1 - Dawn of a Quantum Era

On May 6th, 1981, at the MIT Endicott House, a group of computer scientists gathered together with elite physicists to make the case that quantum phenomena could be used for computation.

Here, ideas that would influence the next four decades of quantum computing research and development first took root, as a new wave of interdisciplinarians asked themselves: what lies beyond the 0’s and 1’s? In other words, if classical computing represented binary calculations, how could quantum computing represent calculations using the math of the universe?

Sebastian Hassinger (IBM Quantum Research and Ecosystem Partnerships), and Abraham Asfaw (Global Lead, Quantum Education and Open Science at IBM Quantum) join host Matt Hooper in conversation with historian Susannah Glickman to learn about the forces and figures that transformed quantum information theory from a literal back-of-the-napkin idea into the next wave of computing.

Credits: Co-created and co-hosted by Sebastian Hassinger and Abraham Asfaw. Produced, written, co-hosted and edited by Matt Hooper. Special thanks to the entire IBM Quantum team.