A Floquet Connection

The French Connection is a crime thriller. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, it won five: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound Mixing. It grossed over $75 million on a budget of $1.8 million.

It is as if folks at DARPA – Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — have been reading my blogs, especially:

Sridhara Brahmana: Integer Solutions and Ising Model

Quantum Computing v2.0

Why?

As you know — from What would Steve Jobs do? – I have been posting repeatedly about the need for an alternative to the hegemony of the Gate/Circuit model, and recently,  I showcased a real world application of Quantum-inspired classical computing (QuICC) in Make Your Business Quantum Ready Today.

Sometime in October 2021, DARPA made a Broad Agency Call:

DARPA Program Aims to Build Quantum-inspired Solvers.

As a B-school professor who does not follow DARPA (and other such agencies), I was (obviously) unaware of it.

On December 1, I received this email (after 1030pm, past my bed time, unless I am watching a movie or something streaming):

Hi Sridhar,

I hope this finds you well!

I am part of a team being led by BBN-Raytheon that is responding to the DARPA QuICC call (https://sam.gov/opp/2993d1848d1e4f9e881422d698f0a879/view). Raytheon are looking for a theory/optimization (“TA1”, in the parlance of the call) expert to join their team.

I suggested you to them and they asked me to reach out to you to find out if you’d be interested in exploring joining. Could you please let me know if you’d like to chat with them about this, and if so, I can put you in touch with the Raytheon PI/team lead?

Best,

Peter

I responded the next morning (sipping Italian coffee, and having Chobani):

Hi Peter:

Yes, this looks very much in line with my activities…happy to speak with the team lead…

Cheers,

Sridhar