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My Summer '22 Quantum Adventure: IBM, Womanium, and more

Updated: Oct 3, 2022

Each summer, many companies and organizations offer courses and training in quantum computing. Summer 2022 was particularly rich in such activities, often going beyond the academic format of lectures and coding, touching on other areas such as entrepreneurship and networking.




During Spring 2022, while I was still preparing for my finals, a lot of interesting opportunities popped up on LinkedIn, the most useful and resourceful social media for those who want to advance their career and expand their network. First, I read about the Qiskit Global Summer School 2022, Quantum Simulations, with a focus on quantum chemistry. When IBM announces a new event or training, the news spreads quickly and hundreds or thousands of people rush to apply. Fortunately, I managed to apply in time. The summer school which lasted from the 18th of July to the 29th of July offered lectures in quantum computing in general, touching also on topics like noise in quantum circuits. Then they proceeded with more specific topics in quantum chemistry and with a set of four labs on Qiskit which we had to complete in order to earn a certificate from the summer school. I remember one of the lectures being taught by Zlatko Minev, a quantum physicist at IBM, and it was so well structured that I finally understood many noise-related concepts that I had struggled to understand from various research papers that I had been reading during that time.



In order to take full advantage of such kind of training, my advice is to accompany them with a textbook. In this case, I was extremely lucky because a new book by Keeper L. Sharkey, Ph.D. and Alain Chancé, called "Quantum Chemistry and Computing for the Curious: Illustrated with Python and Qiskit® code", came out. This book took me from the basics of quantum chemistry to more advanced concepts, where I even programmed VQE ground state problems for chemical molecules using Python. Imagine the combination of a well-explained and well-illustrated book with the lectures and labs of IBM! What a fruitful combination it was!



The Galileo Galilei Institute for Theoretical Physics in Florence, Italy, organized a hybrid event called "SQMS/GGI Summer School on Quantum Simulation of Field Theories". The event offered a rich list of quantum topics, such as introduction to quantum computing software libraries, simulation methods using variational quantum algorithms, quantum estimation, etc, but what really caught my attention were the lectures and the hands-on labs in quantum error mitigation, taught by Nathan Shammah and Andrea Mari from Unitary fund. The materials can be accessed online, on the event website, and on youtube.


At the same time, I read on LinkedIn about the Womanium Global Quantum Computing + Entrepreneurship Program, a virtual event organized by Womanium, a Washington DC-based non-profit organization that aims to empower women in STEM. The summer school was gender-blind so everybody could participate. It lasted from the 10th of July to the 26th of August. Every day we would do something different, and on Sundays, we would socialize with each other, hundreds of other participants from all over the world. I have been a night owl for a very long time, but during the summer I had to be up before 11 am every day in order to participate in the Womanium sessions.



This summer quantum training was a real goldmine of information, lectures, programming skills, networking, entrepreneurship guidance, and inspiration! They invited speakers from the most well-known quantum companies, including IBM, IonQ, Zapata, Xanadu, POLARISqb, Quantinuum, Deloitte, Pasqal, and more companies in Europe, Israel, and North America. We learned about different types of quantum hardware, superconductors, photonic quantum computers, ion-trapped, etc. Then, we had to test our knowledge through quizzes focused on the hardware part. The full list of speakers and the details of the training can be found at this link: https://womanium.org/Quantum/Computing.


Besides the hardware part, we also followed the tutorials of QWorld where we used Jupyter notebooks to solve problems related to quantum computing and different quantum algorithms. Those who completed the quizzes with success would receive the Bronze and Silver certificates from QWorld. Womanium organized not one, but two career fairs! We had the chance to talk with people from Pasqal, Alice & Bob, D-Wave, Quantinuum, IBM Quantum, Zapata, Xanadu, etc. They are actively recruiting students, engineers, and physicists, so keep an eye out. ;)


On one occasion, the Womanium team gave me and two other students the chance to ask questions to different guests, including Shahar Keinan, the CEO of POLARISqb, where they use quantum annealing for drug discovery. Since I was already familiar with the quantum annealing tools used in integer factorization, I felt happy and lucky to be asking questions about this technology used in life sciences.

