5 questions with Quantum New Mexico Institute Director Bob Ledoux

On Aug. 1, Bob Ledoux took the helm as the Quantum New Mexico Institute’s director. He comes to the state from the Washington, D.C., area, where he most recently served as program director for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Ledoux’s appointment comes at a time when the term “quantum” seems to be the new buzzword at the Roundhouse and in the broader tech community in New Mexico. This month, Albuquerque hosted the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Quantum Week. And Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced on Tuesday a new partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to accelerate the development, testing and validation of emerging quantum technologies in the state.

Ledoux said the institute, which was launched in January 2024 by the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories to establish New Mexico as a quantum hub, is always looking for input and suggestions on the work it does. He especially loves answering questions about how quantum technologies will “matter in life.”

“I came here because I really do believe New Mexico is expanding and growing the ecosystem by everything it’s doing from the university level, state level and government,” Ledoux said.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What is quantum?

It’s very important to distinguish between what we mean by quantum now, when we’re talking about quantum information, science and engineering, and what we use the word quantum for generally. I think it gets confused with the first generation of quantum, where most scientists and technologists would say was when we started using things like semiconductors. The rise of all modern electronics was based on an understanding of quantum phenomena.

Exactly 100 years ago, quantum mechanics was invented and that led to, for example, the first transistor, which was basically based on a better understanding of materials; it’s a semiconductor. Now, we hear that term all the time, but that was basically only understood and invented by understanding quantum.

When we say quantum now, like a quantum computer or quantum sensor, it has a more specific meaning. It means now we’re taking the properties of quantum mechanics, sometimes literally at one-atom level, and we’re exploiting the special properties of quantum mechanics, which is that a quantum system exhibits two things that are not natural to our common sense.

Like superposition, where a (quantum bit) does not have to be just one or zero, it could be both simultaneously with some probability. And then, even more important is that you can then take two qubits and entangle them. That entanglement is a very, very special kind of correlation between the qubits. This property, when you utilize it at that very basic level, means you can make sensors which are much more sensitive, you can make communication that basically can’t be spoofed, you can make a quantum computer which, at its heart, utilizes those special quantum properties to do a massively parallel type of computing — computing that would never be possible on a classical computer.

How does a quantum computer differ from a classical computer?

Let me make something clear, which sometimes gets confused — we are not doing away with classical computers. At the moment, for very large data, for certain types of processing, classical computers will always have a place. And in fact, computing, maybe forever, will be a hybrid.

Why don’t we know everything about chemistry? It’s because the chemical systems, the electrons interacting, their correlations are exponential, and it’s very hard to bring to human terms an exponential correlation. If you have just 300 correlated atoms, the amount of information you would need to store to simulate that system on a classical computer is more than the number of atoms in the universe. Basically, you cannot do that on a classical computer.

Why is it difficult to build stable quantum systems?

Literally, you’re dealing with one atom at a time, and you have to get them into different states. You have to then put them in superposition and entangle them, so it’s like you’re manipulating things at the atom level, and it’s incredibly difficult to isolate. You have to isolate it from the environment because it could rapidly destroy it, but at the same time, you have to control it, so you have to put information in and out. It is a scientific, engineering and technical challenge.

Where does New Mexico stand in the rapidly evolving quantum ecosystem?

It stands at the epicenter. It is one of the focal places, I would say, in the country and in the world. Why? Because it has a legacy of being here early in this problem. (New Mexico) has so much already that it’s really an abundance of great assets. I think the challenge is not that we don’t have great people, it’s that this is evolving fast, and it has many other aspects that we have to expand. I came here for this reason; I came here because it’s the place where it started, so to speak.

Why should the general public care about quantum technologies and the industry?

I think it will ultimately affect their lives and, we hope, in very positive ways. The growth in our economy, a lot of it is due to basically all the things we associate with computing — new products, new inventions and so on. We don’t have a crystal ball, but this is an evolving, new industry that could really become a substantial driver of the economy.