The Quantum Economy Podcast

Q-Day was supposed to be 2035. Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser says it is now 2029 because the qubits needed to break RSA-2048 have fallen from a million to as few as 10,000, according to recent research from Google and Oratomic. If he is right, RSA-2048, which still protects much of the internet, has about three years left. Hauser co-founded Acorn Computers, where two engineers designed Arm's processor on almost no budget, and he now invests across several quantum modalities.
Anders Indset sits down with Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Acorn Computers and Amadeus Capital Partners, at the Austrian Embassy in London to ask what the Arm story teaches about quantum, why Europe produces startups but loses them at scale, and how far computing, biology and physics can go before they run into the question of what a human being is.
In this conversation, they explore:
Why Q-Day moved from 2035 to 2029, and how the qubit estimate dropped from a million to 10,000-26,000
How two engineers with no money built the Arm processor, and why "less is more" put 350 billion chips in the world
Which of the five qubit modalities could win, and why the measure of progress may shift to operations per second per dollar
Where quantum advantage already exists, and how better error correction and AI-discovered algorithms could widen it
Whether quantum computers will leave the data center for phones, drones and robots
Why Europe has plenty of startups but loses its scale-ups, and what the Scale Up Europe Fund is meant to fix
Why Hermann says Arm added $200 billion in three years, about what the German car industry took a century to build
Why a pendulum can compute with no energy, and what the Landauer limit says about the cost of a bit
Whether a brain can be simulated, and what Penrose's quantum-consciousness idea adds
How Constructive Bio built virus-proof bacteria, and whether reality itself could be a simulation

About Hermann Hauser
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hermannhauser
Website - https://www.amadeuscapital.com/team/hermann-hauser/
About The Quantum Economy Podcast
A series exploring quantum theory, quantum tech, AI, and the evolution of intelligence, and how these forces redefine the economy, value creation, and the future of human systems.
Learn more: https://thequantumeconomy.com
Contact: podcast@thequantumeconomy.com
YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnjrEO3TF1lUTutnqlfA3x88Rp0gVkOmD
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6pepc2PaCd06FHlf1pzDOg
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-quantum-economy-podcast/id1828917980
About Anders Indset
Anders Indset is a business philosopher and author of seven international bestsellers, including The Singularity Paradox: Bridging the Gap Between Humanity and AI and Ex Machina – The God Experiment. As founder of tomorrowmensch, he invests in early-stage science and technology and convenes scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs working on what comes after the current paradigm.
NEW BOOK: The Quantum Economy
https://andersindset.com/shop/The-Quantum-Economy-p803754261
Website: https://andersindset.com
tomorrowmensch: https://tomorrowmensch.com
LinkedIn (personal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersindset/
LinkedIn (tomorrowmensch): https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomorrowmensch/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andersindset
Substack: https://andersindset.substack.com/
X: http://x.com/andersindset
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#quantumcomputing #technology #podcast

Most quantum computers being built today chase more qubits and better error correction. Marta Estarellas's company Qilimanjaro went the other way: an analog system that lets physics do the computation, unlocked with fluxonium qubits that hold record coherence times. The bet is that the future of supercomputing is not one machine but a multimodality of digital, analog, and classical systems working together.
Anders Indset sits down with Marta Estarellas, CEO of Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech, the Barcelona full-stack quantum company behind Europe's first analog quantum computer installed at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, to ask what quantum computing looks like when you stop treating the gate-based machine as the only future.
In this conversation, they explore:
Why analog quantum computing lets you skip gate decomposition and let the physics compute directly

How adiabatic quantum computing and gate-based quantum computing are formally equivalent, but analog opens a different execution path

The fluxonium qubit and why it now holds the best coherence records

What happens when quantum computers finally leave the cryostat and move to room temperature

Whether an analog quantum machine still counts as a computer through the lens of David Deutsch's universal quantum computer

The near-term applications that are already realistic, from spectral data analysis to drug discovery

Quantum-enhanced AI and whether quantum computing can fix what is broken in large language models

