Tom Darras (Welinq): Scaling quantum computers by networking shared entanglement

Yuval Boger interviews Tom Darras, CEO and co-founder of Welinq. They discuss how quantum networking uses shared entanglement to interconnect quantum processors, enabling modular scale-out clusters and quantum-safe connectivity between data centers. Tom explains the technical building blocks—qubit-photon interfaces, optical networks, entangled photon sources, and especially quantum memories—as well as the performance metrics that matter most, like entanglement generation rate, fidelity, and memory lifetime. They also cover Welinq’s Arachne compiler for distributing circuits across multiple QPUs, why networking is becoming a consensus scaling strategy across modalities, and how “quantum-augmented data centers” are starting to become real initiatives.

Transcript

Yuval Boger: Hello Tom, and thank you for joining me today.

Tom Darras: Thank you.

Yuval: So, who are you and what do you do?

Tom: Well, it’s a real pleasure for me to be here today. My name is Tom Darras. I’m the CEO and co-founder of Welinq. And at Welinq we build networking technologies that connect quantum computers together. Our goal is to provide the entire stack of networking solutions that will allow us to deploy clusters of quantum computers in data centers all around the world.