How Quantum-Inspired Computing Is Solving Aerospace's Biggest Challenges
Tech Talks DailyMay 16, 2026
3572
31:1521.19 MB

How Quantum-Inspired Computing Is Solving Aerospace's Biggest Challenges

What happens when an Air Force engineer with experience in intelligence, venture capital, and deep tech startups starts applying quantum-inspired computing to some of the hardest problems in aerospace and defense?

In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Nathan Mason, VP of Strategic Growth at BQP, to unpack how quantum-inspired software is already helping organizations solve massive computational challenges without waiting years for fully mature quantum hardware.

Nathan shared his fascinating career journey from military service after 9/11 through the intelligence community, business school, venture investing, and ultimately into the world of advanced simulation and optimization. He emphasized how data-driven thinking shaped his approach to high-stakes decision making and why gut instinct alone no longer suffices in an era driven by AI, complex systems, and operational risk. His insights provide valuable guidance for those interested in careers at the intersection of tech and aerospace.

We also explored a question many business leaders are asking right now: what does "quantum in practice" actually look like today? Nathan explained how BQP is applying quantum-inspired approaches on existing CPUs and GPUs to improve simulation accuracy, accelerate modeling workloads, and help aerospace organizations make faster, smarter engineering decisions without simply throwing more hardware at the problem. This shows the tangible progress already happening, inspiring the audience with real-world impact.

The discussion also tackled the commercial realities behind deep tech innovation. Nathan spoke candidly about the funding challenges facing startups working in quantum and defense technologies, emphasizing that moving beyond theory into operational deployment is difficult but achievable. This perspective encourages the audience to see obstacles as opportunities for innovation and persistence.

Toward the end of the episode, Nathan shared thoughtful advice for students, engineers, and professionals looking to build careers in AI, aerospace, quantum, and defense. His message was simple but powerful: stay curious, keep learning, and never underestimate how a single conversation can completely change your career trajectory.

If you've ever wondered how quantum computing moves from science fiction headlines into real-world business value, this episode offers a practical and honest perspective on how quantum-inspired software is already making a difference in aerospace and defense industries today.

Useful Links

Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network

[00:00:00] - [Speaker 0]
If you are listening and you're responsible for security or IT, you will know the reality that most of your risk now sits inside SaaS apps and browser activity. That gap is exactly what NordLayer is addressing with its new business browser. So instead of bolting security on from the outside, it builds it directly into the browser itself. This means you can control access, monitor activity, enforce policies, and reduce shadow IT all from one single place. And most importantly, it does it without adding deployment headaches or complex onboarding.

[00:00:37] - [Speaker 0]
You get things like browser based data loss prevention, SaaS access control, and zero trust browsing, but delivered in a way that your team can actually use. So if you've been trying to simplify your stack while improving visibility, please check it out at nordlayer.com/browser. What happens when a career shaped by military service, intelligence work, venture capital, and start up growth all collide with one of the most ambitious areas in technology today? Well, we're gonna find out because I'm gonna be joined by Nathan Mason. He's the VP of strategic growth at BQP, and this is one of those conversations that manages to feel both deeply technical and very human at the same time, and that is rare in itself.

[00:01:30] - [Speaker 0]
But Nathan's story starts in the air force. He moved through the intelligence community into business school, venture capital, and then into the world of quantum driven optimization. And as you'll hear today, none of this followed a neat script or a master plan. In fact, what makes this conversation so engaging is hearing how a few unexpected conversations can help shape the path that any of us are on. And we will get into today the reality behind quantum, a word that can still make people either glaze over or assume it belongs in some distant sci fi future.

[00:02:08] - [Speaker 0]
And, of course, neither is true. And Nathan will do a great job today of bringing it all back down to earth. He will explain why quantum matters where it fits alongside existing infrastructure and why this is about solving a series of very real computational problems rather than replacing everything that we already use. So from aerospace safety and simulation to design accuracy, energy use, and this increasing pressure that we're placing on modern compute systems, there is a lot here for business leaders, engineers, students, and indeed, anyone just curious about where advanced computing is heading next. But what I personally love about this discussion is that it never loses sight of the bigger conversation.

