# Quantum computing for artists, musicians and game designers

An episode of [Physics World Weekly Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1400686733), 15 May 2025, 33 min.

Audio: https://media.blubrry.com/physicsworldweeklypodcast/content.blubrry.com/physicsworldweeklypodcast/PWWeekly14May2025MothQuantum.mp3

James Wootton of Moth Quantum is our podcast guest

## Transcript

[0:07] Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly
[0:10] podcast. I'm Hamish Johnston.
[0:13] Today,
[0:14] many creative industries are reliant on cutting edge
[0:18] digital technologies,
[0:20] so it's not surprising that this sector could
[0:23] easily become an early adopter of quantum computing.
[0:27] In this episode, I'm in conversation with James
[0:30] Wootton, who is chief scientific officer at Moth
[0:34] Quantum.
[0:36] Based in The UK and Switzerland,
[0:38] the company is developing
[0:40] quantum software tools for the creative industries,
[0:44] focusing on artists,
[0:46] musicians,
[0:47] and game developers.
[0:49] James joined Moth in September
[0:51] 2024
[0:52] after working on quantum error correction at IBM.
[0:57] He also has a long standing interest in
[1:00] quantum gaming
[1:02] and in creating tools that make quantum computing
[1:05] more accessible.
[1:07] He joins me down the line from Basil.
[1:10] That interview is coming up. But first, a
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[2:05] Hi, James. Welcome to the podcast.
[2:08] Hi. Great to be here.
[2:10] So, James, can you give us a brief
[2:12] in introduction to Moth?
[2:15] What does it produce, and how many employees
[2:17] does it have?
[2:19] Yes. So Moth is a quantum computing startup,
[2:22] and there are many quantum computing startups. Some
[2:25] of them focus on hardware. We're not one
[2:27] of those.
[2:28] We're one of the quantum software startups.
[2:30] Often,
[2:31] quantum software startups will focus on a particular
[2:34] industry. You have some looking at health care.
[2:36] You have some looking at finance.
[2:38] But we are the only one who focus
[2:41] on the creative industries, so things like games
[2:44] and,
[2:45] and art and music.
[2:48] So what we produce is is quantum software.
[2:51] We produce,
[2:52] software for people products for people to be
[2:55] able to use quantum computing
[2:56] in their creative practices.
[2:59] That could be from no code interfaces where
[3:02] people just have to twiddle some buttons and
[3:04] some magical quantum things will come out.
[3:07] Or it could be to,
[3:09] like,
[3:11] higher level programming languages that people could use
[3:14] to create their own,
[3:16] quantum software.
[3:18] As for how many employees we have,
[3:21] I don't know exactly.
[3:22] I'd say 15 to 20 is a sort
[3:24] of level where that we are at.
[3:27] I see. And and are those people mostly
[3:30] sort of quantum people, physicists,
[3:33] engineers, or or do you also have,
[3:36] I don't know, for for lack of a
[3:38] better word,
[3:39] creative people, musicians,
[3:41] artists,
[3:42] etcetera,
[3:43] on your staff?
[3:45] Yeah. Well, as a small company, it's good,
[3:47] that if people can do multiple things at
[3:49] once. So,
[3:51] we would like to have people who are
[3:53] quantum people and creative people.
[3:56] But, yeah, we have a research division and
[3:58] that's based, here in Basel in Switzerland,
[4:01] where people come from
[4:04] a a background
[4:05] in quantum, but they also bring expertise from
[4:08] various creative areas as well,
[4:11] either with a
[4:12] long standing passion for music or someone who,
[4:15] has has made their own quantum educational board
[4:18] games.
[4:19] We have team members,
[4:21] covering
[4:22] a full spectrum here.
[4:24] We also have
[4:26] another office in London.
[4:28] And in that office, we have more the
[4:31] the engineers, and those engineers are are usually
[4:34] from creative backgrounds. So we have one engineer
[4:36] who's just finished her master's degree,
[4:40] at, the University of Arts London,
[4:43] but is, deep in the code of of
[4:46] quantum computing as well.
