Title

Cloud computing and security in the era of quantum processors

Abstract

Quantum computing is presently one of the most rapidly advancing technology areas, with significant work in progress on both hardware and software fronts. During the last five years, the emergence of a variety of small-scale quantum processors consisting of a few tens to a few hundreds of qubits has led to the development of software and algorithms at a rapid pace, with thousands of researchers around the world benchmarking their ideas through cloud access to the quantum processors. Quantum cloud computing and the security of quantum computation in shared cloud environments have, in themselves, become an important sub-area of research. In this talk, I aim to start with a brief, gentle introduction to quantum computing, providing an overview of the recent developments and open research questions. I will then highlight our recent research work on quantum cloud computing and security, covering quantum computing as a service, resource management in cloud services, and security attacks and defence in shared quantum computing platforms.

Biography

Professor Muhammad Usman is the Head of Quantum Systems and Senior Principal Staff Member at CSIRO which is Australia's National Research Organisation. He has over 15 years of research and teaching experience in the field of Quantum Computing with a track-record over 125 research papers in high-impact international journals. Professor Usman is leading a team of over 20 researchers working at the forefront of quantum algorithms, quantum software engineering, and quantum security. He is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics (FAIP) and serves on the executive editorial boards of multiple international journals including IOP Nano Futures and Nature Scientific Reports. He has academic associations at the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and RMIT. Prof Usman's work on Quantum Computing was the Winner of the State of Victoria iAward 2024, Innovative of the Year 2023 Award by Defence Industry, Winner of the Australian Army Quantum Technology Challenge in three consecutive years (2021, 2022 and 2023), Rising Stars in Computational Materials Science by Elsevier in 2020, and Dean's Award for Excellence in Research (Early Career) at the University of Melbourne in 2019. He is a recipient of prestigious international research fellowships from Fulbright USA (20005-2010) and DAAD Germany in 2010 and has received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University USA in 2010.