[00:02:54] - [Speaker 0]
Yes. Me and my guests will talk about quantum optimization and large scale modeling, but we will also bring it back to decision making, trusting the process in your career, and about why the next generation needs both technical depth and the ability to keep learning long after formal education ends. So we'll find a lot of honesty in this conversation today and plenty of optimism too. So if you've ever wondered what quantum actually looks like when it steps out of the research lab and starts solving real problems in aerospace, defense, and AI workloads, congratulations. You find yourself in exactly the right place today.

[00:03:34] - [Speaker 0]
But enough from me. Let's get straight into it now. So thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:03:43] - [Speaker 1]
My name is Nathan Mason, and I am the VP of strategic growth at BQP. I have been at the company now a couple of years, but my journey here was not linear in fashion at all. I I started my career off as an as an electrical engineer in the air force. Thought I would spend, you know, four to six years serving. It was right after nine eleven, so there was a a different type of environment for service then and that turned into a twenty year career.

[00:04:12] - [Speaker 1]
It it it just kind of caught me by surprise at each contract renewal. And, know, I took twelve years on active duty, eight in the reserve. And so when I transitioned out of active duty into the reserve, you know, I had had the opportunity to still serve on the weekends and then the summer, but it allowed me to explore other career paths. And through that exploration, I went from, you know, a military member serving in the intelligence community to a consultant, taking some time off to go to business school, and then on the backside of that going into venture capital. So I was an investor for a few years and and and found my way to my current role.

[00:04:52] - [Speaker 1]
But the one thread through it all is that I've been within aerospace and defense my entire career. So it's been it's been a interesting ride. That's a little bit about my career.

[00:05:02] - [Speaker 0]
It's such an incredibly cool origin story there. And one of the things I love talking with my guests about, I think in what what 4,000 interviews, the amount of times everything kinda happens by accident my my journey began by accident as well. It's almost like the universe gives you a little nudge in the right direction at the right time and takes you somewhere you'd had no intention of going to, and you end up there, then great things happen. But

[00:05:25] - [Speaker 1]
I'm No. Abs absolutely. You know, and and if you're listening, you fall you there are moments in my career that I can think of like there are literally three conversations that I had that have steer that steered me in this direction. Right? And I was kind of not even thinking about the career.

[00:05:43] - [Speaker 1]
Right? So I'll give you an example. So when I was leaving the air force after my first contract, I randomly ran into a buddy of mine in the hallway and I hadn't seen him in a long time and we were just catching up. And he told me about a program that he was a part of and, know, he said, hey, Mace, like you should apply for it, you know, you know, I think you'll be a great fit. I told him, I said, listen, I have no intention of staying in the military.

[00:06:05] - [Speaker 1]
I am completely done. I've done my time. It's time to go. I'm out in four months. And he said, you know, just put an application in.

[00:06:12] - [Speaker 1]
You never know what what will happen. I I looked into the details, found out that only two members two air force members get accepted per year. So I said, there's no way I'm getting accepted, but I'll just do it because my buddy told me to do it. And lo and behold, I get selected, it's shot and it's just kind of like taken aback by this pivot, this curveball that's thrown in my in my way and I was like, okay, well, let's do it. And that's that happens like two other times where it was just a completely random conversation that occurred and changed the trajectory of my career.

[00:06:41] - [Speaker 1]
But it was because I was listening. Right? Like the universe was kind of speaking to me and I took the guidance. I was like, okay. Let's just trust the process and see what happens.

[00:06:49] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. You are bang on the money there. You gotta trust the process. You gotta look out for the signs and listen to them when they arrive in front of you. And like the old Steve Jobs quote, you can't join up the dots looking forward.

[00:07:01] - [Speaker 0]
It's only when you look back that you can see that. So how did your time working in the military and intelligence communities? How did that time shape how you approach complex technical problems today? I would imagine there's a few synergies then.

[00:07:15] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. No. Absolutely. So, I mean, I wore the uniform, but I was, like you like you mentioned part of the IC and one of the things, I mean, it's kind of oxymoron a little bit like military intelligence but one of the things that you're you're trained to do is to use data and to create a methodology that removes bias and emotion and that's something that, you know, I still use to this day. Like if I'm making a high stakes decision in my my current role, I I try to take a step back and say, okay, like what's best for the company?

