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Monday markedtwo years since the passage of the National Quantum Initiative, or NQI Actand in that time, federal agencies followed through on its early calls and helped lay the groundwork for new breakthroughs across the U.S. quantum realm.

Now, the sights of those helping implement the law are set on the future.

I would say in five years, something we'd love to see is ... a better idea of, What are the applications for a quantum computer thats buildable in the next fiveto 10 years, that would be beneficial to society? the Office of Science and Technology Policy Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science Dr. Charles Tahan told Nextgov in an interview Friday. He also serves as the director of the National Quantum Coordination Officea cooperation-pushing hub established by the legislation.

Tahan reflected on some foundational moves made over the last 24 months and offered a glimpse into his teams big-ticket priorities for 2021.

Quantum devices and technologies are among an ever-evolving field that hones in on phenomena at the atomic scale. Potential applications are coming to light, and are expected to radically reshape science, engineering, computing, networking, sensing, communication and more. They offer promises like unhackable internet or navigation support in places disconnected from GPS.

Federal agencies have a long history of exploring physical sciences and quantum-related pursuitsbut previous efforts were often siloed. Signed by President Donald Trump in 2018, the NQI Act sought to provide for a coordinated federal program to accelerate quantum research and development for the economic and national security of America. It assigned specific jobs for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Energy Department and National Science Foundation, among others, and mandated new collaborations to boost the nations quantum workforce talent pipeline and strengthen societys grasp of this relatively fresh area of investment. The functions of the National Quantum Coordination Office, or NQCO, were also set forth in the bill, and it was officially instituted in early 2019. Since then, the group has helped connect an array of relevant stakeholders and facilitate new initiatives proposed by the law.

Now, everything that's been called out in the act has been establishedits started up, Tahan explained. He noted the three agencies with weighty responsibilities spent 2019 planning out their courses of action within their communities, and this year, subsequently launched weighty new efforts.

One of the latest was unveiled in August by the Energy Department, which awarded $625 million over five yearssubject to appropriationsto its Argonne, Brookhaven, Fermi, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories to establish QIS Research Centers. In each, top thinkers will link up to push forward collaborative research spanning many disciplines. Academic and private-sector institutions also pledged to provide $340 million in contributions for the work.

These are about $25 million eachthat's a tremendous amount of students, and postdocs, and researchers, Tahan said. And those are spread out across the country, focusing on all different areas of quantum: computing, sensing and networking.

NSF this summer also revealed the formation of new Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes to tackle fundamental research hurdles in quantum information science and engineering over the next half-decade. The University of Colorado, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, and University of California, Berkeley are set to head and house the first three institutes, though Tahan confirmed more could be launched next year. The initiative is backed by $75 million in federal fundingand while it will take advantage of existing infrastructures, non-governmental entities involved are also making their own investments and constructing new facilities.

That's the foundation, you know, Tahan said. The teams have been formed, the research plans have been writtenthat's a tremendous amount of workand now they're off actually working. So now, we start to reap the rewards because all the heavy lifting of getting people organized has been done.

Together with NSF, OSTP also helped set in motion the National Q-12 Education Partnership. It intends to connect public, private and academic sector quantum players and cohesively create and release learning materials to help U.S. educators produce new courses to engage students with quantum fields. The work is ultimately meant to spur K-12 students' interest in the emerging areas earlier into their education, and NSF will award nearly $1 million across QIS education efforts through the work.

And beyond the governments walls and those of academia, the NQI Act also presented new opportunities for industry. Meeting the laws requirements, NIST helped convene a consortium of cross-sector stakeholders to strategically confront existing quantum-related technology, standards and workforce gaps, and needs. This year, that groupthe Quantum Economic Development Consortium, or QED-Cbloomed in size, established a more formal membership structure and announced companies that make up its steering committee.

It took a year or more to get all these companies together and then write partnership agreements. So, that partnership agreement was completed towards the beginning of summer, and the steering committee signed it over the summer, and now there are I think 100 companies or so who have signed it, Tahan said. So, it's up and running. It's a real economic development consortiumthats a technical thingand that's a big deal. And how big it is, and how fast it's growing is really, really remarkable.

