Ambassador for Cambridge Judge Business School
Fellow Commoner of St Edmund’s College
My research interests include: the philosophy of mathematics; foundations of mathematics and category theory; quantum foundation and quantum computing; building long-term successful entrepreneurship where startups can scale; ethics and societal responses to AI and rapid changes in technology.
Professional experience
Ilyas Khan is the Founder, Vice Chairman, and Chief Product Officer of Quantinuum, the world’s largest quantum computing company.
Ilyas served as the founding Chairman of The Stephen Hawking Foundation. He is recognised globally as a leading figure in the quantum computing industry. As the founding Chairman of the Topos Institute, a nonprofit based in Berkeley focused on advancing technology for the public good, he is a leader in public dialogues on AI.
Quantinuum is the second company Ilyas has founded. He previously founded techpacific (a ‘unicorn’ startup).
At the University of Cambridge, Ilyas served as Leader in Residence and is a Fellow and Honorary Ambassador at Cambridge Judge Business School, where he helped establish the prestigious Accelerate Cambridge programme supporting early-stage deep-tech ventures. He is also a fellow of St Edmund’s College.
Ilyas is a founding shareholder and non-executive board member of Fortaegis and Moth Quantum, which focus on advanced semiconductors and quantum technologies for the creative industries respectively.
He actively supports academic and philanthropic efforts through his foundation, funding science, philosophy and theological research, as well as open-access scientific journals and is a published author of books and academic papers.
Previous appointments
Ilyas Khan’s professional experience started in 1984 with British merchant bank J. Henry Schroder Wagg. He also spent 20 years living and working in Hong Kong, where he worked in senior management position with institutions such as Citigroup and UBS prior to establishing his own merchant banking business with a focus on the technology sector. He is the recipient of a number of industry awards from that time. After being a merchant banker Ilyas successfully founded as well as backed early stage technology businesses that have subsequently become public companies.
Ilyas is a widely published author of articles and columns and also the author of the award-winning and bestselling book Underdogs in Overdrive. He was the founder of the award-winning magazine Asia Literary Review, and a columnist on technology for the Hong Kong-based magazine Asiaweek and currently speaks and writes extensively on subjects related to quantum computing and the philosophy of mathematics.
Selected publications
Tull, S., Lorenz, R., Clark, S., Khan, I. and Coecke, B. (2024) Towards compositional interpretability for XAI.
Khan, I. (2016) The case: string theory on trial. [Kindle edition]. Available online at Amazon.co.uk.
Khan, I. (2016) Free will – a road less travelled in quantum information processing.
News and insights
The annual Business Weekly Awards include several recipients with ties to Cambridge Judge Business School, including Cambridge Quantum Computing as Business of the Year.
Cambridge Quantum Computing, founded by Cambridge Judge Fellow Ilyas Khan, combines with Honeywell Quantum Solutions to create a new company.
Misc news
Digital diversity
Two people associated with Cambridge Judge Business School- Hanadi Jabado and Ilyas Khan- were included in a list of 20 Asian tech pioneers by the equality and inclusion charity Diversity UK.
Media coverage
Business Weekly | 16 January 2024
$300m raise for Quantinuum at $5bn pre-money valuation creates super-unicorn for Cambridge
The founder of Cambridge Quantum and inaugural CEO of Quantinuum, Ilyas Khan, is the executive whose vision helped fashion the largest and most advanced integrated quantum computing company in the world via Quantinuum. Ilyas is one Cambridge Judge Business School’s honorary Ambassadors.