Dr. Rafael Sotelo and Dra. (C) Laura Gatti, University of Montevideo / Quantum-South, presented the basic aspects of the logic behind Quantum Computing and its fields of application and the state of the industry. In this conference organized by ICT4V on September 28th, the work areas at the University of Montevideo and the startup Quantum-South, born within it, were presented: optimization applications for air cargo transport and investment portfolio optimization applications.
Dr. Rafael Sotelo started talking about the motivation of this session about quantum computing, and then went through key illustrators of the current reality:
* What is quantum computing, the universal gate model and quantum annealing.
* Why is quantum computing important, whar are the application fields.
* Who is working in quantum computing: some hardware providers, online services, software developers, government initiatives and perspectives.
Finally. Sotelo and Gatti went through the work at IEEE in quantum computing and then applications for logistics and finance.
Dr. Rafael Sotelo brought a study from Qureca, a company based in Scotland, UK, showing how over the last years there has been an exponential increase on investment in quantum technologies worldwide. The global effort for public funding has been boosted in many countries that will shape the future of quantum technology and applications, enabling a global ecosystem to develop the new quantum technology.
Also Dr. Sotelo mentioned that Boston Consulting Group estimates that quantum computing could create value of $450 billion to $850 billion in the next 15 to 30 years. Value of $5 billion to $10 billion could start accruing to users and providers as soon as the next three to five years.
Laura Gatti spoke about binary optimization problems, the well known knapsack problem, and how it could be modeled in the context of quantum computing. These concepts have been used by Quantum-South to address the air cargo optimization problem.
Video: https://vimeo.com/619912623
Bio
Rafael Sotelo is Director of Research at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Montevideo. Doctor of Engineering (University of Vigo), Electrical Engineer (University of the Republic) and MBA (University of Montevideo). He was Engineering Manager at Canal 10 in Montevideo where he worked from 1991-2010, including Cable and Satellite TV. He is a technical consultant at the Ministry of Industry (2011-2020) and at the Uruguayan Technological Laboratory (2018-2020). He is Adjunct Professor at IIE / FING / UDELAR. He advisor in technology and telecommunications companies. Recognition “Uruguayan scientist with extensive experience” MEC, Dec 2019. Member of the National Academy of Engineering of Uruguay and the National System of Researchers. Regional Director (Latin America) of the IEEE Consumer Technology Society and is Distinguished Lecturer 2021-2022 of said society. Elected member of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society (2016-18 and 2019-21). Co-founder of the start-up Quantum-South. Research areas: Quantum computing, Quality of experience in video and audio.
Laura Gatti is a professor at the University of Montevideo. She is a doctoral candidate (Polytechnic University of Madrid), Master in Engineering Research and Telecommunications Engineering (ORT University). Laura’s main field of study is discrete sets of gates for quantum computing. She is the co-founder of Quantum-South, a spin-off company of quantum computing from the University of Montevideo founded in 2019 in Uruguay. Quantum-South develops quantum software for charging solutions. Laura is also interested in development and technological change and is trying to discover how quantum computing could be an open door to the future for developing countries.