Francesco Petruccione

Francesco Petruccione is an Italian born South African physicist serving as a professor of Physics at Stellenbosch University and the director of the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS). With a wealth of experience in his field, he previously held the position of professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Big Data and Informatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Petruccione is also a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa.

Early life and education

Francesco Petruccione was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1961. He pursued his undergraduate studies in physics at the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he earned his first degree in the field. Petruccione continued his academic journey at the same institution, earning his doctorate in 1988 and his Habilitation degree (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) in 1994.

Career

In 2004, he became a professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and was awarded an Innovation Fund grant the following year to establish a Centre for Quantum Technology. Petruccione went on to hold the position of South African Research Chair for Quantum Information Processing and Communication Technology in 2007. As of May 2024 he has officially been appointed as director of NITheCS.

In 2025, he was involved in an international collaboration with the University of Science and Technology of China, where he contributed to a record-breaking intercontinental satellite-based quantum key distribution (QKD) link between South Africa and China.

Selected publications

Francesco Petruccione and Heinz-Peter Breuer: The Theory of Open Quantum Systems. Maria Schuld and Francesco Petruccione: Machine Learning with Quantum Computers. Maria Schuld and Francesco Petruccione: Supervised Learning with Quantum Computers Heinz-Peter Breuer & Francesco Petruccione: How to build master equations for complex systems Shivani Mahashakti Pillay, Ilya Sinayskiy, Edgar Jembere & Francesco Petruccione: Implementing Quantum-Kernel-Based Classifiers in the NISQ Era Carsten Blank & Francesco Petruccione Quantum Applications - Fachbeitrag: Vielversprechend: Monte-Carlo-ähnliche Methoden auf dem Quantencomputer Lavanya Singh, Ugochukwu J. Anyaneji, Wilfred Ndifon, Neil Turok, Stacey A. Mattison, Richard Lessells, Ilya Sinayskiy, Emmanuel J. San, Houriiyah Tegally, Shaun Barnett, Trevor Lorimer, Francesco Petruccione & Tulio de Oliveira: Implementation of an efficient SARS-CoV-2 specimen pooling strategy for high throughput diagnostic testing. Camille L. Latune, Ilya Sinayskiy & Francesco Petruccione: Roles of quantum coherences in thermal machines. M. Schuld, M. Fingerhuth, Francesco Petruccione: Implementing a distance-based classifier with a quantum interference circuit.