MS+S2006: quantum computing conference in Japan

I just got a flier in the mail for MS+S2006, the International Symposium on Mesoscopic Superconductivity and Spintronics, sponsored by NTT and JST.

Sounds esoteric, but I went in 2004 (it's biannual), and about a third of the presentations and posters were explicitly quantum information processing, and at least another third were of some interest to QIP folks; last year the subtitle was even "In the light of quantum computation". (My paper was a somewhat abstract one on balancing quantum and classical computation, for example.)

It's a physics conference, so acceptances are based on abstracts submitted shortly before the conference, and many of the participants who aren't selected for the oral program present posters. The proceedings, with full papers, are published long after the conference. This all seems odd to those of us used to ACM and USENIX conferences, where full papers are reviewed, acceptance is extremely competitive for many of the conferences, and full proceedings are handed out at the conference itself.

NTT does an excellent job of hosting the conference, and I met a number of important researchers there (Martinis, Lloyd, Tsai, Nakamura, Mooij, to name a few); they get quite the list of attendees and speakers.

Abstracts due Jan. 23, conference Feb. 27-Mar. 2.

Anyway, consider coming, and I look forward to seeing you there!