[00:07:45] - [Speaker 1]
What's best for our business? And am I making an irrational decision? Right? Like, can I point to data to help guide this decision? And that's something that, you know, not only that we I used constantly in the in the intelligence community, but it was reinforced even more so more so when I went to business school.

[00:08:03] - [Speaker 1]
Like, how do you understand? How do you aggregate a bunch of data? How do you analyze the data? Like, how are you using it to make an informed decision? And, you know, oftentimes humans, our gut instinct is to use our gut instinct.

[00:08:18] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. And often time, you know, sometimes you should listen to that gut instinct. There's some evolutionary reasons why we have it, right, to protect us and to help us make decisions. But when you're dealing with a startup that's moving at breakneck speed and you have to make a decision in in front of your board. You know, my advice is always to point back to a data and try to try to leverage that to make a decision.

[00:08:39] - [Speaker 0]
100% with you. And fast forward to present day, you now focus on translating technologies like quantum optimization into real world use cases. Again, phenomenal, but for the non tech existing, what does this look like in practice?

[00:08:53] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I so I know quantum is it can sound like a really, like, intimidating word. It can be a buzzword depending on where you are in the ecosystem. But the the main thing here is that quantum is a new computing technology that we're gonna be able to utilize to solve big problems. Yeah.

[00:09:14] - [Speaker 1]
And so, like, I think a lot of people have a misconception about what quantum is and how it's gonna impact our future. Like, there are traditional data centers today that utilize CPUs and GPUs, right, are not going anywhere. The addition of quantum will be what's new. So you, me, you know, if I'm ordering a pizza, I don't need a quantum computer to do that calculation. Right?

[00:09:35] - [Speaker 1]
I can use my phone, use existing hardware, the infrastructure to to do that order. But if I'm trying to design, let's say, a new fuselage or wing for an aircraft, that is a little bit more difficult of a computation problem set. Right? And and you want to make sure that you get those calculations correct because we're putting humans on the on an airplane and we're flying around the world and you don't want that plane to crash. And so like there are these big problem sets that are coming that that are already here, that exist today, that we're trying to solve, that are just the resources and methods that we have today are not efficient enough to do that.

[00:10:11] - [Speaker 1]
And so that's where quantum is coming online. There's some quantum inspired approaches that are coming, that are here today, that are commercialized, that you're able to use, you know, extract value today on existing infrastructure. And then there's these hybrid infrastructure systems that are coming and then fully quantum native hardware that's coming. So there's, you know, there's a road map that's in in transition. I've, you know, been fortunate enough to see the kind of tip of the spear of the innovation curve right now occurring in front of us in real time on the quantum inspired approach, and it's really exciting to see, like, you know, what industries it's already impacting today.

[00:10:44] - [Speaker 0]
And I've got to ask, what do you see as missing today between cutting edge research and real world deployment, especially from your background in aerospace and defense there? Do you see any big gaps there?

[00:10:57] - [Speaker 1]
I think the biggest gap is and this is always the case. It's it's money. It's just getting the money into the ecosystem to fund the r and d, to get to get the products out of academia, out of the lab, and into into the the market. Now there's that transition period that, you know, it's a valley of death that occurs with all products. Quantum is is something that I would classify as deep tech.

[00:11:21] - [Speaker 1]
Right? So you have Mhmm. Your tech that I think of in the traditional idea of Google or Facebook or Instacart, where they're kind of providing a consumer product to, you know, to their their customers. And then if you pull the layer, if you go one layer deeper where you start to get into AI, that's deep tech to me, biotech research, quantum. Right?

[00:11:41] - [Speaker 1]
Space exploration, those are a little bit more capital intensive. And so, like, it's hard to get money. The SBIR program here in The US, it's a small business innovation research program, is one of the key tools that small business use to fund their research. Well, some of the dysfunction in The US capital on Capitol Hill has caused a a lapse in that funding. The bill hasn't been reauthorized and it's on the president's desk now, so it should be coming out any day.