[4:48] I see. So, James, before we we sort
[4:50] of focus in on some of the projects
[4:52] that you're working on at Moth, Can you
[4:55] give us a a broad stroke
[4:57] description of why quantum computing technologies
[5:01] can be useful for creating music,
[5:04] video games, visual art?
[5:08] Yeah. Sure.
[5:09] I think this is probably a question people
[5:10] asked at the beginning of computing as a
[5:13] whole, why people might wanna apply it to
[5:15] creativity. But, actually,
[5:18] games and music were some of the first
[5:19] things that people experimented with.
[5:22] Because the creative space is such a a
[5:24] large one, there are so many computational problems,
[5:28] that one could try to tackle.
[5:31] And so quantum computers coming and bringing their
[5:34] unique ability to solve certain kinds of problems,
[5:37] it's inevitable that we'll find problems within the
[5:40] creative space
[5:42] that,
[5:43] are relevant for that. But also, quantum has
[5:46] also always been something that is inspirational for
[5:49] people.
[5:50] And so there's also the aspect that it's
[5:53] quantum as inspiration,
[5:56] as something that people can can use to
[5:59] get sort of new insights. And so this
[6:01] is actually one thing that's really exciting about
[6:04] working in this area
[6:06] is that you're not searching for
[6:08] a specific right answer as you are when
[6:11] you are doing quantum chemistry and trying to
[6:13] calculate an energy
[6:14] or doing,
[6:16] factoring and trying to calculate factors.
[6:19] There is
[6:20] a realm
[6:21] before that in which it's just
[6:25] exploring the new technology and what it can
[6:27] do
[6:28] and finding unique insights from that.
[6:32] And procedural
[6:34] generation
[6:34] for games,
[6:36] That's one of the targets,
[6:38] that you have for quantum computing. What is
[6:41] procedural
[6:41] generation,
[6:42] and how could it benefit from a quantum
[6:45] computing approach?
[6:47] Yeah. So procedural generation is the algorithmic
[6:50] generation of content for things like games.
[6:55] Although it could also include things for other
[6:58] areas, as well, such as in CGI,
[7:01] just,
[7:02] generating
[7:03] textures is used to make,
[7:06] things less plasticky sometimes.
[7:10] But, I think of it mostly as its
[7:11] application in games, and there is generating content,
[7:14] which could be,
[7:16] levels. It could be story lines. It could
[7:18] be,
[7:19] characters. It could be all kinds of things.
[7:22] And, this differs from the current generative AI
[7:26] where you just, you know, you throw a
[7:29] million pictures of of cats and dogs
[7:32] into,
[7:33] an AI technology and it will eventually learn
[7:36] what a cat is, And it might then
[7:38] be able to generate new cats. But in
[7:40] procedural generation, it's more handmade. It's more tailored.
[7:44] You have to understand what it is you
[7:46] are generating.
[7:47] You have to know the rules.
[7:49] And then the task is to try and
[7:51] generate something as new and as unique,
[7:54] within
[7:55] those constraints,
[7:58] as you can,
[8:00] while satisfying
[8:01] those rules.
[8:03] And so, essentially, it's
[8:06] it's a problem as constraint satisfiability.
[8:08] You have certain constraints, and you you want
[8:10] to find something that satisfies them while
[8:14] exploring the possibility space as much as possible.
[8:17] And this is is very hard because,
[8:20] constraint satisfiability
[8:22] problems are hard
[8:23] to solve.
[8:25] So people do it in different ways.
[8:28] But because of that, they sometimes roll run
[8:30] into what's called the 10,000 bowls of oatmeal
[8:33] problem, where you have a generator
[8:35] that is technically generating something very unique every
[8:39] time, but just not doing it in a
[8:40] way that people perceptually
[8:43] care about. Just as every bowl of porridge
[8:45] is unique,
[8:46] but no one cares about the difference
[8:49] between today's and yesterday's. It's all the same.
