Innovating for a quantum future

CQT and its research in quantum communications and quantum computing are featured in a new documentary series, Innovating for the future. The series looks at how the university community at the National University of Singapore (NUS) is catalysing positive change in Singapore and beyond.

Innovating for the future is developed by NUS in partnership with Channel NewsAsia (CNA). The first episode of the 10-part series aired on 4 May on CNA. The series will be broadcasted every Wednesday at 7pm until 29 June.

In the episode, CQT Director José Ignacio Latorre introduces the research that is being done at CQT.

In episode two, titled “Research and Innovation”, CQT Director José Ignacio Latorre gives an introduction to quantum. He says, “Quantum mechanics is a theory to describe the laws of the universe at the ultimate scale.”

CQT researchers harness the power of quantum mechanics to develop new technologies. Viewers get a glimpse of these efforts with a look into the labs of CQT Principal Investigators Yvonne Gao and Alexander Ling. Yvonne’s group is building a quantum computer with superconducting circuits while Alexander’s group is developing satellite-based quantum communication and encryption systems.

In this screen grab, PhD student Fontaine Clara Yun works on the dilution refrigerator in Principal Investigator Yvonne Gao’s lab.

On her group’s efforts, Yvonne says, “Failed attempts are very much a frequently occurring part of our daily lab activity. We would actively encourage our students to fail 10 times, 20 times, as long as they make educated deductions from what they learn and incorporate it in the next iteration.”

“I want to see CQT producing the best experiments on the planet. They’re really the edge of knowledge at CQT,” says José Ignacio.

Besides CQT, episode two also features the N.1 Institute for Health, iHealthtech and the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials. Researchers at these centres are harnessing artificial intelligence to develop personalised treatment for cancer patients, commercialising diagnostic kits for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, and designing and synthesising novel materials.

Watch the series here: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/watch/innovating-future/research-and-innovation-2677191

Read more about the series and other episodes on the NUS website here: https://news.nus.edu.sg/innovating-for-the-future/