Bilkent University will be one of 11 partners in a European Commission–funded project researching the potential advantages of quantum computing, with Asst. Prof. Cihan Okay of the Department of Mathematics serving as principal investigator.
The proposal for the FoQaCia (Foundations of Quantum Computational Advantage) project was submitted in response to a call by the Horizon Europe research funding program for proposals for Europe–Canada collaborative projects in the field of quantum computation.
FoQaCiA will focus on expanding the theoretical basis for the design of quantum algorithms. “The success of quantum computing critically depends on advances at the most fundamental level,” the project proposal stated. “Large-scale investment in quantum implementations will only pay off if they can draw on additional foundational insights and ideas. While several powerful quantum algorithms are known, the basic techniques are few and far between. Largely, it remains to be discovered how to harness the quantum for computation systematically.”
The researchers will study four areas of quantum phenomenology: quantum contextuality, non-classicality and quantum advantage; the complexity of classical simulation of quantum computation; the arithmetic of quantum circuits; and the efficiency of fault-tolerant quantum computation.
The International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal is coordinating the project. Along with Bilkent, the other participating institutions are two universities in Spain, one each in Poland, Sweden and the UK, and four in Canada.