Matilda Bailey has spent her career navigating the complex evolution of the data center, from the first massive wireless rollouts to the current edge computing revolution. Now, she is turning her attention to the most significant shift since the birth of the internet: the move from classical bits to quantum entangled pairs. As a specialist who has watched networking become the backbone of modern society, she views the current quantum era not as a separate scientific curiosity, but as the next logical step in enterprise infrastructure. This interview explores how the industry is moving beyond the “spooky” theoretical realm into practical, room-temperature hardware that utilizes existing fiber. We discuss the critical role of the network as the true bottleneck for quantum utility and how scale-out methodologies will define the next century of connectivity.
The discussion explores the necessity of shifting the focus from quantum processors to the networks that connect them, the development of universal switching hardware that preserves fragile quantum states, and the immediate commercial applications for security and high-speed financial synchronization. We also delve into the technical breakthroughs of room-temperature entanglement sources and the potential for a distributed quantum compiler to revolutionize how we run complex circuits.
For years, the industry has focused almost exclusively on increasing qubit counts on individual processors, but you suggest the real challenge lies elsewhere. How do we apply classical scale-out methodologies to the “spooky” world of quantum computing to overcome current limitations?
The current state of quantum computing reminds me of the early days of mainframe computers, where everything was contained within a single, massive, and fragile unit. However, history teaches us that true power comes from the network; the same scale-out methodology that built the modern internet is what will finally make quantum computing commercially viable. Right now, the processor isn’t actually the primary bottleneck holding us back from practical applications. Instead, it is the lack of a robust network capable of connecting these processors together to pool their resources. By treating quantum systems like nodes in a classical data center, we can potentially accelerate the arrival of useful quantum computing by decades. This shift in perspective allows us to stop worrying about building the one “perfect” giant processor and start focusing on how to link smaller, manageable systems into a cohesive, powerful fabric.
In what ways does the movement of information in a quantum network fundamentally break the traditional rules of packets and routers that have governed your field for decades?
Classical networking is built on the movement of data packets through silicon switches and routers, but quantum networking operates on a level that feels almost like science fiction. In this new paradigm, we aren’t transporting bits of data directly across a wire; instead, we are distributing entangled photon pairs between nodes. When two photons are entangled, measuring the state of one instantly determines the state of the other, regardless of whether they are centimeters or kilometers apart. This enables a process called quantum teleportation, where a qubit effectively disappears at the sender’s end and reappears at the receiver’s end without physically traversing the distance in between. It is a profound departure from the traditional hop-by-hop routing we are used to, though it still respects the laws of physics. For instance, even though the qubit transfer feels instantaneous, the receiver still needs a classical signal—traveling at the standard speed of light—to know how to interpret the arriving information, ensuring that no information actually moves faster than light.
Could you elaborate on the significance of the Universal Quantum Switch and the physical engineering required to keep these fragile quantum states intact during the switching process?
The engineering required for a quantum switch is incredibly demanding because standard optical switching hardware is simply too “noisy” and would collapse the fragile quantum states we are trying to preserve. I was recently struck by the sight of a prototype chip built from thin-film lithium niobate, which is small enough to fit into a shirt pocket but powerful enough to handle these complex operations. This Universal Quantum Switch is designed to be modality-independent, which is a massive win for the industry. Because different quantum computers encode information in different ways—some use polarization, while others use time bins or frequency bins—a standard switch would lock an operator into a single hardware vendor. This new switch can convert between these different modalities, allowing a single network fabric to interconnect a heterogeneous mix of superconducting, neutral atom, and ion trap systems. It’s the equivalent of having a universal translator for the quantum world, ensuring that we don’t end up with isolated islands of technology that cannot speak to one another.
What are the technical hurdles of distributing 200 million entangled photon pairs per second over existing infrastructure, and why is the New York experiment such a milestone?
One of the biggest hurdles in quantum networking has always been the requirement for specialized, often cryogenic, environments to keep the hardware stable. However, the latest entanglement sources are now capable of generating 200 million entangled photon pairs per second while operating at standard room temperatures. This is a game-changer because it means we don’t need dedicated, ultra-cooled quantum fiber plants; we can run these signals over the same fiber infrastructure that already snakes beneath our streets. The recent experiments in New York proved this wasn’t just a lab fantasy, as researchers ran entanglement-swapping tests over live, operational fiber in the city. Surprisingly, the rates achieved on that live fiber were actually better than what we typically see in controlled lab environments. This proves that the transition from a “spooky” physics experiment to a functional utility is happening much faster than many skeptics predicted.
Beyond futuristic computing, how can enterprise leaders leverage quantum properties for immediate gains in security and high-frequency operations today?
Many people think quantum technology is a decade away, but there are classical applications that can benefit from quantum networking right now. Take “Quantum Sync,” for example: in high-frequency trading, where every microsecond represents millions of dollars, the propagation delay of classical signals is a massive liability. By using entangled states between two trading desks separated by tens of kilometers, firms can make joint decisions without waiting for a traditional message to cross the link, providing a 10% to 15% advantage over any classical coordination scheme. Then there is the security aspect, specifically “Quantum Alert,” which addresses the “harvest now, decrypt later” threat. Because of the no-cloning theorem, which states that quantum information can be moved but never copied, any attempt by an attacker to tap into the fiber and observe the photons will inevitably break the pattern of detections. This makes the system effectively foolproof against eavesdroppers, as an attacker cannot inject replacement entangled photons to hide their presence.
What does the architecture of a quantum data center look like when integrating heterogeneous systems from various vendors through these new protocols?
The architecture of a quantum data center is beginning to mirror the pod-based topology we see in classical environments, where processors and shared resources are grouped and interconnected through layers of switching. To manage this, we use three primary entanglement protocols: Emitter-Scatterer, where a photon interacts with a matter qubit; Emitter-Emitter, where photons from both sides meet at a central measurement device; and Scatter-Scatter, which uses two sources to achieve transitive entanglement. Managing this complexity requires a distributed quantum compiler that can take a large quantum circuit and partition it across multiple processors. This compiler isn’t just about distribution; it also handles distributed error correction through something called syndrome measurement. This is a non-destructive operation that detects and corrects errors without collapsing the quantum state, ensuring that the network interconnect doesn’t introduce noise into the delicate computation. It’s a multi-layered approach that allows us to stitch together disparate quantum nodes into a single, high-performing end-to-end network.
What is your forecast for quantum networking?
I believe we are on the cusp of seeing the “Quantum Internet of Things” emerge, where the network becomes the primary value-driver rather than the standalone computer. In the next few years, we will see a rapid transition from specialized lab tests to the integration of quantum-secured links in every major financial and governmental hub. We will stop seeing quantum as a separate, elite tier of technology and instead view it as a high-performance layer of our existing classical infrastructure. As we perfect the transduction process—converting quantum information between different physical types like light and matter—we will see a truly unified fabric where heterogeneous systems from IBM, Atom Computing, and others work in a seamless, distributed fashion. The “spookiness” will fade into the background, replaced by the same reliability and scale that we expect from our modern fiber-optic networks today.
