HKU School of Computing and Data Science (CDS) is proud to announce that Professor Qi Zhao’s latest research has been published as the cover article in the August 2025 issue of Nature Physics—one of the world’s most prestigious journals in the field of physics.

The paper, titled “Entanglement accelerates quantum simulation”, explores the profound role of quantum entanglement in improving quantum algorithms for simulating many-body systems. Traditionally, entanglement has been regarded as a barrier to efficient classical simulation. However, Professor Zhao and his co-authors, Dr. You Zhou and Professor Andrew M. Childs, reveal that entanglement can, in fact, accelerate quantum simulation rather than hinder it.
 

Research Highlights
• Established a tighter upper bound for algorithmic error in terms of entanglement entropy compared to previous results.
• Developed an adaptive quantum simulation algorithm that incorporates measurement gadgets to estimate algorithmic error dynamically.
• Demonstrated that product formula approximations for simulating many-body systems perform better in highly entangled regions.

This breakthrough changes the conventional understanding of quantum entanglement, showing it as a feature that enhances the accuracy and efficiency of quantum simulations rather than a fundamental obstacle.

The full article can be accessed at Nature Physics here.