The recently acquired quantum computer at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) will have no shortage of tasks to complete across many knowledge domains.
The Canadian university’s owned-and-operated, full-stack, open-architecture quantum computer will support research collaborations in disciplines including human health, defense, energy, and agriculture.
In an interview with EE Times, Dr. Steven Rayan, a full professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at USask, said the nature of the university made a compelling business case for acquiring a quantum computer. “We have a lot of quantum talent here.”
The campus enjoys the presence of the Vaccine Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), which is Canada’s only publicly funded vaccine lab and does a great deal of computational work around vaccine discovery, Rayan said. USask also collaborates frequently with the Global Institute for Food Security, the Global Institute for Water Security, and the Canadian Light Source, which is based at USask. “Even the Canadian Space Agency has some operations here,” he said.
The university is also home to the Center for Quantum Topology and Its Applications (quanTA), where Rayan serves as director. “This is not just the procurement of a quantum computer in a vacuum,” he said. “We’re going to interface directly with all of this domain expertise and bring real-world, large-scale use cases right to the machine rather than just a bunch of quantum folks playing with a quantum tool.”
In addition to the confluence of food security, vaccine, and infectious disease research, there is also an opportunity to contribute to defense applications and more secure communications by advancing quantum encryption, Rayan said. “The power of quantum computers is what is raising question marks about the ways in which we encrypt data right now,” he said. “That is a real concern going forward.”
Rayan said there are two schools of thought on how to tackle the problem, and one focuses on post-quantum encryption by training classical computers to encrypt data in ways that are naturally immune to quantum computers. “I’m interested in using quantum computers and quantum processors to be the new encryptors of data,” he said. “The best defense against a quantum computer is a quantum computer.”
USask’s full-stack quantum computer is the result of an international collaboration with strong Canadian contributions, integrating hardware and software across the quantum stack. Rigetti Computing, which has its roots in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, supplied the Novera 9-qubit superconducting quantum processing unit, Qblox provided scalable and modular quantum control systems, QuantrolOx contributed its Quantum EDGE platform for automated tuning and optimization, and Edmonton-based Zero Point Cryogenics supplied the Model L dilution refrigerator, enabling the ultra-low temperatures required for operation.
“We wanted to support that prairie technology,” Rayan said. “It has tremendous cooling power.”
Additional support was provided by Testforce Systems.
USask researchers have previously accessed IBM’s quantum computer in Bromont, Quebec, Rayan said. “We were able to use hardware there in a purposeful way, creative way to reverse engineer the logic of protein networks that occur in the human body. This is a really important step in designing some features of vaccines.”
On the energy front, USask designed a quantum circuit to successfully model microgrids in the province’s northern region. “This is a grid where they have a mixture of solar energy generation and diesel, and you’d like to maximize solar and minimize diesel,” Rayan explained. That’s a hard problem, especially in low light, cold times of year.”
Meanwhile, quantum agriculture is a wide-open field, and Rayan anticipates that collaborations using quantum computing with the university’s College of Agriculture and Global Institute for Food Security will soon produce real-world, relevant results. “We have a motto at the University of Saskatchewan that we try to be the university that the world needs,” he said.
Rayan views the future of quantum as collaborative and distributed, and he personally has had conversations in both the Czech Republic and Germany about quantum collaboration.
USask’s acquisition of a quantum computer builds on a Letter of Intent between the university and the University of Calgary to develop a shared global quantum ecosystem, connecting quanTA with UCalgary’s Quantum City hub as part of an emerging quantum corridor that links researchers and partners advancing quantum innovation in Saskatchewan.
“The distributed quantum computing future is coming,” Rayan said, adding that Canada is punching above its weight in quantum. “We’re really hitting it out of the park here in Canada. We can be a tremendous beacon for the purposeful application of quantum technology.”
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