Quantum computing has been ten years away for about thirty years, and Prineha Narang is here to explain what actually changed. A physics professor at UCLA, a U.S. Science Envoy who advises the government on quantum policy, and an operating partner at the deep tech fund DCVC, Narang sits down with Ashlee Vance to sort out what is real about quantum right now and what is still hype. She walks through the news that set off a wave of texts across Silicon Valley, a run of results from Google, Caltech, and the neutral atom startups suggesting that the encryption protecting your bank account, your messages, and the entire internet could be cracked by a quantum computer far sooner than almost anyone expected.
The conversation gets specific about why that estimate collapsed from millions of qubits down to roughly 10,000, what post quantum cryptography means for the RSA and elliptic curve encryption we all rely on, and whether it is time to panic about so called Q-Day. Narang also makes the case that quantum and AI have stopped competing and started merging into one giant bucket of next generation compute, where the real question is no longer speed but energy.
Then the two of them go somewhere most quantum interviews never do: quantum sensing, the idea that a chip the size of a blueberry could replace GPS, detect a single sneeze in a crowded airport, or one day sit inside the human body reading signals no classical sensor can see.
It is an accessible tour of the field, with detours into the race against China, why NVIDIA's video game chips quietly took over science, and whether consciousness itself might run on quantum rules.
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IN THIS EPISODE
Narang Lab at UCLA: https://naranglab.ucla.edu
DCVC: https://www.dcvc.com
Oratomic (the Caltech neutral atom spinout): https://www.oratomic.com
Atom Computing: https://atom-computing.com
Mesa Quantum: https://mesaquantum.com
Google's work on the cost of quantum factoring: https://blog.google/security/tracking-cost-of-quantum-factori/
NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography
DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative: https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/quantum-benchmarking-initiative
Hyperlite Mountain Gear (the Dyneema packs Prineha swears by): https://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com
ABOUT THE HOST
Ashlee Vance is a best selling author, filmmaker, and journalist who has spent more than twenty years chronicling science and technology for The Economist, The New York Times, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He wrote the best selling biography of Elon Musk and created the Emmy nominated series Hello World. On Core Memory he travels the world to drop into labs, garages, factories, and hangars and spend time with the scientists, inventors, oddballs, and startups pushing the future forward.
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Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:17 The Physicist Who Almost Became a Pro Runner
13:39 A Cold Email, a Full Ride, and the Road to Caltech
26:15 How Video Game Chips Quietly Took Over Science
31:56 Is Quantum Losing the Spotlight to AI?
40:50 "I Still Don't Believe in Quantum": Answering the Skeptics
46:28 The Google Result That Could Break Encryption
53:44 Is It Time to Panic About Q-Day?
1:06:48 Quantum Sensing and the Case of Who Sneezed
1:17:30 Does Consciousness Run on Quantum Rules?
1:22:28 The Advice She Gives Terrified Students
1:30:20 So When Does Quantum Actually Get Real?
