Quantum Future: A University–Industry Blueprint with RPI & NVIDIA
RPI’s Martin Schmidt and NVIDIA Co-Founder Curtis Priem map the next decade of quantum—and how to build for it now
“We need an architecture the whole world can build on—then give students real access and let them run.”
At Quantum World Congress 2025, the Main Stage opened with a fireside chat that blended institutional vision with industry hard-won experience. Martin Schmidt, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and Curtis Priem, Co-Founder of NVIDIA and Vice Chair of RPI’s Board of Trustees, laid out what they called a blueprint for the next decade of quantum: build durable architectures, give students hands-on access, and grow ecosystems that connect universities with industry and regions.
Schmidt began by crediting Priem with sparking RPI’s push into quantum in 2023. “Curtis challenged us to get a quantum computer on campus and do something real with it,” Schmidt recalled. That challenge quickly reshaped RPI’s approach. Today, the campus has multiple systems, courses that integrate quantum programming, and one of the largest student-led Quantum Computing Clubs in the country—with more than 500 undergraduates already coding on live machines.
Priem’s perspective reached back to his pioneering role in GPU architecture. He described how, at Sun Microsystems and then at NVIDIA, breaking away from the CPU paradigm required designing hardware around memory bandwidth and specialized algorithms rather than incremental clock speed. That architectural leap, once paired with the right software stack, became the backbone for the AI revolution.
“If you want an industry to thrive, you need an architecture the whole world can build on,” Priem said. “That’s how GPUs unlocked AI—and quantum will need the same foundation.”
He cautioned that quantum’s acceleration curve may outpace even GPUs. While CPUs doubled performance roughly every six years, GPUs rode Moore’s Law to double every two. Under the right conditions, Priem argued, quantum systems could achieve exponential leaps—“doubling performance every 19 hours” in some projections. That pace, he warned, demands foresight in how hardware and software ecosystems are designed.
Schmidt underscored how RPI is trying to model that foresight by coupling education with infrastructure. He noted that “if you want to do education, you need three quantum computers—one for students, one for research, and one just for debugging and control experiments.” Giving students logins and letting them “hack” on live machines, he emphasized, has been transformative: “This is a technology that can be accessed without an advanced degree. That’s how you build the workforce at scale.”
“Give students access to a quantum computer and let them hack—it changes everything.”
Together, Schmidt and Priem pointed to the Hudson River Valley’s density of talent and institutions as fertile ground for a regional cluster, comparing it to biotech in Boston or robotics in Pittsburgh. By aligning universities, private investors, and industry players, they argued, quantum can move from isolated experiments to a self-sustaining ecosystem that multiplies opportunity.
For Priem, the urgency is personal: he has already invested nearly $100 million into seeding RPI’s efforts and wants to see robust hardware and software stacks emerge within two decades. “My goal is to see this industry thrive before I forget it happened,” he joked, underscoring the human drive behind technological ambition.
The conversation ended with a call to view quantum as a generational inflection point—one that will require the same mix of vision, risk-taking, and architectural discipline that defined the GPU era. As Schmidt summed it up: “Access, architecture, and ecosystems—that’s the blueprint for building the quantum future.”