All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. Women in the AI field are making research breakthroughs, spearheading vital ethical discussions, and inspiring the next generation of AI professionals. We created the VentureBeat Women in AI Awards to emphasize the importance of their voices, work, and experience, and to shine a light on some of these leaders. In this series, publishing Fridays, we're diving deeper into conversations with this year's winners, whom we honored recently at Transform 2021. Briana Brownell, winner of VentureBeat's Women in AI entrepreneur award, didn't enter this field to earn accolades.

Demand for machine learning engineers has exploded in the past two years, as AI development and adoption continue to grow across industries, according to a report from Indeed. These professionals are among the most in-demand tech professionals, and among the highest paid, with average salaries of $134,449 in the US, according to another Indeed report. "Software is eating the world and machine learning is eating software," said Vitaly Gordon, vice president of data science and software engineering for Salesforce Einstein. "Machine learning engineering is a discipline that requires production grade coding, PhD level machine learning and a business acumen of a product manager. Finding such rare people can uplift a company from a follower into a leader in their space, and everyone is looking for them."

For D-Wave, the path to quantum computers being widely accepted is similar to the history of today's computers. The first chips came more than 30 years ago, and Microsoft's Basic expanded the software infrastructure around PCs. Quantum computers are a new type of computer that can be significantly faster than today's PCs. They are still decades away from replacing PCs and going mainstream, but more advanced hardware and use models are still emerging. "A lot of that is unfolding and will have a similar dramatic change in the computing landscape," Vern Brownell, D-Wave's CEO, said in an interview.

D-Wave is ready to move its quantum computer out of limited use and into more real-world deployments. Quantum computing has been researched for decades and D-Wave deployed what was considered the first such computer in 2011. A handful of D-Wave's quantum computers are now being used by Google, NASA and Lockheed Martin for artificial intelligence, image recognition and machine learning. D-Wave now has a pipeline of government, commercial and intelligence customers waiting for the company's faster quantum computers, which will start rolling out later this year, said CEO Vern Brownell. The company will release faster processors over the next two years that will be central to the new quantum computers, Brownell said.

Google has assembled a team of experts trying to craft a quantum computer Financial services, machine learning and other industries could benefit Quantum computing especially useful for complex "optimization" problems It depends on mind-bending physics and ultra-cold temperatures but quantum computing could bring about a new era in processing power that promises to revolutionize everything from artificial intelligence to high finance. The field of quantum computing is still in its infancy but it was given a sizable boost when Google announced in September that it is partnering with experts from the University of California Santa Barbara to develop quantum computing technology as part of its Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab team. The project also sees Google pairing up with NASA and the Universities Space Research Association to create technology that could become the world's fastest supercomputer. In a traditional computer, circuits are either on or off, and use binary code of ones and zeros for solving problems. A quantum computer uses quantum bits -- called qubits -- and has circuits which exist in all possible states at the same time -- a one, a zero and everything in between.

A Canadian firm has courted controversy with its claim to have built a practical quantum computer, a feat thought to be decades away. Now, independent researchers are trying to understand whether it really can tap the strange world of quantum physics. For the modest sum of $15m (£9m), a start-up near Vancouver will sell you a black box the size of a garden shed with its logo emblazoned on the side in white neon. What if I told you the contents of the box were kept colder than the temperature of interstellar space? How about this: The box contains a machine that can solve some of the thorniest mathematical problems and could revolutionise computing.

Quantum computing's full potential may still be years away, but there are plenty of benefits to be realized right now. So argues Vern Brownell, president and CEO of D-Wave Systems, whose namesake quantum system is already in its second generation. Launched 17 years ago by a team with roots at Canada's University of British Columbia, D-Wave introduced what it called "the world's first commercially available quantum computer" back in 2010. Since then the company has doubled the number of qubits, or quantum bits, in its machines roughly every year. Today, its D-Wave 2X system boasts more than 1,000.

Ever since Charles Babbage's conceptual, unrealised Analytical Engine in the 1830s, computer science has been trying very hard to race ahead of its time. Particularly over the last 75 years, there have been many astounding developments – the first electronic programmable computer, the first integrated circuit computer, the first microprocessor. But the next anticipated step may be the most revolutionary of all. Quantum computing is the technology that many scientists, entrepreneurs and big businesses expect to provide a, well, quantum leap into the future. If you've never heard of it there's a helpful video doing the social media rounds that's got a couple of million hits on YouTube.