Quantum computing is like a superhero, but

... that superhero is Hancock.

By Brian Siegelwax posted 17 Sep 2026

Conor Johnston of Seer posted that AI is like a supervillain that’s going to end the world, while quantum computing is like the superhero that’s going to save it. But let’s not forget that long before we see life-saving drugs and novel materials, we’re being forced to migrate to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Like Hancock, quantum is doing damage before it does any good.

This week’s IQT News:

This week’s The Premium Quantum Dragon (Substack):

This week’s Friends of The Quantum Dragon (inline):

“This contract represents our biggest sale to date” by Jerome Bourassa, CEO and Founder at Qubic
Moving Towards Network-first Infrastructure, by Dr. Ingrid Romijn, CEO and Co-Founder of Falqon® Systems
This will accelerate the development of quantum error correction technologies. by Steve Brierley, founder and CEO of Riverlane

In this edition:

QUANTUM + AI 2026 EARLY BIRD SAVINGS!
“This contract represents our biggest sale to date”
Mosca’s Theorem
Yuval Boger, what’s “laser cooling”?
Sponsor Scout’s 2nd and 3rd Top Quantum Computing Newsletters
Prof. Amit Hagar’s Pencil
Moving Towards Network-first Infrastructure
PQC Ready with the Click of a Button
Noah Warren’s diamond is dim.
CERN detected (maybe) entangled Z Bosons.
This will accelerate the development of quantum error correction technologies.
Quantum Noise Detector

QUANTUM + AI 2026 EARLY BIRD SAVINGS!

Q+AI October 25-27 in New York City is fast approaching. Savings of 20 percent is available for those registering by September 24. The 2026 event includes a unique one-day track devoted to PQC and the special opening night dinner cruise on New York Harbor. Q+AI offers numerous networking opportunities and a focused exhibit hall. Complete information: www.iqtevent.com.

“This contract represents our biggest sale to date”

Following the announcement that Qubic Technologies secured a new contract for its low-noise amplifiers, Jerome Bourassa, CEO and Founder at Qubic, provided this exclusive comment:

“This contract represents our biggest sale to date, and comes on the heels of another sale and a venture capital raise earlier this summer. The market is beginning to respond the value our products can deliver for companies in quantum computing and sensing. On top of giving us additional momentum, working with partners of this caliber provides us with an excellent opportunity to validate our technology in new environments and for new applications. This may eventually broaden our addressable market as well.”

Mosca’s Theorem

“Getting ahead of ‘harvest-now-decrypt-later’: Post-quantum cryptography planning” by Ashish Mishra for the CSO Security Council blog mentions Mosca’s theorem. Fun fact: Dr. Michele Mosca of evolutionQ will be speaking at PQC+IQT in New York City on October 26. His talk is titled “Multimodal Protection.”

Yuval Boger’s “Quantum Bits”

Yuval Boger, what’s “laser cooling”?

I thought I had a decent high-level understanding of the laser cooling used in neutral atom quantum computing, but “Quantum Bits” reveals that being the 2nd least qualified person in quantum might still be too ambitious for me. The Quantum Dragon facepalmed because I somehow hadn’t noticed the 6 lasers he installed in his cave for those hot summer nights.

Image generated by an AI model provided by Microsoft Copilot and Google’s language model AI.

Sponsor Scout’s 2nd and 3rd Top Quantum Computing Newsletters

The 12 most sponsor-active quantum computing newsletters, as ranked by their Newsletter Leader Score, bestow the silver medal upon IQT Sunday Edition and the bronze medal upon The Quantum Dragon newsletter. Both have Leader Scores of 95. Disclaimer: they didn’t actually award medals; let’s just say he had them among his treasures, and now he’s wearing them.

Prof. Amit Hagar’s Pencil

If you’ve never seen qubit stability analogized as balancing a pencil on its tip, you’re welcome. I’m awarding the author some admittedly worthless bonus points for the Gulliver’s Travels-like illustration with its ginormous pencil. Let’s face it, though, I probably would’ve included this article even if it only had the boat analogy in it.

Moving Towards Network-first Infrastructure

Following the announcement that Q*Bird will transition to Falqon® Systems, Dr. Ingrid Romijn, CEO and Co-Founder of Falqon® Systems, provided this exclusive comment:

“Falqon® Systems reflects our next chapter, moving beyond individual quantum technologies towards network-first infrastructure designed to make Quantum Secure Networks operational at scale.”

Image generated by Google’s language model AI.

PQC Ready with the Click of a Button

The Quantum Dragon was hired by a US government intelligence agency to secure one of its datacenters, and physical incidents are down 115%. That’s right: previous uncaught intruders have come back to confess. After all, trust me, you don’t want a fire-breathing dragon hunting you down. Unfortunately, though, his local presence doesn’t protect against global digital threats. He needed to find a partner quickly.

“I need to maintain a balance in NV count vs coherence time since I’m using my own budget in a field where a $10k measurement tool for addressing individual NVs is like thrifting an $8 hoodie.”

Noah Warren’s diamond is dim.

This “Quantum at Home: Lab Log,” which I’ve shared before, is interesting enough to include probably no matter what it says, but this edition is special because I don’t recall ever encountering a hoodie analogy before, either inside or outside of quantum. Quite frankly, living in the Philippines, it’s not all that often I encounter a hoodie, for that matter.

CERN detected (maybe) entangled Z Bosons.

CERN’s ATLAS experiment with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detected that the Z bosons produced by Higgs boson decay show strong evidence of quantum entanglement before the Z bosons themselves quickly decay into electrons or muons. It would be interesting to know how the fraction-of-a-second lifetimes compare to state-of-the-art quantum computers.

This will accelerate the development of quantum error correction technologies.

Following the announcement that Riverlane plans to open its U.S. headquarters in Discovery District Maryland, Steve Brierley, founder and CEO of Riverlane, provided this exclusive comment:

“Maryland has created one of the world’s strongest environments for quantum innovation, bringing together leading researchers, technology companies and government institutions. Establishing our U.S. headquarters here will allow Riverlane to contribute to that ecosystem while accelerating the development of the quantum error correction technologies needed for scalable quantum computing.”

Image generated by an AI model provided by Microsoft Copilot.

Quantum Noise Detector

Alan Ho and Prof. Michael Biercuk inspired the Resuscitated Quantum Bullshit Detector, but the original(?) has resurfaced on Bluesky. It’s back to reposting a simple “bullshit” or “not bullshit,” so The Quantum Dragon will continue to monitor for challenges, controversies, and debates under this new name from Dr. Bob Sutor.

Prof. Amit Hagar’s “The trusted advantage lasted two weeks” criticized recent IBM “advantage” claims by stating that “while the verification survived, the hardness claim died.”
Chicago Tribune Commentary “Yunus Emre Tozal: Chicago’s quantum park comes with a $9 billion price tag. Who actually benefits?” doesn’t oppose the Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park (IQMP), but it asks some critical questions.
Readers on X criticized Multiverse Computing’s claim that its Quasar 438B, “the first AI model using quantum-generated data,” is the best European AI model since it is based on China’s Z.ai.
Qtonic Quantum criticized the difference between an IonQ paper and its press release.