2025 Cooper Lecture: Christopher Monroe

Abstract

Quantum computers exploit the bizarre features of quantum physics -- uncertainty, entanglement, and measurement -- to perform tasks that are impossible using conventional means. These may include the computing and optimizing over ungodly amounts of data; breaking encryption standards; simulating models of chemistry and materials; and communicating via quantum teleportation. The two challenges of quantum computing are (1) we don’t really have many clear examples of useful applications, and (2) they are notoriously hard to build and scale. Despite this, many important problems known and unknown will never be solved until we have quantum computers. I will discuss the state-of-the-art in quantum computers, led by an uneasy coalition of scientists and engineers from academia, industry and government.

Biography

Christopher Monroe is the Gilhuly Family Presidential Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at Duke University. He is also the Co-Founder and former CEO and Chief Scientist of IonQ, Inc., the first pure-play public quantum computing company. Monroe has pioneered nearly all aspects of trapped ion quantum computers and simulators, from demonstrations of the first quantum gate, monolithic semiconductor-chip ion trap, and photonic interconnects between physically separated qubits; to the design, fabrication, and use of full-stack ion trap quantum computer systems in both university and industrial settings. He is a key architect of the US National Quantum Initiative, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Optical Society of America, the UK Institute of Physics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.