Imagine the future: USask celebrates International Year of Quantum Science and Technology

The year 2025 has been named the UNESCO International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ), recognizing “100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics.”

But what does celebrating quantum sciences look like at USask and around the world?

USask’s Dr. Steven Rayan (PhD), professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in USask’s College of Arts and Science, the director of the Centre for Quantum Topology and Its Applications (quanTA), and the lead for USask’s Signature Area of Research in Quantum Innovation, affectionately calls quantum research “the science of the very small” – exploring the unique quantum principles and qualities of infinitesimal subatomic particles and how those can be leveraged in practical ways.

We spoke to Rayan about this international quantum celebration:

Q: What does it mean to you as a quantum researcher that the world is celebrating quantum science this year?

A: It really verifies that quantum right now is a worldwide phenomenon. It’s being paid attention to the world over and I think that’s partly what triggered this designation.

For me, it shows that we’re on the right track – in fact, a little ahead of the curve with USask declaring Quantum Innovation a Signature Area of Research back in 2022. It just speaks to the sheer importance of the time and energy we’re devoting to quantum questions here at USask.

Q: Why this year? What’s the significance?

A: It’s an auspicious year. 2025 is kind of the 100th anniversary of quantum in some ways. There were foundational papers in quantum mechanics that were first published in 1925. For instance, one very special paper by Erwin Schrodinger, who was one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum theory.

Q: You mentioned Schrödinger. Should we talk about Schrödinger’s cat, since it’s one of the most famous quantum thought experiments ever?

A: Basically, the idea is that if a cat is in a sealed box and you can’t see what’s going on inside it, you don’t know if the cat is alive or, well, I'll say ‘not alive’ because that’s somehow less morbid.

So, you could say that the cat is really in a superposition of alive and dead. It’s like a mix of two states. That’s the best you can say about this cat until you open the box and then find out what it is. That’s the famous wave function collapse ... it’s a good macroscopic demonstration of quantum thinking. This cat being alive or not alive is no different than the uncertainty of an electron being spin up or spin down before it’s been measured and then collapses to one of those specific states.

Q: What does the next stage of quantum science look like? How has this evolved over the years?

A: These are the next-generation quantum technologies – quantum computers, quantum sensors, quantum communication systems. All of these utilize quantum entanglement. I think that’s the difference between 1.0 and 2.0. You could say that quantum 1.0, those earliest technologies which still persist and which we rely on intimately today, make great use of superposition, which we talked about in the context of Schrödinger’s cat.

Superposition is a property of a single quantum particle, but entanglement is a quantum property of two or more quantum particles ... There’s these strange entangled, inseparable mixed states that are bigger than the sum of their parts. The existence of those states is the driving force behind this entire quantum 2.0.

Those entangled states were predicted by those early quantum pioneers, but no one could experimentally show the existence of these states until the 1980s, and the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics was for the experimental discovery of entanglement. That to me is the watershed moment of “quantum 2.0” – to be able to experimentally generate and control these entangled states ... this is the heart of this scientific and technological revolution. For example, through these enhanced states, quantum computers can treat themselves to a “free lunch.” They can churn out much more data than they originally took in, unlike ordinary computers whose outputs are just a rearrangement of their inputs. It’s almost like magic!

Q: What can we expect from the year of quantum around the world?

A: I think there’s going to be an immense rallying of different kinds of expertise ... What’s important to recognize is that quantum is not just a science at this stage, it’s kind of a movement and it’s being spurred on by how, again, we’re turning science into practical technology.

Q: How is USask celebrating the IYQ?

A: I think the interest of the general public and the community at large in quantum is going to be at a kind of fever pitch during the quantum year. And I think that’s going to bear out in the involvement of, for instance, the arts in representing quantum and being inspired by quantum, or by trying to inspire science in turn. I think we’ll see a communication channel between arts, the community, and science.

I’d like to think that our first official event in the quantum calendar here at USask is emblematic of that. There is a public reading of Copenhagen, a play by Michael Frayn, which is going to take place on Friday, Jan. 31.

We’re going to have special lectures and presentations, a quantum computing hackathon for students, we’re probably going to have a major conference, and might have another reading of a play to bookend the year ... Anyone who cares, even remotely about what the future holds, should invest a little bit of time thinking about quantum. Not everyone knows a quantum physicist or quantum mathematician but pick your favourite person who is even marginally interested in science and technology and have fun trying to imagine the future with them. That future is quantum and it’s coming sooner than we think.