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Guillaume Verdon

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Canadian physicist and entrepreneur
Guillaume Verdon
BornGuillaume Verdon-Akzam
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Other namesBasedBeffJezos
EducationMcGill University (BS)
University of Waterloo (MMath)
Known for

Guillaume Verdon-Akzam, also known as Guillaume Verdon, or Gill Verdon is a Canadian mathematical physicist, quantum computing researcher, serial entrepreneur, and writer who is a key contributor of Google's quantum machine learning software, Tensorflow Quantum. He is also a co-founder of the effective accelerationism movement and the start-up company Extropic AI which operates at the intersection between physics-based computing and artificial intelligence.

Education and career

Verdon attended McGill University as an undergraduate and graduated with honors with a double major in Mathematics & Physics. He attended University of Waterloo for graduate studies where he completed Master's work in 2017 at the Institute for Quantum Computing and continued with Achim Kempf as his PhD supervisor. He presented papers as a Guest Speaker at NASA's 2018 Adiabatic Quantum Computing conference.

In 2017, Verdon co-founded Everettian Technologies and became its chief scientific officer. The company was named after Hugh Everett III, an early Canadian start-up focused on quantum machine learning solutions. He also had a side venture into NFTs related to quantum information which provided capital for his later startup Extropic AI. Verdon has worked at Alphabet & Google and had primary responsibility for theoretical work on the team that introduced the TensorFlow Quantum library for quantum machine learning. During his time at Google X Verdon pioneered and worked on quantum graph neural networks, and quantum Hamiltonian-based models. He has several patents with Google X covering quantum computing, quantum machine learning, and signal processing.

In 2022, Verdon and Trevor Mccourt co-founded Extropic AI, which focuses on building a thermodynamic hardware platform for accelerating AI research. The company recently announced the completion of a $14.1 million seed round. Extropic AI was initially operating in stealth-mode and is focused on building chips specifically intended for running LLMs according to Verdon a "type of physics-based computer that is not quantum".

Effective accelerationism

Main article: Effective accelerationism

Verdon wrote under the pseudonym BasedBeffJezos and was a co-founders of the effective accelerationism (e/acc) movement. The origin of the movement can be traced back to a May 2022 newsletter published by him and 3 other authors. In its coverage of the movement Forbes outed Verdon as the author behind his pseudonymous account. Since his naming he has spoken on podcasts & debated publicly those with conflicting views on AI safety (including with Connor Leahy) and other issues of technological progress.

References

  1. ^ Verdon-Akzam, Guillaume (2017-01-10). "Probing Quantum Fields: Measurements and Quantum Energy Teleportation".
  2. ^ "2018 Adiabatic Quantum Computing Conference - Speakers". Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science - Universities Space Research Association. August 21, 2018. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
  3. ^ "Physics of Information Lab: Former group members". 15 October 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  4. "Guillaume Verdon". TEDAI San Francisco.
  5. ^ Wiggers, Kyle (2021-03-10). "Alphabet is repurposing Google TPUs for quantum computing simulations". VentureBeat.
  6. "The AI insiders who want the controversial technology to be developed faster". ABC News. 2024-02-17.
  7. Scott, Josh (2023-12-08). "Founded by Alphabet alums, Canadian-led AI hardware startup Extropic secures over $14 million". BetaKit.
  8. Verdon-Akzam, Guillaume (January 10, 2017). "Probing Quantum Fields: Measurements and Quantum Energy Teleportation". University of Waterloo. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  9. "Quantum Approximate Boltzmann Machines - Guillaume Verdon". Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science - Universities Space Research Association. August 21, 2018. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
  10. "Everettian-Technologies - Overview, Competitors, and Employees". Apollo.io. Archived from the original on 2024-01-17. Retrieved 2024-01-17.
  11. ^ "Who Is @BasedBeffJezos, The Leader Of The Tech Elite's 'E/Acc' Movement?". Forbes. December 1, 2023. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  12. "OpenSea, gverdon".
  13. Broughton, Michael; Verdon, Guillaume; McCourt, Trevor; Martinez, Antonio J.; Jae Hyeon Yoo; Isakov, Sergei V.; Massey, Philip; Halavati, Ramin; Murphy Yuezhen Niu; Zlokapa, Alexander; Peters, Evan; Lockwood, Owen; Skolik, Andrea; Jerbi, Sofiene; Dunjko, Vedran; Leib, Martin; Streif, Michael; David Von Dollen; Chen, Hongxiang; Cao, Shuxiang; Wiersema, Roeland; Huang, Hsin-Yuan; McClean, Jarrod R.; Babbush, Ryan; Boixo, Sergio; Bacon, Dave; Ho, Alan K.; Neven, Hartmut; Mohseni, Masoud (August 26, 2021). "TensorFlow Quantum: A Software Framework for Quantum Machine Learning". arXiv:2003.02989 .
  14. Black, Doug (March 9, 2020). "TensorFlow Quantum software combines quantum and classical machine learning". insideHPC. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
  15. Verdon, Guillaume; McCourt, Trevor; Luzhnica, Enxhell; Singh, Vikash; Leichenauer, Stefan; Hidary, Jack (2019-09-26). "Quantum Graph Neural Networks". arXiv:1909.12264 .
  16. Verdon, Guillaume; Marks, Jacob; Nanda, Sasha; Leichenauer, Stefan; Hidary, Jack (2019-10-04). "Quantum Hamiltonian-Based Models and the Variational Quantum Thermalizer Algorithm". arXiv:1910.02071 .
  17. "Google Patents". patents.google.com. Retrieved 2024-01-17.
  18. Mark Tyson (2024-03-19). "AI startup Extropic emerges from stealth with superconducting processors it boldly claims will beat GPUs, CPUs, and TPUs". Tom's Hardware.
  19. "The crypto bros are coming for AI". Business Insider. December 23, 2023. Retrieved January 18, 2023.
  20. ^ "The techno-optimists and doomsdayers inside Silicon Valley's most dangerous AI debate". CNBC. December 17, 2023. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  21. "Extropic Secures $14.1 Million in Seed Funding to Propel Novel Physics-Based Computing Paradigm". Yahoo Finance. December 12, 2023. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  22. "Eight startups challenging Nvidia in AI chips". The Information. August 24, 2023. Retrieved February 3, 2024.
  23. "Get the lowdown on 'e/acc' — Silicon Valley's favorite obscure theory about progress at all costs, which has been embraced by Marc Andreessen". Business Insider. July 28, 2023. Retrieved January 18, 2023.
  24. "Effective Accelerationism — e/acc". 31 October 2022. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  25. Walker, Stephen (July 4, 2023). "Effective Accelerationism (e/acc)". Klu. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
  26. DeepCast. "Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST): Showdown Between e/acc Leader And Doomer - Connor Leahy + Beff Jezos on DeepCast". DeepCast.
  27. Lavoipierre, Ange (February 17, 2024). "The AI insiders who want the controversial technology to be developed faster". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved July 12, 2024.

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