L: Quantum locking demo via electromagnetic levitation (circled); R: Heart of a neutral-atom Quantum Computer
My fellow STEM Heros and friends:
In risking bruising your inbox, I'm reaching out again to seek your help in making the upcoming "PNW AI & STEM Discovery Day" as impactful an event as it can be. Please refer to the flyer attached for context.
We are looking to set up 10 roundtables with interactive AI projects for high-schoolers to try their hands on. As such, we are not only looking for "On-site Project Managers" (aka "Volunteers"), we also welcome your ideas and/or proposals for those projects -- be they driven by ChatGPT or another competing offering, be they about building an eComm website or creating a video game -- your imagination/creativity is the limit! Please reach out and help however you can!
On another (selfish) note, I'd like to re-attach our newsletter from yesterday below since I inadvertently missed including many of you in that blast (sorry!) For those of you who have already received/read it, let me offer some fresh content:
The only QC startup that even 'dared' to point out a caveat to the seemingly unanimous consensus forged by Jensen Huang was in fact no other than our own would-be "neighbor" PsiQuantum, which is building a billon-dollar campus in a brand-new Quantum Park that will be located at almost exactly the mid-way point between PNW and the Chicago Loop.
While just about all the other major QC companies (including the few that already went public) will likely rely on investment dollars, as opposed to revenues -- due to the immaturity of current QCs and a lack of meaningful applications -- to survive in the near-term (we are talking about 10s to 100s of millions of dollars), PsiQuantum has already secured billions of dollars in funding and is virtually backed by two national governments (USA and AUS). And most significantly, they are expected to build the world's first one-million-qubit industrial QC (read, warehouse-sized) in the next few years. And guess how many qubits are supposedly needed to break Bitcoin? One million!
To learn more about PsiQuantum and the Quantum Park, you are welcome to check out an earlier newsletter of ours offering more vital statistics, including all the new jobs the whole initiative is poised to open up in our region.
Thank you for your support (moral or material) and I look forward to seeing many of you at the event!
STEMfastly Yours,
Shawn
Appendix: Our Lastest Newsletter
APS Global Summit - Our Quantum Future (Credit: Jamie Gill)
Dear QLeapers & Friends,
Hope you all had a relaxing spring break! I thought I would too... but instead found myself jammed. Here's a quick download from what turned out to be my busiest and most entangled week yet...
🎹 The West Coast Quantum AI Jam
📍 Nvidia’s GTC Developer Conference (Silicon Valley)
Out of 1,200+ sessions, I resorted to the "distillation" approach and listened to one speaker only: Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and CEO. As far as I know, he only spoke twice (and for 2 full hours each time!)
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His own keynote (which I regarded as a “State of AI” speech), outlining the roadmap from Gen AI → Agentic AI → Physical AI, all powered by “AI factories”, courtesy of Nvidia.
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A “State of Quantum Computing” (again, my words) panel he personally moderated, with leaders from nearly every major QC company.
Why so much ado about quantum at the GTC, you ask? About three months ago, Huang made comments that sent quantum stocks tumbling by up to 40%. Please note the same stocks had just surged as much as 2000+% following Google’s Willow quantum chip announcement which caused its own market cap to rise by 5%, or approx. $100Bn (yes, that is a B). This time, he opened with an apology to the entire QC industry, and closed with a mic-drop moment when he said something to the effect of...
“I think I’m the only public company CEO who invited everyone here to prove me wrong.”
He scored big again when he achieved the following consensus from the entire panel (well, almost...as there was a dissenting view): the future of computing is QPU + CPU + GPU. And guess who’s the GPU? (I’d be happy to share links to two speeches’ respective replays if interested.)
📍 APS Annual Conference (Anaheim, CA)
Meanwhile, down the coast, the American Physical Society hosted its Global Physics Summit where Microsoft presented their latest breakthrough in Topological QC. While some physicists remain skeptical, the review process is unfolding in real-time—science in action.
But a "eureka moment" came for me when I spotted a session titled “Our Quantum Future” (see pic above) — which just so happens to be the name of one of......
📚 Two New Quantum Courses at PNW This Fall!
1. Our Quantum Future
(CS 59000-010 / CS 49000-002)
No STEM background? No problem. This course offers “quantum literacy” for anyone curious about how QIST (Quantum Information Science & Technology) may impact future careers in business, finance, law, policy, and more.
2. Intro to Quantum Computing
(CS 59000-090 / CS 49000-001 / PHYS 47000-001)
For those ready to engage hands-on with quantum circuits and the future of computation.
💬 Join us for a Q&A session on these new course!
🗓️ Thursday, 3/27 | 3:30–5 PM @ Gyte 181
🍕 Pizza will be served! Bring questions and curiosity.
🚀 Other New Beginnings/Happenings
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🗳️ New Club Officers Elected
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🧠 PNW's First Delegation will attend the Yale Quantum Hackathon (April 12–13). Wish them luck!
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☀️ Quantum Summer Schools at Purdue West Lafayette – more info on them and other Quantum events will be forthcoming in our next newsletter... Please stay tuned!
✨ Final Reflection
Why did all of this happen during spring break? Maybe it’s synchronicity—or better yet, entanglement of thought. (Did you know that there are new theories that suggest consciousness is quantum in nature?) Either way, it's a sign the quantum wave is surging. We’re riding it. And we’re glad you’re with us.
Entangledly yours,
Shawn
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