From Quantum Risk to Competitive Advantage with Shayne De La Force

Quantum technology promises enormous economic value, but are businesses preparing quickly enough to capture it or protect themselves from its risks?

In this episode, Francis Gorman speaks with strategy leader and LFI founder Shayne De la Force about the commercial realities of quantum technology in advanced manufacturing. Drawing on decades of experience across the semiconductor, aerospace, defence and automotive sectors, Shayne explains why quantum must become a board-level economic and governance priority.

They explore the cost of waiting, the challenge of securing global supply chains, the role of an embedded Chief Quantum Officer, and why businesses need to look beyond vague terms such as “quantum advantage” and “quantum readiness.”

Shayne also reflects on beginning his career on a factory floor in Japan, the dangers of “synthetic seniority,” and the lessons behind his book, Strategic Entanglement, which helps deep-tech founders cross the valley of death between innovation and commercial success.

Key Takeaways

• Quantum is an economic issue, not merely a technology issue. Business leaders should evaluate it through two lenses: increasing enterprise value and reducing risk.
• Waiting carries a measurable cost. Organisations that begin planning and piloting now can build stronger competitive moats, while delayed action may expose intellectual property, long-lived data and future market position.
• Quantum preparation needs board-level sponsorship. CISOs and technical teams require executive support, funding and governance authority to deliver meaningful readiness programmes.
• Advanced manufacturers face a supply-chain problem. Prime contractors may have thousands of suppliers operating at very different levels of cryptographic maturity. The weakest supplier can become the greatest source of exposure.
• Prioritisation is more valuable than trying to fix everything at once. Companies should identify high-exposure systems, sensitive intellectual property and long-lived data, then concentrate resources where risk reduction will have the greatest impact.
• Most mid-sized organisations do not need a full internal quantum department. An embedded Chief Quantum Officer model can provide access to strategy, security, physics, governance and programme-management expertise without years of internal hiring.
• Quantum use cases must be tied to commercial outcomes. Not every pilot will deliver immediate value. Organisations need clearly defined business problems, economic metrics and realistic pathways from experimentation to deployment.
• Deep-tech commercialisation must begin early. Start-ups should develop their market narrative, customer belief and commercial strategy alongside the technology—not after the product has been completed.
• Foundational experience still matters. Working directly with machines, infrastructure, customers and operational teams creates judgement that cannot be replaced by AI-generated ideas or “synthetic seniority.”

Soundbites

“Unless you are working for a not-for-profit, we are all here to drive business, growth and economic value.”

“A CEO or CFO has two fundamental objectives: maximise economic value and reduce economic risk.”

“The companies moving today are the ones that will have the strongest competitive moat.”

“Unless you have buy-in at the top, it is very difficult to move the rest of the organisation.”

“When boards see the economic risk of losing their intellectual property and long-term data, that is when the needle starts moving.”

“Building an internal quantum department can take years and millions of dollars. Our embedded model gives companies access to the whole capability.”

“The companies running pilots today are the ones building a competitive moat over the companies that are waiting.”

“In advanced manufacturing, equipment may have a depreciation cycle of 25 or 30 years. That makes cryptographic transition a massive challenge.”

“The prime contractors are preparing, but their supplier base is often their weakest link.”

“Our job is to create clarity in chaos—because, right now, it is chaos.”

“Can we close 80 percent of the exposure in the first 12 months and then work through the remaining 20 percent?”

“The valley of death is where great technology goes to die because the commercialisation strategy was never developed.”

Transcript

Francis (00:49.11)
Hi everyone, welcome to the Entropy Podcast. I'm your host, Francis Gorman. Before we dive in, if today's conversation challenges you, sparks a new idea, or sharpens how you think about the world, don't keep it to yourself. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who enjoys staying curious. Today I'm joined by Shayne De la Force , a veteran strategy leader who has spent his career on the front lines of the world's most complex technology sectors. With deep hands-on experience in semiconductor and advanced manufacturing industries,

Shane has developed and executed growth strategies across the critical innovation hubs of Asia, Europe, and Australia. Now based in Washington, DC, USA, Shane brings a rare global perspective to the challenges of commercializing deep tech. Shane, it's lovely to have you here with me today.

Shayne De la Force (01:33.05)
Thank you so much, family and friends. It's great to be here.

