The interface between quantum information and thermodynamics is currently a very active area. The topical review The role of quantum information in thermodynamics — a topical review, published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical is the most highly cited 2016 article in the journal. Here we talk to one of the authors of the review, Marcus Huber, from Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information Vienna, to discover why this field is so active and where he thinks it’s heading.