Location
MC 5501
Speaker
Shayan Majidy, Harvard University
Title
The Quantum Computing and AI Frontier
Abstract
Quantum computers promise to simulate quantum systems and answer open questions across science from condensed matter and quantum chemistry to particle physics and quantum gravity. Two problems stand in the way: how to build them, and how to use them. Each brings hard optimisation, inference, and compilation problems — naturally suited to AI. Along the first direction, I present a new paradigm for designing quantum error-correcting codes tailored to specific algorithms, yielding order-of-magnitude improvements on targeted tasks. Machine learning, paired with SAT and tensor-network environments, extends this approach beyond analytic and brute-force design. Along the second direction, I present an experimentally realised scheme for a universal fault-tolerant gate set, and show how machine learning optimises its key bottlenecks. Looking ahead, I discuss the open question of how to integrate large-scale quantum computers with AI to tackle more difficult problems.