Koen Groenland
About me
I work as a quantum innovation officer at the University of Amsterdam and QuSoft. I accelerate the development of valuable quantum technology and help bring academic ideas to the market. Many of our valorisation activities are done through the network hub Quantum.Amsterdam.
I am currently researching how we can improve Quantum Key Distribution, a quantum network protocol that forms an additional security layer on top of the regular internet. Together with the Quantum Gateway Foundation, we aim to solve one of the most pressing issues that stand in the way of widespread adoption, namely authenticating the parties on the other side of the network.
Moreover, I'm in the process of publishing the book Introduction to Quantum Computing for Business, for which a preview is already available online!
News
Starting something new!
Sept 2024
After 9(!) years at QuSoft I'll jump on a new journey. Together with Christian Schaffner, I will start working on a valorisation project at the Universiteit van Amsterdam of Amsterdam, looking at how we can improve identity checks in future Quantum Key Distribution networks. For this, we will work intimately together with Quantum Gateway Foundation, hence you will find me in their office frequently.
This is a 'soft' goodbye to the many friends I made over the past years. I had a fantastic time working with all of you, and I'm extremely grateful for the great things we have achieved. Some highlights include: setting up the Quantum.Amsterdam hub that now hosts frequent events and meetings, many R&D collaborations with tech partners, a multitude of Life Long Learning activities, Quantum Quest, National Quantum Course, a visit by our King and Emmanuel Macron, the course Quantum in Business and Society, and much more.
On the other hand, I will not leave completely -- that's why I call it a soft goodbye. I'll still have some hours each week to help QuSoft, Quantum.Amsterdam, and the MSc program Quantum Computer Science. Moreover, I will definitely stay active at the quantum ecosystem in Amsterdam and the many quantum events in the Netherlands and beyond. You will still hear me babbling about quantum software, quantum businesses, and (now even more so) how urgently we need to update today's cryptography.
Find me at ACID 2024 on March 22
Feb 2024
The Amsterdam Chemistry Innovation Day is a premier event for academics and industry on cutting-edge Chemistry. Together with Lucas Visscher and Alexandra De Castro, Ph.D., we'll have a session on the impact of Quantum Computing: starting with a gentle introduction, and then diving deeper into the state-of-the-art of quantum software and hardware.
More details:
https://www.acid-event.nl/
Join the "Synergy of Quantum and AI" event!
Feb 2024
For a second consecutive year, we're hosting an event together with La French Tech to explore the cutting edge of quantum technology. This time, the focus is on the magic combination of AI and Quantum. With fantastic speakers like Laurent Prost, Vedran Dunjko, Evert van Nieuwenburg, Jonas Landman, and our very own Amira Abbas, this promises to be an exciting afternoon!
More details:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tickets-quantum-leap-into-the-future-exploring-the-synergy-of-quantum-ai-820035136167
Succesful Science & Innovation dinner on 'Quantum'
Nov 2023
We occasionally host community event for our network of the Netherlands most prominent leaders in Quantum Tech. This fall, this was in the form of a Science & Innovation dinner where over 30 experts discussed the current state of affairs.
See the 'aftermovie': https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amsterdamsciencepark_watch-the-aftermovie-activity-7128394792270454785-EgZL
289 high-school students follow the Quantum Quest
Nov 2023
This November, the Quantum Quest kicks off with more participants than ever: a whopping 289 students from over 100 different schools will start a journey to learn the fascinating math behind Quantum Computers. That's an impressive number, considering that this is arguably the hardest challenge that high school students will come across -- most of them doing this in spare time! But hopefully worth every minute ;)
This year, we worked hard to make the materials more accessible, with great mini-video's and a subdivision of students in smaller 'Houses' that make it easier to talk to peers.
More information: www.quantum-quest.org
Executive course Introduction to Quantum Computing
Nov 2023
After a successful previous edition, we're organising another course Introduction to Quantum Computing, focused on opportunities and threats for businesses. That's a powerful collaboration between the techies from Quantum.Amsterdam and the real-world impact perspective from University of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Business School. It's aimed specifically at those who make strategic decisions in IT, machine learning or cybersecurity.
