Since the discovery of Shor’s algorithm [1], which demonstrated the potential for quantum computers to break RSA encryption, quantum computing has emerged as a promising technology with the potential to solve complex problems in life sciences, clean energy, and pharmaceuticals while also revolutionizing artificial intelligence. In this talk, I will start with a brief introduction to key concepts and principles of quantum computing. Following, I will present a few examples of how quantum computers can use to speed up software engineering tasks such as eigenvalue solver, quantum machine learning, combinatorial optimization problems [2]. To finalize, we will look at prospect of implementing these quantum algorithms on both current and future quantum computers.

[1] P. W. Shor, “Algorithms for quantum computation: discrete logarithms and factoring”. Proceedings 35th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science. IEEE Comput. Soc. Press: 124–134, (1994).

[2] A. Miranskyy et. al., “Quantum Computing for Software Engineering: Prospects”. QP4SE 2022: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Quantum Programming for Software Engineering, Pages 22-25, (2022).

Udson Mendes has a PhD in Physics from the University of Campinas in Brazil. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratoire Pierre Aigrain at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris, and then at the Institut Quantique at the Université de Sherbrooke. Udson’s research has been focusing on the development of quantum technologies ranging from quantum hardware to quantum algorithms. At CMC, Udson leverages his expertise to lead a team of quantum computing developers working on applications ranging from cybersecurity to protein design to cancer diagnosis.