Convergence Accelerator Phase I: Project Scoping Workshop (PSW) on Quantum Interconnects (QuIC)

该研讨会将于2019年秋季举办，将汇集学术界和工业界的主要利益相关者。与会者将讨论量子互连（QuIC）当前面临的挑战，克服这些挑战的机会，并将规划出一条前进的道路，以实现近期的进展。研讨会的具体目标是确定量子互连领域的实际可交付成果，包括：i)未来2-5年内可以开发的原型，以及ii)在接下来的5年内评估它们所需的测试平台。我们建议组织研讨会，汇集来自学术界、工业界和政府的主要利益相关者，并负责回答以下问题：QuIC技术带来的社会影响是什么？谁将从我们的工作中受益？最有前途的QuIC平台是什么？它们多久才能从实验室转化为“现实世界”环境？这些QuIC平台的主要实验和理论挑战是什么？我们如何解决这些挑战？它们是否提出了有趣的科学或工程问题，需要学术界、工业界和政府之间的研究和合作？是否需要平台特定的或通用的算法和软件开发？在持续的财政支持、所需的额外技术专长、劳动力/学生培训等方面，社区的需求是什么？为了回答这些问题并评估QuIC的潜力，研讨会将吸引不同科学和工程学科的参与者，包括材料科学家、物理学家、电子和光子电路设计师、控制和信息理论专家、计算机科学家、软件工程师等。研讨会将包括工业界和学术界的主要参与者，他们参与了对高性能计算（HPC）系统和现代数据中心发展至关重要的经典互连（主要是光学）的发展。重要的是，该项目推进了美国国家科学基金会未来投资的十大理念中的两个目标：“量子飞跃”（QL）和“日益融合的研究”（GCR）。该活动还推进了国家量子计划（NQI）的目标，这是一个协调的多机构计划，旨在支持量子信息科学（QIS）的研究和培训。研讨会的成果将是一份由所有研讨会参与者共同撰写的白皮书，并向公众提供。白皮书将概述研讨会对社区在QuIC方面的优先事项的立场。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This workshop will be organized in Fall 2019 and will bring together key stakeholders from academia and industry. The participants will discuss current challenges in Quantum Interconnects (QuIC), opportunities to overcome those challenges, and will map out a path forward to enable near-term progress. The specific aim of the workshop is to identify realistic deliverables in the area of Quantum Interconnects, including: i) Prototypes that could be developed in the next 2-5 years, and ii) Testbeds needed to evaluate them in the following 5 years.We propose to organize the workshop that will bring together key stakeholders from academia, industry and government with the charge to answer the following questions: What is the societal impact offered by QuIC technology? Who will benefit from our work? What are the most promising QuIC platforms and how soon can they to be translated from lab to "real world" environments? What are the main experimental and theoretical challenges of these QuIC platforms, and how we can address them? Do they pose interesting scientific or engineering questions that require convergent research and partnership between academia, industry and government? Are there needs for platform specific or generalized algorithm and software development? What are the needs of QuIC community in terms of sustained financial support, additional technical expertise required, workforce/ student training, etc? To answer these questions and evaluate the potential of QuIC, the workshop will draw participation from different scientific and engineering disciplines including material scientists, physicists, electronic and photonic circuit designers, control and information theory experts, computer scientists, software engineers, and so on.The workshop will involve key players from both industry and academia involved in the development of classical interconnects (largely optical) crucial to the development high performance computing (HPC) systems and modern data centers. Importantly, this project advances the objectives of two of Ten Big Ideas for Future NSF Investments: "Quantum Leap" (QL) and "Growing Convergent Research" (GCR). This activity also advances objectives of the National Quantum Initiative (NQI), a coordinated multiagency program to support research and training in Quantum Information Science (QIS). The outcome of the workshop will be a white paper co-authored by all workshop participants and made available to the public. The white paper will outline the Workshop's position regarding community priorities relative to QuIC.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.