📅 Tue 28 + Wed 29 November 2023
⏰ 14:00 - 18:00
📍 Startup Village Amsterdam
>> More information: abs.uva.nl/quantum-computing
I believe we can proudly say that we brought together the most prominent thought leaders in the Netherlands around Quantum Tech, who will share their insights on how we can optimally deal with this disrupting innovation:
Harry Buhrman | Deborah Nas | Frank Phillipson | Mario Dagrada | Marc Salomon | Dr. Martijn Dekker | Julian van Velzen | Camille de Valk | Alexander Urech | Koen Leijnse
Meet me here in Summer 2023:
Apr 2023
4-5 April, Quantum Delta NL will be represented at NWO physics, where I'll contribute some demo's.
14 April marks World Quantum Day, during which Quantum.Amsterdam will open its Experience Room. At the same time, I'm hosting one of our Awareness Workshops for the government's digitisation center.
On 3-4 May, find me at Q2B in Paris.
And last but note least, on 14 June, we organise another Quantum.Amsterdam Meetup, this time revolving around quantum startups. Find more information here: https://www.quantum.amsterdam/thenextq
Masterclass Quantum for high school students
Dec 2022
In January and February, we're organizing another Masterclass Quantum for Dutch high-school students (5-6 VWO). For more information, see: https://www.betapartners.nl/masterclass-quantum2023/
Masterclass for business: Introduction to Quantum Technology
July 2022
On 24 November and 1 December, we organise a Masterclass that forms an introduction to the Business Cases for Quantum Computing. This is a collaboration between Quantum.Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Business School. Our aim is to provide an accessible yet deeply educative experience to managers, IT professionals, innovation experts and policy makers. No prior knowledge needed!
We can be proud to have a team of the most distinguished professors and business leaders that can be found within the Netherlands, which together cover the whole width of Quantum Technologies: from computing to sensors to crypto, and from the fundamental aspects to tomorrow's corporate usage.
To see more information and to sign up, see here:
https://abs.uva.nl/quantum-computing
Update to Professional's Guide to Quantum Technology
May 2022
Some major updates have been included in our free, online guide that should help journalists, managers, and IT professionals understand the impact of quantum in the real world. Check out Chapter 3 and 5 on the Quantum.Amsterdam website!
Professional's Guide to Quantum Technology
January 2022
Together with Joran van Apeldoorn, I'm writing a free, online guide that should help journalists, managers, and IT professionals understand the impact of quantum in the real world. As of today, it's steadily expanding -- you can start reading on the Quantum.Amsterdam website!
Available MSc student project: A Quantum Benchmarking tool
December 2021
Benchmarks are used to compare the speeds of computers. For quantum computers, no standardized benchmarks exist yet, but it's up to you to invent and implement one. There are several challenges: all quantum computers work differently, and perhaps one computer excells at a certain task, whereas another performs best on a completely different task. What is a representative test that allows us to compare widely varying pieces of hardware?
Discuss with various experts from science (QuSoft, CWI, UvA) and industry what benchmarks are representative
Develop code that automatically performs benchmarks on various cloud services (IBM, Rigetti, IonQ, ... )
Assess the results and present them in an attractive manner (website or scientific paper)
Set the first steps towards a lasting initiative that regularly assess the ever improving set of available hardware.
Requirements:
You are a Master's student in Math, Physics, CS, or a related field, who is available for at least 6 months
Strong background in mathematics, especially linear algebra (knowledge of Quantum Mechanics appreciated but not strictly required)
Proficient with Python
Proficient in English, good social skills to work in a group and to talk to a wide variety of scientists and business experts.
Are you interested? Then let's further discuss this with a cup of coffee! Contact me at k.l.groenland@uva.nl.
(This project is open until removed from this webpage).
Masterclass for High Shool students in January/February
December 2021
Only available in Dutch:
Are you a smart high-school student in 5-6 VWO, and would you like to learn about the cutting edge of Quantum Computers and Quantum Field Theory? (Or do you know one?) During this 3-day masterclass, you will take lectures at the University of Amsterdam and learn all about these fascinating topics:
https://www.betapartners.nl/masterclass-quantum2022/
Quantum Quest 2021 has started!
November 2021
The Quantum Quest is a free online webclass for students in the last years of high school (~16-20 years old). During a 5-week program, we dive into the mathematics behind quantum computing, going through probabilistic bits, quantum bits, unitary operations, and elementary algorithms and protocols (like Teleportation and Grover's search). To make the material sufficiently accessible, we omit complex numbers and work only with reals (and surprisingly, quantum computers still work fine!).
