FRHTP: Center for Quantum Information and Control

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Quantum Information Science (QIS) is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of two of the greatest scientific and technical triumphs of the 20th century: quantum physics and information science. The digital revolution that followed, based on semiconductor chips, laser communications, and computer science, has fueled the economic engine of today’s information society. QIS will fuel a second quantum revolution into the 21st century. The second quantum revolution will harness the full power of quantum mechanics (the physics of the atomic world) with devices that rely on quantum-weird phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to process information in ways that are much more powerful than today’s best supercomputers and cybersecurity systems. The Focused Research Hub in Theoretical Physics (FRHTP): Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC) funded in this grant from the NSF will create a “theory hub” for fundamental research that provides the foundation for the second quantum revolution. Housed at the University of New Mexico (UNM), CQuIC brings together an interdisciplinary team of theoreticians with expertise in physics, computer science, electrical engineering, and chemistry, as well as partners at Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Honeywell Quantum Solutions, to collaborate, innovate, and tackle the most important outstanding problems in QIS. CQuIC will provide a focal point for United States QIS-theory community to retain its competitive advantage. CQuIC will serve the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Act by hosting focused workshops that target common problems, share lessons learned, and help to break logjams when they arise to push forward the goals of the NQI. The hub will be critical for education and training, with a focus on building a diverse and inclusive next-generation QIS workforce.To achieve these goals, CQuIC will administer a prize postdoctoral fellowship program, host seminars, workshops, conferences, and a visitor’s program, and critically focus on synergistic research that brings together the principal investigators at UNM with its partnering institutions. The research will be anchored in tackling four “Big Questions” in contemporary QIS: I. What is the computational power of quantum matter? II. How do we efficiently represent quantum systems, and when do these representations lead to efficient classical algorithms? III. What quantum advantage can be achieved with Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices? IV. What near-term quantum algorithms and architectures can yield practical results? Postdoctoral fellows will provide the “connective tissue,” creating bridges between senior participants and bringing additional expertise to the Center. CQuIC’s intensely collaborative environment will provide the necessary incubator for the QIS-theory community to work to together to tackle the Big Questions. In addition, CQuIC will host a variety of hub activities that will bring together the community to interact, create, and tackle critical problems, and integrate this with education, training, and shared educational resources to help develop the next generation of quantum information scientists. Hub activities include the long-running SQuInT Annual Workshop, with a 25-year history of focus on building community for early-career scientists at a world-class conference. CQuIC will create outreach programs that focus on building diversity and inclusion of traditionally underrepresented groups in QIS.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.