Francis (01:36.504)
Great to have you, Shane. And and I I suppose I'm I'm looking forward to this conversation because of your background and your expertise and and you bring a slightly different angle to to the world than than I focused on, particularly, especially in the in the quantum space. And and and on that you founded LFI on a belief that quantum will reshape the economics of advanced manufacturing before companies are ready to govern it. What's the strongest evidence you've seen that this is already happening?

Shayne De la Force (02:06.947)
Yeah, great question. Happening and going to be happening over the year.

time, I think we're actually getting ready for that happening as part of it. Now, obviously, I mean, it's a big question in terms of whether we're talking about quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum communications, and then looking at it from from the different angles of what that actually looks like. So and you can get a different angle or a different answer to that question, depending on you know, who you're talking to the target audience, the and what that actually means. But you know, our take

it is purely economics and you know ultimately unless you're working for a not-for-profit we're all here to drive business and to drive growth and you know economic growth and what that looks like if you're a CEO or a CFO in a business your main goal is to drive economic value while reducing economic risk or overall risk it is pretty simple keeping it

into those two categories overall. And then what can we actually do and what can the CEO or CFO or the C-suite actually do to maximize economic value for the business with their products and services and also reduce the different risks that are actually coming at the business on there. And there's multiples of all of it. There's juggling all of those different levers, growth levers and risk levers at once.

order a priority to maximize the value of that business. So for us,

Shayne De la Force (03:49.217)
And when we look at the value creation and all the modeling that we've actually done, what we can actually see is the economic value that's going to come from quantum is massive. Especially if you take history as an example and look at the major areas of industry 1.0 where we're working on the farms to industry 2.0 and then industry 3.0 where predominantly we are starting to get automation going in. The value creation from the

different industrial eras, it's massive, especially when we start working towards industry 6.0 or industry 5.0, 6.0 and beyond, and that's going far into the future right now. But the value creation of those particular eras going forward is massively increasing exponentially over time. And also the period, the first period of industry 1.0 was about 110 years.

Industry was about 95 years. Industry 3.0 is about 25 years. And we're expecting industry 5.0 and 6.0 to be less than 10 years going through that. But yet the value creation from that, learning from history and looking forward in terms of the numbers are gonna be pretty staggering.

Francis (05:13.217)
I I I I love all his economics pieces when you start kinda breaking it down and then showing the

Shayne De la Force (05:15.782)
Sorry, I geek out on the numbers.

Francis (05:21.933)
Don't worry. I I I I appreciated it. Especially I I I I'm I'm trying to remember what book I I I read, but like someone who is thirteen in the next decade will see something like sixty years change in a week or so something incredible was like I can't remember the exact step, but it's just that kind of the compression you're talking about there. You know, we went hundreds years down to kind of twenty, and then we're ten like and after that's after that cycle what's it gonna what's it gonna look like? And I I I suppose

Shayne De la Force (05:44.303)
and

Francis (05:50.082)
W we're talking economics and we're talking quantum. What's the cost of being unprepared? Is is there is there a is there a dollar or competitive or enterprise value lens we can we can put on a chain?

Shayne De la Force (06:00.622)
Yeah, there absolutely is. There's a dollar figure we can put on weighting from a risk perspective, especially when we're looking at, we'll get into a little bit deeper, I'm sure later on, but in terms of weighting, what's that risk in terms of IP, in terms of your intellectual property and your data loss of your long term data? What is that? That has a cost on it. And it's very easy to calculate what that actual cost is. But then there's also the cost

of waiting in terms of preparation for what is actually coming. Those companies that are moving today are the ones that are going to have the highest competitive moat when it goes through here because ultimately, we always use the analogy of building a bridge. And that's what we're trying to do with quantum is building a bridge to maximize the economic value while reducing risk for a particular company going forward. But in order to build a solid bridge, you need to actually have the plan.

your engineering plans and what that looks like. You need to actually make sure it's built on your solid foundations and that's your cyber security, quantum security side of things. Then you need to actually start adding value. You want cars to go across your bridge. You start with one lane, test it, make sure that that one car can get across the actual bridge in the shortest amount of time. And then, you know, working on quantum advantage down the path there.

freeway and all of that. yes, you can absolutely put numbers and you must put numbers across each of the different segments of the bridge, let's say, that you're actually crossing.

