"The level of Argentine physicists is very high, both those who come out of the UBA and the Balseiro Institute, or other universities such as Córdoba. I know and have had Argentine scientists working with me. It is another question whether they have the means to be able to develop research as in other countries. And they don't. That's why Argentines come here or go to the U.S. or other places, but still in Argentina there is a group that investigates very well. With more difficulties than in other countries such as Germany, but it is very noteworthy what they are doing," Ignacio Cirac, one of the "fathers" of quantum computing, who develops this technology at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, where he is the director, told Clarín.
Spanish physicist Ignacio Cirac, specialized in quantum computing.
In answer to the simple question about Argentine scientists, the expertsummarized the opportunities that the country loses today for not having minimally ordered its economy in recent decades.
The chances that Argentina wastes to be able to take advantage of the talent it trains in its universities, thus influencing the most relevant projects that are being developed in the world and taking some economic and social advantage from them.
Although quantum physics, and its technological derivative -quantum computing-, appear today before most Argentines as a rarity -with so many urgencies to solve-, among experts it is known that it is a technology with a future, which promises to change the world.
The calculation capacity of the machines that emerge from this discipline will be exponentially greater than that of the current ones and the use that can be given to them, they say, we can not even imagine yet. There is talk of academic applications and the development of new materials, but also of advances in the field of logistics or artificial intelligence.
There are still many questions, but one certainty: that valuable patents will come out of quantum computing, which will be used by the laboratories and countries that develop them. And there go the Argentine physicists, trained in Argentina, to nurture these projects in the world.
It can be argued that in these research centers there are the best scientists from all countries (not only the Argentine ones) and it is true. But few are as recognized as ours, as Cirac did in the talk with this newspaper.
Like Vaca Muerta or lithium, Argentina has a competitive advantage there: a recognized hotbed of scientists who find it difficult to retain and end up playing in the big leagues. There seem to be no plans in the leadership to overturn this result.
See also
Ignacio Cirac: "There is going to be a quantum revolution in the home, we must be prepared"
See also