In The Arena by TechArena - Hybrid Quantum + HPC: CESQ’s Lesya Dymyd at OCP 2025

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Recorded live at OCP in San Jose, Allyson Klein talks with CESQ’s Lesya Dymyd about hybrid quantum-classical computing, the new Maison du Quantique, and how real-world use cases may emerge over the next 5–7 years.

Welcome to Tech Arena, featuring authentic discussions between tech's leading innovators and our host, Alison Klein. Now, let's step into the arena. Welcome in the arena. My name's Allison Klein. We are coming to you from the Open Compute Project Summit in San Jose, California. And I am really excited to have back in the studio with us, Leslie DeMede, business development lead at CESQ, the European Center for Quantum Sciences. Welcome to the program. Thank you, Alison. Thank you for having me on this podcast.

So, Lessee, you and I first connected at the OCP Summit in Lisbon a couple of years ago. For those who missed that interview, can you share a little bit about your background in the data center? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I have almost a 10 years background in the data center industry. I joined Tusserasi, which is a manufacturer of data center solutions. Initially, my role was in the R&D department and innovation working with start-ups, working with our engineers, sales and marketing department in order to understand what are the future technologies and what are the partners with whom we can work on knowledge solutions.

And we've been looking at the merchant cooling, direct liquid cooling, and also heat reuse opportunities. Starting from 2019, I've been involved in the open source hardware community, particularly with the Open Compete Project, serving as a lead in the OCP Future Technologies and Poison. That was a great program when we were looking at future technologies and how can we accelerate them faster to the market. I also joined the foundation teams, and after that, I moved to a quantum.

So right now, my role is with CESC as a business development. Okay, CESC is how you pronounce it. Why don't you introduce it and what your ambitions are as an organization? Yeah. So CESC is a European center of quantum science. We are based in the University of Strasbourg, so we belong to the University of Strasbourg, but also the CNRS,

with the research organization in France, one of the largest one. Our goal is to become the quantum hub in our region, which is a Grand Est region, but also in France and Europe. So we want to become the center of excellence of quantum in the region and serve the industry, so the academia and startups,

and help all these organizations in our ecosystem to understand what is quantum, how to build on quantum applications. And how can organizations, both large organizations, mid-size and also startups, can use quantum applications in their businesses? Now, Quantum is one of our favorite topics to talk about in Tech Arena,

just because it offers so much promise. What hurdles do you see from taking Quantum where it is today into broad commercial impact? Yeah, this is a big. great question. From what we know today is that quantum is still quite early in the development process if we're trying to see the technology curve to understand where we are right now. A lot of research is going on around the quantum, but when we talk about the actual applications, we are still a little bit far away from actual market applications. However, it's critical

to see and understand and explore quantum today because we are talking about the quantum and hybrid computing, where hybrid computing means that we are looking at the HPC, high-performance computing, and how can we combine this technology with the quantum in order to solve some of the problems that exist today? And applications can be different. You know, we can, of course, talk about the data center industry, but also on the biotech, how do we apply to biotech, in cybersecurity, in the government management, and so there are a lot of opportunities, and I think the critical is to, for organizations today,

is to start to be curious, to start to explore, maybe start to do some research and investigation and try to build use cases. One of the role of CESC is to build the use cases with industry and with startups. So you've talked about the ambition to grow as one of the leading players in Quantum in Europe. What is unique about European advancement?

Yeah, let me tell you first about what is unique about our region and France. So CESC based on the ground East region. And the uniqueness is because we are on the borders with Germany, Switzerland. So we do have access to all the geography and the organizations and governments on the crossroads of France, Switzerland and Germany. We also have a good access to the research institutions and organizations in France, in our region, but also in Switzerland and Germany. And finally, there is a lot of industries that are present, specifically in the Grand Est, we

have a strong presence of biotech and chemistry. And again, coming back to the research and the academia and labs, we rely a lot on this capacity of knowledge. And we want to create the knowledge transfer to help organizations in our region to accelerate the adoption of new technologies, including quantum and hybrid computing. Yeah. Also, I mean, Strasbourg is a hub of the EU as well. You can think of so many reasons why this is a great location. Now, academia and industry often speak different languages. How do you bridge the divide in your work? Yeah. This is so true and this is another critical thing to understand when we work with academia and the industry and even startups, these are different organizations. Everybody has