This fall also brought the launch of quantum.gov, a one-stop website streamlining federal work and policies. The quantum coordination office simultaneously released a comprehensive roadmap pinpointing crucial areas of needed research, deemed the Quantum Frontiers Report.

That assessment incorporates data collected from many workshops, and prior efforts OSTP held to promote the national initiative and establishes eight frontiers that contain core problems with fundamental questions confronting QIS today and must be addressed to push forward research and development breakthroughs in the space. They include expanding opportunities for quantum technologies to benefit society, characterizing and mitigating quantum errors, and more.

It tries to cut through the hype a little bit, Tahan explained. It's a field that requires deep technical expertise. So, it's easy to be led in the wrong direction if you don't have all the data. So we try to narrow it down into here are the important problems, here's what we really don't know, heres what we do know, and go this way, and that will, hopefully benefit the whole enterprise.

Quantum-focused strides have also been made by the U.S. on the international front. Tahan pointed to the first quantum cooperation agreement signed between America and Japan late last year, which laid out basic core values guiding their working together.

We've been using that as a model to engage with other countries. We've had high-level meetings with Australia, industry collaborations with the U.K., and we're engaging with other countries. So, that's progressing, Tahan said. Many countries are interested in quantum as you can guesstheres a lot of investments around the worldand many want to work with us on going faster together.

China had also made its own notable quantum investments (some predating the NQI Act), and touted new claims of quantum supremacy, following Google, on the global stage this year.

I wouldn't frame it as a competition ... We are still very much in the research phase here, and we'll see how those things pan out, Tahan said. I think we're taking the right steps, collectively. The U.S. ecosystem of companies, nonprofits and governments arebased on our strategy, both technical and policiesgoing in the right direction and making the right investments.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris previously put forthlegislationto broadly advance quantum research, but at this point, the Biden administration hasnt publicly shared any intentions to prioritize government-steered ongoing or future quantum efforts.

[One of] the big things we're looking towards in the next year, is workforce development. We have a critical shortage or need for talent in this space. Its a very diverse set of skills. With these new centers, just do the math. How many students and postdocs are you going to need to fill up those, to do all that research? It's a very large number, Tahan said. And so we're working on something to create that pipeline.

In that light, the team will work to continue to develop NSFs ongoing, Q-12 partnership. Theyll also reflect on whats been built so far through the national initiative to identify any crucial needs that may have been looked over.

As you stand something up thats really big, you're always going to make some mistakes. What have you missed? Tahan noted.

And going forward, the group plans to hone deeper in on balancing the economic and security implications of the burgeoning fields.

As the technology gets more and more advanced, how do we be first to realize everything but also protect our investments? Tahan said. And getting that balance right is going to require careful policy thinking about how to update the way the United States does things.

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Two Years into the Government's National Quantum Initiative - Nextgov

By Nishant Rathi, CEO and Founder of NeoSOFT Technologies

The year 2020 was more than just being volatile; rather it was the year marked with numerous digital and technology advancements which were a direct response to overcome the challenging circumstances. The pandemic certainly impelled even the naysayers to go digital, and the halted ones to surge; the business spectrum had no respite than to leverage the digital wave.

The coming year foresees a promising and potential role of technology to deliver a paradigm shift in the business operation models. These game-changing technologies have the promise to impact businesses and consumers alike with their disruptive potential.

1. Smart Work-from-Home Technologies: The widespread adoption of 5G and emerging technologies such as AI and IoT will have a massive impact on the work-from-home trend that we saw becoming massively accepted in 2020. The coming year will elevate the work-from-home format to anywhere model where organizations would actually not bother if anyone is working from the moon and delivering results! Smart work-from-home technologies like remote communication tools, video calling services, project management platforms, and digital assistants shall continue being in high demand.

2. Hyperautomation: Hyperautomation is an advanced, intelligent form of automation that implements AI and ML allowing it to go beyond task-automation and accomplish process-based automation. As businesses continue leveraging advanced technologies to automate tedious, repetitive tasks and processes, the new year will see new hyperautomation technologies evolve and existing solutions to continue to advance.

