D-Wave's Approach to Quantum Computing

Venue
DISI, University Of Trento, via Sommarive 9, Povo, Trento - Room B107 ("Aula Magna Povo 2")

Speaker 

• Dr. Colin P. Williams, D-Wave Systems Inc.

Abstract 
In this talk I will describe D-Wave's approach to quantum computing including its operating principles, system architecture, evidence of quantumness, and report on our latest performance data. In particular, I will describe the latest version of D-Wave's quantum processor, and describe some examples of computational problems we have mapped to our architecture. As our quantum processors are naturally well suited to solving problems in discrete combinatorial optimization, sampling, machine learning and artificial intelligence the talk should be of broad interest to computer scientists, physicists, and engineers with interests in a wide range of application areas.

Biography
Colin Williams is Director of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships at D-Wave Systems Inc.  - the World’s first quantum computer company - where he works with corporate and government clients to infuse D-Wave quantum computing technology into their products and services. Colin wrote the first book on quantum computing, "Explorations in Quantum Computing", which inspired Geordie Rose to found D-Wave Systems. Colin also started the Quantum Computing Group at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, and quickly broadened its scope to include research on quantum communications, quantum key distribution, quantum sensors, and quantum metrology. He invented quantum algorithms for solving NP-Hard problems, computing quantum wavelet transforms, and for accelerating average case quantum search. He also showed how to perform arbitrary non-unitary quantum computations probabilistically, wrote a CAD tool for automatically designing quantum circuits that implement arbitrary desired quantum computations, and specialized it to use gate sets optimized for linear optical quantum computing, spintronic quantum computing and superconducting quantum computing. In 2012 he published a greatly expanded and updated edition of "Explorations in Quantum Computing".

Colin Williams holds a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, a M.Sc.  and D.I.C. in atmospheric physics and dynamics from Imperial College, University of London, and a B.Sc. (with Hons.)  in mathematical physics from the University of Nottingham. He was formerly a research assistant in general relativity & quantum cosmology to Prof. Stephen W. Hawking, at the University of Cambridge, a research scientist at Xerox PARC, and served for several years as an acting Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University.

About D-Wave
D-Wave is "the World’s first quantum computer company", who recently achieved producing 512-Qbit quantum computers specialized in discrete combinatorial optimization problems.

Among other facts, D-Wave and its quantum computers recently hit the news by getting the cover-story of "Time" magazine of February 17, 2014 with the cover article:
"The Quantum Quest for a Revolutionary Computer":
http://time.com/4802/quantum-leap/
http://www.dwavesys.com/media-coverage/time-quantum-quest-revolutionary-computer

This talk in of particular interest not only to people interested in quantum computing and/or in discrete combinatorial optimization problems, but to whoever wants to sense the current state of the art of quantum computing and its future perspectives.

Contact
Prof. Roberto Sebastiani
DISI, 0461.281514, roberto.sebastiani [at] unitn.it