priorities, structures. And I think it's important to understand how do we identify the peculiarities of each of these organizations and how do we bridge the gap between their collaboration. How do we establish opportunities for their collaboration? I believe the key the answer to this question is, first of all, is to have understanding and then let the community create itself and have the diversity of forces, diversity of collaboration. And really be open, like, you know, at the open compute project, we are fostering communication and collaboration and interaction. I think these types of principles are valid for what we're doing, Sask and trying to build the ecosystem that should accelerate the adoption of quantum and hybrid computing.

Now, how should we look at things like hybrid models of quantum and traditional computing working together? Is there a hybrid model or is this something that's going to be, we're taking certain research projects into conventional computing, others we may look at in terms of pathfinding with quantum? Yeah, this is a good question. So what we see today is that we have the projects and classical computing capacity, right? Some of the ongoing challenges and problems in the different sectors of the industry,

we cannot solve it with existing capacity, with the existing compute. This is why it becomes critical to see the hybrid models. When we talk about the hybrid computing, we are talking about the HBC in combination with the quantum. In terms of quantum, we are talking about the different way of using the compute power. We are using it based on the quantum physics.

It's a different approach, it's not in the competition with the HPC. So today we are looking at how do we combine these two in order to solve some of the problems? Because in the future, of course, we might predict that existing capacity of a classical computing, classical HBC will not be sufficient to solve the emerging problems

and emerging challenges. So this is why it's critical to see the combination of both in order to transition towards potentially adoption of phonto in maybe five or seven years from now or even more. That's amazing. Now, you recently launched Quantum Week and the Messon de Quantique, if I said that correctly. Correct. How did these accelerate tech transfer and innovation?

Yeah. So with Meson de Quantique or House of Quantum, it's an English version of Maison de Quantique, we are trying to accelerate the adoption of quantum technologies and hybrid. We have a star up, actually, that is a spin-off from our test research unit. and they are proposing, actually, they are working already with the industry, proposing the software that helps organization to benchmark to see what are the opportunities for them to use some part of the combination between the HPC and HIP and the Quantum. So these are some of the examples how we're already working with the startups

and trying to build these news cases. Hello? The Mazon de Quantique is a project that is supported by our region by the government and the mission of this project is to create the hub, create the excellence sector, to build the use cases with industries and startups, to help spin all these startups from our research units and to accelerate adoption.

Now, you said, you know, five to seven years that we might start seeing these grand deployments that everybody has, you know, in their sites. How do you see this reshaping industries, or where do you think the applications, you mentioned a few use cases around security, biotech. Where do you see this having an impact first? Yeah, I guess it's a little bit early to answer this question.

And from the innovation and technology perspective, I would suggest we look at different use cases. For example, it can be biotech, campus three. It can be also machine learning as well, AI, cybersecurity, and some cases from the government management, all these systems. I guess the proper way to. to look at is that we need to bet on multiple options and see where it will come, where we'll get the impact first. But we are still too early in the process to tell which one will be the fastest

to the market. I can't believe how incredible the work is that you've done in the continuum of your career from working on the open compute platform and open hardware initiatives in driving all of this Data Summit build out and now looking at the next wave with quantum. It's so cool for you to spend some time on Tech Arena. And I can't wait to see how SESC progresses in the market and you continue to have impact. Thank you so much for spending time on Tech Arena. I have one more question for you.

Where can folks go to learn more about SES? I'll connect with you. Yeah. So we do have a webpage for the SESP. We're also present on the LinkedIn where you can get information about our ongoing projects and about our ongoing calls. We will be having the Quantum Week next year. So everybody who is interested and is in the region, welcome to join us. And for those who would be willing to explore more about the use cases, learning about

the quantum and hybrid, you can reach out to me and or connect on our webpage. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Thank you, Alison. Thanks for joining Tech Arena. Subscribe and engage at our website, Techorina.a.i. All content is copyright by Tech Arena. Thank you.