Since the advent of the first modern computer in mid 20th century, information technology has gone through rapid growth thanks to the development of semiconductor technology and the design optimization of information processing system. Unfortunately, such kind of progress started to face the physical limitation as the size of the device gets smaller, and eventually even Intel and Samsung declared the end of Moore's law recently. On the contrary, the interest in the high-performance computing required for artificial intelligence or block-chain is growing, and therefore we need different computing model to fill the gap between the demand for high-performance computing and the current computing power. Also, we need a new approach to complement the current network security system as the importance of the privacy and data protection is being emphasized in the 4th industrial revolution.

Quantum computing is considered as one of the options to provide exponential speed-up in some of the computational problems, and therefore many global IT companies such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Alibaba, Huawei invested on development of quantum computers in addition to several quantum computing start-up companies. Quantum cryptography is also considered as a way to complement the limitation of public-key cryptography and nowadays even Korean telecom companies are competing with each other.

In this talk, I will first introduce the concept of quantum key distribution (QKD) and quantum computing based on the control of individual particles and quantum superposition, which is different from the traditional semiconductor technology, and then I will present my research results in implementation of QKD and quantum computing. Finally, I will provide the research plan based on the current status of the global development in quantum information area.

1991-1995: B.S. in Dept. of Computer Engineering (Summa Cum Laude), Seoul National University
1995-1997: M.S. in Dept. of Control and Instrument Engineering, Seoul National University
1997-2000: Full-time instructor in Dept. of Computer Science and Statistics, Korean Air Force Academy
2000-2008: Ph.D in Dept. of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2000-2003: Research on particle physics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
2003-2008: Research on quantum information processing based on quantum optics
2008-2011: Postdoctoral associate at Duke University (Quantum information processing based on ion trap technology)
2011-current: SK Telecom (Quantum information processing based on ion trap technology)