Europe's positioning versus the US and China in the global quantum race

The timeline: what actually changes by 2030 versus what stays hype

Chapter Breakdown:
00:00 -Introduction
 08:55- The two types of qubits: fluxonium versus transmon
 11:34 -Is an analog quantum machine actually a computer?
 20:20 -Adiabatic quantum computing and gate-based quantum computing
 27:36 -The timeline: will commercial quantum arrive by 2030? 
35:17- Can quantum chips ever leave cryogenics? 43:50 How quantum changes biology and drug discovery
 48:30- Quantum-enhanced AI versus classical large language models 54:10 Europe versus the US versus China in the quantum race 
01:05:09 -What feels normal in 2036?
About Marta P Estarellas
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpestarellas/
Website - https://qilimanjaro.tech/
About The Quantum Economy Podcast
A series exploring quantum theory, quantum tech, AI, and the evolution of intelligence, and how these forces redefine the economy, value creation, and the future of human systems. Learn more: https://thequantumeconomy.com
Contact: podcast@thequantumeconomy.com
YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnjrEO3TF1lUTutnqlfA3x88Rp0gVkOmD
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6pepc2PaCd06FHlf1pzDOg Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-quantum-economy-podcast/id1828917980
About Anders Indset
Anders Indset is a business philosopher and author of seven international bestsellers, including The Singularity Paradox: Bridging the Gap Between Humanity and AI and Ex Machina – The God Experiment. As founder of tomorrowmensch, he invests in early-stage science and technology and convenes scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs working on what comes after the current paradigm.
NEW BOOK: The Quantum Economy https://andersindset.com/shop/The-Quantum-Economy-p803754261
Website: https://andersindset.com tomorrowmensch: https://tomorrowmensch.com LinkedIn (personal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersindset/ LinkedIn (tomorrowmensch): https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomorrowmensch/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andersindset Substack: https://andersindset.substack.com/ X: http://x.com/andersindset
Support & Share
If this conversation shifted how you think about biology, consciousness, or the future of quantum tech, like it, comment, and send it to someone who'd get into it. Subscribe for more conversations with the people shaping the quantum economy.

How much do we really understand about life?
In this episode of The Quantum Economy Podcast, Anders Indset speaks with Dr. Nirosha Murugan, Canada Research Chair in Tissue Biophysics, founder of Helioflux. In her research, she investigates the physical principles that underlie living systems.
In this conversation, they explore:
Why biology may need to move beyond a purely biochemical understanding of life
How energy and information shape living systems
Whether consciousness emerges from the brain or from more fundamental physical processes
What slime mold can teach us about intelligence, AI, and distributed cognition
How quantum biology could transform medicine and our understanding of health
Whether reality itself could be a simulation, and what that would mean for free will
Why philosophy is becoming increasingly important as science pushes the boundaries of life, intelligence, and longevity
This is a conversation about quantum biology, consciousness, artificial intelligence, regenerative medicine, and one of the biggest scientific questions of our time: What does it actually mean to be alive?
About Nirosha Murugan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nirosha-murugan/ Murugan Lab: https://themuruganlab.com/ Substack: https://tseenergy.substack.com/

About Anders Indset
Anders Indset is the world's leading business philosopher and the author of seven international bestsellers. With recent works such as The Singularity Paradox: Bridging the Gap Between Humanity and AI and Ex Machina – The God Experiment, his thought leadership has expanded far beyond economics and classical philosophy, earning him recognition from leading scientists and technologists, including prominent physicists.
As the founder of tomorrowmensch, he invests in breakthrough science and technology and convenes leading thinkers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are shaping the future.
NEW BOOK: The Quantum Economy https://andersindset.com/shop/The-Quantum-Economy-p803754261
Website: https://andersindset.com/
tomorrowmensch: https://tomorrowmensch.com/
LinkedIn (personal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersindset/

LinkedIn (tomorrowmensch): https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomorrowmensch/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andersindset
X: http://x.com/andersindset

