Insider Brief Optica Publishing Group has appointed NIST Fellow Kartik Srinivasan as the new editor-in-chief of Optica Quantum. Srinivasan brings research expertise in integrated quantum photonics, nonlinear nanophotonics, and photonic systems, with applications in quantum communications and sensing. He succeeds founding editor-in-chief Michael G. Raymer and will lead the journal’s editorial activities for the quantum … Read more

Insider Brief D-Wave received up to CAD $300,000 from Canada’s National Research Council to develop software aimed at expanding the capabilities of its Advantage2 annealing quantum computers. The project will develop new graph minor-embedding algorithms for D-Wave’s Zephyr topology and integrate them into the company’s open-source Ocean software development kit. D-Wave said the software is … Read more

Elon Musk’s company SpaceXAI, formerly known as xAI, has released Grok 4.6, its latest frontier AI model, with a focus on long-running agents, coding and knowledge work — and a pricing strategy designed to make those workloads cheaper to run.The model scores 61 on the third-party Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, surpassing the popular open weights … Read more

Visa’s president of technology, Rajat Taneja, walked the VB Transform 2026 audience through aiming Anthropic’s Mythos at Visa’s own payment network. The model stitched minor weaknesses into working exploit chains, and Visa open-sourced the harness that governed the hunt.That’s what it looks like when an enterprise has the engineering depth to act on what it … Read more

Insider Brief Yonsei University’s Quantum Initiative plans to install IBM’s Nighthawk quantum processor in November, making it the second reported Nighthawk-based quantum computing site after IBM Miami. The initiative will launch Q-Bridge, a platform designed to connect industrial users with quantum algorithms, data resources, and computing capabilities. Yonsei is expanding quantum research efforts through projects … Read more

Insider Brief ORIENTOM and softwareQ have signed an MoU to explore quantum and quantum-inspired computing applications for financial services, banking, and insurance. The collaboration will focus on use cases including derivatives pricing, portfolio optimization, risk management, machine learning, and quantum algorithm development. The companies plan to combine ORIENTOM’s quantum finance expertise with softwareQ’s quantum software … Read more

Insider Brief Researchers identified atomic-scale disorder in silicon quantum wells as the main source of variability in valley splitting, a persistent challenge affecting silicon spin-qubit reliability and fidelity. The team mapped valley splitting across an Intel-fabricated 12-qubit-class silicon quantum dot processor using electrical spectroscopy at Argonne National Laboratory’s Chicago Quantum Computing Testbed. The findings recast … Read more

Insider Brief Qunova Computing has appointed Jake Hwang as CFO and board member, along with Evan Kang and Woomin Kyoung as business development executives. The new executives will focus on finance, strategic partnerships, enterprise expansion, and commercialization across pharmaceuticals, materials science, and other industries. Qunova said the appointments are intended to support its efforts to … Read more

Insider Brief Sui co-founder Kostas Chalkias is developing quantum-safe hardware wallet cards designed for Sui users, with a target cost below $10 per card. The project aims to provide quantum-resistant authentication hardware while addressing broader concerns around hardware wallet security failures. Sui is also working on protocol-level upgrades to support NIST-approved post-quantum signature schemes for … Read more

Skan AI, a startup that builds what it calls a “context graph of work” by observing how employees actually perform their jobs across enterprise software, has raised $63 million in Series C funding co-led by Cathay Innovation and Dell Technologies Capital, the company announced Wednesday.Citi Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, State Farm Ventures, and Wipro Ventures also … Read more