“The World-Changing Technology Everyone Is Missing” — Peter H. Diamandis Moonshots EP #124

Episode summary

Part two of the Jack Hidary series focuses on commercial quantum applications that exist today, not future promises. Hidary, CEO of SandboxAQ (spun out of Alphabet, $500M+ raised), walks through three product lines — AQNav (quantum-sensor GPS-free navigation), AQMed (magnetocardiography for cardiac diagnostics), and AQtive Guard (post-quantum cryptography migration) — demonstrating that quantum technology is already a revenue-generating business.

Key arguments / segments

• [00:01:03] SandboxAQ’s thesis: marrying quantum technologies with quantitative AI (not LLMs — Large Quantitative Models) to build products for today’s Global 1000 customers
• [00:04:02] Quantum sensing explained via Earth’s magnetic field — crustal mineral variations create a navigable magnetic fingerprint unique to every location
• [00:07:01] GPS vulnerability: jamming and spoofing by Russia (Ukraine), Iran (Gulf), China (Taiwan) — disrupting thousands of civilian flights in 2024; Wall Street Journal front page coverage
• [00:10:02] AQNav: combines quantum magnetometers with AI noise-cancellation to navigate using Earth’s crustal magnetic field, no satellites needed; air-gapped and un-spoofable
• [00:20:00] US Air Force publicly tested AQNav; the hardest challenge was the AI side (filtering environmental magnetic noise), not the quantum hardware
• [00:24:00] AQMed: quantum sensors detecting the heart’s magnetic field for cardiac diagnostics in under 5 minutes; currently in clinical trials; aims to replace or supplement ECGs
• [00:30:00] AQtive Guard: enterprise tool for migrating organizations to post-quantum cryptography; scans codebases to find vulnerable encryption before quantum computers can break it
• [00:40:00] Harvest-now-decrypt-later threat: adversaries already storing encrypted data to crack later with quantum computers; urgent migration timeline for government and enterprise

Notable claims

• SandboxAQ has paying Global 1000 customers across pharma, aerospace, energy, and batteries within 2.5 years of spin-out [00:03:01]
• GPS jamming devices are cheaply available online and can disrupt an entire city [00:08:01]
• Quantum magnetocardiography can detect cardiac conditions in under 5 minutes, potentially replacing lengthy traditional diagnostics [00:24:00]
• AQtive Guard can scan millions of lines of enterprise code to identify cryptographic vulnerabilities needing post-quantum migration [00:30:00]

Guests

• Jack Hidary — CEO of SandboxAQ, spun out of Alphabet/Google with backing from Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt. Author of “AI or Die” and “Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach.” Leading commercialization of quantum+AI technologies.

Mapping against Ray Data Co

SandboxAQ’s approach of combining quantum approaches with AI (LQMs) rather than waiting for fault-tolerant quantum computers is a useful framing for how emerging tech companies can build revenue today on foundational science. The AQtive Guard product (automated cryptographic vulnerability scanning) has parallels to the kind of automated audit/compliance tooling relevant to data infrastructure. The GPS vulnerability discussion is relevant context for any location-dependent data pipeline.

Related

• 2024-10-10-moonshots-ep123-jack-hidary-quantum-ai
• quantum-computing
• post-quantum-cryptography