Q2B Silicon Valley 2022 was not just the first Q2B event that I attended, but the first quantum computing conference at all. Taking place each year in Santa Clara, on the bottom end of Silicon Valley, the conference focuses on the business side of the quantum computing industry.
Having just signed my contract with Quantum Brilliance, joining as their first product manager, I hopped on a plane on my very first day to fly from sunny Brisbane (Australia) to the familiar winter rain of the Bay Area. It's been a few years since I've lived here, so it's great to be back and dropping right into such an interesting event at the forefront of frontier technology.
The idea of flying straight into Q2B was to immerse in the business side of the industry at one of the premier events. I caught up with some colleagues in the process, and used the opportunity to make a list of "first impressions" as someone coming into the quantum industry from the perspective of computer science rather than physics. Which would itself be an analog for the kind of technical talent that will be encountering things like the Qristal SDK, or hearing about the milestone of Quantum Brilliance deploying the first room-temperature quantum computer to a working HPC care of a partnership with Pawsey Supercomputing. That mindset in mind, so to speak, I also had permission to really sit in the persona of "I'm new here" and "what do I need to know. A slightly unconventional onboarding but once soaking up the wider industry context rather than a set of internal documentation.
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