[00:12:10] - [Speaker 1]
But six months of a program being ineffective has really, I think, hurt the industry a little bit. Right? There were in my experience, we had a few grants rescinded just because the funding was not there. And so, you know, if you're a small startup like BQP and you're trying to build a deep tech products like a quantum algorithm and bring it to market, like, have investors, we have commercial traction, but that extra piece of like r and d money really is valuable.

[00:12:39] - [Speaker 0]
It really is. And as you said, money is the big blocker on many occasions, but it's also it's incredibly critical to move beyond theory and into applied operational technology too, isn't it? It's a critical step.

[00:12:51] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, it's fun to be in the lab and to think abstractly and you know, be curious about a problem and and try to solve that, but it's a whole another thing to commercialize it and actually put it in the hands of people and and and and, you know, in impact our daily life.

[00:13:08] - [Speaker 0]
And for people listening outside of the aerospace industry, why does safety in aerospace increasingly depend on better data back simulation rather than more what if type scenario planning? Anything you can reveal around that?

[00:13:22] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I mean, so to my original point. Right? When there's human lives that are involved, do you want accurate model or most accurate product or well built built product on the market? And what do I mean by that?

[00:13:34] - [Speaker 1]
So if you think about I always think about when before I joined this company, thought of modeling and sim. I went back to like elementary where you, you know, you'd use clay and you'd make the car and and you'd look at the car and then you'd wanna test it in a wind tunnel and you do all of these steps to to, you know, to understand your your product before you're gonna build it because it's really expensive to build, right, to manufacture actual physical product. With computer aided software design, software modeling and simulation, you're able to to iterate on the product more quickly. You're able to expand the scope of the design variables. You're able to, like, look at it in a more complete way to get the product to the exact formulation that you want to bring into the world.

[00:14:18] - [Speaker 1]
And so like when you're thinking about an aerospace system or, you know, aircraft or a drone, anything like that, you want you want it to be the most effective or the most, you know, the best product possible. And the current systems today, one of the problems that we've entered into this market at BQP is because the large scale problems say like understanding the turbulence behind an aircraft takes so much compute resources that you have to, as an engineer, you have to either choose between the accuracy of the model or how long you run the model. Right? So are we gonna sit around Neil for six months and wait for a computer to tell us like, is this a good result or a bad result in your commercial company? Probably not.

[00:15:01] - [Speaker 1]
Maybe in academia, but not as a commercial company. And so, like, you kind of you you down select the best models that you think that are the, you know, the most accurate and then you go to build that. That shouldn't be acceptable if you're building a plane. Like, you should be able to have the most accurate model and you should be able to, like, iterate quickly to tell is it the most accurate. And so that's where quantum's coming in and that's what we're trying to solve.

[00:15:23] - [Speaker 1]
Right? We're trying to make sure that engineers don't have to to, you know, decide between these two variables and they can they can produce products that are the best on the market.

[00:15:33] - [Speaker 0]
I'm incredibly grateful to the team at Denodo for backing the Tech Talks Network and helping us produce over 60 interviews a month. And if you are looking for better ROI from your lake house, this message is going to be worth hearing because Denodo helps reduce complexity, control costs, and accelerate time to insight. And it does that by connecting all of your data sources in real time. So make your lake house work harder with Denodo. And you can do that by simply visiting denodo.com.

[00:16:07] - [Speaker 0]
And I think one area that will unite every single person listening in an organization is the ROI expectation from any tech project. Now it doesn't matter if it's AI, quantum, or anything in between. So from that side of things on everything that you're working on it, how can improved visualization and simulation, how does it help prevent costly or dangerous failures? Because there's a big ROI there, isn't there, from Quantum?

[00:16:32] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. No. Absolutely. Like like I said, like you're getting the best product possible when you're able to like explore the entire design space. So when you blow up a problem setting, there's tens of thousands or millions of variables that you're trying to account for, you know, traditional compute methods run into this roadblock, this bottleneck of, you know, accuracy and time.

