Operational Update
March 16, 2022
By Kimberly McGuire, C2QA Operations Leader
"Some PIs noted that C2QA has been more collaborative than any other Center they’ve been a part of.”
— Mark Ritter, Chair of the Physical Sciences Council at IBM Research and Chair of XCITe
Kimberly McGuire
C2QA has been fortunate to have very strong scientific collaborations that cut across traditional domain boundaries. The mission of the Center is to develop and apply these cross-cutting, co-design principles in three key areas (software and applications, devices, and materials). Our efforts are becoming more and more visible, as evidenced by an uptick in publications, scientific meetings, and educational events. Working on the operations side, it is our job to collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to achieve our goals, an area where we excel.
In January 2022, C2QA underwent its first round of semi-annual reviews with 6 of their 12 subthrust teams. The end result yielded positive reporting of developments and compelling stories that can be told about our ongoing efforts. Teams reported being on-track to meet this year’s goals with lots of engagement across thrusts. A big ‘thank you’ to all who participated.
The Center kicked off its affiliates program in February of 2022. An affiliate is an institution who has similar, meaningful research interests and synergies with C2QA that can serve to further build the QIS networking ecosystem. We are happy to welcome Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory as our first affiliate.
XCITe has made progressive efforts by identifying four cross-thrust challenges that will be a focus this year:
- Bosonic Qubits in the Schwinger Model
- Modular Architectures for Computing
- Noise-aware compilation and transpilation
- Low-depth Topological Codes
XCITe is also thrilled to welcome three new team members:
- Sophia Economou, who brings expertise in quantum control techniques for superconducting and optical qubits and quantum network protocols
- Jens Koch, who brings expertise in novel qubit design to optimize bosonic code ancilla
- Michael DeMarco, a postdoc who will support efforts in benchmarking
C2QA’s two external advisory boards (Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and the Science Advisory Board (SAB) convened meetings in March 2022 with a goal of offering guidance to leadership and feedback on progress towards mission goals. Board members are representative of domain experts in QIS, software developers, and theorists, and are well-acquainted in both fundamental science and technology transfer and commercialization opportunities. Discussion topics included working with industry, National Quantum Information Science Research Center (NQISRC) career fair planning, internship development, and technology transfer. The boards meet twice annually.
Looking Ahead: We are excited to commemorate World Quantum Day on April 14, 2022, by premiering five videos showcasing C2QA members who share their excitement about quantum, virtual lessons for high school students, and more! Check out BNL’s social media pages so you don’t miss all of the exciting things happening in the Center!
2022-19503 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
