3 questions to: Koen Groenland, about educating people about quantum technology

What activities do you undertake to educate people about quantum technology?

In an earlier edition of this '3 questions to'-column, Amsterdam Uuniversity of Applies Sciences lecturer Marten Teitsma argued that quantum education should not remain in the ivory tower of academic universities, but that it should flow over to other levels of education (like applied universities and vocational training). Although I’d readily admit that I’m caught in an academic bubble, this doesn’t stop us from offering various training programs for people of all kinds of ages and career stages.

I’m involved in two programs for (VWO) high school students in their last two or three years. These programs are the Masterclass Quantum that invites students to three interactive days at university, and the Quantum Quest , which is an online course that accepts students from all over the world. Don’t be fooled by the ‘high school’ label: especially the Quantum Quest is extremely challenging, and it may have intimidated even some physics teachers in the past. Luckily, we also make sure that most new high school teachers learn their share of quantum physics.

Among the various quantum-related courses at the University of Amsterdam, I co-organize a soft-skills course called Quantum in Business and Society , where we simulate an environment where students conceive their own startup, with a well-designed business model and a worked-out proposition to a first customer or investor. In the photo is my colleague Dimitri van Esch during one these courses.

With the rapidly growing demand for quantum workforce, we also consider (re)training of working adults as an important activity. This is often labeled as ‘Life Long Learning’. Surprisingly, I encounter that most adult education about Quantum Technology focuses purely on the physics and mathematics of qubits and quantum circuits. Initiatives like QPlayLearn and Strangeworks take exactly that approach.

If I compare that to how we use classical computers today, that approach seems somewhat ridiculous: the vast majority of classical computer users do not have a degree in electrical engineering or chip design, but they can still produce wonderful digital results. I would even go as far as claiming that the largest impact from quantum computers will not come from pure quantum engineers , but rather from domain experts who utilize a quantum computer (among other tools) to gain insight in material science or optimization problems.

Today, for most workforce who will not become a quantum engineer, it would make most sense to broadly understand the impact that quantum technology will have: how will companies use it, and what steps need to be taken get up and running? With this idea in mind, we started the workshop General Awareness Quantum Computing.

It sprung to live thanks to a collaboration with the major players in the Dutch financial world: the Dutch Banking Association (NVB), the Dutch Payments Association, and the three banks ING, ABN AMRO and Rabobank. These parties were very quick to realize that staff members should be prepared for such disrupting technology. However, the workshop is not specifically aimed at financial industries: it is relevant for a broad audience, ranging journalists to IT specialists, and from managers to technology scouts. We specifically chose to not develop a MOOC, but rather live (or online) meetings in small-ish groups (10-25 people), to maximize the attention that (fairly busy) men and women can devote to our program.?

Since late 2020, we gave the workshop over 10 times to wildly varying audiences. Although most audiences enter through private in-house sessions, we aim to keep the workshop available to anyone by also having affordable open sessions where anyone can sign up. The next open edition takes place next week on 20 May 2022 – be sure to take a look and sign up!??

Are companies already jumping at the opportunity to use quantum technology?

At Quantum.Amsterdam, we are mainly focused on algorithms and software, and on hardware based on atomic qubits. Especially for software, with prospective applications like optimization, machine learning and cryptography, we see a keen interest from several companies. Luckily, the topic of software and algorithms is also the part that I have most affinity with.

Interest mainly comes from larger corporations that rely heavily on information technology, either for high-performance computing, or for cybersecurity. Most enterprises are well aware that they have plenty of computational challenges in logistics, planning of staff or supplies, or otherwise optimization of their business operations. Many also start to realize that a substantial migration to quantum-safe cryptographic methods will need to take place, which can take several years in complex IT systems.

On the other hand, large-scale quantum computers are still several years away, and most companies are hesitant to commit to large investments until there is a clear return on investment within a reasonably short time span of, say, 1-4 years. The quantum-related investments that are being made typically revolve around monitoring the ongoing innovations and to discover what near-term applications may be relevant for the company. Several companies hire a quantum lead, or start quantum working groups to achieve this. We frequently host meetings where quantum representatives can share new insights, or find partners for new collaborations.

In Amsterdam, there have already been several collaborations to discover concrete near-term use cases: for example, researchers at QuSoft teamed with ABN AMRO to study algorithms for the financial industry, and worked with Bosch to develop new tools for process optimization. We aim to do this on a much larger scale in the future: either as scientific research collaborations, or through the newly founded Quantum Application Lab .

At the same time, we see some interest from foreign startups to locate themselves in Amsterdam. Quantum startups around the world have been particularly successful at attracting funding, and several are rapidly growing. Such startups could greatly benefit from a strong workforce and a powerful ecosystem with deep expertise. We work together with the local government to present the opportunities and practicalities of starting a new office in Amsterdam.?

We have a very clear goal in mind. This allows us to make-goal driven innovations that have a true impact on society.

Why did you choose to work at the Quantum.Amsterdam hub?

First of all, quantum is a beautiful subject to work with. On the one hand, there is a very pure scientific side to it, which challenges us to learn about structures like complexity theory, symmetries/groups and statistical physics. It also sits at the very boundaries of our understanding of the universe: can we truly create superpositions of increasingly large objects (or millions of qubits)? Is there really a ‘spooky action at a distance’ between faraway entangled particles? And what does truly happen when a quantum states ‘collapses’ upon measurement?

At the same time, we have a very clear goal in mind (i.e. building a large quantum computer that can run software to tackle relevant problems). This allows us to make-goal driven innovations that have a true impact on society. Every month, we witness several scientific and technological breakthroughs.

I believe that it’s quite unique that a field sits so close to both fundamental knowledge and clear societal goals. That makes our work extremely varied: one day I’m talking to a startup or corporation about problems they could potentially solve faster, whilst the next I’m in a highly theoretical seminar on whether many parallel worlds exist, or about the odds that we may live in a computer simulation .

Colleagues and I during Quantum.Amsterdam's latest Big Meetup

Then why Quantum.Amsterdam? Coming from a scientific background, I notice that many researchers work within a very small and narrow specialization. Now, having a broader role in between science and industry, I can take a bird’s eye view and witness all the interesting breakthroughs that occur within our whole ecosystem. Most importantly, I’d like to truly understand what a future quantum computer should look like, and what they will be (in)capable of. The best way to achieve this is by incorporating knowledge from a wide range of scientific and industrial experts, and by viewing our challenges from multiple different perspectives and viewpoints. I still have very close contact with my great colleagues at QuSoft.

Moreover, Quantum.Amsterdam is a great way to incite a positive impact, as our activities do not necessarily need to create profits. This allows us to focus on steering new directions for research, providing accessible education, and spreading awareness. Working for Q.A also leaves me a great deal of (academic) freedom: we function pretty much like a startup, with a small but flexible team that can achieve much in a short amount of time. I’m never encouraged to present an overly-positive picture about quantum technology than I’d truly want. In fact, I’m spending quite some effort to steer against the severely hyped claims that we frequently encounter in our field .