3. Edge Computing: Until recently, edge computing was considered an emerging technology something akin to a science project. With the proliferation of 5G and IoT, 2021 is the year when edge computing will see doors opened for it. Its ability to accomplish complex operations in low-latency environments is expected to be the primary reason and the driving factor for businesses to eagerly adopt this technology.

4. Quantum Computing: The forthcoming year is predicted to be the year that quantum computing scales-up rapidly and grows to transform Artificial Intelligence making it more advanced called Quantum plus Artificial Intelligence (QAI). Similarly, AI applications with machine learning run on quantum computers can accelerate computer vision in the coming years quite disruptively.

5. Cognitive Foundation Technology: Cognitive Foundation (CF) optimally matches all kinds of ICT resources such as cloud, edge, terminal, network, etc., and manages information distributed among them centrally. CF creates an unconstrained platform that can analyze and forecast irrespective of the format of the systems or the data. Its self-evolving and multi-orchestrating abilities make this tech trend one to watch out for.

6. Digital Twin Computing: Digital Twin, as the name suggests, means building a digital twin of a real person or thing. They are manufactured to manage performance and effectiveness of machines, to simulate the impact of new developments, and even proactively help in designing solutions. Digital Twin Computing is a new computer paradigm which makes it possible to test and experiment multiple real-life possibilities in different environments without relying on a human to provide input. While this technology has decades to come into the mainstream, the buzz around it is sure catch eyes in 2021.

7. Robotics Process Automation: With the advances that we have already seen and the ones predicted to come, one thing is clear the world is making a shift towards high-end data usage. RPA uses software bots to tackle repetitive, cumbersome tasks unleashing the ultra-tech features of AI, ML and computer vision. Studies show that 1 minute of RPA work is worth 15 minutes of manual work with an efficiency rate like this, 2021 promises to see unseen advances and a high rate of adoption for this technology.

If you have an interesting article / experience / case study to share, please get in touch with us at [emailprotected]

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Disruptive Technologies to watch out for in 2021 - Express Computer

Jiuzhang, a quantum computer prototype developed at the University of Science and Technology of China, represents such a giant leap forward in computing that just 200 seconds of its time dedicated to a specific task would equal 600 million years of computing time for today's current most powerful supercomputer.

On Dec 4, Science magazine announced a major breakthrough made by a team from USTC headed by renowned physicist Pan Jianwei. The team had jointly developed a 76-photon Jiuzhang, realizing an initial milestone on the path to full-scale quantum computing.

This quantum computational advantage, also known as "quantum supremacy", established China's leading position in the sphere of quantum computing research in the world.

USTC has produced a string of wonders: Sending Wukong, China-'s first dark matter particle explorer, and Mozi, the world's first quantum communication satellite, into space; and witnessing the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory sending off light from the Hefei Light Source.

During the past 50 years, USTC has made significant achievements in the fields of quantum physics, high-temperature superconductivity, thermonuclear fusion, artificial intelligence and nanomaterials.

Technology is the foundation of a country's prosperity, while innovation is the soul of national progress.

Since 1970, when USTC was relocated to Hefei, Anhui province, it has focused on research and innovation, targeting basic and strategic work in a bid to fulfill its oath to scale "the peak of sciences".

The large number of world-renowned innovative achievements shined glory on USTC, exhibiting its courage to innovate, daring to surpass its peers and unremitting pursuit of striving to be a top university in the world.

Although USTC was set up only 62 years ago, it established the country's first national laboratory and also the first national research center. It has obtained the largest number of achievements selected among China's Top 10 News for Scientific and Technological Progress each year since its founding.

Its reputation as an "important stronghold of innovation" has become stronger over the years.

While facing the frontiers of world science and technology, the main economic battlefield, the major needs of China and people's healthcare, USTC focuses on cultivating high-level scientific and technological innovation talents and teams, and shoulders national tasks.

It has used innovation to generate transformative technologies and develop strategic emerging industries, perfecting its ability to serve national strategic demand, and regional economic and social development.

