Introduction to Quantum Computing

In just hours or days, a quantum computer can solve complex problems that would otherwise take billions of years for today's computers to solve. This has massive implications for research and workforce development for healthcare, energy, and environmental systems. Microsoft is focused on bringing the only scalable quantum system to the broadest set of customers and partnering with universities to ensure that we have the people ready to staff the quantum economy and ecosystem of tomorrow. This workshop includes: An overview of quantum computing. A brief landscape discussion on Microsoft's unique approach to quantum computing, including our "full stack" approach and why there is high demand for learning quantum computing these days. An overview and case study of hands-on, software-driven quantum computing curriculum. Our quantum computing experts partnered with University of Washington to bring a 10-week, for credit, course "Introduction to quantum computing and quantum programming in Q#" to the school of Computer Science. We discuss why it is important to bring quantum programming into quantum computing courses, showcase our approach to doing this and discuss the results. Demo and Hands-on: In this session you will learn one of the core quantum algorithms, Grover's search, in a hands-on quantum programming tutorial. You will implement the algorithm in Q# and see how it enables a quadratic speedup for solving search problems. You will also learn how students can get started with hands-on quantum programming quickly by completing a rich collection of self-guided quantum programming tutorials exercises in Q# (the Quantum Katas). Please bring laptop computers for hands-on portion.