Could the UK lead the world in quantum computing? - Dr Chris Ballance, founder, Oxford Ionics
UKTN | The Podcast
UKTN
5 • 6 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
Dr Chris Ballance, founder and CEO of Oxford Ionics, discusses how the UK has the chance to build a competitive edge in the development of quantum computing, and shares how his love of experimentation dates back to his early escapades as a pupil at school.
Founded in 2019, Oxford Ionics raised £30m in a Series A funding round in 2023. In September, the company set a new record in quantum state preparation and measurement, bring it one step closer to delivering quantum computers for commercial use.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's always the new start-ups that can just go hell for leather on one particular approach, |
| 0:12.0 | that end up winning the market. |
| 0:17.0 | Any fool can build a complex technology. To actually build something at scales, you need to build a complex technology. |
| 0:23.7 | To actually build something at scales, you need to build a simple technology. |
| 0:36.6 | Post 9-11, the UK school system wasn't too happy to have children, school children, bringing too much explosives. And the threshold for how much explosives any one school child, you know, |
| 0:39.6 | was allowed to carry into school before raising eyebrows was lower than my instinct. |
| 0:50.7 | From the first time founders to the funds that back them, innovation needs different. |
| 0:56.3 | Our episode partner, HSBC Innovation Banking, is proud to accelerate growth for tech and life science |
| 1:02.7 | businesses, creating meaningful connections and opening up a world of opportunity for entrepreneurs |
| 1:08.3 | and investors alike. Discover more at www.h.hsbc Innovationbanking.com |
| 1:15.1 | slash E.N.g. GB. Hello and welcome to the UKTN podcast, a weekly chat with the movers and shapers of the UK tech industry |
| 1:29.1 | and the destination for all things UK tech related. Today I'm joined by Chris Balance, who is the founder |
| 1:36.4 | of Oxford Ionics, a quantum technology firm which claims to be helping move quantum out of the lab |
| 1:42.8 | and into the everyday. Welcome, Chris. |
| 1:45.8 | Going to be here. Now, Chris, you might have noticed I haven't really tried to explain what it is |
| 1:50.7 | that you do. It's all to do, I think, with qubits which don't behave very well and you're trying |
| 1:55.2 | to make them behave better. But I'm going to hand over to you for that explanation because quantum |
| 1:59.2 | is fiendishly complex, isn't it? And I wouldn't |
| 2:02.1 | want to make any guesses about what it is you do. So explain for everybody in simple terms what |
| 2:07.4 | it is that you're doing. So at Oxford-Ionics, we build the world's highest performance of quantum |
| 2:11.4 | computers. So the idea behind quantum computing is really very simple. You know, we've known since the 1980s that if we |
| 2:19.5 | harness the quantum mechanical properties of nature for computation, we can make the world's most |
... |
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