Mauritz Kop and Paul Davies at Co-Opting AI: Quantum: Harvest Now, Decrypt Later, the Quantum Event Horizon, and Surgical Guardrails (Video)
The University of Virginia has published the recording of Co-Opting AI: Quantum, the public conversation of October 28, 2026, in which our founder Prof. Mauritz Kop and the physicist Paul Davies discussed quantum technology and AI with host Mona Sloane. Kop opened with access: "Decisions about access to quantum technologies will shape who can benefit from them and who controls their use." Leadership in quantum technology, he said, could give states enduring power over the world's digital operating system, and he described that lasting shift in strategic power as a quantum event horizon.
The Quantum Apocalypse, Harvest Now, Decrypt Later, and Quantum First
Davies warned that encrypted data already collected by an adversary could be read once a large quantum computer exists: "We may be on the verge of a quantum apocalypse." Kop said that preparing systems with post-quantum cryptography can deny an adversary the benefit of a quantum attack, a form of deterrence by denial, and gave the audience a method for reading the headlines: separate a demonstrated result, a resource estimate, and a commercial forecast.
Surgical Guardrails and a Quantum Workforce
On governance, Kop asked policymakers to learn from the AI, biotechnology, and nuclear governance cycles and to keep interventions surgical, so that innovation can breathe while the United States works to be quantum first. He invited the audience to become the quantum workforce for a values-based American quantum ecosystem.
Prof. Mauritz Kop Invited to Co-Opting AI: Quantum at the University of Virginia, on Quantum, AI, and Geopolitics With Paul Davies and Shohini Ghose
Prof. Mauritz Kop, Founder of the Stanford Center for Responsible Quantum Technology and of Quentir, has been invited to speak at Co-Opting AI: Quantum, the University of Virginia's public conversation on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, from 4:00 to 5:15 PM Eastern Time. The online event is hosted by UVA's Digital Technology for Democracy Lab, NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge, and Sloane Lab, with the physicists Paul Davies and Shohini Ghose and with Professor Mona Sloane as host.
Co-Opting AI: Quantum on October 28 Examines What Quantum Inherits From AI
The organizers frame the episode around an inheritance: quantum computing is arriving into institutions, supply chains, and geopolitical formations already shaped by AI. Quantum computers already reach users through the cloud platforms that serve AI, and both technologies now sit inside export-control and supply-chain strategy. That is where Kop's work on the race to quantum first applies, and where decisions taken before 2030 will shape the quantum order.
Davies, Ghose, Kop, and Sloane on One Program
Davies, director of the Beyond Center at Arizona State University, and Ghose, who served on the Advisory Council for Canada's National Quantum Strategy, bring physics and national strategy. Sloane, who has convened Co-Opting AI since 2019, brings the sociology of technology. Kop brings the Stanford RQT scholarship, his War on the Rocks essays, and his advisory work for the U.S. Government, including the Pentagon and the Department of State, on quantum strategy. The session is open to the public and will be recorded for registered viewers.