The course is extremely challenging and aiming at the best-of-class students. This year, we opened up submissions to anyone in the world, and have a very international audience (note the peak in Africa, especially Ghana, thanks to our collaboration with AIMS):
Signups for 2021 have closed... but if you're interested in participating:
All the course materials are freely available - especially the Syllabus is a great introduction to learn quantum by yourself! (https://www.quantum-quest.nl/material.html)
We're not sure whether the next edition will be in 2022 or 2023... but either way, keep an eye out on www.quantum-quest.nl
More in-depth testing of N-qubit gates
May 2021
Juan Diego Arias Espinoza performed an extensive numerical analysis that our proposed method to perform an important gate, the Toffoli gate, performs very well on Trapped Ion computers. However, some clever tricks were needed to get the fidelities up to competitive levels. The result was recently published in PRA in the paper "High-fidelity method for a single-step N -bit Toffoli gate in trapped ions".
Efficient circuits for Trapped Ion quantum computers
January 2020
We find a striking connection between the physics of quantum computers that use trapped ions, and the emerging field of quantum signal processing. This allows us to perform difficult quantum gates in less steps, relying only on the most simple entangling operation a trapped ion computer can perform.
(Update July 2020) This result is now published as follows:
Koen Groenland, Freek Witteveen, Kareljan Schoutens, Rene Gerritsma, Signal processing techniques for efficient compilation of controlled rotations in trapped ions, New Journal of Physics, Volume 22 (2020)
Difficult quantum gates can be performed in a single step
November 2019
Together with Stig Rasmussen and Nikolaj Zinner from Aarhus University, we find that the notoriously hard Toffoli quantum gate can be performed using a surprisingly simple protocol. We require an all-to-all Ising type interaction between the qubits, and a resonant field on a single special qubit. After throwing away the special qubit, a Toffoli occurred on the remaining qubits.
(Update Februari 2020) This result is now published as:
S. E. Rasmussen, KG, R. Gerritsma, K. Schoutens, N. T. Zinner, Single-step implementation of high fidelity n-bit Toffoli gates, Phys. Rev. A 101, 022308 (2020) (without paywall: arXiv:1911.07548)
Popular state transfer protocols now work in more cases
September 2019
Certain experimental protocols, named with acronyms STIRAP or CTAP, turn out to work on many more systems than was previously known. We find that they naturally generalize to bipartite graphs.
KG, Carla Groenalnd, Reinier Kramer, Adiabatic transfer of amplitude using STIRAP-like protocols generalizes to many bipartite graphs, Journal of Mathematical Physics 61, 072201 (2020); arXiv:1904.09915
Transferring a quantum state over a network of coupled spins
January 2019
With the advent of advanced quantum information processing, it is of increasing importance to transport quantum information over a physical medium (think of a wire, or a network of wires). We consider the case where the information is encoded in a spin degree of freedom (think of an electron whose "rotation axis" can point either up or down), and the medium is made up of spins that are all pinned in place.
It turns out that the repulsive forces between the spins can be used to delocalize the information over the whole network, and then localize it again at some other place. This was known for mediums that form a perfect line. I generalize this to more general configurations, finding that information can be sent over many networks that look like a bipartite graph.
My article is planned for publication in SciPost Physics (DOI: 10.21468/scipostphys.6.1.011)
Many-body strategies for multi-qubit gates
April 2018
Quantum computers, just like their classical counterparts, may use a universal gate set consisting of local gates, in order to approximate any possible operation on it's qubits. Typically, one chooses a two-qubit gate such as the CNOT together with a set of single-qubit gates.
However, we asked ourselves the question: If N qubits are coupled by some interaction of our choice, can we construct interesting gates that act on all qubits at the same time?
For this to work, we look at the so-called Krawtchouk chain, which is special because all of it's eigenvalues are integer numbers. Because this system is well understood, we can apply condensed-matter many-body techniques, resulting in two surprising new contributions:
The eigengate, which maps computational states into eigenstates of the coupling Hamiltonian.
Resonant driving, which, together with knowledge of the simple spectrum, allows us to select precisely 2 our of 2^N (and no more!) to undergo a transition.
Our article was recently published in PRA (https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.97.042321). Find the version without paywall at ArXiv or my GDrive.
