Fred Chong (UChicago)- Physics-Aware, Full-Stack Software to Accelerate Practical Quantum Computing
Quantum computing has the potential to help solve intractable problems in computer science and society. The EPiQC NSF Expedition in Computing (Enabling Practical-scale Quantum Computing 2018-2024) helped pioneer quantum software approaches that can significantly shorten the timeline for utility-scale results from quantum hardware. I will highlight several of these key ongoing approaches which will help realize practical quantum advantage. Physics-aware, cross-layer optimizations will continue to yield important efficiencies to allow applications to make the most of quantum resources. Software-directed noise-aware optimization and error correction, in particular, will be key to increasing gate depths and maintaining acceptable output fidelity. Pulse-level optimizations and specialized native gates will also be key enablers. Additionally, algorithms will need to be co-designed using hybrid strategies involving high-performance classical resources as well as quantum hardware serving as special-purpose accelerators. Together, these approaches will leverage recent progress in quantum hardware and accelerate our path to useful quantum applications.
Speakers
Fred Chong
Fred Chong is the Seymour Goodman Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago and the Chief Scientist for Quantum Software at Infleqtion. He was also Lead Principal Investigator for the EPiQC Project (Enabling Practical-scale Quantum Computing), an NSF Expedition in Computing, from 2018-2024. Chong is a member of the National Quantum Advisory Committee (NQIAC) which provides advice to the President on the National Quantum Initiative Program. In 2020, he co-founded Super.tech, a quantum software company, which was acquired by Infleqtion (formerly ColdQuanta) in 2022. Chong received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1996 and was a faculty member and Chancellor’s fellow at UC Davis from 1997-2005. He was also a Professor of Computer Science, Director of Computer Engineering, and Director of the Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing at UCSB from 2005-2015. He is a fellow of the ACM and the IEEE, a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award, and 15 best paper awards. He is also a recipient of the Quantrell Award, the oldest undergraduate teaching award in the United States, as well as the University of Chicago’s Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Award. His research interests include emerging technologies for computing, quantum computing, multicore and embedded architectures, computer security, and sustainable computing.