Facing sci-tech frontiers

USTC has top disciplines covering mathematics, physics, chemistry, Earth and space sciences, biology and materials science. While based on basic research, USTC pays close attention to cutting-edge exploration, encouraging innovative achievements.

Serving major needs

In response to major national needs, USTC has led and participated in a number of significant scientific and technological projects that showcase the nation's strategic aims.

For example, sending the Mozi satellite and Wukong probe into space. Meanwhile, it also participated in the development of core components of Tiangong-2, China's first space lab, and Tianwen-1, the nation's first Mars exploration mission.

Main economic battlefield

In the face of economic and social development needs, USTC has balanced meeting national needs and boosting exploration in frontier spheres.

It has witnessed a series of innovative achievements in the fields of materials science, energy, environment, advanced manufacturing, AI, big data and security.

Safeguarding health

USTC's School of Life Sciences was founded in 1958 with emphasis on biophysics. In recent years, this flourished into many branches of biological sciences.

The new School of Life Sciences was established in Hefei in 1998. Based on its years of cultivation in the field of life sciences, the university has contributed much to China's medical science.

In 2020, the university developed the "USTC protocol" to treat COVID-19 patients, which has been introduced to more than 20 countries and regions.

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Scaling the heights of quantum computing to deliver real results - Chinadaily.com.cn - China Daily

Have you ever heard of Quantum Chess? If not, we are confident you are in for a real treat.

Read on to find out more about this interesting take on a very ancient strategy game. But brace yourself, things are about to get a little "spooky".

RELATED: WINNER OF THE WORLD'S FIRST QUANTUM CHESS TOURNAMENT ANNOUNCED

Quantum Chess is a variant of the classical strategy game. It incorporates the principles of quantum physics. For example, unlike traditional chess, the piecescan be placed into a superposition of two locations, meaning that a piece can occupy more than one square.

Unlike chesspieces in the conventional game where, for example, a pawn is always a pawn, aquantum chesspiece is a superposition of "states", with each state representing a different conventional piece.

Conventional chess is a very complex game, although it is possible for computer algorithmsto beat the world's greatest chess playersby accurately determining the moves necessary to win the game at any point.

The main rationale behind the creation of Quantum Chess is to introduce an element of unpredictability into the game, and thereby place the computer and the human on a more equal footing. The game can also help "level the playing field" somewhat between human players of widely different skills and experience with chess.

Its like youre playing in a multiverse but the different boards [in different universes] are connected to each other, said Caltech physicist Spiros Michalakis during aLivestreamof a recent Quantum Chess tournament. It makes 3D chess fromStar Treklook silly.

But don't let the term intimidate you. New players to the game don't need to be experts in quantum physics a basic understanding of chess is more important actually.

While it might sound like something of a gimmick, Quantum Chess is an interesting and entertaining spin on the classic game that many find enjoyable. Unless, of course, you cannot live without knowing for sure what and where each piece is at any given time.

If that is the case, you might find this one of the most frustrating games ever created!

Quantum Chess, as you have probably already worked out, is not like any game of classical chess you have ever played. But, it is important to note that there are also several variants of Quantum Chess.

The best known is probably the one created by Chris Cantwell when he was a graduate student at theUniversity of Southern California.This variant differs from other examples by the fact that it is more "truly quantum" than others.

My initial goal was to create a version of quantum chess that was truly quantum in nature, so you get to play with the phenomenon,Cantwell said in an interview with Gizmodoback in 2016.

I didnt want it to just be a game that taught people, quantum mechanics. The idea is that by playing the game, a player will slowly develop an intuitive sense of the rules governing the quantum realm. In fact, I feel like Ive come to more intuitively understand quantum phenomena myself, just by making the game, he added.

In Cantwell's version of Quantum Chess, this superposition of pieces is indicated by a ring that details the probability that the piece can actually be found in a given square. Not only that, but when moving a piece, each action can also be governed by probability.

You can think of the pieces of the game existing on multiple boards in which their numbers are also not fixed. The board you see is a kind of overview of all of these other boards and a single move acts on other boards at the same time.

