A selection of notable quotes and comments from across the previous year
By Marc Ambasna-Jones 07 Jan 26 Reading time: 13 mins
“Quantum is great for edge tasks that are hard to solve with CPUs alone. Its qualities make it useful, for example, in factory floor automatisation where there are a lot of resources that you need to track and allocate and constraints that you need to deal with.”
Krisztian Benyo, technical business developer with quantum technology player Pasqal, talking to BI Foresight about the future of edge computing
“6G can help energy companies. For one thing, it can be used to check that the energy grid is stable and resilient, through sensors. Also, it can help shift energy around to where it is needed. By adding in AI, you can predict the right moment to switch a grid on and off.”
Francesca Sartori, head of sustainability research and standardisation at Nokia, talking about the SUSTAIN-6G initiative and how 6G can help build a more sustainable future.
“We’ll see quantum computers become practical much sooner, but only for highly specific tasks like materials or drug discovery. Fully fault-tolerant quantum computing that could disrupt day-to-day computing tasks is still a long way off.”
“The challenge is proving that the government can be a reliable and engaged customer for start-ups and SMEs. Smaller, more innovative companies might actually solve some problems more effectively than the traditional IT suppliers government has historically relied on.”
“Globally, research has proven that 71% of AI-skilled workers are men, compared to 29% [who are] women; and only one in five older workers have been offered AI skills training, as opposed to almost 50% of younger workers. The UK’s AI investment is predominantly clustered in London, and only 33% of AI funding is directed towards companies in growth and established stages.”
“We’ve spoken with 50 firefighters about what it would take for them to embrace the swarm within their current work protocols and we are working on an interface, so they can just click a button… the firefighters wanted to have control over how the fire was going to be attacked, with a line on the screen to say how the robots would swoop down and deliver the water.”
“By 2033, we expect to see general-purpose quantum computing libraries designed for a wide variety of quantum applications… The utility era is here, and it’s already time to explore business and scientific value with quantum computers today.”
“The most impactful innovations, however, are going to come through materials embracing the digital revolution – Materials 4.0. Materials informatics has the potential to revolutionise the way we discover, use, and recycle materials, but there is a huge effort required in the UK to deliver on this potential. We’re in a bit of a race internationally here.”
“If we design for the PowerPoint slides and not for the real world, it will fail.”
Jessica Pyett-Ellis of WM5G talking at the Connected Futures event in Bristol on why health and social care needs a tech and connectivity future that understands its problems and process limitations
“Energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions are becoming increasingly important. We are moving towards a unified, AI-driven network and embedded security functioning like a biological immune system.”
“We’ll see the first quantum-secure financial transactions within five years.”
“Once we have functional, scalable quantum repeaters, quantum networks will move from city-wide deployments to global, end-to-end encryption for financial transactions, healthcare, and national security.”
“The term ‘AI ethics’ has become a buzzword. It’s often seen as a form of activism or reduced to slogans about ‘doing good’. As a discipline, ethics requires knowledge, expertise, and an understanding of complex trade-offs… it helps organisations make better decisions and build more robust, trusted business practices.”
“Managing that hype has been very difficult. It’s quite frustrating for academics because we’ve got quite a lot of rigour.”
Ruth Oulton, professor of Quantum Photonics at the University of Bristol, speaking at a recent Foresight Live event on the challenges academics face amidst the hype surrounding quantum technologies
“Collaboration helps to overcome fragmentation in the market, ensuring that smaller or newer companies can access the resources and expertise they need to thrive. As part of this, there is a need for better signposting to connect companies with the relevant pools of talent, resources, and expertise within the industry.”
“I got connected with a16z [Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz’s VC firm] and its executive placement portfolio, then I found quantum computing, and I got bit by the quantum bug.”
TreQ CEO and founder Mandy Birch on her journey from working on drones and autonomous vehicles for the US Air Force to joining a Silicon Valley leadership programme for military veterans.
“Let’s not be Lord Kelvin. Hype is dangerous, but so is denial.”
Sir Peter Knight, chair of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme Strategic Advisory Board, talking about the quantum industry outlook while referencing the 19th-century physicist who wrongly predicted that heavier-than-air flight was impossible.
“It’s very easy to say, ‘this company got funding’ or ‘this modality looks promising’. But that’s just one tile in a vast, complex picture. If I fast-forward five years, I’d probably say this field will be about a quarter of the size it is today.”
