The moment I sit down in the Hopper meeting room in the bustling London Victoria offices of technology entrepreneur Ilyas Khan, founder of Cambridge Quantum Computing and now CEO of Quantinuum, it feels like walking into a maths lecture by Stephen Hawking. Algebraic equations are scrawled on a board in felt tip. On another wall is a photo of 20th-century computer genius Grace Hopper (in US navy uniform), one of the first programmers of the iconic Harvard Mark 1 computer.
Khan himself is one of Britain’s leading computer science pioneers as well as being a Catholic – brought up as a Muslim – for whom his faith is integral to his life. He was made a Knight of the Order of St Gregory the Great by Pope Francis in 2015. His spiritual journey from being a Muslim brought up in the Lancashire mill towns of Haslingden and Accrington to now being a papal knight (as well as philanthropist) makes him one of the most interesting Catholics in Britain today; not the least as his calm confidence makes him a man blessed with a rare lay charism: intellectual and spiritual conviction combined with a strong emotional connection to the faith.
