Our Mission
k&z exists to eliminate the barriers between quantum computing potential and real-world impact. We provide on-demand quantum AI infrastructure that enables researchers, enterprises, and governments to run quantum workloads at scale — without building or maintaining their own cryogenic facilities, control electronics, or calibration pipelines. Our mission is to make quantum computing as accessible and reliable as cloud computing, while maintaining the security and sovereignty that the most demanding organizations require.
Our Founding Story
k&z was founded in 2024 in Zurich, Switzerland, by a team of quantum physicists, infrastructure engineers, and security architects who shared a frustration: the world's most powerful computing technology was locked behind massive capital expenditures and years-long hardware procurement cycles. Universities waited 18 months for QPU access. Government research programs spent more on facility construction than on actual science. Enterprise R&D teams gave up before they started.
The founders had spent their careers at leading quantum hardware companies and national laboratories, where they witnessed firsthand the gap between what quantum processors could do and who could actually use them. They recognized that the bottleneck was not the physics — it was the infrastructure. Quantum processors were improving rapidly, but the operational machinery to deploy, manage, and scale them remained the province of a handful of well-funded labs.
k&z was created to solve this. We built the operational layer — the cryogenic facility management, the calibration automation, the multi-tenant scheduling, the security controls — that turns bare quantum hardware into a production-grade service. By 2025, we had our first QPU clusters online in Zurich, serving research customers. In early 2026, we expanded to US East and Singapore, and began deployments for government and defense programs.
Our Vision
We envision a world where quantum computing power is available to any qualified organization, anywhere, on demand. Where a materials scientist in Sao Paulo has the same access to cutting-edge QPU hardware as a defense research lab in Washington. Where sovereign nations can operate quantum infrastructure within their borders without building everything from scratch. Where the transition from quantum experiment to quantum production workload is as straightforward as deploying a containerized application.
This is not just about convenience — it is about accelerating scientific discovery, strengthening national security, and ensuring that the quantum revolution benefits more than a narrow set of incumbents. k&z is building the infrastructure to make this vision real.
Our Team
k&z brings together expertise from quantum physics, cryogenic engineering, distributed systems, cybersecurity, and enterprise infrastructure. Our team includes:
- Quantum physicists from ETH Zurich, MIT, and Delft University of Technology, with published research in superconducting qubits, quantum error correction, and quantum algorithms.
- Cryogenic engineers who have designed and operated dilution refrigerator systems at CERN, national metrology institutes, and commercial quantum hardware companies.
- Infrastructure engineers from major cloud providers and high-performance computing facilities, experienced in building systems that operate at 99.99% availability under demanding workloads.
- Security and compliance professionals with backgrounds in government defense programs, financial services, and critical infrastructure protection, holding CISSP, CISM, and government clearances.
- Enterprise go-to-market leaders who have scaled infrastructure products from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue at companies including AWS, Google Cloud, and Cloudflare.
We are currently a team of 85 people across Zurich, Virginia, and Singapore, and we are actively hiring across all functions.
Our Values
Precision
Quantum computing demands precision at every level — from the microkelvin temperature stability of our cryostats to the nanosecond timing of our control pulses. We bring this same exactness to our engineering practices, our documentation, our customer communications, and our business operations. We measure everything, we validate assumptions, and we do not ship until it is right.
Security
Our customers entrust us with some of the most sensitive computational workloads on Earth. We treat that trust as sacred. Security is not a feature we bolt on — it is a constraint we design into every system from the start. We assume breach, verify continuously, and hold ourselves to the standards of organizations where the consequences of failure are unacceptable.
Access
Quantum computing should not be the exclusive domain of the wealthiest institutions. We are building infrastructure that lowers the cost, complexity, and time-to-access for quantum computing so that more organizations — including universities, startups, and governments of all sizes — can participate in the quantum future. Access also means transparency: clear documentation, honest pricing, and straightforward terms.
Innovation
We operate at the frontier of physics and engineering. Maintaining that position requires relentless curiosity, rigorous experimentation, and the courage to pursue approaches that have not been tried before. We publish our research, contribute to open-source tooling, and actively collaborate with the academic community because we believe that advancing the field advances our mission.
By the Numbers
- Founded: 2024, Zurich, Switzerland
- Team: 85 employees across 3 offices
- QPU Clusters: 9 production QPU blocks across 3 regions
- Total Qubits: 648 superconducting qubits online
- Customers: 120+ organizations spanning research, government, and enterprise
- Uptime: 99.97% average across all QPU clusters since launch
- Security Program: ISO 27001–aligned controls, SOC 2 Type II audit in progress, CSA STAR Level 2 assessment initiated — see Compliance & Audits for current status and verification details