Rainer Blatt opened his talk with the question “Why do we need quantum computers?”. He then took the audience on an exciting tour through quantum computing in general and ion-trap platforms in particular. As is well-known in the community, Rainer Blatt is a worldwide leader in this area and has pioneered during the past more than twenty years many path-breaking advances in ion-trap quantum computing. These included demonstrations of entanglement, teleportation, and quantum error correction, as well as major influental works in quantum simulation, which he showcased in his talk.

Prof. Blatt's career took him from the university of Mainz to JILA/Boulder, as well as to Berlin, Hamburg, and Göttingen, before he took up a chair in experimental physics at the university in Innsbruck in 1995. Since 2003 Blatt has also held the position of Scientific Director at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Recently, his team has created a start-up company, Alpine Quantum Technologies, which commercializes ion trap quantum computing and is a European leader in the field. Moreover, Rainer Blatt is currently leading the Munich Quantum Quantum Valley, a large-scale Bavarian research initiative for quantum computing and quantum technologies, in which researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light are involved as well.