A Major Meeting Point for Quantum Theorists

The QIP (International Workshop on Quantum Information Processing) is a major meeting point for "quantum theorists". Renato Renner, an assistant professor of theoretical physics at ETH Zurich and co-organizer of this year's convention, explains why we will be contemplating application programs over the next few days even though we are still a far cry from a universally operational quantum computer.

Poster for the convention. (more pictures) Mr. Renner, how come scientists from all over the world are discussing which application programs could operate on a quantum computer when no such computer even exists yet?

It’s not all that different from the development of the conventional computer during the last century: on the one hand, you had people who were trying to build a computer whilst others were asking themselves what you could do with the computer once it existed. These were the people who concentrated on developing software. Today, you have the same divide: experimental physicists are trying to construct a quantum computer in a similar vein to the earlier vacuum tube and transistor computers whilst theoretical physicists and computer scientists are busy with the question as to what you can actually do with a quantum computer. The QIP is effectively the computer scientist conference of the future where we discuss the issue of how we can use these new information technologies. I consider this to be just as important a task because we wouldn’t be able to make good use of a quantum computer at this stage even if it did already exist.

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