Francis (07:43.508)
I I like I I like the analogy of the bridge and, you know, the expansion of the bridge and then the purpose of the bridge with the cars running across it and the trucks and the lorries or or whatever else is needed to get the kind of quantum advantage. Are are boards making decisions today in terms of quantum governance that they don't even realise are quantum decisions or are gonna cause issues in the future?

Shayne De la Force (08:07.142)
Yes and no. Still very early days and that's what we're we're spending a lot of time on is talking to boards worldwide in the industrial space and actually explaining to them what all this actually means. You know, as a board member myself on different boards, but also from a business perspective and talking to a lot of the boards, there's a level of awareness that doesn't exist yet around it. know, everybody is obsessed with AI right now and that's

of sucking all the air out of the room in a lot of ways and then being able to have that conversation. But the whole conversation here once again is once you put those economic numbers around it and also from a board perspective they have fiduciary requirements to minimize the risk and understanding what that risk of quantum technologies are. So I would say we're at the early days of education with the boards and that's also where we're spending a lot of

time. If we can start with the boards and then work our way through the actual business, I think that's going to be the best path forward for most businesses because unless you've got buy-in at the top, it's very hard to go through the rest. if you've bottom up or whatever within the hierarchy, CISO needs their support, the budget and the resources in order to be able to move through this. And for that, they need the C-suite on board.

C-suite needs the actual board on site as well. So, you know, to answer your question, we're getting there. We're starting. And I think having that conversation with boards, industrial boards, around the world is actually starting to have a, resonates once they hear the message. Absolutely. And then their job is to put that in order of priority of all the many, priorities that they've actually got.

Ultimately, risk is a calculation that every business needs to actually make based on the risk of everything else they've got going on, macro and micro economic factors and everything else. Where does that risk fall into all the risks that they're actually working on today? And what would that actually look like? I think there's a lot of organizations that are very slow to move and we've got big organizations like Google.

Shayne De la Force (10:36.712)
announcement in 2029, got CloudFlare, Microsoft and...

I think that's a great start to showing companies on that, we're actually moving and getting forward and why we actually need that. But we're starting at LFI and having that conversation with boards with a number. Looking at the risk number, what's the economic risk of losing all your IP and your long-term data today? And that's usually when the needle starts moving and when their eyes start lighting up and going, crap.

it's always what we want.

Francis (11:15.051)
crap. If we're looking for we've got another crap, we're we're we're good. Shane, I I'm interested because you you're you're talking to a lot of manufacturing industry type corporations, etcetera. Obviously I spent a lot of time in the financial sector and the mobilization effort there is quite coordinated, quite pointed, and a and a lot of cross contamination between ideas in in that space that are

Shayne De la Force (11:18.158)
Yes.

Francis (11:40.28)
you know, being shared and and and are forming the roadmaps for different banks and and other types of credit facilities across Europe and America and Canada and and and beyond. The manufacturing space to me doesn't seem like a novious candidate to get quantum ready. Can you can you why why did you go after that one first? Can you can you talk to me about that?

Shayne De la Force (11:59.751)
Quick question. Yo, so, it's my background. I started off in the, you know, I...

graduated university in Osaka, Japan, and then went straight into the semiconductor business for working, living in Japan for nearly 15 years there. So I've started my career in deep tech and continue that conversation in one form or another through advanced manufacturing and deep tech in there. The reason in terms of LFI and run there, it's not just actually because of my background or my technology or my network in that particular area,

When we talk about it, we're talking about advanced manufacturing. And so what are those main sectors that fall within your advanced industry for us? We have the semiconductor industry. We have the aerospace industry. We have the defense industry. We have automotive as a starting point. Now you think

of those four particular sectors within advanced manufacturing or advanced industry and they all are at the bleeding edge in terms of compute and what's actually happening right now in terms of compute. They're leading the way but also predominantly all four of these actually have government mandates looming over their heads or about to loom you know obviously we had some the US government rolling back their CMMC this week at phase two but I think that's just actually a little bit of a pause and

terms of what's actually going to happen. But all four of these sectors are government mandates. They all are at the bleeding edge of compute and what they're actually doing in that area where quantum can actually have huge potential value creation for them. And so that was sort of the actual reasoning in terms of where we're actually focusing on that. That being said, also, you know, when you look at the other sectors like finance, like you're actually saying, pharma, chemical, there's

Shayne De la Force (14:00.552)
massive value creation possible in those areas as well. I think those some of those industries, for example, finance sector is well or truly ahead of us in the advanced industrials, but we're going to catch up and you know, we're moving in that process, but getting that consolidation singular voice for the industry going forward as well is going to be really important for us. But yeah, we've got some catching up to do to the

finance industry.

