The past decade has seen a surge of interest in quantum technologies, which promise many transformative applications. Proposals for quantum internet infrastructure would enable unconditionally secure transmission and manipulation of information. Engineered quantum systems allow for the simulation of complicated states of quantum matter with potentially transformative impacts on quantum chemistry and drug design. In the longer term, a universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer would represent an entirely new frontier in high-performance computing with general applications for problems across science and industry. However, many of the most promising quantum technologies are currently hamstrung by the lack of rigorous methods for certifying their performance and quantifying the probability of failure. This task will be critical if the substantial investment in these technologies is to bear fruit, as transparent certification metrics and a framework for standards and specifications are essential for the widespread adoption and manufacture of any technology.
The widespread use of robust, scalable, and affordable quantum devices, should it come to pass, would represent nothing short of a technological and industrial revolution. In an information age, quantum cryptography offers a radically new approach to problems of data security. It is also now widely believed that Moore’s Law -the exponential scaling in processing power that has driven decades of economic and technical advancement- is coming to and end, while the problems of logistics, optimisation, data analysis which rely on high-performance computing no less compelling. Thus the future of quantum information technology, nascent as it may presently be, represents a radically different path towards solving these problems.
The main scientific objective of this proposal is the design of innovative and efficient tools for the certification of quantum states and processes, particularly infinite dimensional systems, and their application to QI protocols. A particular feature of many of the objectives is the adoption of what is called a “composable” certification framework which provides certificates (usually some failure probability) for individual devices or protocols that can be simply combined to calculate a certificate for some larger, composite protocol. Although valuable in all contexts, this framework is particularly crucial in a cryptographic setting and is in fact mandatory if the outputs of quantum cryptography protocols (e.g.secret keys) are to be used in real-world applications.These objectives would represent a significant advance the state-of-the-art in the theoretical understanding of quantum mechanical systems, and should pave the way for high-performance, rigorously certified QI technologies.
