Head of Software & Platform Photonic AI/HPC
Listed on 2026-02-23
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IT/Tech
Cloud Computing, Systems Engineer, AI Engineer, IT Project Manager
Location: Germany
Senior software and infrastructure leader to help scale Q.ANT’s software platform as the company enters its next phase of growth
Q.ANT today announced that Utz Bacher has joined the company as Vice President Software, effective January 1, 2026. With a strong IBM background, Bacher will lead Q.ANT’s software organization, focusing on strengthening the software stack that makes photonic co-processing practical for real-world AI and high-performance computing. Under Bacher’s leadership, Q.ANT will also expand its work on algorithms and applications and deepen collaborations with partners and clients.
This appointment reflects a broader organizational shift at Q.ANT as the company scales operations and development and enters a phase of accelerated execution.
“Photonic computing only matters if developers and operators can use it as real systems, with familiar workflows,” said Dr. Michael Förtsch, Founder and CEO of Q.ANT. “Utz brings deep experience building and operating complex compute infrastructure, including enterprise, hybrid cloud, high-performance computing and quantum computing environments. As we scale, his leadership will help us sharpen our software execution and make adoption easier for partners and customers.”
Bacher joins Q.ANT from IBM Germany, where he has held senior technical roles across enterprise infrastructure, client services and advanced computing technologies. He brings extensive experience and expertise in quantum computing, HPC, cloud, systems software and Open Source on various platforms. At IBM Quantum, he has helped design and deploy cloud infrastructure and played a key role in IBM’s first European quantum data center in Ehningen, enabling hybrid classical and quantum solutions for research and enterprises.
“I’ve been working at the intersection of technology, platforms, and adoption for years,” said Utz Bacher. “Q.ANT has a strong technical foundation and a clear product direction. I’m looking forward to helping the team scale the software platform with the rigor and clarity needed for the next stage.”
Q.ANT’s mission is to industrialize photonic computing solutions that deliver higher performance with significantly lower energy consumption for advanced AI and HPC applications. In November,Q.ANT released its next-generation Native Processing Unit:
The Q.ANT NPU 2, which performs nonlinear mathematics natively in light to enable entirely new classes of AI and scientific applications.
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