Whenever a piece moves, many calculations are made behind the scenes to determine the actual outcome, which could be completely unexpected.

That being said, moves do follow the basic rules of traditional chess, including things like castling and en passant. However, there are a few important differences:

Pieces in this version of Quantum Chess can make a series of either "quantum moves" (except for pawns) or regular chess moves. In this sense, the pieces can occupy more than one square on the multiverse of boards simultaneously.

These moves also come in a variety of "flavors".

The first is a move called a "split move". This can be performed by all non-pawn pieces and allows a piece to actually occupy two different target squares that it could traditionally reach in normal chess.

But, this can only be done if the target square is unoccupied or is occupied by pieces of the same color and type. A white knight, for example, could use this kind of move to occupy the space of another white knight.

Such a move cannot; however, be used to capture an opponent's piece.

Another interesting move is called a "merge move". This can be performed by all pieces except pawns and, like a split move, can only be performed on an unoccupied square or one occupied by a piece of the same type and color.

Using our previous example of a white knight, this would mean that two white knights could merge together on the same square. Again, this move cannot be used to capture enemy pieces.

So how do you take pieces in Quantum Chess?

Well, when two pieces of different colors meet on the same square the game makes a series of measurements.These measurements are designed to answer a specific yes or no question.

For example, the game's mechanics will look at certain squares to determine if they are occupied or not.The outcome of this can be to cause a piece's "superposition" state to "collapse".

If the superposition state collapses, then the desired move will be performed. If not, the move is not made and the player's turn ends.

Capturing is also very different in a game of Quantum Chess. When a player attempts to do this, the game will make calculations for the square where the piece is situated and for its target square, as well as any other squares in its path, to answer the question, "is the attacking piece present and can it reach the target?".

If the answer is no, it is important to note that this doesn't necessarily mean the attacking piece is not present. Nor does it mean that its path is blocked.

Another interesting concept of Quantum Chess is called "exclusion". If a moving target is occupied and is in superposition by a piece that cannot be captured by the move, it is called an exclusion move.

Again, calculations are made for the target square and any squares in the path of an allowed move by a piece in superposition. This is done to answer the same question as capturing, with similar outcomes.

Castling is also very different in Quantum Chess. This move always involves two targets, and the same measurements are made for both targets. Castling cannot be used to capture, and will always be an exclusion move.

So, you might be wondering how you actually win a game of Quantum Chess?

Just like traditional chess, the aim of the game is to capture the opponent's king. However, unlike in traditional chess, the concept of checkmate does not exist.

To win, the enemy king must no longer actually exist on the board. As any piece, including the king, exist in a state of superposition, they can either be captured or not which further complicates the issue.

The game, therefore, continues until it is known, with certainty, that a particular player has no king left. For this reason, it is possible for both players to lose their king at the same time and the game would then be considered a draw.

Another important thing to note is that each player has a set amount of time for the game. For this reason, you can also win by running an opponent's time out.

How you play Quantum Chess depends on the variant of the game you are playing. We have already covered the rules of one variant above, and that game can be played throughQuantum Realm Games. But another version created byAlice Wismath at theSchool of Computing at Queen's University in Californiahas some slightly different rules.

You can try that game for yourself here.

In her version, each player has sixteen pieces. These pieces are in a quantum state of superposition of two types: a primary and a secondary type.

They are also in an unknown (quantum) type or a known (classical) type.When a piece is "touched" it collapses into its classical state and has an equal probability of becoming either a primary or secondary type. The king, however, is an exception, and is always in a classical state.

Each player has one king and its position is always known.

All other pieces are assigned the following primary piece types: left rook, left bishop, left knight, queen, right knight, right bishop, right rook, and pawns one through eight. Secondary piece types are then randomly assigned from this same list of piece types so that each type occurs exactly twice in the player's pieces.

Each piece is created at the start of each game and superpositions are not changed throughout the game. Pieces also start as they would in regular chess, on the first two rows, according to their primary piece type with all, except the king, in a state of superposition.

Once a quantum state piece is touched (i.e. chosen to move), it collapses into one of its two predetermined states, and this state is suddenly revealed to both players.