On the 18th of August, they invited the Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, William D. Phillips, whose work was fundamental and found many applications during the first quantum revolution. The invitation sent from Womanium to attend the talk looked like this:



How cool is that! But the best part is yet to come ...


Okay, so you learn the theory, you do some quantum programming, complete the quizzes, then what? Then it's time to put this knowledge into practice, of course.


Womanium organized a Quantum Hackathon, with a list of technical and/or entrepreneurial challenges offered by: QWorld, Deloitte, IQM, ORCA, Quantinuum (TKET and QNLP), Strangeworkds, IBM, Webb, Womanium. We were free to participate on our own or create teams. We could participate in more than one challenge if we wished so.


I chose the Quantinuum TKET challenge which consisted of a problem in quantum chemistry, where we had to run and optimize the Lithium Hydride (LiH) molecule, or the Hydrogen (H2) molecule using TKET, a framework offered by Quantinuum. Our mentor was Kathrin Spendier from Quantinuum, who guided us during the challenge. We started it with minimal knowledge, and then step by step we performed benchmarking, comparing different quantum computers/emulators from IBM, Rigetti, Quantinuum, IonQ, using both Amazon Braket and Microsoft Azure services. Also, using TKET compilers we managed to optimize the circuit of the chemistry molecule (written in QASM). In the end, we ran the VQE algorithm to calculate the ground state energy values using noisy (mitigated) and noiseless backends, comparing the results.


Womanium and its sponsors gave different prizes to the Hackathon winners and they are trying to help these young participants fund their start-ups, which was one of the main goals of the program.


Personally, I learned a lot of new programming skills and I experimented with different tools to optimize the depth and gate count of the circuit, which brings as a result a lower noise level in the circuit. Such tools and solutions are predicted to find applications in industries like life sciences, battery design, and more. I want to contribute in this direction.

This is our vision, and the main lesson I got from the Hackathon: to use quantum error mitigation and optimization techniques (here, symbolized by SpaceX thrusters) to improve VQE considerably (symbolized by the Tesla car), for applications in quantum chemistry.



I remember becoming so involved in the challenge that I'd spend hours at night either at the library of my university (Bobst Library, NYU) or in different bars in New York, trying to find bugs until 4 am! I even pulled an all-nighter in my library when the deadline approached. Our team, Qupolis, did pretty well and we got second place (runner-up) in this challenge, in a tight competition with a team of 6 great Ph.D. students from UCLA. The topic itself is extremely interesting and promising. Actually, just a few days after the hackathon came to an end, Zapata published an article where they had found a shortcut to quantum chemistry circuits by creating better optimizations. Their solution, combined with quantum error mitigation techniques, is predicted to make this technology applicable to real industry problems faster than previously thought. This is the main message from Zapata in their recent work in quantum circuits optimization:



The Womanium team worked really hard with us, and for us. I can mention here Prachi J. Vakharia, Dr. Marlou Slot, and Shabin Raj as the people with whom we interacted a lot, but the team consists of even more people who worked hard to make this program successful (this link includes more names and details https://womanium.org/Quantum/Computing).


Besides the QWorld Bronze and Silver certificates, we were awarded a certificate on quantum hardware as well, after attending the talks from different industry speakers and completing the quizzes for each type of quantum hardware.



In all these activities I made new friends, and virtually met new colleagues from different parts of the world. I even had the chance to interact with Alain Chancé, co-author of the quantum chemistry book that I introduced earlier, and also a mentor at the IBM summer school.


Finally, all this networking helped me get in touch with Christine Johnson, the CEO of Ingenii, a young and very promising company, aiming to bring quantum computing tools to life sciences and climate change problems. They are collaborating with the quantum team at Purdue University and looking for Ph.D. interns, so keep an eye out here as well.


Summer may be over now, but my research continues (at NYU, where I'm doing my Ph.D.), now with a better idea of what I want to do in my field and in my life. A lot of cool stuff is happening right now, with many teams of talented people working in every part of the world to make the second quantum revolution a reality.





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