[8:52] So having ways to really drive at the
[8:55] constraints of the liability problems and the optimization
[8:58] problems, well, are now new tools to help
[9:00] people who are building these generative systems.
[9:04] I see. And, you know, the fact that
[9:06] quantum mechanics is all about,
[9:09] probability
[9:10] and and correlations,
[9:11] does that does that sort of help? I
[9:14] mean, I I think I might be getting
[9:15] a bit sort of quantum woo y here,
[9:18] but I'm sort of thinking of, you know,
[9:20] the multiverse
[9:21] in a game, and, you know, allowing quantum
[9:24] states
[9:25] to
[9:26] evolve.
[9:27] Am I sort of out to lunch on
[9:29] that or is there something
[9:30] is there something there?
[9:32] Yeah. There was, an app a few actually
[9:35] probably about ten years ago called Universe Splitter,
[9:38] which,
[9:39] took,
[9:41] photons from Eddy Quantic,
[9:44] and measured them in one or the other,
[9:48] basis. And and you use that as a
[9:50] as a decision maker. So you would put
[9:52] in, shall I have pizza tonight or not?
[9:54] And then you would get the universe splitter
[9:56] to do it. And it's quite, like, quite
[9:58] the most narrative there that in theory, if
[10:02] you believe in the in the many world
[10:04] interpretation, then in the other universe, you're having
[10:07] pizza, but in this universe, you're not.
[10:10] So there's there's things that people could be
[10:13] inspired by in this area. But for me,
[10:15] the probabilities
[10:17] are more of a nuisance than they are
[10:19] a help because I think people
[10:21] often think of procedure generation as something very
[10:24] random even though you have to put a
[10:26] lot of effort into
[10:28] into constraining it. And you often do it
[10:30] in a seeded way. So you with a
[10:33] definite seed, you produce a definite outcome.
[10:36] So the randomness of quantum is not necessarily
[10:39] a good thing. I much prefer when running
[10:42] circuits to be calculating expectation values
[10:45] and therefore be to be getting the nice,
[10:48] solid, predictable things
[10:50] rather than,
[10:52] relying on the randomness. That's not really what
[10:54] we wanna do. I see. Okay.
[10:57] And,
[10:58] using artificial intelligence for generating characters in games
[11:03] is another quantum application that, that the company's
[11:07] interested in. Why would quantum
[11:10] AI be better than conventional
[11:12] AI for character generation?
[11:15] And and maybe you can start,
[11:17] by I mean, could you give us a
[11:19] taste of what what does character generation mean
[11:23] in a in a game?
[11:25] Yeah.
[11:26] Well, it's essentially, one can think of it
[11:28] as another part of procedural generation, and indeed
[11:31] people often think of procedural generation as a
[11:34] branch of AI.
[11:35] So it's just a continuation in some ways
[11:37] of what I said before.
[11:39] For characters, it could be from things like
[11:41] just generating
[11:42] what the character looks like.
[11:45] But,
[11:46] maybe more pertinent for this question is
[11:50] is broader things like the, the storyline
[11:54] of a game. So you might be generating
[11:56] a game and that game has
[11:58] a narrative.
[12:00] And,
[12:01] and then you can procedurally generate
[12:04] that
[12:05] narrative.
[12:06] And for that,
[12:07] you need to have some way of encoding
[12:09] the narrative. Like with any procedure generation, you
[12:12] need to know what you're generating
[12:13] to,
[12:15] encode everything in the right way in your
[12:17] generator.
[12:18] And so one can ask the question,
[12:21] what kinds of information
[12:23] are more
[12:24] naturally
[12:26] encoded
[12:27] in quantum systems
[12:29] than
[12:30] in classical systems in bits? And, of course,
[12:33] we know
[12:34] completely obvious that quantum states are more naturally
[12:38] encoded in quantum systems.
[12:40] You know, it's much easier to make a
[12:43] superposition
[12:44] than it is to write down all of
[12:46] the coefficients
[12:47] in binary.
