About me

Xiaodi Wu ( in simplified Chinese )

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Fellow at the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS). I am also an Amazon Visiting Academic working for AWS Braket.

I received my Ph.D. in theoretical computer science in 2013 (advisor: Yaoyun Shi) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I received my B.S. degree in mathematics and physics in 2008 from the Academic Talent Program, Tsinghua University.

Before coming to Maryland, I was an Assistant Professor in the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Oregon from 2015 to 2017. Before that, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2013 to 2015 (advisor: Aram Harrow, Scott Aaronson). I was also a Simons Research Fellow at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at Berkeley, for the program of Quantum Hamiltonian Complexity in Spring 2014 (advisor: Umesh Vazirani). I also spent two summers at the Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo as a student intern (advisor: John Watrous).

Research Interests

My research aims to identify and contribute to the research where the ideas from computer science in general, i.e., computational thinking, can help facilitate the implementation of end-to-end quantum applications. To that end, my research investigates a broad range of perspectives on quantum computing, including its theoretical foundation and applications, applications and system engineering of near-term quantum devices, the software foundation (programming languages and system) of quantum computing, and the computer-aided design for quantum devices. Recently, my group has a specific focus on developing both the application and the software toolchain for analog quantum computing for near-term applications.

Specifically, I am interested in the study of quantum information through the perspective of theoretical computer science, which includes:

• quantum algorithms

• quantum computational complexity

• quantum cryptography

My research also aims to contribute to the theory and practice of near-term quantum applications, which include:

• quantum applications in optimization, simulation, and machine learning, especially those compatible with analog quantum computing

• the foundation of variational quantum methods

• (practical) delegation and verification of specific quantum computing tasks, e.g., supremacy and simulation tasks

• architecture, control, and system engineering for near-term quantum machines

• quantum sensing networks for localization and synchronization

It also aims to contribute to the software foundation in quantum computing, which includes:

• formally verified software toolchain for quantum computing (e.g. a certified optimizing compiler for quantum programs)

• quantum program design, analysis, and verification

• analog quantum computing toolchain (e.g., compilation to analog quantum simulators)

• quantum software-defined networks and network programming

• mechanized and automated proof of the security of quantum cryptography

as well as its application in the computer-aided design of quantum devices:

• hardware description languages and design automation for quantum devices

Please check my Research Overview for details of my existing and ongoing projects.

Shortcuts to Github Projects from my group.

Shortcuts to Expository Materials

Group Information

• Postdocs:

  • Liyi Li (co-advised with Mike Hicks, 2020 -)

  • Xiong Fan (co-advised with Jonathan Katz, 2020 - 2021. Now an assistant professor at Rutgers University. )

  • Robert Rand (co-advised with Mike Hicks, 2018-2020. Now an assistant professor at University of Chicago.)

  • QuICS Hartree Postdoctoral Fellows (who I have closely worked with): Penghui Yao (now Associate Professor at Nanjing University), Xin Wang (now Staff Researcher at Baidu), Cedric Lin (now at AWS Braket).

• Current Students:

  • (Ph.D.) Xuchen You, Yuxiang Peng, Jiaqi Leng, Jacob Young, Ethan Hickman, Haowei Deng, Yufan Zheng, Yingkang Cao, Yi Lee, Connor Clayton, Joseph Li, Suying Liu

• Past Students:

  • Shouvanik Chakrabarti (2017-2022), Ph.D. thesis on Quantum Computing for Optimization and Machine Learning. First job: VP - Applied Research Lead in the Quantum Research Team at J.P. Morgan Chase.

News

• 01/2023, my group will give four talks in APS March Meeting 2023 at session A64, A72, G70, and Y70.

• 12/2022, check our website for Quantum Hamiltonian Descent, and my talk at the Fields institute.

• 11/2022, our research paper A Convergence Theory for Over-parameterized Variational Quantum Eigensolvers will appear at QIP 2023.

• 09/2022, our research paper Differentiable Analog Quantum Computing for Optimization and Control will appear at NeurIPS 2022 as a featured paper.

• 08/2022, I am teaching an advanced graduate seminar course on the foundation of end-to-end quantum applications (CMSC 858O) in Fall 2022.

• 06/2022, our research paper Verified Compilation of Quantum Oracles will appear at the OOPSLA 2022.

• 02/2022, our research paper Algebraic Reasoning of Quantum Programs via Non-Idempotent Kleene Algebra will appear at the 43rd ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI 2022).

• 02/2022, our research paper Constant-round Blind Classical Verification of Quantum Sampling will appear at Eurocrypt 2022.

• 10/2021, I gave an invited talk in a special session on quantum machine learning at the 40th International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD 2021). slides video

• 07/2021, our research paper EasyPQC: Verifying Post-Quantum Cryptography will appear at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communication Security (CCS 2021).

• 05/2021, Congratulations to Shouvanik Chakrabarti on the J.P. Morgan Chase FLARE Fellowship.

