Welcome to Quantum Jane, where I cover quantum computing news without the jargon. I'm here at Intel, the heart of Silicon Valley, to talk to CEO Lip-bu Tan. You may not know this, but the iconic American chipmaker is also working on developing quantum computing technology, and I'll be following up on that later. But today I'm here because Lip-bu and I have been talking about quantum computing since 2022. Just as he was an early and successful investor in chips and AI, he's had a stake in the ground in quantum computing for a while now. So what does he think about the hype? Or is it hype?
Please welcome Intel CEO.
But first, who's Lip-bu Tan? Born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore, Lip-bu Tan studied quantum physics at university and nuclear engineering at MIT. He's one of the most successful venture capitalists in the chip industry and showed his CEO chops when he was tapped to turn around a US software company for designing chips called Cadence. He multiplied the company's value by nearly 50 times during his tenure. And now he's moved on to Intel, an even bigger challenge. He made waves last year as President Trump first called on him to resign over his past investments in China. A few days later, he visited the White House and Trump said his success and rise was an amazing story. The US government then took a 10% stake in Intel.
You invested in chips when it wasn't cool, right? I've heard the stories about everybody in the venture capital company you went to visit leaving. Maybe one or two staying politely but probably not listening. You were an early investor in AI when nobody was paying attention to it and you're also an early investor in quantum computing. What got you into quantum computing?
Yeah, I think in some way it's kind of my personality. I'm always curious of learning new things and that's why something that excites me to do something very disruptive and also look at the whole industry what is missing what people don't pay attention. So that's why we call Walden Venture Capital Fund. Walden is the tool, Walden basically being a contrarian investor. So everybody don't like semiconductor. They think it's a sunset industry. I decided this is so fundamental. All the apps that you try to build on top, if you don't have the semiconductor foundation, the whole thing will collapse. So I decided, you know, to really double down, triple down on semiconductor. And the other way I look at it, I invest in almost everything I can think of and then I starting to look at myself and say wait a minute which particular area I make the most money and most consistent that I don't lose money and I think it's semiconductor. So I decided this is something area I'm going to be expert in it. I'm going to add value and I want to learn a lot about semiconductor all the nuts and bolts and then so I become the really good investor and then through that I become a CEO of Cadence Design. I thought that by doing the electronic design in the software you have a deeper, deeper understanding on semiconductor and then so, you know, just for recently I think many people they invite me, I've been bombarded with so many investment and so many board asking to join in the board seat. The main reason I'm able to attract that because they know that Lip-bu can add value and then Lip-bu is very knowledgeable and in some way being a CEO of Cadence and in this, you know, a couple of entrepreneur very good friend of mine said Lip-bu in the past we can bluff you and you are the venture guy you don't know anything about the technology and we can get by. Now it's very hard to bluff you because you want to be operating review, you're going to go in the deep so we better tell you the truth. And so in some way it's kind of my advantage.
Can they bluff you in quantum?
It can bluff me a little bit. I've been investing and I've been paying attention to that. So I think that helps. So I think in some way semiconductor, same thing with AI and then was early enough and they thought that this is going to be bigger than internet and then it's very disruptive and I felt that this is going to be a very exciting area. I decided to double down investing not just semiconductor for AI, software for AI and also frontier model and all the new apps that, you know, can be more predictive and then able to do something that, you know, rather than just doing search you're able to predict what is the next, you can kind of prepare more and also massive data that using AI, using agent. So I have, I don't know how many agent I have, so every day they done all the homework and then the first thing in the morning I just look at what are the agent find out in the last day. I put a system that I want to have this question asked and then all the agent working for you. It's just amazing, you know, that you don't have to have so many assistant to help you to do the research and you can just said that even if you want to give a speech I can just go to the agent and they search all the information for me and make it easier for presentation.
Are they searching anything for you in quantum as well?
And so like for example some of the thing that I want to understand more about the particular area application of quantum computing and then sometime the agent can help do that in five minutes rather than two days, you know.
