Dr Michael Bremner "Searching for the quantum frontier" 07/06/2019 11:00am

This Friday, June 7th, The UQ Physics Colloquium is hosting Dr. Michael Bremner from the Centre for Quantum Software and Information, University of Technology, Sydney. Dr. Bremner will give a comparative presentation of classical computer and quantum computer and talk about the challenges and subtleties of quantum computation.

The talk will be given at 11 am in Parnell (07) Rm 222. Everyone is welcome to join.

Abstract: The world’s leading experimental quantum computing teams are racing to develop quantum processors that might have the capability to take the first steps into the “quantum frontier”. It is hoped that these devices can perform some form of post-classical computation of a type that cannot be performed efficiently on a digital computer but can on a quantum computer – a direct, practical, challenge to the Extended Church-Turing Thesis. Despite these advances, the construction of quantum processors that can achieve the full potential of quantum computing remains an extremely challenging task that fundamentally pushes the limits of physics, engineering, and computer science. Knowing that classical computers are currently faster, have more stable memories, and can be highly parallelized where exactly is the “quantum frontier”? In this talk, I will discuss how quantum advantage emerges from the subtle characteristics of problems where quantum interference can best be utilized and why this makes building, and developing applications for, quantum computers such a difficult task.