Headquartered at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the QSC was formed in response to the National Quantum Initiative as one of five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, funded by DOE’s Office of Science. QSC comprises participation from government, industry and academia and aims to realize the potential of quantum information science to revolutionize innovation. Backing for program was secured by a proposal that mapped out a series of goals that each center planned to accomplish over the course of five years.
When the QSC began, members assigned milestones to each of the goals in the subject matter areas of quantum materials, algorithms and sensors. Each area, called a thrust, was assigned a lead. Each lead has worked with teams of researchers to solve problems in their own realm while sharing their findings with the other thrusts in a co-design environment.
“We put forth milestones four or five years in advance, in an area of emerging science, and we achieved many of those milestones,” said Andrew Sornborger, staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Information Sciences and QSC Algorithms thrust lead.
In large part, the all-hands meeting was focused on cross-discipline sharing of milestone details completed since the center began. Because its members are based at national laboratories, academic institutions and industry partners’ facilities across the U.S., these face-to-face interactions are valuable collaboration opportunities.
At this year’s meeting, it was important to QSC founding members to recount that — through no fault of their own — cooperation in the early days of the center did not always come as easy as it does today.
This Oak Ridge National Laboratory news article "Leaders in quantum science reflect, plan for future innovation" was originally found on https://www.ornl.gov/news
