As of 15 December 2023, famous quantum researcher Harry Buhrman of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands, QuSoft and the University of Amsterdam will start a new position. He will then begin as Chief Scientist Quantum Algorithms & Innovation at the world’s largest integrated quantum computing company Quantinuum , based in their London research centre. “I still have ten years until I retire. It is time to hand over my work to a new generation and for me a chance to start a new adventure and work on new things, close to the development of physical quantum computers,” Buhrman says.
Founding father
Harry Buhrman started in 1994 as a post-doc researcher at CWI – the national research institute for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands - in Paul Vitányi's group. In the second half of the 1990s he set up his own quantum group at CWI, the current Algorithms & Complexity group. Buhrman: “While most research at that time was about physical quantum computers, I focused on quantum software and quantum information, from the perspective of computer science. You could say that the quantum software research in the Netherlands was set up at CWI.” In Europe and worldwide Buhrman is also considered as one of the founding fathers of the field. Starting in 2000, Buhrman also became a professor at the University of Amsterdam, in addition to his work at CWI.
QuSoft
One of the things Buhrman is proud of is that the quantum field has grown from a small group of interested scientists, mainly physicists, to a large group of people, including in computer science, mathematics and now even business. In 2015, he founded the QuSoft Research Center for Quantum Software, a collaboration of CWI together with the UvA, with which approximately 80 people are now affiliated. Buhrman became director of QuSoft, along with Kareljan Schoutens.
