42 Quantum
Independent Research Lab · United States
We are a team of engineers working together to learn, build, create, and model complex systems to further ourselves and the world around us.
Nothing is for sale. Nothing is opened until it has been vetted.
Fund the lab · Hardware it owns outright
0% of $100,000
Help 42 Quantum Keep Building Free Tech
Four AI servers, five system servers, and a year of power and bandwidth. $0 of $100,000 raised so far.
- Lines of code written
- 1,417,642Lines of code written
- Commits shipped
- 2,429Commits shipped
- In development
- 8In development
- Live in production
- 1Live in production
01
What we are
A research lab. Engineers out of software, procurement, AI, defense, and manufacturing who pooled resources to test new ideas and build out the ones worth building. Everything we make is released free to use.
02
How we work
Start from the goal, argue it down until every part is figured out, build it, and vet each other's work before anything opens up. Decisions over process. Time is the killer.
03
Where it goes
We intend to build an engineering company on the systems that come out of here. For now this is a lab, the work is free, and the code stays closed until it has been vetted.
Who builds it
People
The work
Projects
- 01
Nocturn
Nothing moves unseen.
Live - 02
Software Production Suite
Where a person with an idea and no engineering department ships production-grade software.
In development - 03
Personal Work Agent
One aide on every device you own, that does real work and can prove what it did.
In development - 04
AI Interface Guide
An embedded guide that reads the page it lives on and responds to where you actually are.
In development - 05
Technology Knowledge Graph
A self-updating dependency graph of humanity's technological evolution.
In development - 06
CAD-to-Headset Bridge
A live CAD session, standing on the table in front of you.
In development - 07
Tactical Planning Workstation
Mission planning that outgrew the slide deck.
In development - 08
AI Orchestration Engine
The orchestration engine the lab runs on. Internal infrastructure, not sold separately.
In development - 09
Probabilistic AI Research
Our proving ground for treating AI output as probability rather than fact.
In development
No source links on this site. Code is shared inside the lab once it has been vetted, and opened publicly after that.
The method
How we work
There is no application and no interview loop. This is how the work happens, and joining means doing it with us.
Start from the goal
Every project begins as one high level goal on a shared board. The first draw up is the most important one.
Argue it down
The room breaks the goal into parts, owner by owner, until every leaf is something one person can build. Argue till happy, then lock it.
Build it
Working code is the whole evaluation. Nobody here will ask you to whiteboard a linked list.
Vet each other's work
Nothing opens up, to the community or to the public, until someone else in the lab has taken it apart. Code stays closed until then.
Be clear on the trade before you commit. The lab is self funded, nobody is paid, and everyone here does this around a full time job.
Come talk
The Discord is where the lab happens
Every project gets talked about there: the questions, the ideas, and the arguments in between. Read for a while if you want. Nobody will chase you.
- Professional selves. No bots, no memes, no slop.
- Every project has open work. Take the piece you actually want to build.
- Code is shared inside the lab once it has been vetted, and opened publicly after that.
Fund the lab
Help 42 Quantum Keep Building Free Tech
We are self funded. Every system on this site was built around full time jobs and paid for out of pocket by the people above. If you want more of it to exist, this is the most direct way to make that happen.
We started 42 Quantum because each of us was building things at night that none of us could build alone during the day. We pooled what we had: time, machines, and the parts of our backgrounds that overlap. Nocturn went live first. Five more systems are in development behind it.
The lab takes no customer money, so none of the work has to bend toward a buyer. That is the point of it, and it is also why the servers, the data feeds, and the AI credits come out of our own pockets every month.
None of this goes to salaries. Nobody here is paid. It goes to the line items below, and we post where every dollar went, monthly, on the Discord and on this page.
Where the money goes
Estimated- $48,000
Four AI servers
Local inference for the Conductor and Nocturn's model tier. Around $12k each: a 48GB workstation GPU or two high-end consumer GPUs, 128 to 256GB RAM, fast NVMe. Open models, no API bill.
- $20,000
Five system servers
One per system in development. Proxmox hosts around $4k each: many-core CPU, 64 to 128GB RAM, mirrored storage.
- $6,000
Rack, switch, UPS, shared storage
The room the servers live in.
- $6,000
Power, colocation, bandwidth for a year
Keeping it on and reachable.
- $5,000
Data feeds, hosting, credits for a year
Nocturn's feeds, the domains, the site.
- $15,000
Contingency
Prices move. About 15%.
- All in$100,000
Updates
First one within a week of launch
First update within a week of launch, then one every month: what got built, what broke, and where every dollar went. On the Discord and on this page. If a month goes by without one, ask us about it on the Discord.
Current goal
Hardware the lab owns
Four AI servers, five system servers, and a year of power and bandwidth. Every dollar buys hardware or the power to run it. Nothing goes to salaries or overhead. We post a photo of each server the day it comes online.
- $5,000Nocturn's feeds and hosting for a year. The live system stays free.
- $25,000The first AI server and the first two system servers. The Conductor runs local models with no API bill.
- $60,000Every system in development gets its own server.
- $100,000All four AI servers, the rack, and a year of power and bandwidth. The lab runs on hardware it owns.
Get in touch
Contact us
Questions, collaborations, or you want to build something with us. This goes straight to Nicholas.
United States based
The lab is remote and everyone works around a full time job, so give us a few days on anything that is not urgent.