It caused quite a stir when the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) announced in November that their Center for Quantum Devices \u2013 headed by Professor Charles Marcus \u2013 was working with Microsoft to build the world’s first quantum computer.<\/p>\n
The story of an impending quantum computer breakthrough caught the news media’s interest. But the way that the University and the IT giant is collaborating is also novel, says Head of the Niels Bohr Institute Robert Feidenhans’l.<\/p>\n
Microsoft will, in fact, move directly into the University of Copenhagen and build a new Microsoft lab at NBI, paid by Microsoft.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWe are doing something new. People will be working next to each other. You should not be able to see who is employed by UCPH and who is working for Microsoft,\u00ab says Robert Feidenhans’l.<\/p>\n
University of Copenhagen has for a long time upheld close relationships with business. The university\u2019s Board of Executives includes representatives of the pharmaceutical industry (Novo Nordisk), the oil industry (Maersk Oil), and for many years agriculture.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWe are doing something new. People will be working next to each other. You should not be able to see who is employed by UCPH and who is working for Microsoft.\u00ab – Robert Feidenhans’l, Head of Department at NBI<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
These industries all invest heavily, directly or indirectly, in university research. But the interaction with industry in the current collaboration projects are indirect \u2013 the Novo Nordisk Foundation supports basic research in metabolism for example \u2013 there are plans for Microsoft to move onto the campus itself. And there are good reasons for this, according to department head Robert Feidenhans’l:<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe Niels Bohr Institute does basic research, and it is therefore not natural for us to scale up in technology. We need to, for example, hire 20 to 30 engineers for this project. A Microsoft lab will be set up at NBI, which Microsoft pays in full.\u00ab <\/p>\n
Prorector at the University of Copenhagen Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm also welcomes businesses to campus: <\/p>\n
\u00bbIt’s a dream come true that big companies are so attracted to the University of Copenhagen, that they actually start doing their development in this city,\u00ab he says. \u00bbWe welcome company research labs on campus.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Distribution of rights still not certain<\/h2>\n
The close collaboration between Microsoft and the University of Copenhagen raises the questions of rights. Who will get to own the design for a quantum computer if it manages to invent it – or for that matter any other inventions that are created in a shared laboratory environment? <\/p>\n
To these questions, the University Post cannot get a completely clear answer. <\/p>\n
On what a quantum computer would be worth in terms of money, Robert Feidenhans’l, NBI, responds with a counter-question: <\/p>\n
\u00bbWhat is the transistor worth? I do not think we can put a price tag on it.\u00ab <\/p>\n
\u00bbIt’s a dream come true that big companies are so attracted to the University of Copenhagen, that they actually start doing their development in this city.\u00ab Prorector for Research at the University of Copenhagen Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The head of department talks about the beneficial effects on the educational environment at UCPH which the quantum project will lead to. <\/p>\n
\u00bbWe are going to have physicists flying in from around the world. Charles Marcus will ensure that students will have the opportunity to engage in research from their first year of study if they are talented. In his group, bachelor students make important contributions. This is a brand new structure and culture that we must incorporate,\u00ab says Feidenhans’l.<\/p>\n
The potential earnings from a new computer do not seem to be a key priority for the University’s senior management: <\/p>\n
\u00bbThe University of Copenhagen\u2019s job is not to develop products from basic research and bear the costs, this is the job of private corporations. Our job is to do great education and research, hope for Nobel prizes, make sure the University’s research is made useful, and to create great opportunities for the world\u2019s students and researchers,\u00ab says Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm. <\/p>\n
\u00bbThe intellectual property of the research is basically shared, but this is exactly what we are now negotiating with Microsoft. In the best scenario, it will probably take five to ten years before Microsoft can build a quantum computer. If a computer reaches the market based on one or more patents that UCPH has the shared ownership of, then the university will typically get royalties.\u00ab<\/p>\n
The merger of uni and business<\/h2>\n
The Danish government has sought to promote the industrial development of quantum technologies by putting companies and researchers together.<\/p>\n
Innovation Fund Denmark – a stash of cash belonging to the Ministry of Education and Research – invested DKK 80 million public funds in 2016 in the set-up of a center for research and industrial cooperation on quantum called Qubiz<\/a>. According to the foundation’s website it is its largest single investment to date.<\/p>\n
Microsoft is going to spend even more money. This is according to Innovation Fund Denmark’s director Peter H\u00f8ngaard Andersen and the department head of the Niels Bohr Institute Robert Feidenhans’l – but they do not disclose the amount. <\/p>\n
Sources that the University Post have talked to say that money is not a problem. Microsoft will not provide numbers, but Anders Thomsen – Government Affairs Director at Microsoft Denmark – says that the company’s annual research and development budget is USD 11-12 billion. You can run the entire University of Copenhagen for 10 years for this amount. <\/p>\n
\u00bbQuantum computing is one of the key research areas for Microsoft, and the project is controlled from the top of the company. It’s a big investment,\u00ab says Anders Thomsen. <\/p>\n
