Quantum Computing Now

Quantum Computing Now covers quantum computing at close range, through conversations with people working in the field and through its hosts' own attempts to find their footing in it. The register is casual and unguarded, and mistakes tend to stay in the recording. Some conversations are recorded wherever the chance comes up: one was captured at an NYU AD hackathon focused on social good in the Arab world, where the host was a mentor and Amir Karamlou gave the keynote. Karamlou, a research scientist at Google Quantum AI, describes the way into the field as 'choose your own adventure', open to a physicist's, a computer scientist's or an engineer's perspective. What the conversation does insist on is research experience, though Karamlou suggests a well-funded institute is less necessary for getting it than it once was. It ends on large hopes: quantum computers solving problems classical machines cannot, and applications nobody has thought of yet. Security forms a second thread. Mamta Gupta, Director of Marketing at Lattice, draws on more than two decades in the FPGA industry to talk quantum and post-quantum security with Ethan Hansen, who asks, a little selfishly, for advice a college junior in the area could use. Gupta also passes along a joke that if AI and machine learning seem hot now, their meeting with quantum computing will be closer to a singularity, with results both good and unintended. Krystal A. Maughan, a quantum cryptography researcher who attended the three-day QSIM summer program on quantum simulation in New York City, talks with Shwetha before catching a flight. Background music may creep in, and the talk wanders into math culture. One story concerns a lab mate whose doctoral work on positroids seemed to touch physics, even quantum gravity, with no obvious way to bring it to a physics conference. The 'Womanium Quantum Panel', which Ethan Hansen moderated, turns to money: founders describe seeking investors who can wait for a return instead of those riding the hype, and hype itself gets called a big problem. Then there are the episodes without a guest. In 'Hello (again) World! - Episode 46' a host back from research at Case Western Reserve University explains quantum circuit cutting, first asking anyone not behind the wheel to close their eyes and imagine a circuit with too many qubits for a single quantum computer. By the host's own account, the explanation stays at the level of the software rather than all of the math beneath it. Another update admits that quantum computing research turns out to be really hard and that the podcast will stay on hiatus. 'A Brief Inquiry Into the Nature of Giving Up' carries that candor to its end point, as a host declares the podcast done, describes a turn toward computer networking and security, and thanks listeners for their emails and feedback. The show's description now names Shway as host. Newcomers get directions from that same farewell: skip it, start with the introductory first episode, and listen in order.