Future Computing & Networking within the Lab

We focus on understanding and assessing new computing paradigms and ideas to accelerate scientific research together with the SURF community.

Future Computing

Quantum Computing (innovation project by SURF Lab)

SURF seeks to understand the applicability of quantum computing to scientific applications, so we can help Dutch scientists prepare themselves to make good use of quantum computers in the future.

Different computational paradigm

Quantum computing is a completely different computational paradigm and can excel in many problems where classical computers find their limits. These types of problems, for example combinatorial problems and optimizations, appear in many scientific fields - from machine learning to chemistry to atmospheric simulations - making it relevant  for many of our users. It can potentially speed up conventional approaches by re-thinking the whole problem in quantum computing terms or by offloading some tasks of the workflows to the quantum computer.

Expertise is required

Currently, quantum computing is a field where a lot of know-how is needed and trying to make use of this approach is by no means straight forward. As a user from a field where quantum computing can be applied, it is not easy to understand when it is useful to make use of this technology or how to transform the classical applications or workflows into quantum ones.

Early advantage of quantum technology

We aim to support the Dutch scientific community to take an early and competitive advantage of quantum technology. We want to understand the applicability of quantum computing to scientific applications and what the required expertise and tools to transform a regular application or workflow into a quantum one are. This way, we can help our users get experience and be prepared for quantum computers.

Our main activities

We strive to:

  1. Support the access to a development and execution environments;
  2. Support and explore applications in fields relevant to our members;
  3. Support the development of quantum tools (e.g. simulators);
  4. Support education by offering internships, master and/or bachelor projects in the field of quantum computing;
  5. Support and encourage the dissemination of knowledge via publications, workshops, colloquia, etc.

Current collaboration

The quantum computing team at SURF works mostly under collaborations with many members such as the VU, UvA, HvA, CWI, TUDelft, UL, WUR, TU/E and other parties like TNO and IBM. We are also actively involved in many European quantum computing initiatives and projects.