Román Orús receives the “Physics, Innovation and Technology” award from the Spanish Royal Society of Physics-BBVA Foundation

The judges of the 2024 edition of the Royal Spanish Society of Physics-BBVA Foundation Prizes decided to award this prize in the “Physics, Innovation and Technology” category to Román Orús, Ikerbasque Research Professor at the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), and co-founder and scientific director of Multiverse Computing.

In their decision, the judges highlighted Orús' extensive track record in the field of quantum technologies. As stated in the RSFE-FBBVA announcement, “His contributions have led to significant technological developments in the field of quantum computing and artificial intelligence. The innovation achieved through the creation of Multiverse Computing, one of Europe's leading quantum software companies, is also recognized.”

“I am profoundly grateful to receive such a significant award as this. This is a very special award for me, not only because it has been granted by the Spanish Royal Society of Physics, but also because of the recognition it means of the work in innovation and technology transfer that we have carried out, both at the DIPC and Multiverse. It is a real honour,” declared Román Orús after learning of the judges’ decision.

Román Orús’ nomination was submitted by the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), an institution to which he has belonged since 2018 as an Ikerbasque Research Professor; right from its early days the DIPC has been committed to attracting world-class researchers and offering them an environment of autonomy and freedom to explore new ideas.

Right now, the DIPC is the BERC (Basque Excellence Research Centre) selected by the Basque Government to lead the “quantum technologies” field of the IKUR strategy, and plays an essential role in the BasQ (Basque Quantum) programme, promoted by the Basque Government and the three charter provincial councils; the programme will be boosting research, talent creation and innovation in quantum technologies in the Basque Country, as well as deploying, in Donostia/San Sebastian, IBM's sixth quantum computer in the world.

The president of the DIPC, Pedro Miguel Etxenike, congratulated Román Orús on this award and pointed out that “it is an immense joy for the DIPC that such a distinguished member of our community is recognized by the Spanish Royal Society of Physics. It also recognizes the commitment made by the DIPC and the Basque Government to quantum technologies and their applications.”

One example of this commitment is Multiverse Computing, a software enterprise for quantum computers co-founded by Román Orús in 2019 in Donostia/San Sebastián with the support of the DIPC and local institutions, such as BIC Gipuzkoa. Multiverse has been recognized worldwide as a pioneer in the use of tensor networks for industrial applications ahead of much larger companies, such as SandboxAQ (a Google spinoff), Amazon AWS and NVIDIA. CompactifAI, one of Multiverse's products, has been recognized by organizations such as NVIDIA and Intel as a revolution in the field of AI, enabling highly significant reductions in power consumption to be made, and opening up the possibility, for the first time, of deploying these models without the need for cloud connectivity.

All the RSEF-FBBVA Physics Prizes awarded in its 2024 edition can be checked out via this link (in Spanish): https://www.fbbva.es/noticias/fallados-premios-fisica-rsef-fundacion-bbva-2024/