Quantum Open Source with Will Zeng and Ziyaad Bhorat

Quantum Open Source with Will Zeng and Ziyaad BhoratIn this special live-streamed discussion, Will Zeng, co-founder of the Unitary Foundation, and Ziyaad Bhorat, VP at the Mozilla Foundation, join host Sebastian Hassinger to unpack their co-authored white paper, The Open Foundation Quantum Technology Needs. The paper argues that open source quantum software is structurally underfunded — too applied for academic grants, too public-good for venture capital — and that philanthropic organizations need to step in before the window closes.This conversation arrives at a pivotal moment. Google recently published a paper showing Shor's algorithm could break ECDLP-256 with roughly 500,000 physical qubits — a 20x improvement over prior estimates — while Oratomic launched claiming 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits may be sufficient for cryptographically relevant computation. The timelines are compressing. The question is whether the software ecosystem can keep pace with the hardware.The video of our conversation can be viewed on YouTube.What you'll learnWhy open source quantum software falls into a structural funding gap between academic grants and venture capital — and what that means for the field's trajectoryHow Mozilla Foundation evaluates emerging technology fields for philanthropic intervention, and what specifically convinced them quantum was ripe for engagementWhat Google's 20x efficiency gain for Shor's algorithm and the Oratomic launch mean for Q-Day timelines and post-quantum migration urgencyWhy the "quantum Linux" analogy is useful but incomplete — and what the real risk is (fragmentation, not monopoly)How Unitary Foundation's microgrant program ($4,000, six months) has become a faster on-ramp to quantum careers than traditional academic pathwaysWhat PyMatching, PyZX, and other microgrant-funded projects reveal about the scalability of small open source investmentsWhy open source benchmarking through Metriq Gym matters — and why vendor-driven benchmarks can't fill this roleHow the Qiskit team reductions at IBM illustrate the fragility of corporate-backed open source in quantumWhat specific policy asks the quantum open source community has for the NQI reauthorizationThe von Neumann vs. ENIAC lesson: why openness wins over secrecy in building transformative computing platformsResources & linksThe Open Foundation Quantum Technology Needs — The white paper by Zeng, Castanon, and Bhorat (March 2026) that anchors this conversationUnitary Foundation — 501(c)(3) non-profit building, governing, and sustaining open source quantum software since 2018 Mozilla Foundation — Non-profit championing open source and internet health, supporting Unitary Foundation's quantum workMitiq — Open source toolkit for quantum error mitigationMetriq — Community-driven quantum benchmarking platform Metriq Gym — Open source benchmarking suite for quantum computers Unitary Compiler Collection (UCC) — Quantum circuit compilation toolsQuTiP — Quantum Toolbox in Python, stewarded by Unitary FoundationPyMatching — Open source decoder for quantum error correction, originally funded by a UF microgrant PyZX — ZX-calculus library for quantum circuit optimization, also originating from UF support Unitary Hack — Annual bug bounty hackathon connecting open source quantum projects with global contributors CSIS Commission on U.S. Quantum Leadership — Warning on quantum decryption surprise referenced in the white paperWill Zeng — President and co-founder of Unitary Foundation; Partner at Quantonation; DPhil in Quantum Information, University of OxfordZiyaad Bhorat — VP of Imagination and Strategic Growth, Mozilla Foundation; PhD in Political Science, UCLAKey quotes"Do we want a future where quantum computers are developed by secret government contractors wi