A Look at Who’s In the Room at Quantum World Congress
If you’ve been around the quantum space for a while, you know the conference circuit can feel like an echo chamber. Scientists talk to scientists. Industry leaders talk to each other. Government officials hold their own closed-door meetings. It’s all valuable — but it’s siloed.
Quantum World Congress blows that model apart.
This isn’t just another stop on the event calendar. It’s the gathering where the most influential players in science, industry, government, and investment come together in one space — to talk, to debate, to cut deals, and to decide what’s next. It’s where Nobel-caliber researchers can be spotted in deep conversation with Fortune 500 executives. Where a startup founder’s elevator pitch to a policymaker turns into a real-world pilot program. Where a coffee line conversation with a VC might spark the next billion-dollar company.
At QWC 2024, more than 1,000 leaders from 28+ countries and 30 U.S. states converged on the Capital Region. The attendee list reads like a who’s who of the global quantum ecosystem — from big-name anchors like IBM, Microsoft, IonQ, Quantinuum, and Google to groundbreaking startups, leading universities, key government agencies, and heavyweight investors.
Our cross-sector audience includes:
Industry heavyweights building the hardware, software, and applications shaping the field.
Government and policy leaders driving national strategies and international collaboration.
Academic pioneers pushing the boundaries of research and training the next generation.
Finance and investment visionaries fueling commercialization and scale.
And the mix is powerful — think a quantum physicist from MITRE hashing out an idea with an Air Force research director, an economic development leader from Australia chatting with a VP from Boeing, or a state governor trading notes with the head of a European quantum consortium. That cross-pollination is where the breakthroughs happen.
By the numbers, our 2024 attendees included:
C-suite & senior executives: 38%
Directors & department heads: 27%
Researchers, engineers, and technical experts: 23%
Policy, strategy, and program leads: 12%
Notable Speakers in 2024 included:
Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan (NSF), Dr. Cathy Foley (Australia’s Chief Scientist), Dr. Jay Gambetta (IBM), Rajeeb Hazra (Quantinuum), Krysta Svore (Microsoft), Peter Chapman (IonQ), Dr. Michele Mosca (EvolutionQ), Ambassador Birgitta Tazelaar (The Netherlands), and more. These voices — from across science, industry, and government — didn’t just give talks. They set agendas.
The energy in the room is impossible to fake. The urgency is real. There’s a sense that what’s being negotiated, sketched on whiteboards, and whispered in side meetings here will ripple across the industry — and the world — for years to come.
And 2025? It’s going to be bigger. Bolder. Even harder to miss. The only real question is: will you be in the room when the future is being decided?