What if some of the most important questions in physics are still waiting to be properly asked? In this episode of The Quantum Economy Podcast, Anders Indset speaks with Chiara Marletto, physicist at the University of Oxford and co-developer of Constructor Theory alongside David Deutsch. Constructor Theory is one of the most ambitious new frameworks in fundamental physics today, going beneath the laws of motion to ask a deeper question: what is possible, what is impossible and why.
In this conversation, they explore:
What Constructor Theory is and how it offers a new way to think about physical reality, from information and thermodynamics to the physics of life and the mind
Why time may be more fundamental and more difficult to explain than current physical theories suggest
Why physics is not only a technical discipline, but also a deeply creative act of imagination and explanation
Why both the education system and the funding system increasingly struggle with forms of knowledge creation that cannot easily be measured or categorized
Why many of the most important research questions today do not fit existing institutional frameworks and therefore often remain underexplored
Why progress in science depends on creating environments where difficult and foundational questions can still be pursued

This is a conversation about knowledge, creativity, physics, and the institutional structures that shape what kinds of questions society is willing to explore.

Episode breakown:
00:00 - Introduction: Why Physics Needs a Revolution
02:37 - Constructor Theory Explained: A New Foundation for Physics
09:09 - Why Quantum Mechanics Can't Explain Information & Life
19:36 - Is Darwinian Evolution Just Physics? Reductionism Debate
30:47 - What Is Time Really? A Physicist's Surprising Answer
38:03 - Quantum Theory at 100: Why We've Stopped Making Progress
50:42 - The Physics of Consciousness & What AI Gets Wrong
1:01:18 - Why Science Funding Is Killing Fundamental Research

About Chiara Marletto
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiara-marletto-1b2338227/
https://www.chiaramarletto.com/
https://www.constructortheory.org/

About Anders Indset
Anders Indset is the world’s leading business philosopher and the author of seven international bestsellers. With recent works such as The Singularity Paradox: Bridging the Gap Between Humanity and AI and Ex Machina – The God Experiment, his thought leadership has expanded far beyond economics and classical philosophy – earning him recognition from leading scientists and technologists, including prominent physicists. As the founder of tomorrowmensch, he invests in breakthrough science and technologies and convenes leading thinkers, investors, and entrepreneurs shaping the future.

NEW BOOK
The Quantum Economy
https://andersindset.com/shop/The-Quantum-Economy-p803754261

https://andersindset.com/
https://tomorrowmensch.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersindset/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomorrowmensch/
https://www.instagram.com/andersindset
https://andersindset.substack.com/
http://x.com/andersindset

The quantum computing race is obsessed with one number: qubit count. But what if that’s simply not the right metric?
In this episode, Anders Indset speaks with Thomas Luschmann, Co-Founder and COO of Peak Quantum — a Munich-based deep-tech startup that embeds error protection directly into the hardware architecture, rather than relying on costly error correction after the fact.
In this conversation, they explore:
Why more qubits alone will never deliver industrially useful quantum computing and what "better qubits" actually means
How Peak Quantum's hardware-intrinsic approach compares to cat qubits, fluxonium, and topological qubits
What it really takes to turn world-class university research into a fundable deep-tech company
Whether Europe can build a sovereign quantum future or whether economic reality will force its best startups to look elsewhere
What it means to build technology that may already be beyond our full understanding and what that tells us about where humanity is headed
Thomas also shares Peak Quantum's 12-month proof-of-concept roadmap and his honest take on deep-tech fundraising, talent, and the asymmetry of who gets access to the first truly powerful quantum machines.
Whether you're interested in quantum hardware, European innovation, or the deeper questions at the edge of science and society, this conversation goes well beyond the qubit count.

About Thomas Luschmann
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-luschmann/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/peak-quantum-computing/
https://peakquantum.de/

About Anders Indset
Anders Indset is the world’s leading business philosophers and the author of seven international bestsellers. With recent works such as Ex Machina – The God Experiment and The Singularity Paradox: Bridging the Gap Between Humanity and AI, his thought leadership has expanded far beyond economics and classical philosophy – earning him recognition from leading scientists and technologists, including prominent physicists. As the founder of tomorrowmensch, he invests in breakthrough science and technologies and convenes leading thinkers, investors, and entrepreneurs shaping the future.

NEW BOOK
The Quantum Economy
https://andersindset.com/shop/The-Quantum-Economy-p803754261

https://andersindset.com/
https://tomorrowmensch.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersindset/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomorrowmensch/
https://www.instagram.com/andersindset
http://x.com/andersindset