21

Which universities have a strong quantum computing curriculum, and offer some type of quantum computing/information courses/research?

The aim here is to collect a useful list for someone considering graduate study in these fields, not to discuss which is "best". To make this list useful, please include a brief description of the part of the university where this area is pursued (in many places this is in an interdisciplinary institute that may not be familiar to everyone), and a URL.

Juan Bermejo Vega
  • 1,405
  • 1
  • 14
  • 30
Vincent Russo
  • 935
  • 1
  • 6
  • 21
  • 7
    This would be extremely subjective; more importantly, the point of this website is not to rank universities. There are definitely enough of those already... on the other hand it's a perfect question to ask Scott's blog (if the topic hasn't already been covered, which seems doubtful). – Ryan Williams Oct 20 '10 at 03:45
  • 1
    vote to close as well. – Suresh Venkat Oct 20 '10 at 05:17
  • 1
    I also vote to close. – Dai Le Oct 20 '10 at 05:34
  • On the other hand, removing "best" from the question would yield a useful list for those who are interested in graduate study. – András Salamon Oct 20 '10 at 09:19
  • 1
    I agree with Andras. Quantum computing is not ubiquitous, and quantum computer science is far rarer. I doubt there is any sensible ranking, but a list might be useful. Certainly it would have helped me 6 years ago. – Joe Fitzsimons Oct 20 '10 at 10:02
  • 1
    Instead of the "best" university, if you asked for objective parameters, like the size of the research group, I think that would be a useful question. – Robin Kothari Oct 20 '10 at 12:31
  • Couldn't you all have done the courtesy of changing something as you all see as so offense from "best" to "good" or something. I was simply asking for a simple opinion. I wasn't trying to put down other universities without quantum computing curriculum down in the process. I'm really kind of shocked this was closed. Thanks for the help.... – Vincent Russo Oct 20 '10 at 13:49
  • 2
    @Captainhampton: The point of closing a question is not to discourage you in any way. It's simply to indicate that the question as currently stated cannot be answered objectively. – arnab Oct 20 '10 at 17:00
  • 1
    @captainhampton: we'd be happy to reopen if you can modify the question slightly. – Suresh Venkat Oct 20 '10 at 17:07
  • 9
    The new revised question still has the form of a ranking: "Please also post each place as a separate answer, so that they can be voted on separately." Let me say my objection another way: ranking papers, talks, problems, scientific answers... all of these are within the scope of the site. Ranking people, universities, programs... this is not within the scope. It's just too controversial. – Ryan Williams Oct 20 '10 at 18:30
  • 1
    why not make it CW then ? eliminates the voting issue. Also, Ryan, I don't see why voting on papers is less controversial than voting on people/programs ? aren't they all subjective ? – Suresh Venkat Oct 20 '10 at 21:20
  • 3
    Of course they are all subjective, but wouldn't you agree that certain topics are a bit more subjective than others? Would you really feel equally comfortable holding a public vote on your peers as you do voting on which papers are must-reads? I won't complain if the question is made community wiki, but it is still the case that if you remove the ranking requirement, then the question can be easily answered with an Internet search. In the past, that was also grounds for closing a question. – Ryan Williams Oct 21 '10 at 00:26
  • Look, I was just asking for universities which have quantum computing accommodations. I'm interested in doing research and contributing to the scientific community as a whole and just wanted some opinions of peoples experiences, perhaps some suggestions and some feedback. The only controversy emerging from this is your rudeness to a genuine question. If you should be concerned about anything, it should be your attitude toward others. I sincerely hope when confronted with students you don't shove them off in another direction because anything you say may be too controversial. – Vincent Russo Oct 21 '10 at 02:41
  • @Ryan, I don't quite see how an internet search will do anything other than list every single school that might have some quantum presence (at best). I think the OP merely wanted some guidance, of the kind that we all give in person or in groups when people ask. – Suresh Venkat Oct 21 '10 at 06:16
  • 1
    @captainhampton, no one is at all being rude here. many of us have been tending to this site for a while, and we are cautious about encouraging open ended questions that lead to controversy and distract from the goals of keeping questions focused mostly on research topics. In person communications are quite different to those conducted on a public forum. – Suresh Venkat Oct 21 '10 at 06:17
  • 2
    @captainhampton, I did not down-vote your question and I did not vote to close it. I don't mean to discourage you at all, I am just expressing the opinion that this particular question is not appropriate for this particular forum. Personal discussion of how to rank quantum programs just doesn't fit in with the spirit of this site, in my mind. – Ryan Williams Oct 21 '10 at 06:33
  • 2
    @Captainhampton: Please post a more specific question, perhaps along the lines of my edit (but without the ranking aspect). It would be useful if you could explain what it is that interests you about quantum computing, and whether you are looking for places for undergraduate or graduate study. See also the FAQ on how to ask a subjective question: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/ – András Salamon Oct 21 '10 at 10:33
  • 1
    No need to post each university separately if users are not going to vote about the quality of universities/programs but about the quality of answers. So IMO that part of the question should be removed before reopening. – Kaveh Oct 24 '10 at 22:16
  • 5
    I have edited the question and have removed the last sentence, IHMO it is now suitable for reopening, answers should be voted based on the quality of information provided in them, not the quality of the programs mentioned in them. – Kaveh Oct 26 '10 at 05:04
  • 1
    I've started a thread in meta on this http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/567/another-attempt-to-define-the-scope-of-this-site – Lev Reyzin Oct 26 '10 at 21:40
  • With the new CW policy I'm not sure where CW discussions go. Should we discuss this question's CW-appropriateness here? – Robin Kothari Oct 27 '10 at 18:26

