Beginnings
QLM Technology started from an idea of Chief Technical Officer, Xiao Ai. Xiao's postgraduate research at the University of Bristol with Professor John Rarity had explored using high-power lasers and single-photon lidar to measure carbon dioxide gas from a satellite. After that project fell apart over issues with funding he realized that the same approach could be used more locally and at much lower cost to precisely measure the emissions of methane from gas wells and pipelines on the ground. A low-power lidar beam that simultaneously measured both the shape and the concentration of plumes of methane could tell exactly how much gas was being leaked - exactly the information gas operators needed to know. He tried to explain to funding agencies and existing gas detection experts how single-photon lidar could do this and was told what he was claiming was impossible. So, with the support of the newly formed Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre (QTEC) he founded QLM.