NGF Quantum Technology grant for CWI researcher

Jonas Helsen is principal investigator of the awarded NGF project ‘Rolling the quantum dice: better quantum computers through randomness’. He explains: “Quantum computers are an exciting future technology, promising advances in material science, medicine and many other places. However, building them is difficult, because quantum systems are fragile and complex. In this project we will harness the power of randomness —the rolling of dice— combined with advanced mathematical techniques, to design more efficient ways to learn about the noise in quantum computers. In this way, we can have better quantum computers, faster”.

About Jonas Helsen

Jonas Helsen is a tenure-track researcher in CWI's Algorithms and Complexity group and is affiliated with Qusoft. For his thesis 'Quantum information in the real world: Diagnosing and correcting errors in practical quantum devices' he received his PhD (cum laude) at Delft University of Technology in 2019. In 2023, Helsen received a Veni subsidy.

About the NGF Quantum Technology programme

The NGF Quantum Technology programme is carried out by NWO in collaboration with Quantum Delta NL. It involves in total almost 10.4 million euros. The central government is putting 615 million euros into quantum technology. Of this, within the Quantum Technology programme, a total of 42 million euros has been set aside for scientific research and innovation, over a duration of seven years.

Servaas Kokkelmans, chair of the NWO Quantum Committee and of Action Line 1 of Quantum Delta NL, and chair of the assessment committee, says: “I consider this second Quantum Technology call also a great success. The successful proposals are spread across various areas of expertise and of application of quantum technology, and they all feed into the three catalyst projects of Quantum Delta NL. Both the quality of the proposals and the success rate are very high. That's how I like to see it: many excellent proposals that can be awarded. This is very motivating for the researchers and will significantly increase their involvement with QDNL.”

Source a.o. NWO press release on the NGF Quantum technology programme