[12:49] But that doesn't mean it's just restricted to,
[12:52] quantum physics. There's also,
[12:54] evidence that other kinds of information are more
[12:56] naturally
[12:58] encoded in quantum systems as well.
[13:00] And one
[13:02] that, some of our,
[13:05] some people
[13:06] at, Continuum have been looking at is natural
[13:09] language processing, particularly using this framework called Discocat.
[13:14] So this is
[13:16] a way of showing that, the kinds of
[13:18] mathematical structures that are good for
[13:21] encoding quantum states
[13:23] are also good for encoding
[13:26] the kinds of structures, the grammatical structures
[13:30] that you get in in natural language.
[13:33] And grammar is something that also,
[13:37] exists beyond language. So you can use ideas
[13:40] from grammar to kind of
[13:43] if you think of the the narrative of
[13:45] a game as
[13:46] essentially a very large sentence in which all
[13:49] other of sentences in the game were just
[13:52] subsets on. That that structure can also be
[13:54] expressed grammatically
[13:56] and other things in procedural gen generation. So
[13:58] the idea of grammars
[14:00] is something that even in the classical world
[14:02] is is very important in procedural generation.
[14:05] And so, we can help
[14:08] port some of those insights
[14:10] from,
[14:11] things like natural language processing
[14:13] over to procedure generation and also music.
[14:18] I see. And and and so is the
[14:20] is the idea here that using a quantum
[14:23] system, it will give you
[14:25] a computational
[14:26] advantage in the sense that you'll be able
[14:28] to,
[14:29] you know, compute,
[14:31] the things that you need for a game,
[14:34] much more quickly than a conventional com computer
[14:37] or even a conventional
[14:39] computer couldn't make those
[14:41] calculations? Or or is it more of a,
[14:43] sort of, a quality thing in the sense
[14:45] that,
[14:46] the stuff that you can get out of
[14:49] a quantum
[14:50] calculation is more
[14:52] realistic or more desirable
[14:55] to users, or or maybe it's a bit
[14:57] of both?
[14:59] Well, absolutely, it's a bit of both.
[15:01] And also I think it depends
[15:03] when we're talking
[15:05] because,
[15:06] so we
[15:07] we believe that a quantum advantage will come
[15:10] when we have fault tolerant quantum computers, and
[15:12] we don't rule out the idea that a
[15:14] quantum advantage will come before then.
[15:17] But we also are definitely not betting on
[15:20] it. So a quantum advantage being a time
[15:22] when a quantum computer can do can solve
[15:25] problems
[15:26] that
[15:27] conventional digital computers could not.
[15:31] So
[15:32] yeah, we we want to have things that
[15:34] are based on concrete speed ups. We want
[15:36] to be solving
[15:37] problems that are useful for the creative industries
[15:40] in ways that are are faster or more
[15:42] accurately, really, quantum computers aren't about speeding up
[15:46] things that already,
[15:48] run at a decent rate. They're about
[15:51] speeding up problems that we would currently not
[15:53] even think about. And therefore,
[15:55] we we'll be able to we're able to
[15:57] get new tools,
[15:59] that we wouldn't have had before. So having
[16:01] those,
[16:02] computational speed ups is very important, but that's
[16:05] for the fault tolerant era. So we're planning
[16:08] towards that, but we don't plan to deploy
[16:10] any products with computational advantage
[16:13] anytime soon.
[16:15] Within the NIST era, we have devices. We
[16:18] can use them.
[16:19] And for that, it is more about
[16:22] creating something that is,
[16:25] unique. And so it's more about the quality
[16:27] of the results
[16:29] than than anything else. So if we for
[16:32] example, one thing that we are quite interested
[16:34] in is looking at simulations of quantum time
[16:37] evolution
[16:37] because this is something that quantum computers are
[16:40] very good at. It's one of the things
[16:41] that quantum computers are naturally good at, so
[16:43] we we can see good results in the
[16:45] NISC era. It's something that a lot of
[16:48] companies are looking at for its advantages in
[16:52] in health care and material design.
