The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) hosted the 25th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers Series on 28 January, featuring Prof Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, the only Chinese Turing Prize winner.
In his talk titled “Quantum Computing: A Great Science in the Making”, Prof Yao told the audience the secrets in the atoms that could potentially unleash the enormous power of quantum computing. He also delved into the advantages of quantum computing and shared his insights into how it will revolutionize information processing.
“Quantum computer comes at a fortuitous time when the Moore’s law for computing is starting to reach its physical limit imposed by quantum mechanics. The design of quantum computer offers a daring approach: to take advantage of the quantum problem instead of fighting it,” he said.
Prof Yao received his Bachelor of Science in Physics from Taiwan University in 1967, PhD in Physics from Harvard University in 1972, and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Illinois in 1975. From 1975 onward, he served on the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California in Berkeley and Princeton University. In 2004, he joined Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he is now Dean of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences.
Prof Yao’s research interests are in the theory of computation and its applications to cryptography, algorithmic economics, and quantum computing. He is recipient of the prestigious Turing Award in 2000, as well as numerous other honors and awards, including the George Polya Prize, the Donald E. Knuth Prize, and six honorary doctorates. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academia Sinica, and the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong.
Distinguished speakers including Nobel Prize winners, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs and key financial policy shapers were invited to speak at the HKUST 25th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers Series. Prof Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate in Physics in 1997 and former US Secretary of Energy, was invited as the inaugural speaker of the series. Other speakers include Mr Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Schneider Electric; Mr Wang Shi, Founder and Chairman of China Vanke; Prof Dan Shechtman, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 2011; Prof Zhong Lin Wang, Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering and Regents’ Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology; Dr Raghuram G Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India; Mr Pinky Lai, Founder and Design Director of Brainchild Design Group and Brainchild Design Consultants; and Dr Qi Lu, Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Applications and Services Group. More talks are also being lined up.
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