Building quantum competence in Bergen
We were thrilled to see the interest in quantum computing at the Department of Informatics in Bergen. No less than 24 students completed the course Introduction to Quantum Computing and Quantum Machine Learning! This is certainly a significant contribution when it comes to making our future workforce quantum literate.
The course responsible is Philip Turk, whom you can see in the picture – along with his Bloch sphere, is affiliated with SINTEF – in addition to the University of Bergen. He has every reason to be proud – both of the course he has developed and of his students’ performances at the oral examination. Many of them demonstrated convincing familiarity with advanced quantum algorithms such as quantum phase estimation and Shor’s algorithm – in addition to having simulated and trained their own quantum neural networks. Quantum machine learning coincides with Philip’s own research.
Being an informatics course, emphasis was put more on algorithms – and the formal distinctions between quantum and classical information – than on the physics behind it. We at the OsloMet Quantum Hub salutes the initiative and hope that it continues to build quantum competence in Bergen. Perhaps it would spread to the physics and the chemistry departments too?