Salam Distinguished Lectures 2026

ICTP is pleased to announce its 2026 Salam Distinguished Lecture Series, taking place from 27 to 29 January in the Budinich Lecture Hall.

This year's series, titled "From Quantum Information to Transformative Technologies—A Journey of Remarkable Discoveries", will feature talks by two distinguished researchers in the field: Peter Zoller of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and Ignacio Cirac of the Max-Planck Institut für Quantenoptik, Germany.

Research by Zoller and Cirac on quantum computing with trapped ions, quantum simulation with ultracold atoms in optical lattices, and the quantum repeater in quantum communication have played a crucial role in bringing theoretical concepts of quantum information into a laboratory setting. This has inspired and guided novel experimental lines of research, and established quantum optical systems as a leading experimental platform.

Peter Zoller is a theoretical physicist in quantum optics and atomic physics. He is renowned for his pioneering contributions to the fields of atomic, molecular, and optical physics, as well as quantum information science and quantum many-body physics. He is the recipient of ICTP's 2006 Dirac Medal "for innovative and prolific work in atomic physics, including seminal work proposing methods to use trapped ions for quantum computing and describing how to realize the Bose-Hubbard model and associated phase transitions in ultracold gases."

Ignacio Cirac also researches quantum optics, as well as the quantum theory of information, and quantum many-body physics. He has made seminal contributions in the fields of quantum information theory, degenerated quantum gases, quantum optics, and renormalization group methods. He shares the 2013 Wolf Prize with Zoller.

The schedule of the talks by the two speakers is as follows:

• Lecture 1 by Peter Zoller
  Tuesday 27 January at 15:30
• Lecture 2 by Peter Zoller
  Wednesday 28 January at 10:30
• Lecture 3 by Ignacio Cirac
  Wednesday 28 January at 15:30
• Lecture 4 by Ignacio Cirac
  Thursday 29 January at 09:00

All are welcome to attend. The lectures will also be livestreamed at www.ictp.it/livestream