[00:16:53] - [Speaker 1]
And so, like, we wanna, like, you know, we're remove we're removing those barriers and allowing the engineers to to get to it. And, you know, the ROI is not only just on the product side, it's also on, like, okay, when you think about an operating a business, you know, when you're if you're running a model for a long time, that means you're using a lot of data, you're using a lot of energy, you're using a lot of resources. It's gonna cost you more to have your operations up and going, right, if you're running months in on end models. Whereas, you know, if you have a a quantum computer that can shrink that run time from four months to two minutes, all of a sudden you're saving a lot. Right?

[00:17:30] - [Speaker 1]
I I I talk about this often with some of some of my teammates on, you know, we're we're really focused on, you know, the business ROI and the product ROI. But, you know, we live in a world that there's AI data centers popping up and energy costs are soaring. There's climate impacts of of a growing population on earth and the resources that we're we're using. And if we can think about this in in that way as well, where it's like, we're also helping save on resources. Right?

[00:17:58] - [Speaker 1]
This is another way we can talk about, you know, the impacts that quantum can bring to the world. Right? Like we can reduce our our reliability on having to build more coal plants. Right? No one, you know, in the right mind, I don't think would wanna build more coal plants to pollute the earth.

[00:18:13] - [Speaker 1]
Like we want to kind of reduce our our energy impact. And so if we can, you know, also think about, like, Quantum as a as a tool to help combat climate change in the future, I think that's something that is interesting at least to think about.

[00:18:27] - [Speaker 0]
And to bring to life some of the value proposition we're talking about here, how are you at BQP helping organizations make faster, more accurate decisions right now here in 2026 rather than the future? You'd have to name any names. Is there any examples you could share or real world cases?

[00:18:45] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. So we're we're working with some tier one aerospace manufacturing companies. We're working with the Air Force Research Laboratory right now. Like, so there's the aerospace directorate that is working on some pretty, like, large scale systems design problems. And so just the impact or the value that we're bringing to our partners is that, you know, we're helping them think differently about how they approach solving large scale problems.

[00:19:12] - [Speaker 1]
Like before, if you have a data center and you're utilizing GPUs, the algorithms that are running on GPUs today aren't the most efficient. And depending on the application that's running on the GPU, you have a varying range of utilization on the GPU. So And what most organizations do is, you know, if you're not getting the result that you want and you think you need more hard more compute resource, you buy more GPUs. Right?

[00:19:35] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah.

[00:19:36] - [Speaker 1]
And so you you're scaling up your operations there at the data center. And what we're doing is we're helping them think about, okay, Quantum has a more efficient way, like even today our Quantum Quantum Now solver, it's a Quantum inspired approach. You're able to run it on existing infrastructure. So that GPU that you're utilizing today, you can get a better utilization of that hardware by running a quantum inspired approach on that hardware. So you don't no longer have to spend more your your your capital expenditure doesn't have to increase on the hardware side.

[00:20:07] - [Speaker 1]
You don't have to buy more GPUs to now try to solve that big complex problem set that you were, you know, you're working towards. And so that's that's kind of the mindset shift that we're helping organizations think about is like, okay. There's a more efficient way to use your existing infrastructure today to maybe solve that intractable problem set that you kind of put on the back burner and say, we'll get to this when quantum arrives in 05/10, whatever that timeline is. Right?

[00:20:33] - [Speaker 0]
And listening to your story today, you've got somewhat of a a unique perspective with experiences across government, investing, and startups. How do all these different aspects shape your approach or maybe have shaped your approach to growth at BQP? Again, it feels like you've got these unique set of skills here that have all been thrown together.

[00:20:53] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. No. I mean, you kind of hit it on the head there. Like, I, you know, when I before joining BQP, I felt I want I really wanted that that operator startup experience like you like you mentioned. Like, I I I come from, like, the the government military, but, you know, spent a little bit of time, four years in consulting, went to business school, went to as an investor.

[00:21:13] - [Speaker 1]
And so, like, now being here, like, all of those things are kind of, you know, helping drive my decision making process while I'm here. So, you know, like, I understand what it's like to be an end user in the Air Force being deployed with the piece of COTS, right, commercial off the shelf hardware that I had to purchase to run around in the field with. So when I think about, like, the products that we're building and the impact that we're making, like, I understand, like, the the risk that's associated with it like it has gotta work especially if you have a high stakes, you know, involvement of deployment. But then also at the same time, I understand like, you know, the the big strategic lens, you know, I I spent a little bit of time at the Pentagon where I worked on some strategic programs and I had a bird's eye view of like of programs and how they moved in and interacted with one another. And so, you know, that's that's kind of like my role today, like, I get into the weeds here at BQP helping, you know, I'm on a sales call, I'm I'm doing account management, I'm I'm managing the relationship with the customer, with the partner.

