I was invited by a reporter at New Scientist to comment on the splashy new result by IBM in Nature. Although it’s an obvious point to many of us working in the field, I used the opportunity to clarify just how slippery the notion of a “beyond-classical” quantum experiement is. We have a long history of back-and-forth between quantum experiments and classical simulation of same: D-wave vs. Matthias Troyer et al. nearly a decade ago, Google’s Quantum Supremacy vs IBM’s Summit Computer back in 2019, and just last week a preprint showing classical simulability of Gaussian Boson Sampling experiments. I suspect this latest result will be no different, although that shouldn’t take away from the exciting experimental achievement by the IBM team.
The communications office here at NUI Galway have written a piece about my joining the School of Maths:
The March 16 2019 issue of New Scientist has a great piece by Ciarán Lee on the question of what gives quantum computers their superpower. There are a few quotes from me and quite a bit of discussion on our 2014 Nature paper.
If you (or your institution) has NS access then check out the link below:
In Summer 2018 I was awarded a University Research Fellowship , which is a 5-8 year fellowship awarded by the Royal Society aimed at assisting early career researchers to build an independent research career.
Because my fellowship is hosted at the National University of Ireland, Galway, the funding for my award is provided by Science Foundation Ireland .