Quantum Energy Initiative holds first international workshop in Singapore

CQT Visiting Professor Alexia Auffèves speaking at the inaugural Quantum Energy Initiative workshop in Singapore.

The Quantum Energy Initiative (QEI) was launched in 2022 to build a community of experts who care about the physical resource cost of emerging quantum technologies and want to address it in scientific way. That community was brought together in person for the first time in Singapore, 20-24 November, at the inaugural QEI workshop.

Featuring over 30 speakers and with almost 150 registered participants, the international workshop was held on the NUS campus over 20-24 November 2023. CQT Visiting Professor Alexia Auffèves, a co-founder of QEI and Director of the MajuLab, a French-Singaporean International Research Laboratory hosted at the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, led the scientific and organising committee. CQT was one of the sponsors for the event.

Special events in the programme were an industry panel with speakers from AWS, EDF, IBM and Thales, moderated by Rakesh Jaiswal from Singapore’s National Quantum Office, and an afternoon of roundtable discussions organised by Singapore’s Quantum Young Researchers Association (QYRA). There were also five plenary talks given by distinguished professors Peter Zoller, Masahito Ueda, Satoshi Matsuoka and Ronnie Kosloff, and Senior Research Scientist Hanhee Paik from IBM Quantum.

The workshop had five focus topics: (1) fundamental quantum devices, (2) quantum hardware, (3) quantum algorithms and software, (4) high-performance & hybrid computing and (5) fundamental thermodynamics of information.

QYRA appointed small ‘topical teams’ to document relevant workshop materials and lead structured discussions at the roundtables to create roadmaps for each topic. The topical teams will also study these roadmaps’ intersections and add timelines.

“We envision this workshop to serve as a cornerstone for this emerging field of quantum energy and resources, charting its trajectory and shaping its future direction,” said Clara Fontaine, a CQT PhD student and member of the QYRA committee who led the coordination of this effort.

Talks presented at the workshop have been recorded and will be available later at the QEI YouTube channel.

Also up for discussion is the creation of a future standard for quantum computing energy efficiency. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has created a working group on QEI, which Alexia chairs. Launched in May 2023, the working group aims at developing international standards of energetic efficiencies for quantum technologies, starting with quantum computing. The group is open to experts from quantum hardware, software and enabling technologies.

Group photo of participants in the QEI workshop, taken on 23 November 2023.