Professor Himanshu Gupta leads two new grants to advance quantum computing research in the region
Stony Brook University Computer Science Professor Himanshu Gupta and his colleagues have been awarded two grants to explore building robust Quantum Networks. One of the awards is a one-year $100K grant from Cisco Research, and is in collaboration with Computer Science Professor CR Ramakrishnan, and Eden Figueroa and Vladimir Korepin from the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The second award titled “Robust Quantum Networks via Efficient Entanglement Distribution” is a four-year multi-university collaborative NSF Medium grant for $1.2M, and also includes researchers from Hunter College (CUNY) and Duke University.
Quantum Computing has the potential to significantly alter the computing landscape. However, building large-scale quantum computers is difficult. Quantum Networks have the potential to address this complexity by connecting a large number of smaller quantum computers. These projects will examine the design and implementation of Quantum Networks from the ground up by developing an infrastructure for efficient communication between nodes in a Quantum Network.
“Quantum communication has many challenges, for example, the fundamental no-cloning theorem disallows duplication of quantum states,” said Gupta. “But, on the other hand, the quantum regime also offers an almost magical resource of quantum entanglement, which Albert Einstein himself referred to as a ‘spooky action at a distance.’ Entanglement can be used to “teleport” quantum states instantly, but runs into many challenges for long-distance teleportations due to quantum decoherence and other issues.”
A key focus of the project is efficient distribution and management of such quantum entanglements to facilitate efficient quantum communication. The team will apply developed techniques to two key applications of Quantum Networks: (i) Distributed quantum algorithms, and (ii) Quantum sensor networks.
“We are in a unique position to conduct this research, as our collaborator Eden Figueroa has already developed a six-node Quantum Network testbed spread across Long Island, which we can use to evaluate our techniques,” Gupta said.
The Computer Science Department is expanding its expertise in Quantum Computing with a recent faculty hire in this area. Professor Supartha Podder from University of Ottawa will join the department later in the Fall 2021 semester.
