The Center for Digital Trust (C4DT)

Abstract

The digital world is plagued by cyberattacks, disinformation, and exploitation of private data. In this talk, we will explain how the EPFL Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) responds to these challenges. C4DT brings together academia, industry, government and NGOs; it has 40+ affiliated EPFL labs and 10 external funding partners, which include two federal offices (armasuisse and BIT). We will detail our approach to tech policy and provide some examples of the 50+ bilateral projects C4DT has fostered. We will also address IT sovereignty in the ETH Domain, an activity that we have recently bootstrapped with the Central IT services of ETHZ and EPFL.

About

Prof. Jean-Pierre Hubaux is the academic director of the EPFL Center for Digital Trust. For its whole duration (April 2018 - December 2021), he led the Data Protection in Personalized Health (DPPH) project funded by the ETH Council (PHRT program). From 2008 to 2019, he was one of the seven commissioners of the Swiss FCC. He is a Fellow of both IEEE and ACM. He is among the most cited researchers in privacy protection and in information security.

Information Security Research at ETH in the context of Digital Sovereignty

Abstract

The Zurich Information Security and Privacy Center of ETH Zurich (ZISC) brings together academia and industry to solve current and future information security challenges. ZISC is one of the leading information security research centers globally and gathers over a hundred PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty that perform academic research that has aims to have deep societal impact. It has already generated a number of impactful both theoretical and practical research results, educated future security research leaders and led to the creation of successful companies. In this presentation, I will review our activities in ZISC with a special focus on the topic of digital sovereignty which is highly relevant in today’s societal context.

About

Andreas Wallraff and his team at the Quantum Device Lab of ETH Zurich and at the ETHZ-PSI Quantum Computing Hub explore the quantum properties of superconducting circuits for fundamental science and for applications in quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum sensing. A recent focus of their work is on realizing fault-tolerant quantum computers making use of the concepts of quantum error correction.

Link to CV

Swiss Quantum Computing Facility – a strategic opportunity

Abstract

As quantum computing rapidly advances and enters the stage of scaling, there is ever more need for research innovations across the whole computing stack from hardware to software. Yet, despite the increasing availability of commercial systems, the safeguarding of corporate IP in an emerging market and strategic national interests make it harder for researchers to get the required level of access. Building on trapped ion and superconducting circuit systems developed at the ETHZ-PSI Quantum Computing Hub, we plan to build a national testbed facility providing deep access as a federal user facility. Co-designed with users from academia and industry, the facility will feature an HPC connection to CSCS and involve local industry partners.

About

Cornelius Hempel leads the Ion Trap Quantum Computation group at the ETH Zürich-PSI Quantum Computing Hub. He is known for his work in quantum simulation using trapped ion quantum computers, in particular for chemistry, and built the world’s first fully controlled 20-qubit system in 2011. Until 2021 he was principal investigator at the Quantum Control Laboratory at the University of Sydney, Australia.