This can mean that a pawn in the front row can suddenly become a white knight once the piece has been "touched". You won't know until the piece's quantum state collapses.

Quantum Chess boards are the same as regular chess boards except that when a piece lands on a white square it remains in its classical state. When pieces land on black squares, however, they undergo a quantum transformation and regain, if lost, their quantum superposition.

This means that a previously "revealed" pawn can also suddenly transform into a queen if that was one of its predetermined primary or secondary types. A very interesting concept indeed.

To play the game, each player chooses a piece to move and must move it. If the quantum piece collapses into a piece type with no possible moves, then the player's move is over.

Pieces in classical states with no possible moves cannot be chosen. All pieces move as they would in classical chess with some of the following exceptions:

Pieces can also be captured as normal, and quantum pieces collapse from their superposition state and are removed from play.

If a player touches a quantum piece that collapses into a state that puts the opponent's king in check, their move is over. The opponent, however, is not required to get out of check in such circumstances.

Pawns that reach the opposite side of the board can be promoted to aqueen, bishop, rook, or knight, regardless of the number of pieces of that type already in the game. Also, if a piece in the quantum state on the far row is touched and revealed to be a pawn, it is promoted, but the promotion takes up the turn. The superimposed piece type is not affected.

To win the game, each player must capture the enemy's king, as a checkmate does not happen in Quantum Chess. For this reason, kings can actually move into a position that would normally be considered check.

Games are considered a draw if both opponents are left with only their king in play or 100 consecutive moves have been made with no captures or pawn movements by either player.

It was recently announced that the world's first Quantum Chess tournament had been won by Aleksander Kubica, a postdoctoral fellow at Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and Institute for Quantum Computing. The tournament was held on the 9th of December 2020 at the Q2B 2020 conference.

The tournament games are timed, and Kubica managed to beat his opponent, Google's Doug Strain, by letting him run out of time. This currently makes Kubica officially the best Quantum Chess player in the world.

Not a bad way to see out one of the worst years in living memory.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap.

If you like the sound of playing Quantum Chess, why not check out either of the versions we have discussed above in this article. Who knows, you might get proficient enough to challenge Kubica for the title in the not too distant future?

Read this article:
What the Hell Is Quantum Chess? | IE - Interesting Engineering

Princeton University has discussed plans to create an additional campus across Lake Carnegie a campus that would potentially create an innovation center that could attract companies seeking the next great technological advancement. (More on that later.)

President Chris Eisgruber is just as excited to talk about the schools commitment to a different kind of expansion: One that would increase the number of low-income and first-generation students attending the nations premier university.

Its just such a passion for me, he said. One of the things Im proudest of is that we have become a national leader in terms of attracting students from low-income backgrounds and graduating them and seeing them go off and do spectacular things, with, I hope, many of them staying here in the state of New Jersey.

As we continue to look to elevate and nurture talent, it will be important to what Princeton University is doing going forward.

Going forward is a relative phrase these days. Princeton like all universities and much of society is eager to just return to the way it was. Few parts of society were as impacted as greatly by COVID-19 as higher education.

Princeton will bring its students back to campus next semester and do it with a rigorous testing system, while school officials await the day when everyone will be vaccinated. But, even then, Eisgruber knows the school will be different.

While the COVID-19 pandemic impacted how students learn, the murder of George Floyd led to a reexamination of how everyone thinks about racial equity and equality. At Princeton, that meant another look at the racist views of one of its former presidents, Woodrow Wilson, and the removal of his name from a number of prominent places.

Eisgruber discussed all of this and more in a recent chat for the Interview Issue, our annual year-end give-and-take with some of the most inspiring and intriguing people around the state.

Heres a look at the conversation, edited for space and clarity.

ROI-NJ: We have to start with COVID-19. Give us an overview of how that has impacted Princeton?

Chris Eisgruber: Education depends on engagement and personal interaction; thats what we try to provide. Thats the key to teaching that really inspires. But, the same kind of engagement and intimacy thats so valuable to education is also what spreads this virus. So, weve had the problem that the thing that is at our core of education has suddenly become dangerous in the midst of this pandemic, and weve had to adapt to that.