Francis (14:32.843)
No, it's great. I I'm just super interested in in in in in it. But then when you start seeing, you know, aviation, I was like, yeah, okay. Maybe maybe maybe those guys do want to be on top of it, yeah. So no that that's a that's a great that's a great insight. Shane, I was I was I was looking at your your company website and doing a bit of background research and I came across the virtual chief quantum officer. Can you c can you tell me who needs a

Shayne De la Force (14:41.411)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Francis (14:57.441)
virtual chief quantum officer and what that kind of remit is. I I'm assuming it's an executive level role that slots into an organization where there's a there's a gap.

Shayne De la Force (15:06.406)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for asking. So embedded cheap quantum officer, it's really, when we actually look at technology change and what that actually looks like, for example, when I started off in the semiconductor industry, you would buy the actual compute power you needed, whether it's a CPUs or GPUs and actually you would embed it on premise and go in there and you would actually bring all the talent and resources in house as well. Where, if you're a tier one,

your Lockheed Martin, your Airbus, your that size where you're actually a Prime, you've got to have the internal resources. Lockheed Martin have a quantum team, quite a sizeable quantum team in-house, so does Airbus, so does all the other major Primes are developing as well. But when you start looking at the tier 2s and the tier 3s who actually feed into the Prime, they don't.

And they don't necessarily need to also to be able to maximize the value because the

delivery chain for quantum is going to be very different to past compute eras whereby you needed to buy the hardware, the software, etc. A lot of it is going to be cloud-based from a hardware perspective. They're getting access, so there's going to be lot of easy access. So we believe one of the biggest pain points for advanced industrials is

that be actually the skills, the talent, the leadership, the governance, the skill sets that they're actually needing to maximize the value of quantum technologies. And that's where our embedded chief quantum officer actually comes into play. It's not one person, it's actually the whole company is the chief quantum officer that they're actually getting access to. When you look at the amount of physicists, quantum physicists and project management

Shayne De la Force (17:13.544)
you know, quantum security specialists and everything you actually need can take years and years and millions of dollars to actually get that department actually up and running within an organization. So our niche going in is actually offering that embedded service for companies where they can have a chief quantum officer to actually help them maximize the value from quantum technologies and reduce risks from quantum technologies to get to that point where they're

maximizing the value and risk reduction from it with our chief quantum officer model.

Francis (17:52.046)
So so essentially they have two hats on. They're looking at quantum advantage overlay within the existing company structure and they're looking at quantum safe migrations to move the company into a place where they're protected into the future. Okay.

Shayne De la Force (18:07.011)
Absolutely.

And in essence, that's what LFI's main goal is here. And what we're actually doing is helping companies on both of those two elements to, to maximize the, there's certain things they'll be able to do themselves. And that, and that's great. But our job is to close the Delta between what they can actually do themselves with the talents and skillset that they actually already have. And the, the maximum value proposition and risk reduction that we can actually there. And what was that Delta between the two?

and that's why what LFI exists is all for the customers.

Francis (18:43.469)
Shin, you you've you've been across the industry for many years, so you've touched on semiconductors quite a bit, and and now we've kind of slid into quantum advantage. When you when you look out over the next kind of five, ten years and we talk quantum advantage specifically, where do you see the economic gains coming in that space?

Shayne De la Force (19:02.019)
It's quite a lot. then first, before I answer that question, I'm...

The whole terminology of quantum advantage, think we're going to need to tighten up there in terms of the definition of what quantum advantage is. You're in a lot in terms of your quantum advantage, in terms of cryptography, quantum advantage, in terms of value, your quantum advantage, in terms of what that means overall for that particular industry. So I'm moving away from slowly using the terminology of quantum advantage because one is

overused and to it's understood by industry itself. It's become a bit of a catchphrase overall, but like what is quantum advantage there? And if you're only talking going to quantum security, know, what is it the advantage on that? That leaves a whole lot there. In industry also, as I talking about, our nirvana or destination where we want to actually get to is industry 6.0.