(Note to those who are IT and hardware interested: Microsoft’s part of the project will be headed by Todd Holmdahl, who according to Microsoft’s own websites has had a good deal of responsibility for the development of high profile products like the gaming console Xbox, the motion sensor system Kinect and the glasses HoloLens<\/a> which give the wearers the opportunity to see and work with graphic computer models in three dimensions). <\/p>\n
Microsoft is \u2013 in line with a number of other companies \u2013 a partner in Qubiz, but Microsoft will establish its own laboratory at the University’s campus (besides what the company has in Delft), and the company will hire Professor Charles Marcus, who will also continue to take care of his previous job as a head of research at UCPH (and the university’s best-paid researcher (2016)). <\/p>\n
A direct industrial cooperation like this between the university and an IT company has not previously been seen in Copenhagen, but there are known precedents abroad, according to the Director of Innovation Fund Denmark Peter H\u00f8ngaard Andersen: <\/p>\n
\u00bbIt’s new in Denmark, but not globally. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has built laboratories at Cambridge University and at the Imperial College in London businesses live next door to the researchers. But here it is a change. The trick is respecting that researchers and private companies have different ways of working. If you do that, it can be very fruitful.\u00ab<\/p>\n
This is how a quantum computer works<\/h2>\n
So how will it work \u2013 the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and Microsoft\u2019s quantum computer?<\/p>\n
The topological quantum computer is a machine which performs calculations by means of electrons that are in a so-called Majorana state in some 100 nanometer thin wires of indium arsenide and aluminum.<\/p>\n
The web media videnskab.dk<\/a> does a good job explaining the principle in Danish here, but you can also \u2013 with the Prorector of University of Copenhagen Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm \u2013 think of the quantum computer in terms of a cloud<\/em>.<\/p>\n
He elaborates: \u00bbOur brains are the first computer we know. They work by means of neurons, and this is a slow process. On the other hand, there are extremely well-branched connections between neurons so that the brain has the ability to perform parallel calculations, and thereby compensates for the fact that it is slow,\u00ab says Thomas Bjornholm, who before he became Prorector spent his time as a professor in the field of nano research.<\/p>\n
\u00bbElectronic computers are fast. But they can only perform calculations one at a time, as a serial system. A quantum computer performs parallel calculations and does it very quickly. If you can do this, you can calculate almost incomprehensible things.\u00ab<\/p>\n
New materials<\/h2>\n
Incomprehensible, or currently impractical, calculations may include analyzing the properties of matter in depth, says Bj\u00f8rnholm. This work is trial-and-error with existing computer technology.<\/p>\n
\u00bbThese kinds of calculations with existing technology are like being in a maze. You walk around looking for the exit. Quantum computers can, figuratively speaking, spread like a cloud through the maze and explore all the pathways at the same time. If it is possible to build it, it will fundamentally change the way we do calculations,\u00ab says Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm.<\/p>\n
The University of Copenhagen\u2019s contribution to the development of a working quantum computer is a combination of the fundamental physics involved and the development of the materials. The development of the quantum computer\u2019s crucial nano-wires have taken place at UCPH over an extended period of time. This is according to Robert Feidenhans’l who is Head of Department of the Niels Bohr Institute. Feidenhans’l uses the term ‘cultivating the wires’.<\/p>\n
The task of finding a use for the wires has been the task of the American researcher Charles M. Marcus.<\/p>\n
He was brought to Denmark by the Niels Bohr Institute in 2011 from a position at Harvard, and it is in Marcus’ laboratory that the theoretical design of the topological quantum computer has been developed on the basis of the University’s materials technology. The principle behind Charles Marcus\u2019 and his colleagues\u2019 computer designs were published in an article in Nature in 2013. <\/p>\n
\u00bbIt is Nobel-class research,\u00ab says Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm.<\/p>\n
Unlike other quantum computer designs (Google<\/a> and IBM<\/a> are both working on alternative approaches), the Copenhagen machine can be relatively easily scaled up to a usable size. Provided you can get it to work. The construction from nano-wires solve – at least in theory – a fundamental problem of quantum computing: That the system is very vulnerable to external influences.<\/p>\n
chz@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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- Microsoft wants a quantum computer. The University of Copenhagen wants a Nobel Prize (it has been 40 years since it last happened). So Microsoft is now moving into the university to build a groundbreaking new computer based on fundamental research from physicists.","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":false,"contributors":[{"use_registered_user":false,"user":false,"contributor_name":"Christoffer Zieler","contributor_title":" ","contributor_image":false}]},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>It caused quite a stir when the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) announced in November that their Center for Quantum Devices \u2013 headed by Professor Charles Marcus \u2013 was working with Microsoft to build the world’s first quantum computer.<\/p>\n<p>The story of an impending quantum computer breakthrough caught the news media’s interest. But the way that the University and the IT giant is collaborating is also novel, says Head of the Niels Bohr Institute Robert Feidenhans’l.