The DTC Interview: Quantum Source’s Oded Melamed

After Sony acquired his first company, Altair Semiconductor, for $212M, Oded Melamed, a former competitive cyclist, could have ridden off into the sunset, and no one would have questioned his choice. “Frankly speaking, I thought that was going to be my last job in life, until I met some of my old friends who told me about a technology they found at the Weizmann Institute that had the potential to change the world.”

What they showed Melamed was a technological approach to enable photonic quantum computers to scale computing to millions of qubits while mitigating implementation challenges regarding the physical size and cooling of these powerful machines. These current barriers limit the massive impact large-scale photonic quantum computers are expected to have across entire industries, such as health and medicine, where they could support physicians with treatment optimization for complex diseases and massively reduce development timelines of new drugs.

After months of consulting the experienced co-founding team of Gil Semo, Dan Charash, and Prof. Barak Dayan—Melamed joined as CEO, and together, they publicly launched Quantum Source in 2022. “Experienced” is a bit of an understatement, considering these team members’ collective past successes includes founding and exiting three companies for over $900M combined.

Before announcing an extended Seed funding led by DTC, we sat down with Melamed to understand the industry’s progress, the space, the inflection point, and the motivations behind their endeavor.

“With our technology, you can really scale up not just to 1 million qubits but to 10 million to 100 million qubits, which is needed to run the most fascinating algorithms in this space.”

WHY THIS, WHY NOW

Q: What is the challenge of implementing quantum computing and how is your team overcoming this obstacle?

Oded Melamed (OM): The quantum computers which are out there from Google, from IBM, from other companies are small—maybe with tens of qubits, hundreds of qubits—limiting the commercial benefits. To unlock the potential of quantum computing, we need to develop different technology and architecture which is capable of supporting millions of qubits. Until now, nobody has been able to demonstrate something like that.

The most promising route is photonics, which has many other problems. We believe the technology we developed at the Weizmann Institute of Technology can solve all the issues associated with photonic implementations and enable the introduction of super, large scale quantum computers with full tolerance. To date, all other efforts to implement large-scale quantum computers based on photons—the generation of photons and the creation of entanglement between those photons—is done through a statistical process. The probability of success is low and that means that you need to duplicate the resources needed to develop a very complex control and measurement scheme.

A one million qubit system, which is the target of the industry, would occupy a size of a basketball court; additionally, all the control systems would need to be cooled down to a few degrees above absolute zero. [Instead] we found a way to generate the photons and create entanglement in a deterministic way. This means that the system can be much more compact, in the five orders of magnitude smaller, which is pretty significant and without the need to cool down the control system. With our technology, you can really scale up not just to 1 million qubits but to 10 million to 100 million qubits, which is needed to run the most fascinating algorithms in this space.

TALKING TECH

Q: What technological  or behavioral shifts have occurred that are making this all possible?

OM: First, the interest in the world—governments and large corporations—now really understand quantum computing and its benefits. The need is there. It’s not like other startups that you are familiar with that you need to find the market and the customers. This is not the case. If you have the product, the market and use cases are there.

The technology is the issue. The potential that people are discussing with hundreds of billions of dollars in value will happen only when we are able to introduce super large-scale quantum computers that you can use like a classical computer.

LEARNING AND INSPIRATION

Q: Reflecting on your past experience, what lessons learned from are you applying to this new endeavor?

OM: If you look at the profile of our team members, we are now about 30 employees. More than half of them have Ph.D. degrees. For a lot of them, this is their first work after academia. When we first showed them a Gantt chart, they were shocked. “Is it really possible to put a plan like that on a Gannt chart?” They were surprised.

What we bring to the table is the ability to take a very complex problem, break it into small pieces, build an actual development plan around those pieces, combine it together, and integrate everything into a product.

“Don’t just rush for the brightest people because it’s important, if not more important, to evaluate their ability to work in a team.”

Q: On a personal level, how has your thinking or approach changed?

OM: The first [personal] lesson was not to do something that others can duplicate. In my previous company, the competition was really fierce. We had to fight on small performance advantages and pricing support. It was really, really tough.

The second lesson is your team is your most significant differentiator. My previous team, nobody from the leadership team left the company, the leadership team from inception to after the acquisition, which was more than 10 years.

My advice to anyone hiring is that it’s not just about the CV. I interviewed very, very smart people, which I eventually didn’t recruit because something in my gut gave me the feeling they were not the people that could work in a team. So, don’t just rush for the brightest people because it’s important, if not more important, to evaluate their ability to work in a team.

OFF THE CLOCK

Q: When you’re not working on Quantum Source, what are you doing in your free time?

OM: Almost every morning, I ride a bike. Before getting to the office, I am riding. That’s an hour and a half that I can really think clearly. I’ve been doing that for more than 20 years already. Ten years ago, I was a competitive cyclist, but that was quite demanding.

Q: Last question. Any books you’ve recently read that you really enjoyed?

OM: I’m reading now the book on Tesla called “Power Play” by Tim Higgin. It’s the story of founding Tesla. It’s really, really interesting. I recommend it.