So in essence, that's our quantum advantage over time and what that actually looks like. So I just want to put a park on the whole usage of quantum advantage and the terminology and definition of quantum advantage. I think that's still being sorted. And I think in the next year, we'll see some more definition and less usage of that word. coming back to your question in terms of value creation,

in the semiconductor industry. Honestly, the semiconductor industry is already on the ball. There's actually a lot of pilots actually happening, whether it's in terms of new material discovery, their chemical uses and everything that we're actually using for lithography. There's a whole lot and also even in terms of new product development. In the semiconductor world,

Shayne De la Force (21:06.414)
something called Moore's law where everything doubles in terms of your transistors and technology in there and that's becoming getting to the limit. So what would be interesting is with the introduction of both artificial intelligence and quantum how much further we can push that and that's going to be a really interesting

Concept that everybody's looking at, you you hear people like, Moore's Law is actually done in the semiconductor, it's not done. And I think AI and other technologies, including quantum, is actually really going to squeeze every last drop out of what we can actually get from there. So I think there's a lot of use cases and the companies that are already doing the pilots today are the ones that are going to get ahead and create that competitive moment over other companies.

as well there. So we're working on with quite a few right now in terms of pilots there and be great to be able to get to a point where we can actually talk about those particular use cases. And I think use cases are one of the biggest areas that of interest that everybody wants to talk about today. Like what's the use case, what's the economic value of that particular use case for an organization. And those companies that are actually getting in there early and doing

that are trying to go build that competitive mode today.

Francis (22:37.357)
I suppose we have to learn from the mistakes of AI, and every use case isn't going to derive instant value. Quite the opposite in most cases.

Shayne De la Force (22:43.288)
Exactly. But one fits all shoes as part of that as well.

Francis (22:49.569)
Thanks, Shane Shane. It it's it's it's actually interesting to hear you kinda look at Quantum Advantage and say there's different perceptions of what it is. 'Cause 'cause I suppose from the work that that that I do quite a bit, we we've Quantum Safe, which is post quantum migrations or QKD between data centers or high value targets, and then you've quantum advantage, which is looking at the likes of HSBC's algo trading use cases to see can you shave seconds off transaction times or looking at how you can

use quantum computers to increase heuristics on models that then feed back into classical machines to get kind of an advantage in terms of statistical analysis for different use cases in financial or healthcare, et cetera. So that th that was I kinda had two clear boxes, but now you've now you've screwed now you've skewed them for me.

Shayne De la Force (23:32.13)
I like, my god music to my ears, love it.

Francis (23:41.9)
Shed, I I want to ask, y you you spent fifteen years in Japan, if if I'm correct, looking at your your your background. I I'm always interested for for people who kind of, you know, take themselves out of of where they are, go somewhere else. Did spending that time in Japan teach you anything about industrial competitiveness that Western executives often overlook?

Shayne De la Force (24:01.478)
Oh yeah. think, you know, I left when I was, left Australia when I was 17 to Japan and did my undergrad. And, you know, it went straight into, you know, working for a Japanese company. So really that, you know, that first job, that first 20, you know, in your twenties was the, which

all built in Japan, made in Japan. And it's all I actually knew. And it wasn't until I actually started, you know, after Japan, I then spent quite a few years in Munich, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hong Kong, back to Australia in the last 12 years in the USA. But it wasn't until I left Japan that I realized the differences and in terms of the competitive advantage of what's actually, you know, the Japanese way.

you know, and the different eras of that as well. If you go back into the 80s, when Japan was going through the economic boom, you know, then they, you know, hit the in the in the 1990s, I went into a 20 year almost depression, you know, with the banking sector and everything, you know, just in terms of their impact on industry overall with your just in time manufacturing or the

different ways in terms of outlook. And I think just having a perspective and looking at things in a different way is very important. And then not necessarily saying one is better than the other, but having that perspective then to be able to drive business and drive economic outcome based on understanding your

maybe your perspective is biased sometimes and maybe sometimes it's other avenues that you only know what you only know. So I think it's given me a nice, very rounded...

Shayne De la Force (25:59.609)
understanding both from a cultural perspective and ultimately at the end of the day we're all dealing with people and you know people just want to get on and do their jobs and enjoy them what they're actually doing but how they actually do it and how you actually can execute in different ways I think there's many many roads lead to Rome some get there to Rome faster than others and just understanding which one is best for that particular scenario or case.

