South Korean President visits ETH Zurich

For the President of the Republic of Korea, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) is the first port of call worldwide when it comes to quantum sciences. Yoon Suk Yeol made this claim during a visit to the university on January 19, further details of which can be found in a press release issued by ETH Zurich. For this reason, President Yoon used his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos to drop by ETH Zurich accompanied by seven of his ministers in order to form an impression of the university’s research activities.

Günther Dissertori, Rector of ETH Zurich, welcomes the South Korean delegation, while Andreas Wallraff, Founding Director of the ETH Quantum Center, offered insights into ETH Zurich’s activities in the field of quantum sciences and demonstrated how broadly based the university is in this area. According to Wallraff, ETH Zurich recognized and promoted the potential of quantum research at a very early stage, before this research field then benefited from an additional boost in the form of government funding programs. In total, the university enrolls 40 students in its Quantum Engineering course each year.

The discussion then moved on to the question as to how universities, government agencies and the private sector can all work together to promote quantum sciences. In this context, the fruitful collaboration between IBM Research Zurich and ETH Zurich was highlighted. With its universities and semiconductor industry, South Korea also boasts excellent prerequisites in this area.

ETH Zurich has been designated as the Leading House Asia by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and maintains intensive cooperations with all major universities and research institutes in South Korea. Moreover, two ETH Zurich professors and 50 scientific employees are of Korean descent, while around 60 South Korean students are enrolled at ETH Zurich. mm