It was a tale of two cities. But it wasn’t the best of times and the worst of times. It was only the best of times, having not one, but two, World Quantum Day events to go to here in Southern California, where HKA is headquartered.

Few would deny that 2025 was a momentous year for the quantum tech industry.  Whether you measure technological advancements, capital pouring into both established and startup companies, or the many worldwide events tied to UNESCO’s 2025 International Year of Quantum Science & Technology (IYQ), tremendous growth was obvious everywhere.

Confined for years in staid research labs, quantum technology made its presence felt amid the glittering lights of Las Vegas last week at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).  And maybe for the first time, quantumwas widely positioned as a practical force coming soon to our daily lives.  

We tentatively entered the world of quantum back in 2019. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what we were getting into. Our agency, HKA Marketing Communications, previously enjoyed several decades of successful PR work for many different industries. We were, in a word, eclectic.

From the topological to the philosophical, this year’s APS Global Physics Summit illuminated novel perspectives on how quantum computing can transform our understanding of the universe and how quantum ideas can play a role in our everyday lives.  With the largest physics research conference in the world happening in Anaheim – right in HKA’s backyard – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet some of the brilliant scientists deciphering the quantum puzzles that will unlock the next era of science and technology. 

According to Seth Lloyd, a quantum computing expert and professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, newborn babies are the only people alive who intuitively understand quantum mechanics - something that fades as they grow older. Until about three months old, babies engage in what can be known as A-not-B errors, demonstrating an understanding similar to concepts in quantum physics. As they begin learning to play games such as peekaboo, they shift their focus to more human-scale physics.

The Q2B show in Santa Clara last week ended with an amazing session with some of the top quantum hardware heavyweights gathered on a panel to discuss their platforms and the path to fault-tolerant quantum computing.

The way I ended up in quantum PR is the culmination of many things throughout my educational and professional career. Was I surprised? Yes! Here’s how it all happened. 

It was written with a typewriter — a fancy (for then) IBM Selectric, but a typewriter, nonetheless.   It was very early in my career;