Francis (26:28.205)
No, it's it's it's I I I I like the kind of the the grounding you get from from this. I I always talk to to to a lot of people who have, you know, spent portions of their career in different countries and they get the same thing. It's it's kind of like it taught me to be a better communicator, more so than than than anything else, you know, because you had to one, work with a different culture, you know, different language in some cases and, you know, a different a different way of of of living and and that kind of

Shayne De la Force (26:44.868)
Yeah.

Francis (26:57.687)
brings its own its own perspectives which is which is it's interesting.

Shayne De la Force (27:00.294)
Absolutely. mean, just as an example there, like when I started my career in Japan, it was something, you know, it was in Hiroshima of all places. And when you start back then with the Japanese company, and that was one of the few foreigners in the company, I think there was three of us all together. But

you start on the factory floor. And that was one of the things I always, I didn't say I can't say I enjoyed it at the time, but then I look back at it and where you're actually on the factory floor, no matter what your role is in the company, you start on the factory floor where you're actually learning the machine, how the machine is actually built, you're actually building the machines, you're building the product, you're in there, you're bonding with the other factory workers that are actually in there and building the machine from the ground

up. And I love that, you know, in hindsight of what that actually teaches you. And I think that's a very different perspective to the West on there. you don't just know how to actually build that. love that I was in the overalls on the on the shop floor in Hiroshima, in there with my toolkit, building the machines and then and being down going with the company with that same company and then

was promoted into Munich, Germany. having that perspective, really from the ground up, and you work your way from the bottom up, from getting the coffees and teas in the morning and being on the factory floor to your first roles in management and working through all of that. I think that was incredibly useful. as you said, perspective is all important in all of that.

Francis (28:44.641)
You know, hindsight is is is fantastic. like this is this is something I think we're actually have have lost. it came up. I was talking to Raheem Hirji a couple of weeks back on on skills that survive AI and a term he had that's kind of stuck with me was synthetic seniority. And and his whole premise was, you know, we've got these people within organizations coming up with these brilliant ideas, but then when they go to execute them, they collapse.

Shayne De la Force (29:02.245)
Yeah.

Francis (29:10.177)
And when they collapse they're nowhere to be seen because they actually don't understand where where the idea came from because it was AI generated. And and like my my background, you know, I started out runner in in in the film industry, making teas and coffees, ended up in the edit suite, then pivoted into in into into technology, spent time in the network stack making up the cables and plugging them in, trying to figure out how the switches work. And now I'm I'm obviously at the architectural logical, but I can I can look back and go.

something's broken down there or there's something not quite right at layer whatever or you know, 'cause 'cause my mind doesn't automatically go to the problem. It kind of goes dun dun dun five steps back and looks at the bigger picture. And I don't think you can get that if you've never had the pain of having to understand how that picture got painted, you know? Which is

Shayne De la Force (29:42.672)
Yeah.

Shayne De la Force (29:58.859)
I mean, you pinpointed the pain and understanding the pain, both from a customer perspective, but also from an internal perspective is so important.

Francis (30:09.047)
Yeah, I think we should bring bring back the the work on the floor for for a couple of years, ev even if you're in in a higher position.

Shayne De la Force (30:12.454)
Did you imagine that? The Gen Z's are like, hell no.

Francis (30:22.123)
Here's a here's a here's a wrench. Yeah.

Francis (30:27.641)
I I I I love it. Shane, can c can we can we pivot into post quantum readiness or or or quantum safe for a minute? I'm I'm I'm interested to to see your view 'cause of of the footprint of companies that you're you're dealing with in terms of how they're approaching their their their quantum readiness or their quantum safe migration plans or even trying to understand

What it is they need to do in that space. Cause I'm assuming with manufacturing you have a lot of OT and SCADA type devices hanging everywhere, which becomes a minefield.

Shayne De la Force (30:58.661)
Massive.

Shayne De la Force (31:02.534)
25 year, 30 year equipment depreciation and all of the above, absolutely. And similar to what I was talking about with quantum advantage, I also have problems with quantum readiness because once again on that as well, the terminology is not consistent on all of that.

