Prediction Open AI assessment confidence: 90% certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Shadbolt: Quantum computers will solve simulations impossible on classical supercomputers

Pete Shadbolt · Raising $2 Billion to Become the SpaceX of Quantum | PsiQuantum's Pete Shadbolt · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea · Sep 10, 2025 · at 24:25

Dr. Pete Shadbolt, CSO of PsiQuantum, explains why quantum computing is fundamentally required to simulate chemistry, molecular catalysts, and materials science.

0:00 / 0:20exact quote · 20.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Our conventional supercomputers suck at predicting the properties of these microscopic things. And that happens to be exactly the set of problems where a quantum computer is perfectly suited and where we will solve problems that can never be solved by any conventional supercomputer that you could ever build.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Pete Shadbolt

Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2030
Shadbolt: One-million-qubit quantum computer will outperform all global conventional compute
“A single million qubit quantum computer would outperform The net total of conventional computing on the entire planet. So you take all of the supercomputers on the planet, you take every AWS system, every Azure system, you add them all together, and we trash t…”
Pete Shadbolt Sep 10, 2025 ▶ 29:25 Raising $2 Billion to Become the SpaceX of Quantum | PsiQuantum's Pete Shadbolt · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shadbolt: Useful quantum computing requires roughly one million qubits
“The general consensus is that you need more like a million qubits to do anything commercially impactful with a quantum computer.”
Pete Shadbolt Sep 10, 2025 ▶ 6:38 Raising $2 Billion to Become the SpaceX of Quantum | PsiQuantum's Pete Shadbolt · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Disclosure
Shadbolt: PsiQuantum's million-qubit bet relies entirely on existing semiconductor fabs
“The only reason that we could afford to make that really extreme bet that we're going to go straight to a million qubits. The only reason that we felt that was plausible is that our technology fits into the fabs and the OSATs and the contract contract manufact…”
Pete Shadbolt Sep 10, 2025 ▶ 14:52 Raising $2 Billion to Become the SpaceX of Quantum | PsiQuantum's Pete Shadbolt · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Insight
Shadbolt: Quantum will parallel AI's sudden breakthrough via hardware and architecture
“It was really the convergence of two things to my mind the availability of hardware that was built for another purpose in this case, gaming GPUs, and then also progress on the architecture where I see very strong parallels between what we've done and what has …”
Pete Shadbolt Sep 10, 2025 ▶ 18:36 Raising $2 Billion to Become the SpaceX of Quantum | PsiQuantum's Pete Shadbolt · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shadbolt: Semiconductor industry and PsiQuantum use almost no AI in chip design
“We basically don't use AI at all inside the company to design chips. And I think if you go and look at people who are building millions of chips in industry, there's a very small amount of AI, if any, that's being involved in the actual design of those chips t…”
Pete Shadbolt Sep 10, 2025 ▶ 34:01 Raising $2 Billion to Become the SpaceX of Quantum | PsiQuantum's Pete Shadbolt · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shadbolt: AI will not dramatically accelerate PsiQuantum's hardware timelines
“So no, I don't think the AI is going to dramatically reduce our timelines. Currently our timelines are mostly determined as far as I can tell by infrastructure, right? We're breaking ground on these sites in Australia and Chicago. These are roughly a hundred m…”
Pete Shadbolt Sep 10, 2025 ▶ 34:48 Raising $2 Billion to Become the SpaceX of Quantum | PsiQuantum's Pete Shadbolt · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 160 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.