Vienna Gödel Lecture 2025: Hartmut Neven
Hartmut Neven, visionary leader of Google Quantum AI, gives this year’s Gödel Lecture on the latest breakthroughs in quantum computing and AI.
Picture: GENADIY MURADOV
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- Campus Freihaus, Informatikhörsaal
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1040 Vienna, Treitlstraße 3
Untergeschoß, Raum DEU116 -
This is a hybrid event.
See description for details.
About
Join us for this year’s Gödel Lecture with Hartmut Neven, Beyond the Threshold: Entering the Era of Error-Corrected Quantum Computing.
A visionary in quantum computing and machine learning, Hartmut Neven leads Google Quantum AI, a lab with the most advanced scientific achievements in quantum computing to date. A dedicated explorer of the frontiers of computing and neuroscience, Hartmut is currently collaborating with external researchers to experimentally test the idea that quantum processes create conscious experience.
- When: Wednesday, December 3, 18:00-19:30
- Where: TU Wien Informatik Hörsaal, Treitlstraße 3, 1040 Vienna
Join us for this exceptional event and discover how quantum thinking is redefining the limits of computation and discovery!
We offer sign language interpretation and childcare for this event
We provide sign language interpretation (“ÖGS-Dolmetsch”) and child care for this event. Participants with care responsibilities are welcome to make use of our professional childcare service, available in TU Wien’s Eltern Kind Raum at Resselgasse 3 for children aged 3 and above, from 18:00 to 20:00. Registration is not required, but if you have any questions, please contact us at communications@informatics.tuwien.ac.at or call +43 664 605 881 953.
Program
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 18:00–18:15 | Opening and Welcome Address by Jens Schneider (Rector of TU Wien), Gerti Kappel (Dean of TU Wien Informatics), and Stefan Szeider, Full Professor and Head of the Reaserach Unit Algorithms and Complexity, Co-Chair of the Vienna Center for Logic and Algorithms (VCLA) |
| 18:15–19:00 | Vienna Gödel Lecture |
| by Hartmut Neven, Founder and Lead of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence lab at Google | |
| 19:00 | Networking with drinks and refreshments |
Hybrid Event
Not in Vienna? No problem, we’ll live-stream the event via Zoom.
- Meeting ID: 615 438 1072
- Passcode: serwyN6e
About Hartmut Neven
Hartmut Neven is Founder and Lead of Google Quantum AI, and a Vice President of Engineering at Google. He leads the Quantum Artificial Intelligence lab, which he founded in 2012. Neven coined the terms “Quantum Machine Learning” and “Quantum AI” and implemented the first machine learning and image recognition algorithms on a quantum computer in 2007. In 2019, the Quantum AI team made history by demonstrating that a quantum computer can solve a computational problem that is intractable for classical computers. His teams were the first to physically instantiate time crystals, non-Abelian anyons, and traversable wormholes using a quantum processor.
Hartmut started two computer vision companies, the second of which was acquired by Google in 2006. His company Neven Vision achieved world firsts by launching face login, face filters and visual search for mobile phones. At Google, he led the Visual Search team and co-founded Project Glass, building its first prototype in 2011. His work earned recognition and awards in visual recognition competitions.
Hartmut studied Physics and Economics in Brazil, Köln, Paris, Tübingen, and Jerusalem, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1996, focusing on autonomous mobile robots and self-driving cars. Neven’s research interests often venture into scientific and philosophical frontiers long before they gain popularity. In 1992, he wrote a master’s thesis on neural dynamics for object recognition, and in 2003, he patented the technique of analyzing images taken by mobile phones with neural networks. In 2012, the concept of adversarial images was born in his team, paving the way for deep dream art. In 2014 he ventured into quantum biology by designing neurotransmitters and psychedelics using isotopes and quantifying their effects on neuroreceptors. Recently, with academic collaborators, he initiated a research program to experimentally test the conjecture that quantum processes create conscious experience.
Fast Company has recognized Hartmut as one of the world’s most creative individuals.
Beyond his scientific pursuits, Hartmut loves to travel the world with his wife and two sons. His most exciting journeys are to the Amazon rainforest, where he works with indigenous communities to help them preserve and monetize their knowledge of medicinal and entheogenic plants. Hartmut loves building art for Burning Man, is a glider plane pilot, and an unremarkable surfer and snowboarder.
About Vienna Gödel Lectures
Named after the famous Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and philosopher Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) and introduced in 2013, the annual Vienna Gödel Lectures bring world-class scientists to Vienna. The lecture series illustrates computer science’s fundamental and disruptive contribution to our information society, and it investigates how our discipline explains and shapes the world we live in—and thereby, our lives as such.
Photographs and/or video will be taken at this event. By attending, you grant TU Wien Informatics full rights to use the material (and any reproductions or adaptations) for fundraising, publicity, or other purposes. This may include (but is not limited to) the right to use in our print and online publicity, social media, press releases, and funding applications. If you wish that no photographs explicitly depicting you are used for these purposes, please send an informal message. — Thank you!
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