October 29, 2020

Electrical & Computer Engineering - University of Washington

LYTLE LECTURE SERIES 2020

JOIN US
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. PST

Curious to hear the latest in cutting-edge quantum computing technologies?
Join us for The University of Washington Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (UW ECE) Dean W. Lytle Endowed Lecture Series on Thursday, November 19 from 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. PST via Zoom.
This year we are extremely excited to welcome keynote speaker Scott Aaronson, professor of computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. With extensive experience in both electrical engineering and computer science, Dr. Aaronson conducts groundbreaking research investigating the capabilities and limits of quantum computers. A panel discussion on the state of quantum research will also take place in the morning from 10:00 a.m. to noon, including industry experts and UW ECE professor Kai-Mei Fu.
The Lytle Lecture Series is UW ECE’s premier annual event, featuring internationally renowned researchers in the field of communications, signal processing, control systems, and machine learning. This lecture series is free and open to the public. See link below for event registration!

Scott Aaronson, University of Texas at Austin
Lytle Lecture: Thursday, November 19 from 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. PST via Zoom

Title: Quantum Computational Supremacy and Its Applications
Abstract: Last fall, a team at Google announced the first-ever demonstration of “quantum computational supremacy”—that is, a clear quantum speedup over a classical computer for some task—using a 53-qubit programmable superconducting chip called Sycamore. Google’s accomplishment drew on a decade of research in my field of quantum complexity theory. This talk will discuss questions like: what exactly was the (contrived) problem that Sycamore solved? How does one verify the outputs using a classical computer? And how confident are we that the problem is classically hard—especially in light of subsequent counterclaims by IBM and others? I’ll end with a possible application that I’ve been developing for Google’s experiment: namely, the generation of trusted public random bits, for use (for example) in cryptocurrencies.
Biography: Scott Aaronson is David J. Bruton Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his bachelor’s from Cornell University and his PhD from UC Berkeley. Before joining UT Austin, he spent nine years as a professor in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. Aaronson’s research in theoretical computer science has focused mainly on the capabilities and limits of quantum computers. His first book, Quantum Computing Since Democritus, was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press. He received the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the United States PECASE Award, and the Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize in Physics.

PANEL DISCUSSION ON
QUANTUM COMPUTING RESEARCH

10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PST

In addition to Dr. Aaronson’s lecture, UW ECE will also host a panel discussion on the latest in quantum computing research earlier in the day from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m PST. The following experts in the field will participate in the discussion:

Kai-Mei Fu
Quantum Information Science and Technology (QIST), UW ECE
Brent VanDevender
Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory

David Bacon
Google
Krysta Svore
Microsoft

Questions? email: events@ece.uw.edu
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