REMINDER – Suzanne Gildert on Building large-scale quantum computers, Teleplace, September 4, 10am PST

UPDATED – VIDEO of Suzanne’s talk

Suzanne Gildert will give a talk in Teleplace on “Building large-scale quantum computers: Fundamentals, technology and applications” on September 4, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact Giulio Prisco if you wish to attend.

Suzanne is an excellent speaker and I am sure she will give a great talk. As she says in the abstract below, quantum computing is often over-dramatized by the popular press, and I look forward to hearing Suzanne’s explanations on how quantum computers work, how to build them, what they can do, what they cannot do, what they cannot do yet, and when. Suzanne’s blog “Physics and cake” is one of the best online references on quantum computing (and other imaginative technologies), at times highly technical but more often understandable and even entertaining. Suzanne’s company, D-Wave Systems, Inc. (see also the D-Wave blog), is pioneering the development of a new class of high-performance computing system designed to solve complex search and optimization problems, with an initial emphasis on synthetic intelligence and machine learning applications, by using a computational model known as adiabatic quantum computing (AQC).

In the picture above, Suzanne at the recent ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, San Francisco, August 16-17th. Suzanne’s has been one of the most active participants in the ASIM 2010 Conference, and she has a nice writeup on “ASIM-2010 – not quite Singularity but close“. The picture, taken in the virtual conference room in Teleplace and with another view of the same virtual conference room in the background, is a nice reality cascade appropriate to the spooky image of quantum computing.

Building large-scale quantum computers: Fundamentals, technology and applications

Abstract: This seminar will explain the fundamental concepts of the Quantum Computer (QC) and how these systems might be able to perform certain tasks that classical computers find incredibly difficult. The different models of quantum computing will be introduced and the advantages and disadvantages of each described. A promising model known as Adiabatic Quantum Computing (AQC) will be discussed, an approach which can be applied to some very interesting problems in a wide variety of fields: Biology, microprocessor design, pharmaceuticals, economics, transport, chemistry and business. The talk will also examine some case studies of industrial applications in these fields where QC may be extremely useful.

There will be a review of some of the experimental challenges involved in building QCs, and a focus on a particularly promising version known as the ‘superconducting flux qubit processor’. The devices involved in this type of QC are fabricated using a process similar to semiconductor technology, but using Niobium and Aluminum rather than Silicon as the device materials. There will be a brief overview of the physics which causes these devices to demonstrate ‘macroscopic quantum coherence’- an effect which allows us to scale up quantum effects to a size where we can manipulate them easily, and why the devices must be cooled to millikelvin temperatures for them to work properly.

The power of quantum computing is often skewed by the media, with quantum computers being hailed as ‘futuristic’ replacements for desktop machines, whereas the reality is that they are very specialized machines, and therefore more like fast co-processors. The talk will therefore also describe the limitations of quantum computers, both in theory and in terms of what can be practically built.

About the speaker: Dr Suzanne Gildert is currently working as an Experimental Physicist at D-Wave Systems, Inc. She is involved in the design and testing of large scale superconducting processors for Quantum Computing Applications. Suzanne obtained her PhD and MSci degree from The University of Birmingham UK, focusing on the areas of experimental quantum device physics and superconductivity.

Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact Giulio Prisco if you wish to attend.