It's now official -- next fall I will be teaching an undergraduate class titled "Quantum Internet". As far as I am aware, this is the world's first Quantum Internet course aimed at undergraduates!
Next year, we will have two undergraduate courses:
- Quantum Information Processing: intended to be a moderate introduction, suitable not only for those planning to continue in quantum but also those not planning to continue in quantum but who want to understand the key ideas. Intended to be accessible to ambitious freshmen, the only math required is a little bit of linear algebra and discrete probability. This course is based on two short online courses we have created, plus some hands-on exercises. Taught flipped classroom style.
- "Understanding Quantum Computers" (UQC) -- basic ideas of computation (superposition, interference, entanglement, unitary evolution, measurement, decoherence and no-cloning; algorithms; types of hardware), not a lot of math
- "Overview of Quantum Communications" (English and Japanese) (OQC) -- a little more math and the basic ideas of quantum communications (teleportation, BB84, purification, entanglement swapping) as well as critical basic technology (especially waveguides/optical fibers and lasers)
- exercises using IBM machines via GUI & Qiskit
- Quantum Internet: intended for those wanting to go a little deeper, but not limited to those joining my research group, AQUA. The QIP course above is a strict prerequisite, and this course will also be taught flipped classroom style. There will be substantially more math in this, but it's not purely abstract, most of it is in service of designing real systems. It will be based on our 2nd and 3rd Q-Leap Quantum Academy modules:
- "From Classical to Quantum Light" (CQL) (English and Japanese) -- Maxwell's equations, single photons, more on waveguides
- "Quantum Internet" (QI) -- the module we are recording lessons for right now: deeper analysis of errors and error handling, network engineering issues such as routing, multiplexing, security.
- Exercises are still a little TBD, but will include QuISP and Intel-based exercises
UQC was funded internally by Keio. OQC, CQL and QI are funded by the Japanese government Q-Leap program. Portions of OQC are now being translated into Chinese, Thai, Arabic, Korean and French, thanks to a grant from Intel. More announcements on languages to come!
The material from OQC is now being compiled into a book. We expect an alpha-release draft to be available in January 2023 and a near-final version in 2Q2023. We have not selected a publisher for the book yet, but are looking for one.
All of the materials are or will be available under a Creative Commons license. People are encouraged to reuse, remix, translate, etc. -- just give us credit and make your own work available, too.
