling Quantum Hardware Like Semiconductors with Matthijs Rijlaarsdam
The quantum computing industry has been stuck at roughly 100 qubits for years — not because of physics, but because of wiring. Matthijs Rijlaarsdam, co-founder and CEO of QuantWare, explains how his company's 3D vertical chip architecture (VIO) could brea
March 16 · 40 min
Engineering the Quantum Future with Brian Gaucher
Ever wonder why quantum computing still feels like a "cool science experiment" instead of a deployable technology? After two decades building wireless standards and quantum systems at IBM, Brian Gaucher argues that engineering—not physics—has become the c