Jing Chen

Jing Chen, Ph.D.

Senior Quantum Scientist, Research

Jing Chen is an expert (10+ years) in developing and applying computational methods based on tensor networks to study many-body/condensed matter physics. He has also made significant contributions at the intersection of machine learning (ML) and these quantum-inspired tensor-network generative models. After finishing his Ph.D. at Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017, he joined Flatiron Institute, Simons Foundation as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, where he spent the last four years doing work under the supervision of Miles Stoudenmire.  Jing has also contributed to the development of automatic fermionic feature of ITensor, one of the most worldwide used tensor network libraries.

Question & Answer

Why have you chosen a career in quantum?

Quantum computing is a revolutionary field, which would bring us computational power, benefiting various R&D directions. And many organizations are investing. Now we’re at the fast developing stage, however, there is gap between the research frontiers and realistic applications. I’d like to be one of the people to fill the gap.

What is a problem you dream of solving (with quantum)?

Find a possible, real quantum computing application which benefits the industry.

What’s your superpower?

Expertise on tensor network related algorithms and high performance computational experience.

If you could meet anyone, who would it be and why?

Claude Shannon or Ludwig Boltzmann. Because they really have very deep insight at ‘trivial things’, which we see everyday but most can’t catch it. They proposed the concept of information and entropy in a solid mathematical way.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t assume life will go as I expected, don’t plan too much in advance. Something unexpected will always happen and there are new possibilities.

What are people often surprised to know about you?

Why’re you still reading and learning textbooks!? Most of my friends have been working for about 10 years. When they met me, they’re surprised that I’m still reading and learning mathematics, physics etc.