Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computation By Aritra Sarkar If you’ve not yet been impacted by Artificial Intelligence in today’s world, you’ve probably been living under a rock. But does it have any influence on Quantum Computing research? This post will explore the synergies between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Computation (QC). In doing so, I will map out the landscape of research directions at the intersection of these two exciting fields. Let’s start off by defining these two. QC, of course, needs no special introduction to the readers of the QuTech blog. My favorite one ..read more

A Eurocrat’s guide to quantum computing by Valentin John Are you a Europhile or have you ever struggled to explain quantum computing to one? If so, then this guide has got you covered. We take the classical nation state and the European Union (EU) as an analogy to understand the concepts of ‘conventional’ classical computing and quantum computing. The EU can be confusing and overwhelmingly complicated, just like quantum computing. Perfect to better understand the quantum computer. It is the year 1950. It is the aftermath of a complete failure of the nation state in Europe. While there is hope ..read more

Van Keramiek tot Quantum/From Ceramics to Quantum Mechanics 2 How Delft became the city of quantum By David van Driel Bounce a coin off the walls of the Applied Physics building at the Delft University of Technology and chances are you hit a qubit. Yet when most people think about Delft, they talk about Johannes Vermeer, DSM or Delfts Blauw earthenware. How did an industrial town in The Netherlands wrestle its way to the front row of the Quantum Revolution? In this second blog post, I will trace the threads of history from the old quantum theory to Delft’s first electron beam pattern generato ..read more

APS March Meeting 2022 by QuTech blog editors With the first hybrid APS March meeting in 2022 concluded, we asked a few of the attendants to share their experiences and fun stories. Tim Coopmans This year’s March Meeting felt like the first time cows who get outside after having been locked up for the winter. People almost happily jumped around after the past two-year’s COVID-stables, where we were fed with videocalls in front of a computer screen and written chatting. Talking to other researchers has never been so easy, since everyone was willing to chat with a physically-present counterpart ..read more

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How to Support Your Trans Colleagues by Sayr Motz Hello, my name is Sayr and I use they/them pronouns. I’m nonbinary, which means that I’m neither man nor woman (think of me like a gender qubit in superposition between man and woman!) QuTech’s ongoing work to expand gender equity in quantum computing is a good step in the right direction, but as a nonbinary person, most diversity and inclusion initiatives still leave me feeling very excluded and unrepresented. As a field, we are now focused on recruiting and retaining women, which is wonderful and necessary, but talented researchers exist als ..read more

Goodbye to ‘quantum supremacy’? by Aletta Meinsma On October, 2019, the news got picked up widely: “Google Claims a Quantum Breakthrough That Could Change Computing” headlined The New York Times (Metz, 2019). “Google claims ‘quantum supremacy’ for computer” according to the BBC (Rincon, 2019). The Google researchers themselves titled their paper: “Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor” (Arute et al., 2019). They claimed to have reached a milestone in quantum computing: using 53 functional qubits, they performed a task in 200 seconds that they said would take the wor ..read more

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