Page 24 - fall2017

IN PHILANTHROPY

Breakthroughs Now,

Stability Later

Engineering’s parallel paths

by Katy Smith and Jill Goetz Chris Richards photo

Pierre Deymier

Two recent gifts are contributing to the future of engineering:
One provides an opportunity to usher in a new era of computing
technology. The other builds the College of Engineering’s financial
foundation for today’s students and coming generations.

THE SOUND OF THE FUTURE: THE QUANTUM COMPUTING RACE
$900,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Deymier, head of the Department of Materials
A Foundation, matched by the University Science and Engineering, is a pioneer in the field
of Arizona, has given a team led by professor of phononics, in which scientists and engineers
Pierre Deymier $1.8 million to build a quantum manipulate phonons, quasi-particles that transmit
computing prototype. The team hopes to sound and heat waves in unconventional ways
outperform existing quantum computers and to provide new forms of energy. He believes that
overcome problems that plague prototypes. quantum computing with phononics will be
This award is especially valuable because many feasible, possibly in the next 10 years. With his
funders won’t invest in approaches so innovative collaborators on the project, Pierre Lucas and Keith
they haven’t yet been proven, says Jeffrey Goldberg, Runge, Deymier will build a prototype phonon-
dean of the College of Engineering. The team based computer.
secured funding from the “outrageously selective” “Phonon-based computing has the power to
foundation with a credible demonstration of how change the world as we know it,” he says, “not
sound could be used in quantum computing, just for making more powerful computers, but for
Goldberg says. artificial intelligence, cryptography and analysis of
As computer parts grow tinier — billions of big data.”
transistors are now packed onto silicon chips the According to Deymier, the potential of phi-bits
size of a fingernail — silicon’s performance shrinks, — a term he has coined for a unit of phonons — to
too, and the material can overheat. To address transform computing capability and manage big
this, engineers are in a race to perfect quantum data appears limitless. He is working with Tech
computers, which store, transmit and process Launch Arizona, the UA’s commercialization arm,
information in fundamentally different ways and to apply for multiple patents for phi-bit inventions,
have exponentially greater computing capability. including the quantum computer itself.

22 ARIZONA ALUMNI MAGAZINE