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft will, in fact, move directly into the University of Copenhagen and build a new Microsoft lab at NBI, paid by Microsoft.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe are doing something new. People will be working next to each other. You should not be able to see who is employed by UCPH and who is working for Microsoft,\u00ab says Robert Feidenhans’l.<\/p>\n<h2>Uni-researchers working next door to the IT industry<\/h2>\n<p>University of Copenhagen has for a long time upheld close relationships with business. The university\u2019s Board of Executives includes representatives of the pharmaceutical industry (Novo Nordisk), the oil industry (Maersk Oil), and for many years agriculture.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00bbWe are doing something new. People will be working next to each other. You should not be able to see who is employed by UCPH and who is working for Microsoft.\u00ab – Robert Feidenhans’l, Head of Department at NBI<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>These industries all invest heavily, directly or indirectly, in university research. But the interaction with industry in the current collaboration projects are indirect \u2013 the Novo Nordisk Foundation supports basic research in metabolism for example \u2013 there are plans for Microsoft to move onto the campus itself. And there are good reasons for this, according to department head Robert Feidenhans’l:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe Niels Bohr Institute does basic research, and it is therefore not natural for us to scale up in technology. We need to, for example, hire 20 to 30 engineers for this project. A Microsoft lab will be set up at NBI, which Microsoft pays in full.\u00ab <\/p>\n<p>Prorector at the University of Copenhagen Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm also welcomes businesses to campus: <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt’s a dream come true that big companies are so attracted to the University of Copenhagen, that they actually start doing their development in this city,\u00ab he says. \u00bbWe welcome company research labs on campus.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h2>Distribution of rights still not certain<\/h2>\n<p>The close collaboration between Microsoft and the University of Copenhagen raises the questions of rights. Who will get to own the design for a quantum computer if it manages to invent it – or for that matter any other inventions that are created in a shared laboratory environment? <\/p>\n<p>To these questions, the University Post cannot get a completely clear answer. <\/p>\n<p>On what a quantum computer would be worth in terms of money, Robert Feidenhans’l, NBI, responds with a counter-question: <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWhat is the transistor worth? I do not think we can put a price tag on it.\u00ab <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00bbIt’s a dream come true that big companies are so attracted to the University of Copenhagen, that they actually start doing their development in this city.\u00ab Prorector for Research at the University of Copenhagen Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The head of department talks about the beneficial effects on the educational environment at UCPH which the quantum project will lead to. <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe are going to have physicists flying in from around the world. Charles Marcus will ensure that students will have the opportunity to engage in research from their first year of study if they are talented. In his group, bachelor students make important contributions. This is a brand new structure and culture that we must incorporate,\u00ab says Feidenhans’l.<\/p>\n<p>The potential earnings from a new computer do not seem to be a key priority for the University’s senior management: <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe University of Copenhagen\u2019s job is not to develop products from basic research and bear the costs, this is the job of private corporations. Our job is to do great education and research, hope for Nobel prizes, make sure the University’s research is made useful, and to create great opportunities for the world\u2019s students and researchers,\u00ab says Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm. <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe intellectual property of the research is basically shared, but this is exactly what we are now negotiating with Microsoft. In the best scenario, it will probably take five to ten years before Microsoft can build a quantum computer. If a computer reaches the market based on one or more patents that UCPH has the shared ownership of, then the university will typically get royalties.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h2>The merger of uni and business<\/h2>\n<p>The Danish government has sought to promote the industrial development of quantum technologies by putting companies and researchers together.<\/p>\n<p>Innovation Fund Denmark – a stash of cash belonging to the Ministry of Education and Research – invested DKK 80 million public funds in 2016 in the set-up of a center for research and industrial cooperation on quantum called <a href=\"http:\/\/qubiz.dk\" target=\"_blank\">Qubiz<\/a>. According to the foundation’s website it is its largest single investment to date.