Quantum information science began about 30 years ago as the union of two of the biggest scientific developments of the last century, quantum mechanics and computer science. The original motivation was to understand the new possibilities offered by quantum mechanics to information processing and computation. In recent years, it has emerged that the field also offers a new perspective for the study of physics, from condensed matter and thermodynamics to quantum gravity.

Recent breakthroughs in the application of quantum information in other areas of physics have served to increase the interest of researchers in high energy, gravity, and condensed matter, to work at the intersection of these fields. This program has the objective of cultivating these growing interdisciplinary discussions. It is the hope that the program will be a turning point in the exciting, rapidly developing dialogue between quantum information and physics as a whole.

Some of the topics covered in the program are quantum computational complexity in physics and the simulation of physical systems, advances in concepts and methods of quantum information of relevance to many body physics and thermodynamics, as well as the role of quantum information in quantum gravity, field theory, and the foundations of quantum theory.