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Experience Teaching Quantum Computing

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Presentation on theme: "Experience Teaching Quantum Computing"— Presentation transcript:

1 Experience Teaching Quantum Computing
Charles C. Tappert, Ronald I. Frank, Istvan Barabasi, Avery M. Leider, Daniel Evans, and Lewis Westfall Seidenberg School of CSIS

2 Agenda Introduction Teaching a Graduate Course in Quantum Computing
Teaching the Projects Component of the Graduate Course Teaching High School Students Quantum computing is a rich area with opportunity for teaching courses for funding from the federal government for employment for our students for strengthening our nation’s economic future

3 Quantum Computing Race
There is a quantum computing race among the tech giants Google, IBM, and Microsoft, and to a lesser extent Amazon and China’s Alibaba. IBM has heavy usage on their Q Experience quantum simulator with more than 90,000 users who have run 5,000 experiments and published 110 papers. Governments, particularly America and China, are funding work in the area with the concern that quantum-computers may soon become large enough to crack current cryptosystems, specifically RSA, giving the country that gets there first a major advantage

4 University Activity and Degrees
91 universities worldwide have some activity in quantum computing None currently offers a degree specifically in quantum computing, rather making it an elective course, or at most a specialization in their physics or mathematics programs Some universities are planning future investment in the area The McMahon Lab at Cornell University which emphasizes quantum computation, will officially begin operation in July 2019 In MIT News, there was recent article about MIT’s quantum computing effort being inhibited by a shortage of quantum knowledge workers

5 Funding in Quantum Computing
There is considerable funding now available In the U.S. in January 2019, the National Quantum Initiative Act, authorizing $1.2 billion in investment over the next 5-10 years, was signed into law, and is being organized now into different areas that researchers can apply to for funding in quantum computing

6 Advanced Quantum Computing Course
For the last two years, we have offered a quantum computing course for Computer Science PhD and advanced M.S. students This high-level course demonstrates that our computing school provides a leading-edge technology education to our students The course meets for three hours weekly, in the evening so working students can attend, for a semester total of 14 weeks Realizing the need for additional math instruction, we hold separate weekly hour-long sessions of math instruction Textbooks: Quantum Computing: A Gentle Introduction (Rieffel & Polak, 2014) Problems and Solutions in Quantum Computing (Steeb & Hardy, 2018) Mastering Quantum Computing with IBM QX (Moran, 2019)

7 Advanced Quantum Computing Course
The course provides students with an introduction to the theory and practice of quantum computing Topics covered include quantum computing circuits, particularly quantum gates, and comparison with classical computing gates and circuits quantum algorithms mathematical models of quantum computation quantum error correcting techniques and quantum cryptography We also spend almost a full day sometime during the semester visiting the IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center to see actual quantum computers and hear related presentations

8 Advanced Quantum Computing Course
Ten to twenty students take the course – the majority are PhD in Computer Science (CS) students with a few advanced CS Masters students. Assessment is based on the project work and student presentations 40% midterm exam 20% final exam 40% (this exam also serves as a qualifying exam for the PhD students)

9 Advanced Quantum Computing Course
The learning objectives of the course are: Learn the background material in computer science, mathematics, and physics necessary to comprehend quantum computing Understand quantum computing circuits, particularly quantum gates, and comparison with classical computing gates and circuits Understand quantum Fourier transform and its applications Understand quantum search algorithms Understand the physical realization of quantum computers Understand quantum operations, noise, and error correction Understand quantum information theory and its comparison to Shannon's entropy and traditional information theory Understand in detail the central results of quantum computing Develop a working understanding of the fundamental tools and design methods of quantum computing Develop expertise in writing programming code for quantum computers

10 Teaching the Projects Component of the Course
Student projects utilize hands-on labs with simplified quantum program development, live code executions, and projects performed on IBM’s Quantum Experience Platform with access to real Quantum Computers We use multiple Quantum Computing (QC) Science Kits to teach students quantum computing technology The objective is to help students gain practical experience via lab exercises and to develop projects to solve relevant and practical problems using quantum computing algorithm and programs

11 Teaching the Projects Component of the Course
The projects involved three types of problems that were coded using Quantum Computing Assembler Language (QASM) and Python Well-defined quantum computing experiments, such as placing qubits in super positions and implementing quantum entanglement Optimizations, such as the traveling salesman problem Practical problems, such as financial portfolio optimization

12 Teaching High School Students
We have taught short courses at several high schools For example, a 5-day course was taught to the 12th grade at a Brooklyn high school Day 1 – quantum bit (qubit), |ket> notation for vectors, explanation of gates, matrix notation for kets and gates Day 2 – superposition and entanglement Day 3 – Grover’s algorithm Day 4 – return to superposition and entanglement, present Bloch sphere representation of a qubit Day 5 – students split into teams, each team reworked set of instructor slides into their own

13 Teaching High School Students
IBM Composer for Creating Quantum Programs

14 Teaching High School Students
Day 5 – student survey ranked topics of interest

15 Conclusions Quantum computing is a rich area with opportunity
for teaching courses for obtaining funding from the federal government for employment for our students for strengthening our nation’s economic future


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