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft is going to spend even more money. This is according to Innovation Fund Denmark’s director Peter H\u00f8ngaard Andersen and the department head of the Niels Bohr Institute Robert Feidenhans’l – but they do not disclose the amount. <\/p>\n<p>Sources that the University Post have talked to say that money is not a problem. Microsoft will not provide numbers, but Anders Thomsen – Government Affairs Director at Microsoft Denmark – says that the company’s annual research and development budget is USD 11-12 billion. You can run the entire University of Copenhagen for 10 years for this amount. <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbQuantum computing is one of the key research areas for Microsoft, and the project is controlled from the top of the company. It’s a big investment,\u00ab says Anders Thomsen. <\/p>\n<p>(Note to those who are IT and hardware interested: Microsoft’s part of the project will be headed by Todd Holmdahl, who according to Microsoft’s own websites has had a good deal of responsibility for the development of high profile products like the gaming console Xbox, the motion sensor system Kinect and the glasses <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/microsoft-hololens\/en-us\" target=\"_blank\">HoloLens<\/a> which give the wearers the opportunity to see and work with graphic computer models in three dimensions). <\/p>\n<p>Microsoft is \u2013 in line with a number of other companies \u2013 a partner in Qubiz, but Microsoft will establish its own laboratory at the University’s campus (besides what the company has in Delft), and the company will hire Professor Charles Marcus, who will also continue to take care of his previous job as a head of research at UCPH (and the university’s best-paid researcher (2016)). <\/p>\n<p>A direct industrial cooperation like this between the university and an IT company has not previously been seen in Copenhagen, but there are known precedents abroad, according to the Director of Innovation Fund Denmark Peter H\u00f8ngaard Andersen: <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt’s new in Denmark, but not globally. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has built laboratories at Cambridge University and at the Imperial College in London businesses live next door to the researchers. But here it is a change. The trick is respecting that researchers and private companies have different ways of working. If you do that, it can be very fruitful.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h2>This is how a quantum computer works<\/h2>\n<p>So how will it work \u2013 the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and Microsoft\u2019s quantum computer?<\/p>\n<p>The topological quantum computer is a machine which performs calculations by means of electrons that are in a so-called Majorana state in some 100 nanometer thin wires of indium arsenide and aluminum.<\/p>\n<p>The web media <a href=\"http:\/\/videnskab.dk\/teknologi\/niels-bohr-forskere-tager-solidt-skridt-mod-en-kvantecomputer\" target=\"_blank\">videnskab.dk<\/a> does a good job explaining the principle in Danish here, but you can also \u2013 with the Prorector of University of Copenhagen Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm \u2013 think of the quantum computer in terms of a <em>cloud<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>He elaborates: \u00bbOur brains are the first computer we know. They work by means of neurons, and this is a slow process. On the other hand, there are extremely well-branched connections between neurons so that the brain has the ability to perform parallel calculations, and thereby compensates for the fact that it is slow,\u00ab says Thomas Bjornholm, who before he became Prorector spent his time as a professor in the field of nano research.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbElectronic computers are fast. But they can only perform calculations one at a time, as a serial system. A quantum computer performs parallel calculations and does it very quickly. If you can do this, you can calculate almost incomprehensible things.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h2>New materials<\/h2>\n<p>Incomprehensible, or currently impractical, calculations may include analyzing the properties of matter in depth, says Bj\u00f8rnholm. This work is trial-and-error with existing computer technology.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThese kinds of calculations with existing technology are like being in a maze. You walk around looking for the exit. Quantum computers can, figuratively speaking, spread like a cloud through the maze and explore all the pathways at the same time. If it is possible to build it, it will fundamentally change the way we do calculations,\u00ab says Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Copenhagen\u2019s contribution to the development of a working quantum computer is a combination of the fundamental physics involved and the development of the materials. The development of the quantum computer\u2019s crucial nano-wires have taken place at UCPH over an extended period of time. This is according to Robert Feidenhans’l who is Head of Department of the Niels Bohr Institute. Feidenhans’l uses the term ‘cultivating the wires’.<\/p>\n<p>The task of finding a use for the wires has been the task of the American researcher Charles M. Marcus.<\/p>\n<p>He was brought to Denmark by the Niels Bohr Institute in 2011 from a position at Harvard, and it is in Marcus’ laboratory that the theoretical design of the topological quantum computer has been developed on the basis of the University’s materials technology. The principle behind Charles Marcus\u2019 and his colleagues\u2019 computer designs were published in an article in Nature in 2013. <\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt is Nobel-class research,\u00ab says Thomas Bj\u00f8rnholm.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike other quantum computer designs (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/s\/544421\/googles-quantum-dream-machine\/\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/s\/537041\/ibm-shows-off-a-quantum-computing-chip\/\" target=\"_blank\">IBM<\/a> are both working on alternative approaches), the Copenhagen machine can be relatively easily scaled up to a usable size. Provided you can get it to work. The construction from nano-wires solve – at least in theory – a fundamental problem of quantum computing: That the system is very vulnerable to external influences.<\/p>\n<p>chz@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":46,"name":"Science","slug":"science","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":46,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":831,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11488,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/microsoft_bohr_0.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30739,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions\/30739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}