• 05/2021, our research paper Exponentially Many Local Minima in Quantum Neural Networks will appear at the 38th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2021).

• 02/2021, Congratulations to Jiaqi Leng for presenting his first QIP talk Quantum Algorithms for Escaping from Saddle Points.

• 01/2021, Congratulations to Yuxiang Peng for winning the 2nd place in Student Research Competition (SRC) at POPL 2021.

• 01/2021, our research paper A Verified Optimizer for Quantum Circuits received a distinguished paper award at POPL 2021.

• 01/2021, I delivered a tutorial on the intersection of quantum computing and programming languages at POPL 2021. My slides are available here video.

• 12/2020, our research paper Sublinear Classical and Quantum Algorithms for General Matrix Games will appear at the 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2021).

• 11/2020, I am honored to be supported by the AFOSR Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) for developing Automated Security Analysis of Cryptographic Systems Under Quantum Attacks with formal methods.

• 10/2020, our research paper A Verified Optimizer for Quantum Circuits will appear at the 48th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL 2021).

• 10/2020, our research paper Simulating Large Quantum Circuits on A Small Quantum Computer appears at Physical Review Letters.

• 06/2020, I am guest editing a special issue on the Techniques of Programming Languages, Logic, and Formal Methods in Quantum Computing (call-for-papers) for ACM Transactions on Quantum Computing. Please contribute!! The deadline is August 15th, 2020.

• 02/2020, our research paper On the Principles of Differentiable Quantum Programming Languages will appear at the 41st ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI 2020).

• 02/2020, I am honored to be supported by the NSF CAREER award (CCF-1942837) for investigation on the foundation of end-to-end quantum applications.

• 12/2019, check out the course projects and new lecture notes from CMSC 657 in Fall 2019.

• 11/2019, our research paper Quantum algorithm for estimating volumes of convex bodies will appear at QIP 2020 as a single-track talk.

• 09/2019, our research paper Quantum Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks will appear at the 33rd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2019).

• 09/2019, I am helping manage the NSF Student Travel Grant (CCF-1946395) for QIP 2020. Please submit your application according to the instruction by AoE November 4th, 2019.

• 07/2019, I am co-organizing the First International Workshop on Programming Languages and Quantum Computing (PLanQC 2020) at POPL 2020 with Michael Hicks and Robert Rand. The deadline for submission is AOE October 28, 2019.

• 06/2019, our research paper Verified Optimization in a Quantum Intermediate Representation (extended abstract) will appear at Quantum Physics and Logic (QPL 2019).

• 04/2019, our research paper Sublinear quantum algorithms for training linear and kernel-based classifiers will appear at the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2019).

• 04/2019, our research paper Quantum SDP Solvers: Large Speed-ups, Optimality, and Applications to Quantum Learning will appear at ICALP 2019.

• 11/2018, our research papers Quantum SDP Solvers: Large Speed-ups, Optimality, and Applications to Quantum Learning and Quantum algorithms and lower bounds for convex optimization will appear at QIP 2019.

• 10/2018, I am helping manage the NSF Student Travel Grant (CCF-1840547) for QIP 2019. Please submit your application according to the instruction by AoE November 12th, 2018.

• 10/2018, our research paper Quantitative Robustness Analysis of Quantum Programs will appear at the 46th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL 2019).

• 09/2018, I am organizing a reading group on quantum programming languages in Fall 2018.

• 09/2018, I am organizing a workshop on the intersection of machine learning and quantum information (Videos and Slides NOW AVAILABLE) at QuICS on September 24 - 28, 2018.

• 01/2017, our research papers General randomness amplification with non-signaling security and Limitations of semidefinite programs for separable states and entangled games appeared at QIP 2017.

• 01/2017, our research paper Invariants of Quantum Programs: Characterizations and Generation appeared at the 44th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL 2017).

Research supported by

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Department of Energy (DOE)

Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)

Army Research Office (ARO)

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I am part of the following collaborations:

• DOE ASCR Quantum Algorithm Team: Quantum Optimization and Learning and Simulation (QOALAS).

• DOE ASCR Quantum Testbed Pathfinder at UMD.

• DOE ASCR Tough Errors Are no Match (TEAM): Optimizing the quantum compiler for noise resilience.

• DOE ASCR Fundamental Algorithmic Research for Quantum Computing (FAR-QC).

• AFOSR MURI: Semantics, Formal Reasoning, and Tools For Quantum Programming.

• NSF Collaborative Research: FET: Medium: Quantum Localization and Synchronization Networks (with MIT LIDS).

• DOE QIS Centers: Quantum Science Center (QSC).

• AFOSR MURI: Towards Robust Scalable Quantum Random Access Memories.

• NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation.

Contact

Office: IRB 5210

Address:
Computer Science
5109 Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering
8125 Paint Branch Drive
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

Email: xwu (at) cs.umd.edu