Quantum Symposium of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities


Last week, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW) hosted a symposium on the topic of "Quantum technologies. Expectations of an important future technology" at its premises in the Munich Residence. Munich Quantum Valley (MQV) was one of the co-organizers.

Quantum technologies are expected to shape the 21st century and offer enormous application potential for numerous economic sectors. At the BAdW symposium, international experts spoke about and discussed the specific opportunities offered by this important future technology and the benefits it could bring.

Rudolf Gross, Scientific Director at the Walther Meißner Institute of the BAdW and Scientific and Managing Director of Munich Quantum Valley, led through the program. With the topics of spectroscopy, quantum communication, quantum sensor technology and quantum computing, the four presentations covered large and important areas of quantum technologies. All of the speakers provided exciting insights into their respective fields and highlighted possible applications that quantum technologies could offer in the future. However, they also called for caution in placing exaggerated expectations on the opportunities and benefits of future technologies, particularly with regard to time scales.

The panel discussion then gave four experts, including Immanuel Bloch, MQV member and Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, and Rainer Blatt, Professor at the University of Innsbruck and former Scientific Director of MQV, the opportunity to discuss the fine line "between exaggerated hopes and useful applications" in more detail. And even though the panel agreed that it will still take some time to realize particularly sophisticated technologies such as simulation in the field of chemistry or medicine, they were also extremely optimistic: "There is no physical system that tells me that it can't be done," Rainer Blatt sums it up – perhaps it will just take a little while.

You can watch a recording of all the presentations and the panel discussion here [in German]:

Präzisionsspektroskopie: Grundlage und Anwendung in modernen Quantentechnologien (Prof. Dr. Tanja Mehlstäubler, PTB Braunschweig and Leibniz University Hannover)  

Zum Quanteninternet (Prof. Dr. Gerhard Rempe, MPI of Quantum Optics)

Quantensensoren aus Diamant (Prof. Dr. Christian Degen, ETH Zurich)

Quantencomputer – Rechenkunst mit Quantenphysik (Prof. Dr. Rainer Blatt, University of Innsbruck, Austrian Academy of Sciences and Alpine Quantum Technologies GmbH)

Podiumsdiskussion: Quantentechnologien – zwischen überzogenen Hoffnungen und nützlichen Anwendungen.