Michaela Eichinger (Quantum Machines): Why classical compute and HPC integration will define useful quantum

Yuval Boger interviews Michaela Eichinger, a product solutions physicist at Quantum Machines and the author of a widely read quantum computing newsletter. They discuss her transition from academia to industry, her fascination with systems-level views of the quantum stack, and the role of communication in building the quantum ecosystem. The conversation covers the state of quantum computing in 2026, realistic metrics for progress, superconducting qubits, and why classical processing and HPC integration are becoming central to useful quantum computers.

Transcript

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

Michaela: Thank you for having me.

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

Michaela: I’m an experimental physicist by training, but I have been working in the quantum industry for quite a few years, and in particular as a product solution physicist at Quantum Machines.

Yuval: And what does that entail?

Michaela: It entails a lot of different things, which makes it very exciting for me because I said that I’m an experimental physicist by training, but I was very drawn to deep tech industry and startups, especially in the quantum computing space. And this job role very nicely bridges technical product work and research, but also the business aspects. So I get to talk to a lot of customers and the broader quantum computing space, trying to understand where they want to go and what their problems are and trying to find solutions within Quantum Machines for that.