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Guillaume Verdon
Born
Guillaume Verdon-Akzam[1]

Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Other namesBasedBeffJezos
EducationMcGill University (BS)[2]
University of Waterloo (MMath)[2][3]
Known for

Guillaume Verdon-Akzam, also known as Guillaume Verdon, or Gill Verdon[4] 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.[5] 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.[6]

Education and career

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Verdon attended McGill University as an undergraduate and graduated with honors with a double major in Mathematics & Physics.[2][7] He attended University of Waterloo for graduate studies where he completed Master's work in 2017[3][8] at the Institute for Quantum Computing and continued with Achim Kempf as his PhD supervisor.[1] He presented papers as a Guest Speaker at NASA's 2018 Adiabatic Quantum Computing conference.[2][9]

In 2017, Verdon co-founded Everettian Technologies and became its chief scientific officer.[10] 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.[11][12] 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.[5][13][14] During his time at Google X Verdon pioneered and worked on quantum graph neural networks,[15] and quantum Hamiltonian-based models.[16] He has several patents[17] 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.[18][19][20] The company recently announced the completion of a $14.1 million seed round.[21][11] 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".[11][22]

Effective accelerationism

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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.[23][24][25] In its coverage of the movement Forbes outed Verdon as the author behind his pseudonymous account.[11][20] Since his naming he has spoken on podcasts & debated publicly those with conflicting views on AI safety (including with Connor Leahy[26]) and other issues of technological progress.[27]

References

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  1. ^ a b Verdon-Akzam, Guillaume (2017-01-10). "Probing Quantum Fields: Measurements and Quantum Energy Teleportation".
  2. ^ a b c d "2018 Adiabatic Quantum Computing Conference - Speakers". Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science - Universities Space Research Association. August 21, 2018. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
  3. ^ a b "Physics of Information Lab: Former group members". 15 October 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  4. ^ "Guillaume Verdon". TEDAI San Francisco.
  5. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c d "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 [quant-ph].
  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 [quant-ph].
  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 [quant-ph].
  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. ^ a b "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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