I've been asking Claude a lot as I'm trying to understand and find a better way to explain what is quantum computing, but not a lot of great stuff has come back in that area.
Very, very new. If you were to make a movie of the moment you learned and heard about a quantum computer. Was it a person that said something to you or was it something you read?
Yeah, actually, you know, first encounter of quantum computing is some of the research paper come out there somebody doing something in the quantum computing that fascinate me and then the other part is a professor at Stanford he wrote a very almost like a book on quantum computing, you know, I pick up and then reading it so get to know that. Then the next thing is some of the startup idea came to me, you know, and then I reviewing sometime by, you know, reviewing the new business plan, new idea people coming then you're starting to look out for anything related to quantum computing. I want to know from Caltech, from MIT, from Stanford or Berkeley and so in the way that you the more you understanding the more you ask question, you know, some of the business plan actually you educate yourself and then what is really, is it the trapped ion approach, is the photonics approach or spin silicon approach and so you kind of bombard with different idea.
In case you also feel bombarded with these new words, let's pause the interview for a Quantum Jane moment. First, quantum physics. It isn't time travel for those of you old enough to have watched this. It's the way our world operates at an atomic level. We just don't experience it. A key aspect there is that things exist in a state of so-called superposition. You can think of that as a spinning coin before it hits the ground. We don't know if it'll land as heads or tails. Likewise, it's impossible to predict the outcome of superposition. Quantum computers use this and other quantum properties to run math that today's computers can't. If today's computers are cars, then quantum computers are planes. They can go where cars can't. Superconducting, trapped ion, neutral atoms, photonics, spin qubits, and other complicated words are different technologies these companies use to make quantum computers. Like you might have different technologies to fly a propeller plane, a jet engine plane, a helicopter, a rocket. As for qubits, you've likely already heard of the word bits. It's the unit of information for digital computers today. Qubits are just quantum bits. Oh, and the heads and tails of the coin that represents the ones and zeros in computing.
Are you able to tell us what your quantum computing investments are and when you invested in these companies?
Yeah, the first one I invest is actually IonQ and, you know, the founder, the one of the Korean entrepreneur and reach out to me and my partner and then also brought to my attention and so I spent time, I thought this trapped ion is a very interesting idea and I invest and then with the idea that don't know whether it will be a good return so I didn't put my venture fund invest so I kind of personally investing if I lose it so be it. And then I starting to get excited. Then I invest more. It went public with the SPAC. And then suddenly the stock went up a lot. So I sold half of it and I keep the other half and they continue to do well and I also kind of keep track of what they do. So that's my first investment.
Are you able to tell us some of your other investments in quantum computing?
Sure. So I also invest in PsiQuantum and it's happened that, you know, also is university professor and then reach out to me with this idea of what it's doing and then invite me to their labs and then what they are building and then slowly I kind of like that because it's a photonic approach using optical and then mean that you can really address the direction and position very well and you can networking much better and I thought this is a lot more scalable and then that's why I decided to support and investing and then recently I decided to join the board and because Victor Pan, my good friend used to be CEO of Xilinx and he decided to be the CEO, actually interim CEO and I said how long you going to be there can you be persuaded to be a CEO and then I want to join the board and then help you to really scale the business and then their approach a little bit different because of Photonic is really scalable and then in some way also a lot of government funding, this is related to national security and also focus on using the technology to scale and it's very complex, it's not just, you know, just proof that qubit work and then the error correction then you really mute the system, the infrastructure, the software and the power and then all the components and it's massive, it's very difficult so I think this may be the first one can scale in commercial term and then with Victor background I just enjoy and I join the board and working with them and make it a great success.
So how does it work though? Because Intel also has its quantum computing research and development. It's called spin qubits, right? Using electrons and the direction of that spin versus using photons, light and then also you invested in IonQ which is a trapped ion. These are all different technologies. How do you see the future of these different things? Like in a computer today you have different types of chips. Intel has a CPU. Nvidia has a GPU. There are various different and there are memory chips. You need lots of different chips in a classical computer. And is that the future we see also for a quantum computer?