[16:54] So, there's gonna be
[16:56] quantum computers and quantum software dedicated to that.
[16:59] Now how can
[17:01] we use that in the creative industries?
[17:03] And,
[17:04] well, just as a very
[17:06] hand wave of the explanation,
[17:09] physics is is very important in all of
[17:11] the creative industries.
[17:13] Musical instruments
[17:15] are physics. They are, you know, the the
[17:17] waveforms,
[17:19] that they are creating is all due
[17:21] to the physics of of
[17:23] vibration of strings, of of how it affects
[17:26] the,
[17:27] the air.
[17:29] In in games, you use simulations of physics
[17:32] in order to implement,
[17:34] certain game mechanics. A lot
[17:37] of a lot of games are based around,
[17:40] the
[17:41] how things fall and how things
[17:43] move.
[17:44] So physics is very important within game engines.
[17:47] And in fact, game engines are often used
[17:49] outside the game industry
[17:51] because of how good they are at physics.
[17:54] I was at a games conference recently where
[17:56] there was a talk by people who worked
[17:58] from one of the formula one teams
[18:01] on how they
[18:02] simulate the tracks for the for the players
[18:05] to practice on. So, I think,
[18:07] physics and visual media is also interesting. You
[18:10] get a lot of
[18:12] artists now who are producing digital media, producing
[18:15] things like animations,
[18:16] and these
[18:18] are using some sort of simulation of physics
[18:20] as well. So then the idea is, well,
[18:23] what about quantum physics? And in fact, in
[18:25] some of our artistic collaborations so far, they
[18:28] have been using ideas and simulations from quantum
[18:31] physics to generate
[18:33] things that they find very inspirational.
[18:35] I made a thing called Quantum Blurb back
[18:37] in my time at IBM,
[18:39] which,
[18:41] was it it basically intended
[18:43] as a
[18:45] a toy to for people to play within
[18:46] hackathons.
[18:47] Because coming back to my hatred of, quantum
[18:50] randomness,
[18:51] I found that when
[18:53] there were quantum game jams,
[18:55] then often people who had no idea about
[18:58] quantum would come to the quantum game jam
[18:59] with the idea of making a game and
[19:01] learning something about quantum.
[19:03] This is what people often do at game
[19:05] jams. They make a game over a short
[19:06] amount of time and use it as an
[19:08] opportunity to learn some new piece of programming
[19:11] that they haven't done before. So they came
[19:13] to learn quantum,
[19:14] but as far as they got into quantum
[19:16] was learning that if you do a Hadamard
[19:18] and then a measurement
[19:20] in a quantum circuit, then you get a
[19:22] random number generator.
[19:23] They made the random number generator,
[19:26] and then they made a game around it,
[19:28] which was entirely non quantum.
[19:30] So I thought it's good to help people
[19:32] start off not at the ground level, but
[19:34] at something a little bit more sophisticated by
[19:36] giving them a tool that does
[19:38] something.
[19:39] So I made this thing based on simulations
[19:42] of essentially simulations of quantum time evolution,
[19:46] that could be used to generate the kind
[19:48] of textures that you can use in very
[19:51] simple terrain generation,
[19:53] in procedural generation.
[19:56] And this was picked up by an artist
[19:58] who has now been using it as his
[20:00] main tool of expression for the last five
[20:02] years, and he tells me that he could
[20:05] keep on going until he dies
[20:07] just
[20:08] basing his art on on quantum blur.
[20:11] So,
[20:12] yeah, it's really become the
[20:14] the quality of the output is is what
[20:16] is important to him. He finds it inspirational,
[20:19] and this is something that we see with
[20:21] other artists as well, not just in visual
[20:23] media, but also
[20:25] in in in, music as well.
[20:28] I see. So so the company's interest in
[20:30] in visual
[20:32] art
[20:33] goes beyond,
[20:35] creating visuals for games.
