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Together with five other award winners, the renowned quantum computing scientist has received the award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Berlin on 5 May 2025 / Five million euros in prize money over five years
The University of Cologne has been awarded its eighth Humboldt Professorship: the quantum computing scientist Andreas Winter took up his professorship in Cologne on 1 April and was officially presented with the award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at a ceremony that took place in Berlin on 5 May. As a Humboldt Professor, the mathematician has taken over the new Chair of Quantum Information and Computing at the University of Cologne. In future, he will be contributing to establishing connections between computer science and the latest developments in quantum technologies. At five million euros, the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is the most highly endowed research award in Germany and attracts top international researchers to German universities.
Professor Dr Joybrato Mukherjee, Rector of the University of Cologne, says: “It is a great honour to be able to welcome a top-calibre researcher in the field of quantum information like Andreas Winter with a Humboldt Professorship at our university, and it shows the importance of this pioneering field of research. Along with many other research institutions throughout North Rhine-Westphalia, the University of Cologne is keenly engaged in making quantum technologies available for society.”
The research field of quantum information deals with the theory and application of information described by the laws of quantum mechanics. While classical information is based on bits that can only assume the states 0 and 1, quantum information uses quantum bits (qubits). A qubit can be in a superposition of the states 0 and 1, and multiple qubits can be entangled, which leads to new possibilities for information processing and communication.
Andreas Winter has conducted pioneering basic research in this field, which combines physics, mathematics, computer science and communication in an interdisciplinary manner, and has shaped quantum computing over the last two decades, producing a continuous stream of ground-breaking contributions. His work is primarily focussed on quantum Shannon theory, which concerns the analysis of the ultimate physical limits of information storage, transmission and processing. Andreas Winter’s work combines information theory with physics and computer science, and stimulates developments ranging from concrete physical applications to basic mathematics.
“With the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, I plan to establish my chair in Cologne as an international centre for quantum information theory. We are currently in the process of recruiting first-class researchers, and next year we will have further support in the form of a junior professorship,” says Professor Dr Andreas Winter.
The expansion of computer science into a fully-fledged department within the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences currently represents one of the core strategic goals of the University of Cologne. Quantum information science, together with the focus on data science and artificial intelligence, is currently being developed into an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of physics and computer science. There will moreover be close collaboration between quantum information science and the Cluster of Excellence ML4Q “Matter and Light for Quantum Information”.
Andreas Winter studied mathematics in Constance and Berlin and received his doctorate from Bielefeld University in 1999. He then moved on to the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, where he was appointed Professor of Physics of Information in 2006. In 2012, he was appointed to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. His projects have been funded with an ERC Advanced Grant, among others, and his work has been honoured with numerous awards, most recently a Humboldt Research Award in 2022 and the Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship of the Technical University of Munich.
Professor Dr Andreas Winter
Department of Computer Science, University of Cologne
andreas.winter@uni-koeln.de
https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/entdecken/newsroom/dossier-alexander-von-humb...
Andreas Winter at the awarding ceremony in Berlin on 5 May
David Ausserhofer
Humboldt-Stiftung/David Ausserhofer
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Andreas Winter at the awarding ceremony in Berlin on 5 May
David Ausserhofer
Humboldt-Stiftung/David Ausserhofer
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