[00:22:11] - [Speaker 1]
But in that, at the same time, you know, I'm also helping to lead some of our our government relations efforts where we're talking to our local legislators in in educating them on quantum, like, let getting them up to speed, like, this is this a real technology? Is this vaporware? And letting them under help you know, helping them understand, like, the ecosystem so that way they can make better decisions about legislation that they wanna sponsor or get passed. And so, like, the duality in my role today of, like, being, you know, in that at that tactical level on the ground working with partners, but also at the strategic level helping, you know, helping the, you know, our firm under you know, position ourselves for a fundraise or government relations is kind of it's it's the same type of work that I've always done, but now just applied to, you know, this quantum algorithm company at BQP.

[00:23:03] - [Speaker 0]
As I said, you've got an incredibly cool backstory here, and I'd love to inspire some younger listeners. I'm well and people out there looking to reskill as well because of that. I read a great article on LinkedIn the other day. It was called the future of work is here, but career advice is stuck in the past. So what skills would you say are most important for the next generation entering this space?

[00:23:25] - [Speaker 0]
And any advice that you'd give to people just looking to build careers in deep tech and defense? Anything you'd advise there?

[00:23:31] - [Speaker 1]
That's a big question. I mean, we're we're in a very transformative, I think, era with AI coming online and and quantum obviously having an impact. You know, when I I think about this often actually. You know, one of the things that I, you know, piece of advice that I would say is this, like, number one, like, try to understand, like, what you're and this is kind of cliche. What what you're interested in and what you're good at and try to leverage leverage that to, like, give you motivation to go into a career space.

[00:24:02] - [Speaker 1]
Because oftentimes, like, you're gonna have days where you don't wanna wake you don't wanna go into your job, like, everything is, like, fun and cool, and so you need some type of passion behind that to keep you motivated. That's kind of at a high level. This is what I told myself. You have to continue to love learning. Like, it's never over.

[00:24:21] - [Speaker 1]
The process of, like, going from, you know, graduating high school and going to college and then after college, you're like, okay, I'm a big boy now. I'm going to the the professional world. It's, you know, it's over. It's like, it's never over. Like, you have to just learn to you have to love learning and gain some, you know, hardcore skills if you're really good at math.

[00:24:40] - [Speaker 1]
Like, I would still really advocate people to get an engineering degree, learn, you know, applied mathematics degree, like a some type of science. But then couple that with, you know, some entrepreneurial or some creative writing or some type of like soft skill where, you know, you can be more nimble in the workspace. You're, you you know, you're able to like navigate the impacts that AI may may have on society and and and and try to remain optimistic, you know. Like, you you get out of college, you get out of grad school, you're excited for the first twelve to twenty four months, and the weight of systems and people that aren't wanting to move quickly kind of boggy down and, you know, you have to find a way to like look on the bright side, remain optimistic, and kind of keep that passion fueled so that way, you know, you know you know where you're going. Right?

[00:25:35] - [Speaker 1]
You you have a direction and when you look back like you said, you could connect the dots. It may not be as clear when you're in it, but, you know, just just keep pushing. That's all I have to say.

[00:25:45] - [Speaker 0]
Absolutely fantastic advice. And what about yourself there? That passion is still clearly alive and well in you, and you're on this mission to solve the most complex computational challenges in aerospace, space and defense with quantum. So what excites you about the road ahead for you, your work?

[00:26:04] - [Speaker 1]
The fact that I still get to work with like space companies and aerospace companies is kind of my original like love and passion. As a child, my dad was obsessed with space, still is. We've been talking about the Artemis mission every day. And I just remember growing up, he would we would go outside and look at the stars through his telescopes and he always had, like, the NASA space books, pictures all around the house and so I'd read about it all the time and I think that like passion for, you know, space and aerospace has always been there and then I got lucky with picking a career that I didn't even I thought about it it kind of because I was like, you know, the air force, they fly planes. It was very not a sophisticated decision.