[20:37] You're you're working with artists. I mean, do
[20:39] do you work with people in film and
[20:42] television, for example,
[20:43] to create,
[20:45] visuals
[20:46] for for those media, or is that is
[20:48] that something possibly for the future?
[20:51] So well, we're a young company, so we
[20:53] have lots of plans and lots of contacts.
[20:56] And,
[20:57] we are actively
[20:58] pursuing
[20:59] those kinds of, activities at the moment.
[21:02] But it's not not anything we've got
[21:04] signed
[21:05] up that I've got a a nice official
[21:07] thing that I can, talk about it on
[21:09] a podcast and provide.
[21:11] I see. Well, we'll have to we'll have
[21:13] to get you get you back to talk
[21:15] about that. And finally, James, music is also
[21:18] a a a very big,
[21:20] target, I suppose, for MOTH. Company's
[21:23] very active in
[21:25] developing,
[21:26] something called AKTIA. Did I say that right?
[21:29] AkTIA? It's AKTIAUS as an s. AKTIAUS.
[21:32] Oh, sorry. AKTIAUS.
[21:34] And that's a quantum
[21:35] synthesizer and sound controller.
[21:38] Can you can you talk about that? How
[21:40] does it use quantum physics to make music?
[21:43] Yeah.
[21:44] So well,
[21:46] the names of all of our products.
[21:48] So this is maybe one thing just to
[21:50] take an aside to to emphasize.
[21:52] Yeah. We we are a company that wants
[21:54] to be building products based on quantum computing.
[21:56] Even though we don't think a quantum advantage
[21:58] is necessarily coming into a fault tolerance,
[22:01] we can still be
[22:03] building products,
[22:05] in the meantime.
[22:06] And so Acteus is kind of step zero,
[22:09] you might say, because it's entirely based around,
[22:12] simulations of of of quantum.
[22:15] So you're emulating a quantum computer rather than
[22:17] actually running on a quantum computer.
[22:20] And it's essentially,
[22:22] you could think of it as an educational
[22:24] tool or or a way of getting your
[22:26] first taste of of quantum because it's basically
[22:29] a block sphere that you plug into a
[22:31] synthesizer.
[22:33] So a block sphere is a representation of
[22:35] a single,
[22:36] qubit.
[22:37] So, you know, for I've been talking maybe
[22:40] throughout most of this assuming people know what
[22:42] quantum computing is, but, of course, it's built
[22:44] on the qubit, the the two level quantum
[22:46] system.
[22:48] And so,
[22:50] this means that you can you have these
[22:51] two number two complex values. You have these
[22:54] restrictions of normalization,
[22:56] which means that the mathematics
[22:58] of a qubit
[22:59] or just one qubit is essentially the same
[23:02] as the mathematics
[23:03] of a of a point on a sphere.
[23:06] So there's this great jet, a visualization of
[23:09] what's going on in a qubit with what's
[23:10] going on in the point of a sphere.
[23:13] On on the point of a sphere, you
[23:14] have the x axis, the y axis, the
[23:16] zed axis telling you where your
[23:18] where your position is. So you could those
[23:21] are three real numbers that you could plug
[23:23] into various,
[23:24] knobs and dials on a synthesizer.
[23:28] So then you can be placing quantum gates
[23:31] and seeing how that,
[23:33] affects the point that you're at on the
[23:36] block sphere.
[23:37] So you look at the block sphere, you
[23:39] get an idea,
[23:40] from that visualization.
[23:42] But, with
[23:44] by plugging into a synthesizer, it also gives
[23:46] you a way of sonifying it and giving
[23:48] you maybe a bit more of a hands
[23:50] on experience of what happens when you put
[23:52] those quantum gates in.
[23:55] Yeah. So that's that's what we're doing
[23:58] with,
[23:59] Actias.
[24:00] But also another thing that we have out
[24:02] currently is our quantum audio package. So this
[24:05] is a Python package, and it's it's also
[24:07] music based.
