Research Associate in Distributed Quantum Computing

Location / Campus: South Kensington Campus - Hybrid

Salary: £ 45,593 - £53,630 

Job Summary  

Imperial College and UCL have a research grant of £3 million for 4 years from the UK EPSRC to develop distributed quantum computing (DQC). While based at Imperial College, this post-holder will join the multi-disciplinary team to develop viable architectures and techniques to efficiently connect quantum processing units (QPUs) for scalable quantum computing. Our work spans from developing the DQC architecture and demonstrating prototype optical interconnector units with quantum memory, to developing algorithms suited for the system-level architecture to show the potential advantages of DQC.

The main research focus for this post-holder is to investigate the hybrid architecture with mixed use of QPUs and conventional computer nodes (CCNs) for generic machine learning and optimization algorithms, to reveal tradeoffs among various architectural design choices. We aim to develop approaches and algorithms to partition a given computational intensive application into tasks that are allocated to distributed QPUs and CCNs for processing to achieve the highest efficiency, while considering the merits and constraints of QPUs and CCNs.

This initial term of this post is 12 months, possible renewal up to 2 years subject to funding. This position is an excellent opportunity for a researcher with strong background in quantum computing, quantum networks and/or conventional communication networks and distributed computing. Strong analytic skills including stochastic models, optimization and algorithm design will be helpful.

Duties and responsibilities 

• To plan and carry out research in accordance with the project aims and timeframes.
• To propose and investigate new techniques, algorithms and architectures for quantum networks and hybrid quantum computing.
• To verify and characterize system performance of the distributed quantum computing for optimization and machine learning tasks such as finance and/or aeronautic applications.

Essential requirements

• Hold a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a closely related discipline, or equivalent research, industrial or commercial experience 
• Near completion of a PhD (or equivalent) Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a closely related discipline
• Conventional communication networks and/or distributed computing
• Quantum computing and/or communications

*Candidates who have not yet been awarded their PhD will initially be appointed at the Research Assistant level within the salary range £40,694 - £43,888 per annum.

Prospective candidates may contact Prof Kin Leung (kin.leung@imperial.ac.uk) for further details.

Any queries regarding the application process should be directed to Vanessa Rodriguez-Gonzalez v.rodriguez-gonzalez@imperial.ac.uk

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/

The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes where their use is shown to be necessary for developing new treatments and making medical advances. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level.

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-integrity/animal-research/ 

Closing date: 19^th May 2024

Apply online via the above ‘Apply’ button.

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