This startup hopes companies are already doing quantum computing before it comes along

Eighteen months after selling his startup to chipmaker AMD for $665 million, Finnish entrepreneur Peter Sahlin has stepped down as CEO of the division now known as AMD Silo AI. He is currently the chairman of two new ventures: NestAI, a physical AI lab, and QuTwo, an AI startup aimed at helping companies prepare for the era of quantum computing.

QuTwo, now wholly owned by Sarlin’s family office PostScriptum, calls itself an “AI lab for the quantum age.” But rather than wait for quantum computing to mature, the company is already working with enterprise customers, including European fashion retailer Zalando, to jointly develop what the two companies call “lifestyle agents,” AI tools designed to go beyond product search and proactively suggest products and experiences.

QuTwo is built on the premise that AI is hitting an efficiency wall, and that quantum computing may ultimately help solve it. But the company isn’t betting on when that will happen, Sahlin told TechCrunch. Instead, the startup is building QuTwo OS as an orchestration layer that allows companies to move from classical to quantum computing, leveraging hybrid computing along the way.

Sarlin, through PostScriptum, is among the investors in Finnish quantum companies IQM and QMill who believe AI will eventually outperform classical computers in a wide range of industry applications while alleviating its energy demands. But he also believes that early use cases will require mixed hardware environments, so companies would rather focus on their business problems while QuTwo OS takes care of the routing.

In this regard, the potential advantage of an intermediate point known as “quantum-inspired” computing is that it is already viable today, as it uses classical hardware while simulating quantum behavior and avoids the hurdles that still hinder quantum hardware. QuTwo OS, on the other hand, is designed to be flexible and supports quantum or non-quantum algorithms and chips alike.

QuTwo’s team brings experience on both sides of the quantum and AI divide. On the quantum side, there is Kuan Yen Tan, co-founder of IQM, and Antti Vasala, who is also chairman of the board of Semiquon, a Finnish semiconductor startup focused on quantum chips. The Enterprise side is represented by Sahlin himself and Kai Mikael Björk, one of Silo AI’s former co-founders. Pekka Lundmark, former CEO of Finnish telecommunications giant Nokia, has also joined QuTwo’s board of directors.

With more than 30 quantum and AI scientists on the team across both disciplines, Sahlin is clear about the company’s position. “We are building for a quantum world, and QuTwo is an AI company,” he said, meaning QuTwo is “pushing AI workloads from classical to quantum.”

This also means that its customer base can be very wide. Besides Zalando, QuTwo has launched a quantum AI research initiative in collaboration with OP Pohjola, a leading Finnish financial services provider.

QuTwo has been commercially oriented from the beginning and already has “large scale design partnerships in the tens of millions,” Sahlin said. Design partnerships, where vendors collaborate with enterprise customers to co-develop products, are a way for QuTwo to learn what customers expect when building products. These are also bets from companies looking to establish an early foothold when quantum computing arrives.