![]() That’s important because Microsoft isn’t just interested in creating one qubit that can work in one perfect lab environment – what Marcus calls “a demonstration of quantum information.” “The engineering will also help move the science forward,” Kouwenhoven said. Kouwenhoven’s collaboration with Microsoft began casually enough, after a visit to the company’s Santa Barbara, California, lab and a “nice walk along the beach” with Michael Freedman, the lab’s director and a specialist in topological mathematics.Īfter years of scientific collaboration, Kouwenhoven said, they’ve reached a point where they can benefit from an engineer’s perspective on how to bring the work to reality. “I started working on this as a student way back, and at that time we had not a clue that this could ever be used for anything practical.” After they join Microsoft, they will retain their academic titles and affiliation to their host universities, continue to run their university research groups and contribute to building dedicated Microsoft quantum labs at their respective universities.īoth researchers say that joining Microsoft is the best path to ensuring that their breakthroughs can help create a scalable quantum computer. Marcus and Kouwenhoven have been collaborating with Microsoft’s quantum team for years, with Microsoft funding an increasing share of the topological qubit research in their labs. From left, Leo Kouwenhoven and Charles Marcus attend the 2014 Microsoft’s Station Q conference in Santa Barbara, California. Kouwenhoven is a distinguished professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and was founding director of QuTech, the Advanced Research Center on Quantum Technologies. Marcus is the Villum Kann Rasmussen Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and director of the Danish National Research Foundation-sponsored Center for Quantum Devices. The company also will soon bring on two other leaders in the field, Matthias Troyer and David Reilly. Microsoft has hired two leaders in the field of quantum computing, Leo Kouwenhoven and Charles Marcus. “But you have to take some amount of risk in order to make a big impact in the world, and I think we’re at the point now that we have the opportunity to do that.” “None of these things are a given,” Holmdahl said. But, he said, he thinks the company’s long investment in quantum research has been fruitful enough that there’s a clear roadmap to a scalable quantum computer. Holmdahl, who previously played a key role in the development of the Xbox, Kinect and HoloLens, noted that success is never guaranteed. “I think we’re at an inflection point in which we are ready to go from research to engineering,” said Holmdahl, who is corporate vice president of Microsoft’s quantum program. Longtime Microsoft executive Todd Holmdahl – who has a history of successfully bringing seemingly magical research projects to life as products – will lead the scientific and engineering effort to create scalable quantum hardware and software. Microsoft is doubling down on its commitment to the tantalizing field of quantum computing, making a strong bet that it is possible to create a scalable quantum computer using what is called a topological qubit. (Photo by Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures.) ![]() ![]() Microsoft executive Todd Holmdahl will lead the scientific and engineering effort to create scalable quantum hardware and software.
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