en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Qualcomm Institute (QI) at the University of California San Diego hosted the two-day "Quantum San Diego Convening" from May 18 to 19, bringing together approximately 200 leaders from industry, academia, national laboratories, and government. The high-level discussions centered on the core technical bottlenecks in scaling and commercializing quantum computing, infrastructure needs, and a statewide coordination strategy. Co-hosted by the Qualcomm Institute, Quantum Machines, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), with support from the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz), this meeting represents the most technically in-depth regional action to date under the state government's "Quantum California" public-private partnership initiative.

California is accelerating the industrialization of quantum technology through a dual-track approach of legislation and public-private partnerships. In 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 940, requiring GO-Biz to develop the state's first quantum technology industry strategy by July 1, 2026, clarifying California's quantum industry status, growth barriers, and an action plan to attract investment and create jobs. Later that year, Newsom officially announced the Quantum California initiative at UC Berkeley, bringing university research, national laboratories, industrial capital, and policymakers into a unified framework. Subsequently, UC Berkeley hosted the first statewide quantum conference, UC Santa Barbara held the second regional strategy meeting, and the Southern California Quantum Alliance (SQA) was established in Los Angeles, led by UCLA. This San Diego convening marks the third high-profile regional action under the Quantum California initiative.

The meeting identified "scaling" rather than "scientific breakthroughs" as the top priority for quantum computing today. Riley Need, a research specialist at the Qualcomm Institute and one of the meeting organizers, pointed out in a pre-conference interview that the quantum R&D community currently faces two core challenges—application validation and system scaling. Even with the capability to build large-scale quantum machines, finding killer applications capable of supporting multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investments is essential, with materials discovery, cryptography, and complex logistics being the three most frequently cited directions. However, current quantum hardware can only handle simple molecular systems like hydrogen, water, or methane. To generate transformative impact in real-world scenarios such as drug design and high-temperature materials, breakthroughs in both hardware scale and algorithm precision must occur simultaneously. The meeting focused its attention on technical bottlenecks, infrastructure requirements, and the engineering challenges of hardware-algorithm co-design.

From a holistic view of the technical roadmap, the scaling challenge in quantum computing is not simply about increasing the number of qubits. Ramesh Rao, Director of the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego, specifically highlighted the San Diego region's deep expertise in radio frequency engineering and electromagnetics in a meeting statement—capabilities crucial for precise qubit control, low-noise microwave signal transmission, and high-speed interfaces between quantum processors and classical control electronics. Itamar Sivan, CEO of Quantum Machines, offered a more operational judgment from the industry side: scaling quantum systems is a system-level challenge encompassing hardware, control software, and infrastructure, requiring synergistic integration at the industry alliance level, which is precisely the focus of the Quantum Scaling Alliance. HPE, as a co-host, also introduced the dimension of "heterogeneous computing" into the discussion through its layout in hybrid quantum-classical computing architectures.

Through a multi-node, collaborative regional strategy, California is moving quantum technology from university laboratories to manufacturable industrial systems. Berkeley has established the Roger Herst Quantum Hub as a physical space for quantum industry collaboration. Santa Barbara, leveraging NSF-funded projects, is building the Central Coast Quantum Innovation Zone. The Southern California Quantum Alliance, led by UCLA, integrates Caltech, the University of Southern California, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and companies like Boeing and IBM into a regional network covering R&D, talent development, and industry engagement. With the long-term accumulation of the Qualcomm Institute and UC San Diego in quantum information science, and its geographical advantage adjacent to the Southern California Quantum Alliance, San Diego is becoming a key node for key technology validation and industry incubation within this statewide strategy. Rao clearly stated that this meeting serves not only the formulation of the state's quantum strategy report but also provides an opportunity to coalesce San Diego's local quantum community.

Talent supply was another focal point of the meeting. Need pointed out in the interview that California's greatest advantage in quantum technology is its talent, and its biggest bottleneck is also talent. Cultivating engineering teams with cross-disciplinary skills in quantum physics, microwave engineering, computer science, and materials science requires a full-chain reshaping from undergraduate curricula to graduate research and on-the-job industry training. The University of California system has initiated systematic discussions within the CIQC-led quantum workforce thematic workshops, covering multi-level talent development pathways across the UC system, the California State University system, and national quantum centers. Placing technical leaders from academia, national laboratories, and industry within the same discussion framework was precisely aimed at transforming talent supply from independent actions by individual institutions into a statewide, coordinated systems engineering effort.

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