Join the audience for CERN Courier’s live webinar at 2 p.m. GMT on 31 March, presented by head of CERN openlab Alberto Di Meglio

22 March, 2021

AEGIS experiment - Laser Part — CERN’s AEgIS experiment is able to explore the multi-particle entangled nature of photons from positronium annihilation, and is one of several examples of existing CERN research with relevance to quantum technologies (Image: CERN)

Quantum technologies have the potential to revolutionise science and society, but are still in their infancy. In recent years, the growing importance and the potential impact of quantum technology development has been highlighted by increasing investments in R&D worldwide in both academia and industry.

Cutting-edge research in quantum systems has been performed at CERN for many years to investigate open questions in particle physics. However, only recently, the different ongoing activities in quantum computing, sensing communications and theory have been brought under a common strategy to assess the potential impact on future CERN experiments.

This webinar, hosted by CERN Courier in partnership with IOP Publishing, will introduce the new CERN Quantum Technology Initiative [[link to https://cerncourier.com/a/cern-and-quantum-technologies/], give an overview of the laboratory’s R&D activities and plans in this field, and give examples of the potential impact on research. It will also touch upon the rich international network of activities and how CERN fosters research collaborations.

Register through the CERN Courier website: https://cerncourier.com/a/the-cern-quantum-technology-initiative/

Alberto Di Meglio is the head of CERN openlab in the IT department at CERN and co-ordinator of the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative. Alberto is an aerospace engineer (MEng) and electronic engineer (PhD) by education and has extensive experience in the design, development and deployment of distributed computing and data infrastructures and software services for both commercial and research applications.

He joined CERN in 1998 as a data-centre systems engineer. In 2004, he took part in the early stages of development of the high-energy physics computing grid. From 2010 to 2013, Alberto was project director of the European Middleware Initiative, a project responsible for developing and maintaining most of the software services powering the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid.

Since 2013, Alberto has been leading CERN openlab, a long-term initiative to organise public–private collaborative R&D projects between CERN, academia and industry in ICT, computer and data science, covering many aspects of today’s technology, from heterogeneous architecture and distributed computing to AI and quantum technologies.