We made the tough decision to go online in the fall, and Ive been so impressed by the way our staff and our students and our faculty have worked together to find possibilities for making online education real and meaningful. And then, weve been working hard to find ways to bring back people to campus and do it safely. Im grateful to lots of people around this campus and to our alumni, who made it possible for us to set up a testing laboratory on the campus, so we can test our students twice a week, every week, even if the entire population looks asymptomatic.

We are working to de-densify, so that, in our housing system, well be able to have students one per room. Weve established a culture of masking and social distancing. So, Im confident that we can bring back students in the spring and bring them back safely. But Im among the many people who are looking forward to the day when we can get everybody vaccinated and we can go back to the in-person elements that add so much more to our education.

ROI: We have to think that virtual learning will continue in some fashion. How could that work?

CE: I think it will vary from institution to institution. I do think, for all of us, this will give us additional arrows in our quiver. The obvious place is in terms of guest speakers or when students are studying abroad or when a faculty member has to travel someplace. Its one thing when everything has to be on Zoom all the time. Its another if you suddenly realize, OK, distance doesnt have to be a barrier.

I still think in-person instruction will be the dominant mode of delivery, but, yes, you will still see (some virtual instruction) where we cant deliver the in-person experience.

ROI: Lets move to other big event of 2020, the killing of George Floyd and the long overdue discussion of racial equity, opportunity and justice that came about. The issue, of course, was reflected at Princeton in the removal of Woodrow Wilsons name from a number of key spots. Talk about how Princeton attempted to address all of these issues.

CE: I think we and other colleges and universities have a responsibility to be sites for honest confrontation with the right and wrongs of history and for conversations about very difficult subjects. And, obviously, race is a very hard subject to talk about in the United States and to talk about on our college campus. And we havent always done well with that.

Weve had to wrestle with Woodrow Wilsons legacy. I will say, personally, that, when I took office, I wasnt aware that he had resegregated the federal civil service. We talked about him on this campus in a way that didnt recognize that or acknowledge it. And I think that has been part of this problem of indifference thats held us back as a country and as a university as we reach for our highest aspirations.

ROI: How do we address this?

CE: This moment remains a moment of great challenge. These issues are so hard, and the problems have been so longstanding, but it also is a moment of opportunity for us. I think there is a greater and wider recognition of the need to do more affirmatively, even more than weve done. I know the state of New Jersey has been a leader in a lot of things. This university has tried to be a leader on a lot of things, but we need to do even more in order to reach our highest aspirations.

I assign a book to the incoming students every year. This year, it was a book by the historian Jill Lepore called This America: The Case for the Nation, which tries to tell the story of both the great triumphs and aspirations, but also the story of the failures. And she starts, to that end, with this quotation from W.E.B. Du Bois, which I now find myself quoting again and again to our students and alumni. In 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois said: Nations reel and stagger on their way. They make hideous mistakes. They commit frightful wrongs. They do great and beautiful things, and shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this so far as the truth is ascertainable?

And thats what I think we have tried to hold ourselves to do. And it is incredibly hard. And depending on who the audience is, they may hear or want to hear only one side of this. I think we have to tell it all, and thats the challenge.

Oswald Veblen. He was a mathematician here in the early 20th century. And he basically transformed the math and physics departments in this university and helped to start the Institute for Advanced Study. Hes not well known, but he should be. He realized early on what was happening in Nazi Germany and helped to bring over a number of Jewish refugees who otherwise would have perished. I think hes one of the unsung heroes. He just stands for so many things, from academic excellence to being a great citizen of the university to being somebody who helps the refugee in a time of need. So, he gets my vote.

Its humanity: One of the things that I love about New Jersey is that the people are real and theyre not pretentious.

One of the things were really going to want after this pandemic is to bring back the restaurants that have been badly affected. Thats going to matter to attracting young talent and keeping it here. One thing that stands in the way of aspiring chefs that might want to start interesting places that are cool and attractive to young people are the states liquor laws in particular, the difficulty that restaurants have in getting licenses in the state. I think it puts us at a real competitive disadvantage, by comparison to New York and Pennsylvania. So, Im going to put in a plug for our restaurant industry on that, and for the importance of having cool places that attract young people.

