BQP Founder and CEO Abhishek Chopra was featured in Expert Predictions for Startup Trends in 2026, a multi-expert outlook examining capital flows, AI-native businesses, infrastructure investing, and the evolving global startup ecosystem.

The article highlights tightening funding conditions across the UK startup landscape, with investors prioritizing later-stage, revenue-generating AI and applied software companies. While early-stage rounds declined, business formation remained strong, underscoring a market defined by resilience, selectivity, and execution discipline.

Across sectors, experts emphasized a shift from AI “wrappers” to infrastructure ownership, increasing capital allocation toward AI infrastructure, defense tech, and specialized enterprise tools. The central theme: durable advantage in 2026 will belong to startups that own core systems, not just interfaces.

Abhishek Chopra, Founder and CEO, BQP, shared two forward-looking predictions:

1: The “Simulation Gap” Gets Measured and Weaponised
“2026 will mark the first time defense programs start quantifying the “simulation gap,” the strategic cost of outdated modeling tools measured in lost innovation cycles, fuel waste, and readiness delays. As adversaries adopt quantum-enhanced simulation, the gap itself becomes a national security KPI.”

2: Digital Engineering Becomes a Geopolitical Moat
“By 2026, nations leading in digital engineering standards, modular data architectures, and quantum-ready simulation platforms will hold a decisive advantage in aerospace innovation. The U.S. has a narrow window to set the rules of digital dominance, or risk falling behind China’s coordinated ecosystem.”

Chopra’s perspective reinforces BQP’s broader mission: advancing quantum-ready simulation and hybrid computational frameworks to strengthen national competitiveness and accelerate engineering innovation.

As AI and infrastructure investments mature, simulation capability is emerging not only as a technical differentiator—but as a geopolitical and economic lever.

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