7 Answers7

21

There are two quantum wikis which provide reasonably good list of research groups in QIP: Quantiki and Qwiki. Quantiki has better European coverage, while Qwiki has better US coverage.

The geographic area I know best is the UK. In the UK there are large theory groups in Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, University College London and Imperial College, among other places.

In Oxford, where I have spent the last 5 years, QIP research is spread across a number of departments: Physics, Computer Science, Materials Science and Maths. There isn't much of a presence in Maths, although it is Artur Ekert's official affiliation. Computer Science has a growing group that mostly looks at category theory and quantum foundations. Physics has quite a number of different groups ranging from experiments to theory. Materials science is weirdly the department where I have been based (although I know little about materials) and there is both a theory group there and a fair number of experimentalists. Computer Science, Materials and Physics all have taught quantum computing courses which can be taken towards the course requirement of a DPhil.

Hope this is useful.

Joe Fitzsimons
  • 13,675
  • 47
  • 91
  • Thanks a ton Joe, certainly points me in the right direction. I greatly appreciate your help. – Vincent Russo Nov 03 '10 at 15:46
  • 2
    No problem. As it turns out, I have just moved to the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore, which as Artem mentioned is another large centre for quantum computing related research and which does have a specialized PhD program (see http://www.quantumlah.org/phd/ for details). There are a range of research groups spanning CS, theoretical physics and experimental physics. – Joe Fitzsimons Nov 04 '10 at 06:00
15

To my knowledge, the only institutes/universities currently introducing explicit graduate programs in quantum information processing are: IQC at University of Waterloo, CQT at National University of Singapore, MIT, and Imperial College. The 4 institutions are working together to come up with some sort of standard curriculum. Other institutes I am familiar with is the IQI at CalTech, the group at Berkley, and cryptographers at University de Montreal. There are also strong groups in Europe and Asia.