ROI: This challenge reaches all areas of the university. Sometimes in good ways. Princeton has had some successes in fundraising this year one was a gift from Mellody Hobson, a businesswomen, philanthropist and alumna that will have significance beyond the dollars and cents. Talk about her gift.

CE: Fundamentally, the process of fundraising at Princeton is about a desire of our friends and our alumni to pay it forward to future generations to do things that will make a difference at the university and beyond it. What we want to do right now, as we think about our current capital campaign, is to enable more students from more backgrounds to make a difference for the better in the world. And I think that message continues to resonate with our alumni.

One of our happiest moments during this difficult year was when we were able to announce the gift that will create Mellody Hobson College on the site where Wilson College was previously located. And I know, for many of our alumni and many of our students, the idea that they would be able to identify with an alum like Mellody Hobson, with her story of coming from Chicago as a first-generation Black student to Princeton University, then going on to this career of extraordinary national significance, means a lot. I think its a symbol for us. Its a symbol for students who will make a difference later in their lives. And its a symbol for higher education.

ROI: We are a business journal at heart. So, lets talk about how the university is connected to the business community in the state.

CE: Increasing Princetons connection to the New Jersey economic environment is important for us and the state of New Jersey because of its connections to our teaching and research mission. This is a change from the days when Albert Einstein was kind of the paradigmatic Princeton professor, thinking thoughts to win Nobel Prizes, but thoughts that didnt have immediate application in the business world. Nowadays, my top researchers, some of them who get whispered about in terms of winning Nobel Prizes, say their research is going to be better if they have more connection to the applied world, because theyre going to learn more about which problems need their attention, or where the really interesting issues are. And they want their research to have an application to the world.

One example of that, which really connects directly back to Einstein, is around quantum computing. We have an initiative in quantum computing. Some of our faculty are associated with a multiuniversity partnership that has a lot of government funding behind it. The Plasma Physics Laboratory is working on expanding into the area of nanochip technology. This is applying some of the most theoretical and worldly ideas that Einstein thought about. It is now the critical technology in terms of the next advances in computing. We would love to see all of that happen right here in central New Jersey. If we could be recognized as the place to go when it comes to quantum computing, thats going to be really good for the intellectual environment around Princeton University and really good for the state of New Jersey.

I think weve got the edge in terms of having the talent and the fundamentals here. And I think there are a number of other areas, like what were doing in bioengineering, what were doing in computer science. So, weve been really pleased that the New Jersey business community seems to have responded well to that. Its been a priority for Gov. (Phil) Murphys administration. And we hope that these initiatives will continue to grow.

ROI: Like the Princeton campus. This takes us back to an expansion across the lake.

CE: We want to expand gradually, because we want to make sure that were preserving the character of a Princeton education. So, one of the things were doing as were building these two new residential colleges is making sure that, as we start renovating some of our existing space, we will have the capacity to expand down the line.

We have land across the lake that is as large as our current campus. And part of what we have started to do is to put in place a general development plan for that land. Our belief is that the campus, as it develops over time, can be an important site for innovation and entrepreneurship. And part of what were thinking about is that the campus should develop with a character on the other side of the lake that provides a home to joint ventures of a sort that we cant quite imagine yet.

The example that I always give folks is, back in the 80s, Microsoft came to Cambridge University in England and said, Were interested in doing something jointly with your computer science department. And Cambridge, which has a lot of similarities to Princeton, was able to say Yes, because they had the equivalent of our land across the lake and they were ready to go and they were able to green-light it.

We want to be able to do that in New Jersey. If we get the right kind of project that advances our mission, and that could be good here for the innovation ecosystem, we want to be able to say, Yes, and that is one of the reasons why we are moving forward with planning for that.

Original post:
The Interview Issue: Eisgruber is trying to reshape the meaning of a Princeton education even as his school, and higher ed as a whole, grapples with...