The C&O department has 36 faculty members and 60 graduate students. We are intensely research oriented and hold a strong international reputation in each of our six major areas:
- Algebraic combinatorics
- Combinatorial optimization
- Continuous optimization
- Cryptography
- Graph theory
- Quantum computing
Read more about the department's research to learn of our contributions to the world of mathematics!
News
Three C&O faculty win Outstanding Performance Awards
The awards are given each year to faculty members across the University of Waterloo who demonstrate excellence in teaching and research.
Sina Kalantarzadeh wins Governor General's Gold Medal
The Governor General’s Gold Medal is one of the highest student honours awarded by the University of Waterloo.
Two C&O faculty win Outstanding Performance Awards
The awards are given each year to faculty members across the University of Waterloo who demonstrate excellence in teaching and research.
Events
IQC Seminar - Calvin Liu - Recent advances in random quantum circuit sampling
| Speaker: | Calvin Liu |
| Affiliation: | University of Waterloo |
| Location: | MC 5029 |
Abstract:
In 2019, Google announced the demonstration of quantum supremacy by performing a computational task known as random circuit sampling on their 53-qubit quantum computer Sycamore. In their paper, they claimed that it would take classical computers 10000 years to perform the same task. Almost seven years has passed, and what happened to this claim since then? In this talk, I will provide a high-level update on the subsequent developments in quantum hardware experiments, classical simulation software, asymptotic classical simulation algorithms, and proving the hardness of classical simulation. This talk is aimed at a non-quantum computing audience, and no prior background in quantum computing is assumed.