Lectures on Computation

Recent data shows that 87% of Artificial Intelligence/Big Data projects don't make it into production (VB Staff, 2019), meaning that most projects are never deployed. This book addresses five common pitfalls that prevent projects from reaching deployment and provides tools and methods to avoid those pitfalls. Along the way, stories from actual experience in building and deploying data science projects are shared to illustrate the methods and tools. While the book is primarily for data science practitioners, information for managers of data science practitioners is included in the Tips for Managers sections.

Quantum computers can (in theory) solve certain problems far faster than a classical computer running any known classical algorithm. While existing technologies for building quantum computers are in their infancy, it is not too early to consider their scalability and reliability in the context of the design of large-scale quantum computers. To architect such systems, one must understand what it takes to design and model a balanced, fault-tolerant quantum computer architecture. The goal of this lecture is to provide architectural abstractions for the design of a quantum computer and to explore the systems-level challenges in achieving scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computation. In this lecture, we provide an engineering-oriented introduction to quantum computation with an overview of the theory behind key quantum algorithms. Next, we look at architectural case studies based upon experimental data and future projections for quantum computation implemented using trapped ions.