Bio
Suzanne is obsessed with understanding consciousness and the depths of the human mind. Her new project, Nirvanic Consciousness Technologies, is a quantum-AI venture seeking to unlock the computational power of consciousness for improved decision-making in artificial intelligence.
In 2018, Suzanne co-founded Sanctuary AI, building human-like intelligence in General Purpose Robots.
In 2014, Suzanne co-founded Kindred AI in 2014, the world’s first robotics company to use reinforcement learning in a production environment. The acquisition of Kindred by Ocado in 2020 for one third of a billion dollars ($339 million CAD) was the third-largest exit for a robotics company in Canadian history.
Suzanne also has deep expertise in quantum computing from her time at D-Wave where she ported AI algorithms to D-Wave’s quantum annealing hardware. She invented MAXCAT, the world’s first game using a quantum computer, designed and implemented several quantum machine learning algorithms, and was the first person to control a robot’s motion using a quantum computer.
Suzanne holds a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of Birmingham. She is also a published digital artist and painter, and pioneered a technique for creating art using a quantum computer. In her spare time, she loves painting, meditating, piano and rollerskating.
“Consciousness. It’s everything we are.”
Career
Nirvanic
In 2024, Suzanne founded Nirvanic Consciousness Technologies Inc, the world’s first consciousness technology company, and became its CEO. Nirvanic’s mission is to understand consciousness through the use of both biological neural systems and quantum computing simulations of neurons, and to apply the findings to AI.
Nirvanic’s bold idea is that by understanding consciousness in a practical, experimentally driven way, we will be able to harness and engineer it for future technological applications in both artificial intelligence and human wellness. The integration of consciousness into AI systems will result in them becoming highly self-aware, trustworthy, intuitive, creative, and empathetic. Sign up for the Nirvanic Substack newsletter.
Sanctuary AI
Suzanne co-founded humanoid robotics company Sanctuary AI in January 2018 becoming its co-CEO and later CTO. She led the creation of industrial-looking general purpose robots with “human-like” intelligence, and designed their cognitive architectures.
Gildert is named as an inventor on more than a dozen of the company’s U.S. patents. The technology won a TIME Magazine innovation award in 2023.
The company’s flagship humanoid robot, the 5-foot, 7-inch tall “Phoenix” system, is designed to learn to do work tasks autonomously with its AI control system called “Carbon.”
Kindred AI
Suzanne co-founded Kindred AI in 2014 with the goal of creating human-like intelligence in General Purpose Robots. Kindred opened 3 offices, in Vancouver, Toronto, and San Francisco, and she grew the company to more than 150 employees.
Suzanne pioneered a method to train robots to behave like humans by combining tele-operation systems with machine learning. The technology worked with robots that had sensors, actuators and outputs that were analogous to the perception and actions of an operator. These “pilots” would wear data-transmitting gear to perform and teach the robots the underlying actions of work, such as pick, place, look, grasp, say, slide, halt and others.
Kindred spun off its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) research division in January 2018, and the company was sold to Ocado for $262 million USD ($339 million CAD).
D-Wave Quantum Systems
In 2010, Suzanne immigrated to Canada to begin her quantum career at D-Wave — the world’s first quantum computer company — in Burnaby, British Columbia. She published several scientific papers, including in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, showing that quantum computers could solve certain kinds of problems that are impossible for classical computers to perform.
She began as an experimental quantum physicist, testing and calibrating quantum-computer-control circuits. When she moved into technical sales and marketing, she designed and ran a quantum algorithms training course for D-Wave customers including NASA and Lockheed Martin. She also developed quantum machine learning algorithms for training neural networks and classifiers, and pioneered an online cloud service for quantum application developers.
University of Birmingham
Suzanne’s career began as a PhD student and then Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her PhD thesis, “Macroscopic quantum tunnelling effects in Josephson junctions,” explored the quantum effects of superconducting components in quantum computers.
She worked on the design of superconducting electronics, quantum devices (including qubit design), and the design and build of low-temperature measurement apparatus including custom dilution refrigerator equipment.
Suzanne with her father Bill Gildert who inspired her to pursue a career in physics and electronics.