The effort to develop practical quantum technology is ramping up worldwide, with the UK and ot
her governments recently announcing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment. Some say this is premature! Are we now sure that complex quantum systems can be adequately controlled, and sufficiently scaled, that they will be useful outside the lab? I will ague that the answer is “yes”. After reviewing recent achievements in experiments, theory and applications, I will describe the Q20:20 machine that the Oxford-led National Quantum Hub is building in the UK, and I’ll try to assess its prospects against rivals from D-Wave and indeed Yale!
Bio: Simon Benjamin is Professor of Quantum Technologies at Materials Department in the University of Oxford, and an Associate Director of the Oxford-led UK Hub on Networked Quantum Information Technologies (NQIT). Simon leads a team of ten staff and students called the Quantum and Nanotechnology Theory group (QuNaT). They are applied theorists, who study various questions relating to how build and use a new generation of technologies based on harnessing quantum effects. The group has interests ranging from energy harvesting to sensors to secure communications, and even the question of whether quantum effects are exploited by biology; but their primary interest is in information processing systems.
Simon has been a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore, and is currently a visiting researcher at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.