Is #quantum FASHIONABLE? ✨ 🕺
This week's #EuroHPC Summit in #Antwerp might give us some hints...
First off, the above question is very timely to ask in Antwerp on the cuff of this week's #breaking news in #fashion: Dries van Noten is retiring from his epinomous fashion house. A leading member of the #AntwerpSix, DVN and his peers have revolutionised fashion with their own sense of cuts, shapes, and colours from the 1980s onwards. DRIES VAN NOTEN even took over the late 19th century Antwerp's landmark Het Modepaleis (The Fashion Palace, pictured right) in 1989, and made it the heart of a flourishing global empire.
An eerily similar shape to this neoclassical gem is the architecture of a #superconducting quantum computer (that of IQM Quantum Computers pictured on the left, cc: Jan Goetz, Herbert Mangesius), posing eerily similar questions to any fashion trend:
⚛ Are we looking at the next paradigm shift, as many have argued here during the past days in Antwerp, including captivating talks by Laure Le Bars and Thierry Botter?
⚛ How is quantum as 'new kid on the block' going to fare among the old guard, embedded in Europe's high-performance computing infrastructure?
⚛ Is this all just a fad...?
Much in the tradition of the Antwerp designers, the number six seems to be a lucky one on the interface of #HPC and quantum, too: Back in late 2022, the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking has selected six sites across the EU to host and operate the first EuroHPC quantum computers: Czechia, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Poland. Driven by the European Commission's ambition (cc: Gustav Kalbe, Oscar Diez), the combination of HPC and quantum shall accelerate the development, deployment and extension of a secure European hyperconnected computing, service and data infrastructure ecosystem. [More on this: https://lnkd.in/etnhhA34]
Just like you'll wear your hottest gown or sharpest tuxedo at the opera ball instead of a gym outfit, quantum will have it's own haute couture use cases before going mainstream. And just like gowns and tuxes aren't part of the every wardrobe, quantum computers are set to conquer their own niche well before they'd be at every corporate cubicle.
One thing is for sure: I'd bet my tux anyday that quantum will make its stride down the red carpet of real-world computing speedup over the next years, proving those wrong who treated it as a mere hyped accessory.
Cc'ing some fashionable quantum friends: Quantum Flagship, Anousheh Ansari, Amir Banifatemi, Azeem Azhar, Marija Gavrilov, Johanna Sepúlveda, Freeke Heijman-te Paske, Carlos Kuchkovsky, Sergio Gago, Florian Neukart, Catherine Lefebvre, PhD, Jesse Robbers, Thomas Strohm, Christian Ospelkaus, Dr. Robert Axmann, Dr. Barbara Wellmann, Jens Eisert, Marieke HOOD, Marianne T. Schoerling (PhD), Matthias Troyer, Christophe Jurczak, William Zeng, Allison Duettmann, Richard Murray