Artem Kaznatcheev
  • 10,251
  • 12
  • 74
  • 174
13

The Université de Montréal has a pretty strong quantum computing laboratory, namely the Laboratoire d'informatique théorique et quantique. There are two grad courses (Quantum computing 1 & 2), four professors working specifically on quantum computing (Gilles Brassard, Michel Boyer, Alain Tapp & Louis Salvail) and multiple grad students. Gilles Brassard is considered as one of the founders of quantum cryptography and also has a chair in quantum computing. Quantum cryptography is one of their main research topics. I also know that they are doing some research about quantum communication complexity. The laboratory is a member of the INstitute for Transdisciplinary Research In Quantum computing.

Michael Blondin
  • 2,582
  • 21
  • 22
  • 7
    On the other side of Mount Royal there is McGill University which houses QIP researchers like David Avis, Claude Crépeau, Patrick Hayden, and Prakash Panengaden (all members of InTRIQ and CQIL). – Artem Kaznatcheev Oct 27 '10 at 02:34
5

Max Planck Institute does a lot of work on Quantum Computation. You can look at their Theory group website for more information on their publications, projects and positions open.

Sai Venkat
  • 316
  • 3
  • 7
1

MIT has three graduate classes in the field I know about. Two of them, 8.370 ( Quantum Computation) and 8.371 (Quantum Information Science ll) form a series and are theoretical classes. The other one, 6.645 (applied physics) is a more practical field where students get to lay their hands on actual development and qubit manipulation. 8.370 is offered jointly by the math and physics departments, while 8.371 is offered by math, physics and EECS departments. 6.645 is jointly offered by the physics and EECS departments. Professor Shor, the person who came up with Shor's algorithm for factorizing numbers on a quantum computer, teaches 8.370 once a year.

Yosef
  • 11
  • 1
  • 1
    I don't teach 8.370 once a year ... It's offered every year, but I only teach it some years; Professors Seth Lloyd and Aram Harrow teach it other years. – Peter Shor Jun 21 '18 at 20:52
-2

center for quantum computation, Clarendon Laboratory, university of Oxford, who run www.qubit.org and home of David Deutsch one of the premier & senior researchers in the field.

vzn
  • 11,014
  • 2
  • 31
  • 64
-8

the Perimeter institute in canada seems apparently not affiliated with a particular university but has a strong research program incl quantum foundations, quantum information processing etcetera. (questioner did mention "institute" & seems like artificial restriction to strictly limit to universities.)

vzn
  • 11,014
  • 2
  • 31
  • 64
  • 5
    how much do you know about this institute? have you been there? have you worked with someone there? are you working in quantum computing? if not how can you evaluate their program? (I am not an expert in quantum computing, but it seems to me that you are neither. It is better to allow experts knowledgeable about the field answer the question.) – Kaveh May 10 '12 at 23:07
  • 8
    ps: I think this is a general issue with your answers, they seem to be results of searching and not expertise/knowledge. So far you have posted 46 answers and only 9 of them have +2 score. – Kaveh May 10 '12 at 23:13
  • 4
    PI does not do quantum computing, that is handled by IQC (covered in my answer) also in Waterloo; many faculty are cross-appointed between the two. I also fully agree with @Kaveh's sentiment. – Artem Kaznatcheev May 11 '12 at 01:06
  • 6
    The OP is interested in graduate programs. The PI doesn't offer a graduate program in quantum computing, although they do have an excellent one-year Masters program in physics. – Peter Shor May 11 '12 at 02:57
  • 1
    @Artem: I have to disagree. The PI does do quantum computing, as you could tell if you looked at their list of faculty. Lots of PI postdoctoral fellows are in quantum computing, as well as a few permanent faculty, and lots of associate faculty whose main positions are at IQC. – Peter Shor Jul 24 '18 at 12:05
  • @PeterShor my comment was based on my experience back in 2011/12 when I was at IQC (and PI was just starting their graduate program, without offers in QC), I suspect that things could have changed substantially in the 6 or 7 years since. I think PI still only offers PhDs through partner institutes. – Artem Kaznatcheev Jul 27 '18 at 14:09