Quantum.Tech 2026: The Conversation Has Shifted From "If" to "How"

Reflections from enterprise, government, and academic leaders on where the industry stands — and where it's headed.

We asked seven Quantum.Tech 2026 attendees for their biggest takeaway from the event, and a striking pattern emerges: almost no one is still debating whether quantum technology will matter. The question on everyone's mind now is how to get ready for it. And who is already building the picks and shovels for the industry that follows.

From Exploration to Execution

For Yancho Gerdjikov, Manager of Emerging Technology at Nestlé, this year's event marked a clear inflection point.

 "The industry is moving from exploration to execution. The conversation is no longer centered on whether quantum technologies will matter, but on how enterprises can build the capabilities, partnerships, and governance needed to capture value as the technology matures."

Gerdjikov pointed to hybrid computing as the theme that stood out most — not quantum replacing classical infrastructure, but CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators, and eventually quantum processors each handling the problems they're best suited for. "This is a much more practical and actionable vision than waiting for a distant 'quantum advantage' moment," he said, noting it mirrors Nestlé's own approach of targeted experimentation in optimization, security, and long-term scientific applications.

Aleena Taufiq, Senior AI Product Manager at Verizon, described a similar shift in tone across the sessions she attended.
 
"One of my biggest takeaways was seeing how much the conversation around quantum has evolved from possibility to preparation... there was a clear shift toward practical adoption, real-world use cases, and how organizations can begin preparing today rather than waiting for the technology to fully mature."

Jay Lowell, Principal Senior Technical Fellow at Boeing, saw the same shift play out on the exhibition floor itself. "The number of companies working in the quantum technology space is rapidly increasing, and many of them are quickly growing past the point of being ideas and showcasing products or prototypes," he said, calling the contrast with last year "striking."

Building Bridges Across Sectors

Quantum.Tech's stated aim of bringing together enterprise, government, academia, and technology leaders in one room was, by most accounts, where the real value happened this year.

Rick Mukherjee, Director of the UTC Quantum Center and Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, credited the event's structure directly.

 "The structure of the parallel sessions, along with dedicated meetings that brought together leaders from industry, government, academia, and technology... At the Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative (CQC), we took full advantage of these opportunities and are grateful to the organizers for working with us to make this level of engagement possible."

Susan Gregurick, Associate Director for Data Science at the NIH, said the format let her have conversations that don't typically come up at her agency. "I had a few really good conversations on fault tolerance and quantum memory... Attending Quantum Tech allowed me to interact directly with vendors and learn about the latest in hardware development." She singled out the growing engagement between the quantum community and the pharmaceutical sector as a signal that QIS belongs squarely in NIH's research goals.

Brian Miles, Principal Technical Lead at AT&T, pointed to a more informal format as his highlight. "I thought the 'startup corridor' was fantastic! I was able to quickly see the latest emerging tech in quantum and get a few minutes with reps from each company of interest. Very efficient use of my time!"

For Karnika Yashwant, CEO of KEY Difference, the most valuable exchanges were the ones that forced a confrontation between lab-grade physics and commercial storytelling. "Some of the strongest technical work in quantum sits in labs that have no real connection to the commercial world, and some of the best-funded commercial narratives are not backed by much physics," she said. On her own track, she watched "security and communications people" lay out the threat model with precision while "enterprise leaders in the room re-rank their roadmaps in real time" — a dynamic she credited to strong national lab and university participation. "Without it, the conversation would have stayed at the level of vendor claims."

The "Picks and Shovels" Reality

Perhaps the sharpest framing of the event came from Yashwant, who compared quantum's current moment to an earlier technology cycle.

 "If I date sectors against cycles I have personally lived through, quantum today sits roughly where blockchain sat in 2013: genuinely early, still finding direction, a decade away from the mass-market application everyone is waiting for. That is not a criticism, it is a positioning instruction. The people making money right now are the ones supplying the industry — control electronics, cryogenics, photonics, measurement, the supply chain — because they win regardless of which qubit modality eventually leads."

 It's a theme that, in different words, ran through nearly every conversation at Quantum.Tech 2026: the winners of the next twelve months may not be the organizations betting on a specific quantum breakthrough, but the ones building the infrastructure, partnerships, and readiness to capitalize on whichever breakthrough arrives first.

CONTRIBUTORS

● Yancho Gerdjikov, Manager, Emerging Technology, Nestlé
● Rick Mukherjee, Ph.D., Director, UTC Quantum Center; Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
● Susan Gregurick, Associate Director for Data Science, Office of Data Science Strategy, National Institutes of Health
● Karnika Yashwant, CEO, KEY Difference
● Brian Miles, Principal Technical Lead, AT&T
● Aleena Taufiq, Senior AI Product Manager, Verizon
● Jay Lowell, Principal Senior Technical Fellow, Boeing