Christopher Monroe
01 - 05 June 2025
Hilton San Francisco Union Square
San Francisco, California USA
Events
Christopher Monroe
Duke University
Quantum Computing – Hype, Hope, and Fun
Quantum computers exploit the bizarre features of quantum physics - uncertainty, entanglement, and measurement - to perform impossible tasks using conventional means. These may include the computing and optimizing over ungodly amounts of data, breaking encryption standards and simulating models of chemistry and materials. Tempering the hype are the facts that (a) few use cases can be proven and (b) quantum computers are notoriously hard to build and scale. Nevertheless, many important problems, known and unknown, will likely never be solved until we have quantum computers. I will discuss the state-of-the-art in quantum computing, led by an uneasy coalition of scientists and engineers from academia, industry and government.
About the Speaker
Christopher Monroe is Professor of ECE and Physics at Duke University and the co-Founder and Chief Scientist of IonQ, Inc. Monroe is an atomic physicist and quantum engineer, specializing in the isolation of individual atoms for applications in quantum information science. At NIST in the 1990s, Monroe co-led the team that demonstrated the first quantum logic gate. At the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland, Monroe’s research group pioneered all aspects of trapped atomic ion based quantum computers, making the first steps toward a scalable, reconfigurable and modular quantum computer system. In 2016, he co-founded IonQ, a startup company leading the way in the fabrication of full-stack quantum computers. Monroe is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is one of the key architects of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative passed by the United States Congress in 2018.
