Q.ANT Names Utz Bacher as VP Software

Insider Brief

• Q.ANT has appointed Utz Bacher as Vice President of Software, effective January 1, 2026, to lead the company’s software organization and support its photonic computing initiatives.
• Bacher will focus on strengthening Q.ANT’s software stack, expanding work on algorithms and applications, and enhancing collaborations with partners and clients.
• Bacher joins from IBM Germany, where he held senior roles in enterprise infrastructure, cloud, HPC, and quantum computing, including work on IBM’s first European quantum data center in Ehningen.

PRESS RELEASE — Q.ANT today announced that Utz Bacher has joined the  company as Vice President Software, effective January 1, 2026. With a strong IBM background,  Bacher will lead Q.ANT’s software organization, focusing on strengthening the software stack that  makes photonic co-processing practical for real-world AI and high-performance computing. Under  Bacher’s leadership, Q.ANT will also expand its work on algorithms and applications and deepen collaborations with partners and clients. This appointment reflects a broader organizational shift at Q.ANT as the company scales operations and development and enters a phase of accelerated  execution. 

“Photonic computing only matters if developers and operators can use it as real systems, with  familiar workflows,” said Dr. Michael Förtsch, Founder and CEO of Q.ANT. “Utz brings deep  experience building and operating complex compute infrastructure, including enterprise, hybrid  cloud, high-performance computing and quantum computing environments. As we scale, his  leadership will help us sharpen our software execution and make adoption easier for partners and  customers.”  

Bacher joins Q.ANT from IBM Germany, where he has held senior technical roles across enterprise  infrastructure, client services and advanced computing technologies. He brings extensive  experience and expertise in quantum computing, HPC, cloud, systems software and Open Source on  various platforms. At IBM Quantum, he has helped design and deploy cloud infrastructure and  played a key role in IBM’s first European quantum data center in Ehningen, enabling hybrid  classical and quantum solutions for research and enterprises. 

“I’ve been working at the intersection of technology, platforms, and adoption for years,” said Utz  Bacher. “Q.ANT has a strong technical foundation and a clear product direction. I’m looking forward  to helping the team scale the software platform with the rigor and clarity needed for the next  stage.” 

Q.ANT’s mission is to industrialize photonic computing solutions that deliver higher performance  with significantly lower energy consumption for advanced AI and HPC applications. In November, 

Q.ANT released its next-generation Native Processing Unit: The Q.ANT NPU 2, which performs  nonlinear mathematics natively in light to enable entirely new classes of AI and scientific  applications.