When we're talking, when we are talking quantum readiness, for us, that means we have all the plans and schematics for the bridge on what that actually looks like. That the right people are in the right place, that we actually understand technology, culture, security, governance, the skill sets of that particular business and actually having a full roadmap plan to go forward with both quantum security

PQC and also value creation with quantum utility and quantum advantage on all of that. So that just wanted to actually say that in terms of value, the terminology of that in the industry, both quantum readiness and quantum advantage, I think we've really got to hone in a little bit more on what that actually means. But in this case, think we're talking, know, quantum security, PQC, cryptography readiness as part of that.

So there's varying degrees that we're actually seeing and it's all going to be from the top down. So when we look at a company, let's say Lockheed Martin, Lockheed Martin have close to, I think it's 14,000 suppliers.

Your Airbus have close to 21,000 suppliers. Each of the different primes have got massive number of vendors, suppliers there. And each of them are at very different levels of readiness in terms of cryptography and being crypto agile, let's say, and go with that particular

Shayne De la Force (33:11.986)
word there. The primes are on it, but the primes are also

trying to work out that their supplier base is their weakest link. And how do you get 13,000, 15,000, 20,000, 35,000 supplier base also in line and actually completing their migration. So this is one of the biggest questions that we're working on with these tier one primes is like, how do you actually make that transition? What does that actually look

like so it's not just them but it's also player base and you your tier ones are already starting that conversation and already going in that path but if you talk about a tier two or tier three when we're having conversations with them even if they're in the semiconductor or aerospace or defense areas they've still got government mandates and compliance requirements and they've also got their customer their primes or their their primes requirements on them so there's varying degree

of requirements on them right now that they're trying to understand. What does even just the government mandates mean for them? What is their prime, you know, the customer mandates mean for them? And how do they them? How can they do that? And when do they need to do it by? And what's the cost of actually doing that? So there's a lot of questions being asked in terms of that. And in terms of readiness, there's massive degrees of zero readiness to your primes being probably 42%.

percent ready and there and understanding all of that. Obviously, the primes have got all the resources, they've got all the budget, they've got all of that in place. But that doesn't help them from a vendor base when you've got so many different vendors. That's a issue that we were all still working through right now. And how do we actually get collectively everybody there with the technology? We're still getting the standards or

Shayne De la Force (35:17.17)
migrating, know, our three from NIST and then there's another nine on their way and which one's roughly win You know great feedback coming from so many great people out there in the industry Whether it's cloud flares, you know, weren't very closely with the great Brian cousins as well. It's got a lot of different opinions. There's lot of movement out there in the industry and You know our job at LFI is to create clarity and chaos because

because it is chaos right now and helping him to create that clarity amongst all that chaos that's happening.

Francis (35:55.958)
You when you say twenty thousand suppliers or vendors, I gotta gotta kind of a it's like Jesus why such a sprawl? Is there is there an opportunity for consolidation there, or is this just like some guy makes a bolt and some other guy makes a tire and some other guy makes like how much of that is how much of that base is network

Shayne De la Force (36:01.19)
The seats are absolutely...

Francis (36:22.593)
connected or infrastructure connected or direct exposure. Like like how do you even start? Like like this is bringing me back to my my my cryptographic bill of materials problem of you know create a C bomb. And I'm like, no no no don't create a C bomb. Create a create a mapping of your your high exposure systems with long lived data and start there. Don't don't scan everything and everywhere and put a million problems that you don't know where to start. You know so I suppose that

Shayne De la Force (36:38.874)
Ha ha!

Francis (36:51.415)
The how do you turn the million problems or the twenty thousand suppliers into five, ten, fifteen of exposure level this has schematics or drawns or sensitive IP. These guys create really custom, you know, software. D did it like that that's well, Shane, fair play to you.

Shayne De la Force (37:09.894)
I bet you're flustered, No, it's a huge, huge, huge issue that we're talking with and we're working through at the moment. But as you, think you hit the nail on the head when you said exposure, your profile, what's the priority on there? Where's the biggest exposure?

Francis (37:15.949)
Yeah.

Shayne De la Force (37:34.855)
today, you know, and generally, can we, you know, sort of like the 80-20 rule, can we close 80 % of that exposure in the first 12 months of 80 % of the vendors, you know, of the the supply chain, and then work through the remaining 20 % on there, depending on that exposure on what that actually looks like. And ultimately, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to reduce risk, once again, in the shortest amount of time in the best possible way.

for both the prime and the whole supply base and what does that look like.

