Before quantum computing arrives, this startup wants enterprises already running on it

Eighteen months after selling his startup to chipmaker AMD for $665 millionsays the Finnish entrepreneur Peter Sarlin left his role as CEO from the unit now known as AMD Silo AI. He is now chairman of two new ventures: the physical AI lab NestAIAnd QuTwoan AI startup that wants to help companies prepare for the era of quantum computing

Currently fully funded by Sarlin’s family office, PostScriptumQuTwo describes itself as “an AI lab for the quantum age.” However, rather than waiting for quantum computing to mature, it is already working with enterprise customers – including European fashion retailer Zalando, developing what the two companies’lifestyle agents,“AI tools designed to go beyond product search and proactively suggest products and experiences.

QuTwo is built on the premise that AI hits an efficiency wall that quantum computing can ultimately help solve. But the company isn’t betting on when that will happen, Sarlin told TechCrunch. Instead, the startup is building QuTwo OS as an orchestration layer that allows companies to move from classical to quantum computing, using hybrid computing along the way.

Sarlin invested in Finnish quantum companies IQM and QMill through PostScriptum, and is one of a growing number of investors who believe it will ultimately outperform classical computing in a wide range of industrial applications while easing AI’s energy needs. But he also thinks that initial use cases require mixed hardware environments, and that companies would rather focus on their business problems while QuTwo OS takes care of the routing.

In that regard, the potential advantage of the middle ground known as “quantum-inspired” computing is that it is already viable today, because it uses classical hardware while simulating quantum behavior, bypassing the hurdles that still hinder quantum hardware. Meanwhile, QuTwo OS is designed to be flexible and support both quantum and non-quantum algorithms and chips.

The QuTwo team brings experience from both sides of the quantum AI divide. On the quantum side, there is IQM co-founder Kuan Yen Tan and board member Antti Vasara, who is also chairman of SemiQon, a Finnish semiconductor startup focused on quantum chips. The business side is equally represented, by Sarlin himself and Kaj-Mikael Björk, one of his former co-founders at Silo AI. Pekka Lundmark, the former CEO of Finnish telecom giant Nokia, also joined QuTwo’s board of directors.

The team includes more than thirty quantum and AI scientists in both areas, and Sarlin is clear where the company stands. “We are building for the quantum world, but QuTwo is an AI company,” he said, meaning QuTwo is “pushing AI workloads from classical to quantum.”

This also means that the customer base can be quite broad. In addition to Zalando, QuTwo also launched a joint quantum AI research initiative with OP Pohjola, a major Finnish financial services company.

From the start, QuTwo has been commercially minded and already has “major design partnerships running into the tens of millions,” Sarlin said. Design partnerships – where a supplier develops its product together with business customers – are a way for QuTwo to learn what those customers expect as it builds its product. They are also a gamble by companies looking to gain an early foothold on when and if quantum computing will arrive.