Robert Sutor, former IBM exec and now CEO of Sutor Group Intelligence and Advisory, who likened the quantum landscape to a jigsaw puzzle where everyone is fixated on single pieces, while few are assembling the full image.
“I started looking for problems instead of pushing a solution. I spoke to an ophthalmologist at Bristol Royal Infirmary and asked for her top five problems with eye scanners. Four of them were things we already thought we could solve.”
“In local government and healthcare and transport, we’re not thinking about the nuts and bolts of the technology. What we’re thinking about is public value. How it’s going to improve sustainability, unlock growth, and deliver better services.”
Freyja Lockwood, Digital Innovation & Transformation Programme Manager at the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), on the need for JOINER to help local government improve services and drive growth.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but solving that one problem opened the door to dozens of others. We thought we were helping UKAEA process fibre signals from a fusion reactor. What we found was a much bigger opportunity to rethink how we handle signal processing across the board.”
“The biggest gaps aren’t always technical. There’s a shortage of marketing, UX, business development, even comms. Quantum doesn’t need evangelists. It needs translators.”
“Universities, start-ups, and initiatives that combine technical training with industry support, such as incubators or accelerator programs, play a crucial role. These ventures can accelerate the deployment of robotics by developing niche solutions, validating new technologies in real-world settings, and fostering a culture of experimentation.”
“Having that university support, that university mindset of let’s explore, let’s learn, let’s try things, let’s fail, is critical to creating an environment where teams can be successful.”
“Fall in love with the problem, not the product. Markets shift. Products pivot. Problems endure. If you solve a real one, people will come, they will stay, and they will pay.”
Toyosi Ogedengbe, an experienced early-stage investor at Ascension, talking about his lessons for first-time founders in our Venture View article
“We can’t do everything. But in compound semis, CMOS design and photonics, we’ve got world-class expertise. If we back it properly, we can compete with anyone.”
“The investment by the UK government in 1977 of £50m has led to well over £1bn of investment since then. Many tech start-ups directly span out of Inmos, including the one I co-founded [Motion Media Technology] and IPO’d in 1996, but the legacy of the talent here is more profound, with many globally-relevant innovations coming from those who learned the trade – and/or earned their £millions – from that Inmos investment.”
“The Transputer was a marvel of its time. A microprocessor so advanced it had features that were years ahead of its competition. Bristol’s importance to the tech industry has continued ever since, most recently demonstrated by the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing’s £225 million Isambard-AI project, one of the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers. Importantly, there are significant connections between Isambard-AI and the Inmos Transputer. The former would not have happened at all without the latter.”
Professor Simon McIntosh-Smith, director of the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing at the University of Bristol, notes that Bristol was already at the forefront of high tech in 1985, when the Inmos Transputer launched
“In quantum sensing and components, we are world leaders. Industry tells me we should specialise in big windows, like Taiwan does in chips. So we become indispensable in key niches.”
“He wanted a bike as light as an umbrella. The supplier said the wheels couldn’t take a man’s weight, so he tested them himself. That was Clive all over. If someone said it couldn’t be done, he’d do it anyway.”
“I’d like people to say that the Smart Internet Lab helped the UK to skip a generation in how it thought about connectivity… If, by 2040, Bristol is still seen as a place where you can build the future network and see its impact on real lives, then the Lab will have done its job.”
“Quantum hardware is still noisy and fragmented across competing modalities, and quantum error correction is fiendishly complex. However, software gives hardware purpose.”
“Governments have done a great job putting in money, but they’re not considered repeatable customers by investors. What I’d really like to see is a move towards corporates doing pilot programmes for applications. Once the commercial validation starts to become tangible, it will really help.”
“One of the strengths and the disadvantages of the UK quantum ecosystem is that it’s 10 years old now and that comes with a bit of baggage. We have companies in the process of cleaning themselves up but there’s a lot to be learned from those 10-year-old quantum companies that we can apply to new ones.”
“I’ve been doing the picks and shovels, the people who are servicing the quantum industry. I feel like I can get a better feel for where the quantum industry is going by who is buying what tooling.”
Sujatha Ramanujan, chief investment officer at NextCorps and managing director at Luminate, talking at Optica’s Quantum Industry Summit in Bristol on where her money is going in 2026.
Working as a technology journalist and writer since 1989, Marc has written for a wide range of titles on technology, business, education, politics and sustainability, with work appearing in The Guardian, The Register, New Statesman, Computer Weekly and many more.