[00:26:44] - [Speaker 1]
It was like, they fly planes. I love planes. Let's go to the Air Force. But that turned out to be a really good decision because, like I said, I had a passion for it and in today's with today's work, like, it's kind of phenomenal, the some of the products that we're building. I mean, right now in r and d, we have an orbital propagator.

[00:27:01] - [Speaker 1]
Meaning, we get to help partners in space predict the path of a satellite. And if there's a if there's, like, a maneuver or collision, we can predict like the impacts of that. And like the fact that I get to like work on this type of product in my current role is just it it it's so exciting. Like I can't stop talking about it. I try to talk to my friends about They all tell me, mate, we got it.

[00:27:28] - [Speaker 1]
We've heard this before. Like, and I was just like, okay. Alright. Sorry. Like, I I won't talk about it anymore.

[00:27:33] - [Speaker 1]
But, yeah, it's just like, it's fun to me. It's really fun.

[00:27:37] - [Speaker 0]
Well, your enthusiasm and passion for this is incredibly infectious. Hopefully, we have inspired someone somewhere listening in the world that wanna follow in your footsteps. But if they're a business leader or a student and they're looking to learn more from you or BQP, where would you like me to point everyone listening?

[00:27:56] - [Speaker 1]
I mean, so our website has tons of materials, research papers, a lot of information on our products and r and d. It's not just around optimization, it's around machine learning. It's around physics based problems. So so our website is wwwbqpsimsim.com. You can find me on LinkedIn.

[00:28:13] - [Speaker 1]
I believe my name on there is either Nate Mason or Nathan Mason in my if I won't give all my well, yeah. I'll give my email out. How about that? Like if anyone wants to reach out and and chitchat, you know, I'd love to talk about space, obviously, but my email is my name, nathan.mason@bqpsim.com.

[00:28:29] - [Speaker 0]
Awesome. Excellent. Well, I'll add link I won't add a link to your email. Only listeners can find that, but I will add a link to website and your LinkedIn. I'll urge people to click on those and find out more information.

[00:28:41] - [Speaker 0]
And I'd love for somebody listening to continue this conversation with you today. I really think it's a key moment to inspire the next generation and people to get excited about quantum and take AI off the headlines for a few months. You know? But more than anything, just thank you for sitting down with today. Really appreciate your time.

[00:28:59] - [Speaker 1]
Thanks, Neil. I appreciate it.

[00:29:00] - [Speaker 0]
So where does all this leave us when it comes to quantum deep tech and the future of solving problems that traditional computing just struggles to handle. For me, this conversation was a great reminder that some of the most interesting innovations are not always the loudest ones. And while much of the world is, yes, still ated on the latest AI headline, there are companies out there like BQP that are doing the hard work of improving how we simulate, model, and understand highly complex systems. And it's these systems that involve aircraft, satellites, defense infrastructure, and real human safety. All these things carry real weight.

[00:29:41] - [Speaker 0]
So big thank you to Nathan for bringing a refreshing sense perspective to the conversation today and talking about quantum in a way that really felt practical, current, and connected to business outcomes, and for sharing a career story that I, for one, know will resonate with me long after today's recording. I think sometimes the biggest opportunities often arrive through a random conversation, a moment of curiosity, serendipity, or just a decision that makes more sense in hindsight than it actually did at the time. So if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, I do recommend checking the BQP website out and connecting with Nathan to learn more about the work that they're doing in optimization, simulation, and machine learning. And over to you, what kind of problems could we all solve if we gave engineers the tools to model the world with far greater speed, accuracy, and confidence? You know the drill, techtalksnetwork.com.

[00:30:43] - [Speaker 0]
Leave me an audio message. Send me a DM. Whatever it is, let me know, and we'll carry this conversation on. I especially love getting those human stories, those moments of serendipity where the universe has pointed you in the right direction. If you have anything like that, please, I love hearing it.

[00:31:00] - [Speaker 0]
But that's it for today. So thank you as always for listening, and I'll be back again tomorrow. Bye for now.