What’s in it for me?

It’s time to get personal and try to answer a question you might be asking yourself: What’s in it for me? It depends on “it” and “me,” both of which could be very dynamic in nature.

Let’s start with you. If you are a person who knows nothing about flux quantum computing but you are curious to find out more about it, then you will find information about the technology, designs, latest news, discussions, projects, etc. Later you might want to become more involved to contribute to one of the projects. You could do it by contacting a lead person for the project in the coming section to be called Q-projects. After that, you would be with the Quantarctic world team working on that project.

What if you are a person who has been already working in the field? We count on your participation because only because of you and your colleagues we can build that “it” and bring new people to our field. We hope that you can kindly share your knowledge and tools by making them available to other people in our QUANTARCTIC community. Like you, I’ve been working in this field for a long time during which I’d seen a very little sharing of anything and a very few new young people joining us. It’s been more like a zero-sum game with everyone competing for a small amount of funding available from federal agencies. It indeed allowed us to develop the foundations of the field and to demonstrate new fabrication processes, new chips and tools. But I believe now we could do much more if we change that mode of operation by creating new joint projects with our colleagues around the world whereas allowing new people to join us in this work.

Let me give you just one example of the QUANTARCTIC way of design. We have multiple different fabrication technologies and logics. We as a community can develop a flux quantum design platform that would allow any designer to have his/her IP design synthesized and fabricated in any of these available technologies and logics. Then, we could use them as blocks in our more complex designs, not reinventing and re-designing the same modules again and again. Those types of projects could be funded by multiple agencies and/or private corporations from different countries because of the clear benefits for everyone working in the field. And yes, for those who are program managers at government agencies or private companies, it is how we hope to bring you and more funding into our flux quantum computing field. And finally, when it is done, it would open up a path for start-up companies to begin developing and selling flux quantum IP cores. That sounds very quantarctic, isn’t it?

As you can see, there is something (including money) for everyone in it.

Mikhail Dorojevets

ECE Dept. Stony Brook University