[24:09] It's it's taking a few different ways that
[24:10] people over time have proposed encoding music
[24:14] in quantum systems
[24:15] and also taken a few different ways that
[24:17] people have proposed,
[24:19] encoding
[24:20] images in quantum systems and then hacked them
[24:22] to do music instead.
[24:24] And then that gives you a way
[24:27] of encoding music in quantum systems in a
[24:29] in a more sophisticated way than in Actias,
[24:32] but in also less of a a fun
[24:34] hands on way.
[24:36] I see. And and just in terms of,
[24:39] you know, your customers,
[24:41] how
[24:43] would
[24:44] I mean, you mentioned that you are simulating
[24:47] quantum computers for for some of these applications,
[24:50] but
[24:51] would, you know, if you did have a
[24:53] a quantum algorithm
[24:54] that a customer was using to, I don't
[24:57] know, generate material
[24:59] for a
[25:00] game, would they
[25:01] would they then lease time on
[25:04] on a on a quantum computer from a
[25:07] hardware provider?
[25:09] I'm you know, I'm just trying to understand
[25:10] how, you you know, the the the whole
[25:13] sort of ecosphere
[25:14] of of the industry and how how you
[25:17] would see that happening.
[25:19] Yeah.
[25:19] Yeah. So these these early things there in
[25:22] the
[25:23] or Actus at least is in the realms
[25:25] of simulation, but everything that we build in
[25:27] future, we want to be,
[25:30] moving into actually running on hardware.
[25:33] So so yeah, the infrastructure of that, how
[25:35] does that work?
[25:36] Well, one sort of dream I have in
[25:38] some ways is that,
[25:40] IBM Quantum offers everyone
[25:42] ten minutes free access on their systems
[25:45] per month. And so what would be great
[25:48] is to build the software that people can
[25:50] plug it into their IBM Quantum free access,
[25:54] and use that and, you know, really use
[25:57] those IBM quantum systems so much that they
[25:59] they have to think about revisiting that policy.
[26:02] So that that's that's the dream I have.
[26:05] But,
[26:06] more generally,
[26:08] you know, one of the main sort of
[26:10] the product of all products, the thing behind
[26:12] everything is gonna be the the infrastructure, the
[26:15] back end,
[26:16] where,
[26:17] all of our products point to this way
[26:20] that we are handling all of the quantum
[26:22] system. So the people
[26:23] themselves
[26:24] will not need to worry about,
[26:27] how they're going to run it on a
[26:28] quantum system, how they're gonna do the error
[26:30] mitigation or error correction when the time comes.
[26:33] They're not gonna need to worry
[26:35] about which device they have to use or
[26:37] which qubits on that device are the best
[26:40] qubits.
[26:40] All of that we'll take care of,
[26:44] and they just have to come along and,
[26:47] and use the product.
[26:49] I see. And if you could, you know,
[26:50] sort of gaze into your quantum crystal ball,
[26:55] when I mean, when do you think I
[26:57] mean, is that something that can happen now,
[27:00] I mean, you know, in terms of
[27:02] you or a customer
[27:05] booking time on a on a quantum computer
[27:07] and doing something useful.
[27:09] Or is that something for five years in
[27:11] the future or ten years in the future?
[27:14] No. It's absolutely
[27:15] now. I mean, we've got a reservation
[27:18] for one of the QPUs tomorrow morning, for
[27:20] example, where we are gonna run a bunch
[27:22] of stuff.
[27:24] But also,
[27:25] it can be done at any time,
[27:28] as long as you're willing to get in
[27:29] the queue.
[27:30] So, these things are already there. We can
[27:33] very much run things on quantum computers now.
[27:35] And in fact, our our forthcoming
[27:38] projects,
[27:39] which are based around quantum reservoir computing,
[27:42] are much more solidly based around running it
[27:45] on real quantum hardware.
[27:46] There is a, secret demo
[27:49] of our upcoming game that that is out
[27:51] there in the world
[27:52] if people can go and find it.
