Sergio Boixo

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Sergio Boixo
Sergio Boixo.png
Born1973, (47 years ago)
León, Spain
NationalitySpanish
Alma materComplutense University of Madrid
Known forDemonstrating quantum supremacy
Scientific career
FieldsQuantum physics, quantum computing
InstitutionsCaltech, Harvard, USC, Google
ThesisNonlinear quantum metrology (2008)
Doctoral advisorCarlton M. Caves

Sergio Boixo is a physicist, mathematician, computer engineer and philosopher best known for his work on quantum computing. He is currently working as Chief Scientist Quantum Computer Theory for Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab,[1] a team he joined in 2013, shortly after its foundation.[2]

Education years[]

Boixo started his undergraduate education pursuing a bachelor's degree in computer science in Complutense University of Madrid, started in 1993 and which he finished in 1996. He was part of the first Complutense's promotion in such degree, being awarded with the Chip de Oro prize for his academic achievements.[3][4] Meanwhile, he was also studying a bachelor's degree in philosophy through National University of Distance Education (UNED), which he completed in 2002. He finished a bachelor's degree in mathematics the following year, also through UNED. During these years he also worked as a system architect for Semanticedge, as a C++ developer for the European Central Bank and as a consultant and software analyst for various private companies.[3]

It was afterwards that his career path turned more into physics. In 2004 he was awarded with a LaCaixa fellowship[5] to study in the University of New Mexico. He studied a master's degree in physics in the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2008 and he published some of his first research focusing on quantum annealing. That same year he got a Ph.D. in physics through the University of New Mexico advised by Carlton M. Caves for his thesis on nonlinear quantum metrology. Part of the theory developed on this thesis was later implemented in an optical experiment.[6]

Work[]

After finishing his Ph.D., he moved to California to work for the California Institute of Technology with John Preskill, who coined the term "quantum supremacy" that the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab in which Boixo works would later demonstrate. In Caltech he did research on quantum information and quantum computing, topics that he kept working on afterwards in Harvard, where he also studied quantum simulators and computational quantum chemistry. In 2011 he moved to the University of Southern California, where he focused his efforts in quantum computing and got to work with the first commercial quantum processor ever.[4]

He joined Google's quantum computing team in 2013. This team has focused on topics such as quantum simulation, quantum neural networks and quantum metrology.[7] In 2019 they published a paper showing they had achieved quantum supremacy, completing with a quantum computer in just three minutes a task that would take 10000 years to be done by the world's most powerful classical supercomputer. Boixo played the leading role on the development of the theory backing that experiment.[8][1]

TV and video appearances[]

  • He was the main guest in the Spanish TV show Planeta Calleja.
  • He made an informative video for TensorFlow's YouTube channel explaining what quantum supremacy is.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Martinis, John; Boixo, Sergio. "Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor". Google AI Blog. Alphabet. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  2. ^ Biosca, Patricia (28 November 2019). "El español detrás de la supremacía cuántica de Google: "Es el principio de una revolución"". ABC.
  3. ^ a b "Sergio Boixo" (PDF). ISI. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  4. ^ a b Pérez Colomé, Jordi (27 October 2019). "El español que diseñó el mayor hito de la computación cuántica". El País.
  5. ^ "Sergio Boixo Castrillo". BecasCaixa. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  6. ^ Napolitano, M.; Koschorreck, M.; Dubost, B.; Behbood, N. (2011-03-23). "Interaction-based quantum metrology showing scaling beyond the Heisenberg limit". Nature. 471 (7339): 486–9. arXiv:1012.5787. Bibcode:2011Natur.471..486N. doi:10.1038/nature09778. PMID 21430776. S2CID 205223835.
  7. ^ "Quantum". Google Research. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  8. ^ Boixo, Sergio; Isakov, Sergei V.; Smelianskiy, Vadim N.; Babbush, Ryan; Ding, Nan; Jiang, Zhang (2018-04-23). "Characterizing quantum supremacy in near-term devices". Nature.
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