IBM's Alessandro Curioni on where quantum and AI actually converge

[Freddie]

CEOWORLD ran a long interview with Alessandro Curioni, who leads algorithms and applications research at IBM and runs the Zurich lab, and it is a much denser read than most executive quantum interviews tend to be. The framing throughout is that AI and quantum should not be treated as two separate stories competing for attention, but as converging technologies that reinforce each other. Curioni's own background in theoretical chemistry and decades of high performance computing work gives him a credible angle on this that goes beyond typical executive talking points.

One of the more useful ideas in the piece is his description of the wall of complexity, where classical computing resources grow exponentially as problems scale up and eventually stop producing useful answers in reasonable time regardless of how much hardware you throw at them. That framing helps explain why quantum matters at all beyond just being faster, since the pitch here is fundamentally different representations of information rather than pure speed. Bits versus qubits gets treated as a genuine paradigm shift rather than marketing language.

The interview gets specific in places too, which is refreshing compared to a lot of vague quantum coverage. Curioni cites an HSBC and IBM collaboration on algorithmic bond trading where a hybrid quantum classical approach produced a 34 percent improvement in predicting execution probability for European corporate bond listings. That is a concrete number tied to a real financial application rather than another abstract promise about disrupting an entire industry someday.

The roadmap details are also worth noting, with IBM targeting a fault tolerant machine called Quantum Starling by 2029 that would run 100 million gate circuits across 200 logical qubits. Curioni frames the near term reality as hybrid systems where quantum acts as an accelerator for specific narrow problems rather than a standalone general purpose computer replacing classical systems entirely. That hybrid framing keeps showing up across pretty much every serious quantum discussion happening right now.

The interview closes on a genuinely reflective note about computing shifting centers of gravity, from CPUs to GPUs during the AI boom and potentially toward quantum processors next. Curioni draws a direct parallel to how Nvidia became dominant once GPUs mattered for deep learning, suggesting IBM wants to occupy a similar central role once quantum processors become the valuable accelerator layer

Quantum at IBM, with Alessandro Curioni - CEOWORLD magazineceoworld.biz