[27:55] But,
[27:56] once that goes beyond being a demo, it
[27:58] will be something that,
[28:00] could for example, we haven't figured out the
[28:03] details yet, but it's it's it's gonna be
[28:05] a a game in which levels are generated
[28:08] procedurally,
[28:09] and they'll be generated
[28:11] on a quantum computer. So it might be,
[28:13] for example, every day it refreshes.
[28:16] And so every day we're running it on
[28:18] a quantum computer to get the new level.
[28:21] Right. Any any hints for our listeners about,
[28:25] about about where they can find this demo?
[28:28] Well, it,
[28:29] if they're a 10 year old, they already
[28:31] know.
[28:32] Let's let's get it like that. Okay.
[28:34] I'm sure we've got a few ten year
[28:37] old listeners out there. And
[28:39] if I can
[28:40] if you can indulge me, James, just by
[28:42] answering one more question.
[28:44] It's the International Year of Quantum Science and
[28:47] Technology.
[28:48] And so whenever I interview somebody,
[28:52] associated with quantum science and technology,
[28:55] I'm asking them one question,
[28:58] and that question is, what does quantum
[29:01] physics
[29:02] mean to you? So do do do you
[29:04] think you could have a go
[29:06] at answering that question? And, you know, you
[29:08] can say anything. It doesn't Yeah. It doesn't
[29:10] have to be technical. It can be personal
[29:12] or whimsical. Or
[29:13] Mhmm.
[29:14] Well, I've been so deep in it for
[29:16] a long time now. So it means just,
[29:19] it's what I do every day. It's it's,
[29:22] so it's my job, but it's also
[29:24] my hobby, I suppose. The the reason I
[29:27] got into
[29:29] doing these kinds of things, looking at games
[29:32] and art,
[29:33] was because I wanted to supplement my my
[29:36] job of quantum error correction
[29:38] with things that were gonna be
[29:41] more accessible to the general public. The the
[29:44] first thing I ever did in this space
[29:46] was in 2016 to make a citizen science
[29:49] game.
[29:51] And I think I've I had an article
[29:53] in Physics World. It might have been about
[29:55] that, but it if it wasn't about that,
[29:56] it was on about one of its successes.
[30:00] So, yeah, that's what it means to me.
[30:01] It it's a job,
[30:03] but it's also
[30:04] a passion.
[30:06] Oh, that's great, James. And I will put
[30:08] a link to that article in the notes
[30:11] for this podcast.
[30:12] Thanks so much for joining me today, and,
[30:15] best wishes to you and all your colleagues
[30:18] at Moth for the future.
[30:20] Thanks a lot. It's great to be here.
[30:29] That was James Wootton of Moth Quantum.
[30:33] It was one hundred years ago that Werner
[30:35] Heisenberg formulated
[30:37] matrix mechanics,
[30:38] which provided an appealing mathematical
[30:42] framework
[30:42] for explaining the puzzling observations
[30:45] of the quantum world.
[30:48] Heisenberg's
[30:48] inspiration came on the German island of Helgoland,
[30:53] where he was seeking relief from his severe
[30:56] allergies.
[30:57] But what if Heisenberg
[30:59] had never made the journey to Helgoland
[31:03] in the first place?
[31:04] In the latest episode of the Physics World
[31:07] Stories podcast,
[31:09] the writer, Kevlin Henney,
[31:11] discusses his new flash fiction,
[31:15] Heisenberg,
[31:17] not in Helgoland.
[31:19] It was written exclusively
[31:21] for Physics World as part of the International
[31:25] Year of Quantum Science and Technology.
[31:28] The story spans two worlds,
[31:31] the one we know
[31:32] and an alternative reality
[31:35] in which Heisenberg
[31:37] never visits the island of Helgoland.
[31:40] That episode
[31:41] is hosted by Andrew Glester,
[31:43] and you can listen to it on the
[31:45] Physics World website
[31:47] or at your favorite podcast provider.
[31:51] Just look for the headline,
[31:53] alternate quantum realities.
[31:55] What if Heisenberg
[31:57] stayed at home?

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