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Communication networks are an essential part of our world today, used in transactions from banking to education, global business exchanges to defence. What happens when our private information is no longer private? Powerful quantum computers will have the ability to crack the encryption of public keys that we currently use to secure our data, putting our privacy at risk.

Universal efficient compilation: Solovay-Kitaev without inverses

Tudor Giurgica-Tiron, Stanford University

The Solovay-Kitaev algorithm is a fundamental result in quantum computation. It gives an algorithm for efficiently compiling arbitrary unitaries using universal gate sets: any unitary can be approximated by short gates sequences, whose length scales merely poly-logarithmically with accuracy. As a consequence, the choice of gate set is typically unimportant in quantum computing. However, the Solovay-Kitaev algorithm requires the gate set to be inverse-closed.

In celebration of World Quantum Day, join IQC's Senior Manager of Scientific Outreach, John Donohue, for some fun light experiments with Exploring By The Seat Of Your Pants.

Dequantizing the Quantum Singular Value Transformation: Hardness and Applications to Quantum Chemistry and the Quantum PCP Conjecture

Sevag Gharibian, Paderborn University

The Quantum Singular Value Transformation (QSVT) is a recent technique that gives a unified framework to describe most quantum algorithms discovered so far, and may lead to the development of novel quantum algorithms. In this paper we investigate the hardness of classically simulating the QSVT.

Local-dimension-invariant stabilizer codes

Protection of quantum information is a central challenge in building a quantum computer. Quantum error-correcting codes can correct for logical errors that occur in the system. A particularly well-studied category is stabilizer codes, such as the 9-qubit Shor code, as these are the quantum analogue of classical additive codes. Qudits (particles with local-dimension greater than 2) have more computational basis states per particle than qubits and retain this feature in stabilizer codes.

Post-quantum security of the Even-Mansour cipher

Chen Bai, University of Maryland, College Park

The Even-Mansour cipher is a simple method for constructing a (keyed) pseudorandom permutation E from a public random permutation P: {0,1}^n ->{0,1}^n. It is a core ingredient in a wide array of symmetric-key constructions, including several lightweight cryptosystems presently under consideration for standardization by NIST.

Join alum Guanru Feng as she shares her career journey and talks about current research.

Guanru Feng is an Applied Scientist at SpinQ Technology, a quantum computing hardware and software company, where she focuses on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) desktop quantum computing platforms and superconducting qubit systems.

Quantum sensors allow us to measure with incredible accuracy, precision and selectivity. Future quantum devices that achieve these ultimate sensing qualities by harnessing the complexities of atoms, photons and semiconductors will play a critical role in improving applications such as medical technology, radar, geological exploration, molecular imaging and more. 

Geometry of Banach spaces: a new route towards Position Based Cryptography

Aleksander Kubicki, University Complutense of Madrid

In this talk I will explain how some techniques coming from the local theory of Banach spaces can be used to obtain claims about the security of protocols for Position Based Cryptography.

Join us for Quantum Today, where we sit down with researchers from the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) to talk about their work, its impact and where their research may lead.