Date: November 1, 2021

Time: 12:30pm-1:20pm

BlueJeans link: https://gatech.bluejeans.com/274661574

(recommend joining at least 5 mins early, to take care of any technical problems)

Speaker: Aaron Lanterman

Speaker’s Title: Professor

Speaker’s Affiliation: Georgia Tech, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Seminar Title: Quantum Computing for Electrical and Computer Engineers: Cutting through the Hype and the Return of Magnificent Machines

Abstract: Quantum computing has generally been the domain of physicists and computer scientists. But the mathematical core of quantum computing -- complex numbers, linear algebra, probability, Fourier transforms -- is the bread and butter of electrical engineering, particularly those who specialize in signal processing. We will decipher some of the jargon, which seems almost deliberately designed to mislead electrical and computer engineers: “quantum circuits” are NOT circuits, “quantum gates” are NOT gates (at least the way ECEs think of “gates”), and qubits are NOT really “0 and 1 at the same time.” After addressing what quantum computers can, and more the point, can NOT do well, we will take a gander at some of the interesting work being done by companies such as D-Wave, Xanadu, and PsiQuantum. I will detail my dream of building quantum computers conceptually equivalent to hobbyist computers like the Altair 880 and or COSMAC ELF that spurred the personal computer revolution, or the PDP-8, which was the first “desktop” computer, in the sense that it could physically fit on a desk. I argue that quantum computers are spiritually retro, saving us from modern boring commonplace cookie-cutter computers, returning us to an age of awe-inspiring monoliths like the Cray-1 supercomputer of the late 1970s.

Biosketch: Aaron Lanterman has been teaching at Georgia Tech since August 2001. As an overly ambitious undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, he triple majored in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Music. For graduate school, he sensibly dropped down to one degree, choosing Electrical Engineering. He received the Class of 1934 Outstanding Innovative Use of Education Technology Award in 2021, the Class of 1940 W. Howard Ector Outstanding Teacher Award in 2018, and the W. Marshall Leach Jr./.Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Senior Teacher Award in 2015 and 2020, although he is a bit unnerved about the label “senior.” He has historically worked in defense applications such as radar, infrared imaging, target tracking, and automatic target recognition, but would like to move into other areas, like quantum computing, for no other reason than quantum computers look amazing.