About Session
Convening Circles are facilitated working sessions designed to move beyond discussion and into structured problem-solving. Participants will work through a pre-mortem exercise—starting from a defined failure scenario—to identify where progress breaks down and what must be true to move forward. Each Circle brings together leaders from industry, government, research, and investment to surface shared challenges, test assumptions, and clarify where effort should focus.
What to Expect
Each session is built around a small set of realistic failure scenarios—for example:
- Buyers don’t want the products being built
- Promising use cases fail to deliver real value
- Investment flows into the wrong areas
- Supply chains constrain growth
Participants will work in small groups with a professional facilitator to examine why these outcomes occur, identify what was missed or misunderstood, and define what must be true to prevent them. Each group will produce a clear statement of success and a short set of conditions required to achieve it.
Why Participate in a Convening Circle
- Gain a clearer view of where challenges are emerging across the ecosystem
- Contribute to shaping where effort and attention should focus next
- Engage directly with leaders across industry, government, research, and investment
- Leave with concrete insights and actions relevant to your organization
Each circle is designed to test where progress could break down—and what it will take to prevent it.
How to Choose Your Convening Circle
Each participant will join one Convening Circle—a structured working session focused on a specific challenge facing the quantum ecosystem. Where you choose to participate matters.
Choose the Circle where you can best contribute based on your experience and perspective. More information about each circle is below.
Consider:
- Where do you see progress breaking down today?
- Where does your organization face the most friction?
- Where can you add a perspective others in the room may not have?
Convening Circles
Location: South Hub
Focus: Adoption, procurement, and deployment
What happens when products exist—but cannot be purchased, deployed, or sustained?
This circle examines the gap between technical progress and real-world adoption. Participants will work through failure scenarios such as misalignment between what vendors build and what buyers need, pricing models that don’t hold, and procurement pathways that cannot accommodate quantum technologies. The discussion will focus on where trust, integration, and purchasing mechanisms break down—and what must be true for organizations to confidently buy and deploy quantum solutions.
Location: Central Hub
Focus: Where quantum delivers meaningful value
What happens when the industry cannot clearly define—or misidentifies—where quantum delivers real value?
This circle focuses on the challenge of fragmentation across potential applications. Participants will explore scenarios where use cases are unclear, overextended, or ultimately irrelevant, including situations where effort is spread too thin or directed toward the wrong problems. The goal is to surface where assumptions about value break down and to clarify the conditions required to focus effort on areas that can deliver meaningful impact.
Location: Forum
Focus: Capital, incentives, and market signals
What happens when capital flows in the wrong direction—or not at all?
This circle examines how misalignment between public and private investment can slow progress. Participants will work through scenarios such as capital concentrating in unproductive areas, market dynamics limiting competition, or a lack of clear signals preventing investment altogether. The discussion will focus on where incentives, timing, and risk tolerance diverge—and what must be true to better align capital with areas of real opportunity.
Location: North Hub
Focus: Infrastructure, dependencies, and scaling
What happens when access to critical components constrains growth?
This circle addresses the structural dependencies that underpin the quantum ecosystem. Participants will explore scenarios ranging from supplier concentration and geopolitical disruption to broader breakdowns in the availability of key components. The discussion will focus on where the supply chain is most vulnerable and what conditions are required to support reliable, scalable growth.