What Has Changed

The year 2025 is about to end. Soon, I will be 63. What has changed? Plenty, but the question of interest is usually whether the change is one that one wishes for. There, one might be forgiven to say nothing has changed, which is more of a figure of speech. Me, being at home mostly, will not see much change with most days of me having the view below.

Let me return to the year 2025, which has been declared as the International Year of Quantum Science & Technology. There were many activities and announcements of quantum events in Malaysia including the mention of a national quantum team by our Prime Minister (see here). Also, earlier in the year, MIMOS announced Quantum Intelligence Centre and organized MIMOS Quantum Day. Just recently, they invited Dr. Azman Husin to give a talk in MIMOS.

I knew Azman Husin through a fellow theoretical physicist, Zainul Abidin Hassan in UPM earlier in my career (Zainul took an early retirement, a few years after he came back from his PhD). Azman also wrote a Malay textbook of Quantum Mechanics, which I did refer to for my teaching (the book is now left with Dr. Nurisya, I think).

Coming to the end of the year, UTM organized two different events for quantum science and technology. First, International Conference on Quantum Computing and Quantum Communication Technology, which was a surprise and I was told that it was organized by their Computer Science Faculty. Next week, UTM will once again organized ASEAN Quantum Summit. Given these two events, it seems that UTM is taking a lead in quantum science & technology. In the past, 'we too' have done many quantum events in UPM through EQuaLS (the last one was last year). This year, UPM collaborated with UM in organizing UM-UPM Entangling Workshop on Quantum and NISQ Algorithms. Recently, my former student (with coauthors) submitted this paper on arXiv: Quantum Diplomacy Within The Southeast Asia Quantum Ecosystem. Perhaps the paper is prepared in anticipation of the coming workshop next week. Another related matter is the formation of Malaysia Cryptology Technology and Management Centre and they have organized an International Conference and Exhibition on Post-Quantum Cryptography Technologies.

I was not involved in any of the mentioned 2025 events above but I do follow them with interest. It does seem that the quantum field is garnering more local interest these days, unlike when we first pursued them. I hope it will continue to grow healthily for the country's sake. My own involvement for quantum science is on a less sexier topic of quantum and thus, it will have little attention. If there is any relationship to all these technological flurry is probably because of the theoretical underpinnings are not quite as settled as one would like to think. Also quantum advantage expectations of quantum computing relies very much on the progress of quantum algorithms whose fundamentals are yet to be fully understood. Lately, there are also speculations on how quantum computing might intersect with the field of artificial intelligence. I'm currently reading on the (basic) materials of both (sidetracking my own real mathematical interests).

Well, that much has changed. I'm still largely the same self and is on the way out with all the imperfections.