At the 2021 Quantum Symposium of the Dutch Payments Association, two CWI speakers will give a lecture on the latest developments: Harry Burhman (CWI, UvA, QuSoft) and Léo Ducas (CWI). The conference specifically focuses on quantum computing and security topics with contributions from academic researchers, representatives from the banking industry and authorities in their work area.
The event gives a brief update on developments related to quantum computing, explores opportunities, prepares for the advent of the quantum computer and aims to strengthen the dialogue between the academic and industry community.
Abstracts of the CWI contributions:
* Quantum algoritmes – Prof. Harry Buhrman (CWI, UvA and QuSoft)
Quantum computers promise to have a great impact on how we do information processing tasks. The extra power comes the quantum mechanical effects of superposition, interference, and entanglement. Quantum computers require a fundamentally different hardware. The basic building block is a the qubit and operations on these qubits are fundamentally different from the operations that one performs on classical bits. Hence the software that runs on quantum computers is also fundamentally different from the way we are used to program computers. A major driving (research) question is the following: For which computational problems does a quantum computer have an advantage and how big is that advantage? This question is deeply intertwined with fundamental questions in computer science and only a partial answer has been found so far.
Recent years has seen great progress in the fabrication of reasonably stable qubits: 50-100 qubits are available now, with a projected growth to a 1000 qubits within the next 5 years. These qubits however are physical qubits that deteriorate and decohere over time. It is known that error correction in combination with fault tolerant computation offer a solution to this decoherence problem. However, this comes at a the price of using a multitude of physical qubits to implement a single stable or logical qubit. This overhead is at the moment and in the near future prohibitively large. We therefore have to develop applications for quantum computers that have a relatively large amount of qubits that decohere over time. I will describe what the impact of the above considerations is on the design of quantum algorithms.
* Quantum resistant cryptography: Standardization and Recommendation - Dr. Léo Ducas (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica)
'In this talk, I first introduce quantum-resistant cryptography, (a.k.a. post-quantum cryptography), explain why it is needed very soon, and explain its difference with quantum cryptography. I then overview the ongoing standardization process of NIST (US National Institute for Standards and Technology), and summarize the pros and cons of the expected portfolio of standards. I conclude with a few recommendations for a safe and orderly transition to security against the cautioned advent of quantum-capable adversaries.'
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