Francis (38:11.649)
Yeah, I d I don't I don't envy you. would be would probably be my my my takeaway there. Shane, before we before we finish up, I was reading that, you know, you you wrote a book and it had some interesting perspectives on it, maybe not specifically a quantum specific rendition, but interesting nonetheless, I I I I'm always interested to hear, you know, when when people have have lived a career and then, you know, actually taking the time to sit down and get that on paper.

I've great admiration for that because you know I've I I think I I could have 30 books started here, but they got to chapter one and then I get another problem and I move on, you know. So I haven't actually managed to complete anything with any level of of sufficiency so far. So I like the that process or that that need was it was it a need to to get an idea down on paper? Did it was it something just

Shayne De la Force (38:48.261)
I'm

Shayne De la Force (38:52.9)
You get there, you get there.

Francis (39:03.913)
Was a side hobby that materialized and and then came to life? Like what what was your what was your process around creating a group and what was the purpose of of getting getting it out there?

Shayne De la Force (39:13.198)
Yeah, so I wrote Strategic Entanglement and it was last year.

With the goal, when I've been going to a lot of quantum conferences, there's incredible, incredible ideas, innovation coming through in different startups all around the world. But the one area that they always get stuck on is commercialization. They're coming from amazing universities, academics, they're, but everyone was called, it's called the valley of death, where technology

goes to die and you have there and I could see the same thing you're working through and when I started my career in the semiconductor business and then putting analogies between the semiconductor industry and also then the quantum industry I was just like God I don't want people to make the same mistakes we made way back then and started putting down you know some

lessons learned, let's say, and once again, making me sound like an old man, but like lessons learned from what we did in the semiconductor industry to actually, you know, accelerate the growth of that particular industry of your particular product from in the deep tech. So it's all about a playable to archetype new markets and create beliefs in your quantum and deep tech. And it's been really well received. It's actually now what

of the textbooks for the Quantum Australia New Venture Program and teaching it there. It was also just mainly for me to be able to help stop people from making the same mistakes that I did way back when in the semiconductor industry and then being able to help accelerate because we're talking about those industrial eras getting shorter and shorter. We don't have the time to be making the same mistakes that we made back then.

Shayne De la Force (41:10.726)
And not to say that it's a one-to-one comparison as well, but I wanted to jot down those experiences and help those new startups that are coming through with these incredible innovative ideas in quantum to accelerate their journey to commercialization success.

Francis (41:30.669)
Can you give me one or two of the key takeaways from that book, if you can?

Shayne De la Force (41:34.259)
it's quite a lot but there's every strategic entanglement, these are in terms of the actual naming that I obviously it's a play from, you know, on the whole quantum entanglement that we're actually talking about there. But there's two parts that within the business, they need to be actually connected.

in there and there's certain elements both in commercialization generally it is always thought of at a last level or marketing is at a last level in just in terms of that and my point being that it needs to be upfront and actually driving it. There's certain levels of things that are not being done by the startups that should be done to help them create the market, the narrative, especially in deep tech.

It's very interesting because a lot of time you'll detect startups building a product that doesn't exist yet or won't exist for another five or 10 years. And so I use some case studies in there. you know, for example, PsyQuantum who have been able to create a massive, massive investment with no product, though they've been able to create this narrative in the market and what they're building and they've got a lot of people behind them.

to their credit that they're being able to build on something that we'll probably see in about five years time what that actually looks like. But how do they create that narrative? How do they create that belief to be able to get the investment that they actually needed from all of that? And not to say that there's all roads, there's multiple ways to actually get there, Quentinium did it in a very different way. there's, I try to use a lot of use cases in the book to be able to show the different methods, the different

companies with existing companies that are using today in deep tech and quantum to help them drive commercialization, get investment and actually accelerate the whole process.

Francis (43:41.559)
Super interesting. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to procure a copy now, Shane, to to to read this in more detail. So I will. Shane, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Thanks for joining me today. I really enjoyed the conversation. I'm sure the listeners got a lot out of it as well.

Shayne De la Force (43:45.062)
I'll send one your way.

Shayne De la Force (43:55.782)
The pleasure was mine. look forward to continuing it sometime soon. Thanks so much, Francis.

Francis (44:00.792)
Thank you.