Quantum information science is the study of information, communication, and computation using devices that are governed by the principles of quantum physics. Whereas information technology is based on binary representations of information and boolean logic, quantum information exists as superpositions of different informational states, which can be processed by quantum gates that preserve their quantum properties.

Quantum information science is an exciting field because of potential revolutionary advances over any other form of information technology. Quantum computing converts some hard computational ones into easy-to-solve problems, with the notable inclusion of factorization of numbers whose hardness is the basis of public key cryptosystems. A quantum search of a database is provably faster than any classical search algorithm, and quantum cryptography can provide information theoretic security via public-channel communiation in contrast to all existing public key cryptosystems, which are only computationally secure. Also quantum communication enables dense packing of information into quantum states thereby enabling more information to be sent down channels than allowed classically.

In addition to the enticing prospects of quantum information science, experimentally advances are proceeding remarkably quickly. Quantum cryptography is now a commercial enterprise, and numerous technologies are candidates for quantum computer realizations. Quantum error correction provides a strategy for managing errors that arise in quantum information processing, and quantum memory has been demonstrated.

These exciting theoretical and experimental advances have catapulted quantum information science to becoming one of the most exciting interdisciplinary scientific fields, one that brings together computer scientists, mathematicians, electrical engineers, physicists, chemists, and material scientists.