Suzanne Gildert, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Nirvanic, a company pioneering quantum consciousness technologies for artificial intelligence. Suzanne previously co-founded and was CTO of Sanctuary AI, a company building Human-Like Intelligence in General Purpose Robots. At Sanctuary she helped design, build and launch the Phoenix humanoid robot and its novel Carbon AI control software, with a focus on work applications to address labor shortages. Prior to Sanctuary, Suzanne was co-founder and CTO of Kindred AI. She oversaw the design and engineering of the company's human-like robots and was responsible for the development of cognitive architectures that allow these robots to learn about themselves and their environments. Suzanne also has deep expertise in quantum computing from her time at D-Wave Systems, where she ported AI algorithms to D-Wave’s quantum annealing hardware. She also invented and implemented MAXCAT, the world’s first game ever played against a quantum computer, worked on the world’s first supervised classifier run on a quantum computer and was the first person to control the motion of a robot using a quantum computer.
Suzanne received her Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2008, specializing in quantum device physics, microfabrication techniques, and low-temperature measurements of novel superconducting circuits. She likes science outreach, programming, retro tech, fantasy and gothic art, coffee, electronic music and lifelogging and is a published author of a book of art and poetry. Suzanne is passionate about conscious robots and their role as a new form of symbiotic, friendly life in our society.
