Please find below the words of Jon Wingborg after his travel to Washington D.C. and the Quantum World Congress (September 9th-11th, 2024).
“Looking back on an intense week in Washington D.C. with the Swedish delegation consisting of:
It has been an amazing week!
A major part of our Swedish delegation arrived in Washington D.C. on September 8th. That gave us a chance for some obligatory sightseeing in the city before the week kick-started with a visit to John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg Center and a workshop regarding Global Quantum Strategies. The workshop hosted in total 23 speakers where Sweden was represented by Tomas Andersson from the Research council. Tomas presented an overview of the Swedish eco-system around Quantum Technology and the work related to the upcoming Swedish quantum-strategy.
The conference started in a small scale on Monday September 9th and the Swedish delegations several events during the day. For example, we participated in an international forum around themes such as “Sustainable Funding Through Collaboration”, “Scaling Commercialization” and “Cross-Border Collaboration” and in the evening, there were a round-table discussion, with leading academics and companies from both US and Sweden, at the Swedish Embassy. The discussions focused on finding effective funding schemes which could increase collaborations between the two countries. In the evening, the Swedish ambassador Urban Ahlin hosted a dinner for Quantum World Congress VIP guests at the House of Sweden, to which the Swedish delegation was invited. At the dinner, both Tomas Andersson and I had the chance to present what we in Sweden do when it comes to Quantum Technology.
On Tuesday, the conference started for real, and we had set up our both in the exhibition all. In the booth all seven companies represented in the delegation had a chance to showcase what they do, and it was also a good opportunity for having discussions related to QSIP. In the evening, we were invited to the residence of the Danish ambassador. Besides being a great occasion for mingle with a delegation from our Nordic neighbor, we also had the chance to listen to Nils Bohr’s grandchildren.
The conference continued during Wednesday, and I had the great pleasure to be on stage giving an update about what is happening in Sweden in regards of Quantum Technology. Since each country was not given much time, I focused the talk around four topics: (i) The formation of QSIP, (ii) the upcoming Swedish national strategy (iii) an increased Nordic collaboration and (iv) the development of Quantum Computers at Chalmers University of Technology.
Before going back to Sweden, at least some of us had the pleasure to visit the facilities of IonQ and the Quantum Technology Center at Maryland University (Quantum technology Center).
In summary, this conference has been good for positioning Sweden and QSIP and hopefully it can evolve in many international collaborations. Thank all involved for an amazing week in Washington D.C!”
