Riverlane Appoints ex-White House Scientist Jake Taylor as Chief Science Officer

PRESS RELEASE — Riverlane, which is building an operating system for quantum computers, today announced the appointment of Jake Taylor as the company’s chief science officer.

A distinguished scientist with more than 20 years at the cutting edge of quantum physics theory and application, Taylor joins Riverlane’s leadership team and spearheads the company’s scientific research and discovery program globally. In particular, he will help lead Riverlane’s multidisciplinary team to develop its quantum operating system, Deltaflow.OS, and through it accelerate quantum error correction – the defining technical challenge facing the quantum computing industry worldwide.

Taylor was the assistant director for quantum information science at the White House from 2017 to 2020. During that time, he led the creation and implementation of the National Quantum Initiative, a whole-of-Government approach to expanding quantum information science research and development.

Riverlane employs some of the world’s leading practitioners in quantum science, engineering, and computing. Taylor will focus on further expanding Riverlane’s quantum science team in the UK and US as it opens a new quantum science research facility in Massachusetts.

“I believe we can reach the era of ‘fault tolerant’ quantum computing earlier than many expect, which in turn will unlock new ways to improve our fundamental understanding of nature and the potential to benefit humanity from medicine to climate and beyond.”

“As the world’s first quantum engineering company, Riverlane combines deep expertise in software and systems with a quantum hardware obsession across all the leading qubit technologies. These elements combine to provide a path for solving one of the most complex tasks humanity has taken on: controlling and operating a quantum computer. By building the operating system for quantum computing, we will accelerate the whole field, from implementing practical quantum error correction sooner to realizing applications that matter. Working in tight collaboration with our hardware partners, I believe we can reach the era of ‘fault tolerant’ quantum computing earlier than many expect, which in turn will unlock new ways to improve our fundamental understanding of nature and the potential to benefit humanity from medicine to climate and beyond,” said Jake Taylor, Chief Science Officer of Riverlane.

Steve Brierley, CEO and Founder of Riverlane, said: “Bringing on a quantum scientist of Jake’s calibre is another step toward achieving our mission of making quantum computing useful far sooner than previously imaginable. Jake’s experience building world-class research teams is invaluable as we expand our presence in the US and develop deep technical partnerships with hardware companies utilising different qubit technologies to build the world’s most powerful quantum computers.”

Before his time at the White House, he co-founded the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), a partnership between the University of Maryland (UMD) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he has also been a Fellow since 2009. In the past year, he was a technology and public purpose Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, where he investigated the interplay of emerging technology and the public good.

He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of Optica. His research involves building quantum information devices; studying novel approaches to entangling atomic, photonic and solid state systems; and exploring potential applications of quantum information systems to metrology and measurement science. Taylor received his A.B. (in astronomy & astrophysics and physics) and PhD from Harvard in physics.

About Riverlane
Riverlane’s mission is to make quantum computing useful far sooner than previously imaginable, starting an era of human progress as significant as the industrial and digital revolutions. To fully unlock the massive potential of quantum computing, we need a circa 10,000x increase in the size and reliability of quantum computers. Riverlane plays a key role in achieving this by building Deltaflow.OS – the operating system for quantum computing. This starts with breaking through the biggest barrier to quantum computing today: quantum error correction. Doing so can accelerate the development of useful, fault tolerant, commercially viable quantum computers by up to a decade. Being hardware obsessed, qubit agile and commercially driven means we work closely with leading quantum hardware companies representing every qubit technology. Riverlane is backed by venture capital funding from Draper Esprit, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners and the University of Cambridge.

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