“The award has confirmed the pioneering work that we carried out in this field at the University of Bremen 15 years ago,” says Professor Rolf Drechsler, head of the Cyber-Physical Systems research area at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). “Today, quantum computers are on everyone’s lips. It was entirely new ground back then.” The computer scientist led the student project within the Faculty of Mathematics / Computer Science at the time. “In my Computer Architecture working group, we have been working on the foundations of quantum computers since 2005,” he explains. “It was a promising variation for us.” The interesting thing about quantum computers is that you can solve many problems with them that cannot be solved with traditional computers. “Quantum computers work in a far more complex manner,” explains the researcher.
Foundations Laid for Software for Future Technology
Nowadays, international companies such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, and many others are working on quantum computers and have started bringing them to market. Users from all industry sectors are investing millions into this technology. Much like any computer, a quantum computer does, however, require suitable software in order for applications to run. The foundations that were laid for this ten years ago at the University of Bremen have now been honored with a “10-Year Retrospective Most Influential Paper Award” at the ASP Design Automation Conference.
Rolf Drechsler is particularly happy that he and four former staff members have received the distinction. Robert Wille is now a professor at the Johannes Kepler University Linz and still carries out research in the field of quantum computers today. Mathias Soeken also works in this field at Microsoft Research. Both men oversaw the student project as young researchers and completed their PhDs under Rolf Drechsler’s supervision. Former students Christoph Hilken and Nils Przigoda were also part of the project and were honored.
Further Information:
- You can find the award-winning work as a PDF here: https://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/agra/doc/konf/12aspdac_qmdd_synth_rev.pdf
- Link to the conference: www.aspdac.com/aspdac2021/
- Information on Professor Rolf Drechsler’s working group: http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/agra/eng/index.php
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Rolf Drechsler
Computer Architecture Working Group
Faculty of Mathematics / Computer Science
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-63932
Email: drechslerprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
