Pint of View (Lecture Over Drinks): Can You Build a Computer Out of Light?

Welcome to Pint of View – Bangalore's first-ever community where classroom-styled lectures meet drinks in pubs and bars.

Can You Build a Computer Out of Light?

Light lets us see the world—but could it also help us compute in an entirely different way? Follow a single photon into a world where paths can exist in superposition, indistinguishable particles interfere, and measuring something can create entanglement. We’ll explore how these strange effects become the building blocks of a quantum computer, and why getting two photons to behave alike can be harder than making billions of transistors. Along the way: tiny optical mazes on silicon chips, detectors that register individual particles of light, and the surprisingly consequential question of what happens when a photon goes missing.

But light isn’t the only contender. Researchers are also building quantum computers from individual atoms held in laser beams, electrically trapped ions, and superconducting circuits cooled to temperatures colder than outer space. What makes these very different objects capable of carrying quantum information? Why choose one over another—and could combining them give us capabilities that none offers alone? We’ll see how light can act both as a computational ingredient and as a messenger, connecting distant quantum systems through entanglement.

Through these competing and complementary approaches, we’ll explore what makes quantum computing different from ordinary computing, where its promise comes from, and why turning a beautiful physics experiment into a useful machine remains such a formidable challenge. No quantum physics background required—just curiosity about what light can do beyond illuminating your beer.

About the Speaker

Dr. Krishnan Thyagarajan is a physicist-turned-technologist who has spent his career getting light, matter and electronics to do unusual things. After a PhD in photonics at EPFL, Switzerland, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech, he led quantum, photonics and neurotechnology programs at Palo Alto Research Center and Stanford Research Institute International.

Today he leads the optics team at Sygaldry Technologies, a quantum-accelerated AI hardware startup building utility-scale quantum computers. He is an inventor on more than 45 patents, has authored over 40 scientific publications, and serves as an external expert on committees at NASA, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

He has also co-founded several deep-tech startups, in food science, swarm emotional intelligence, and therapeutic ultrasound, and advises several other startups and U.S. Department of Energy incubators and accelerators.

Beyond science, he writes essays and fiction on topics of social relevance, and has a deep love for Indology, cultural anthropology and philosophy, especially metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics.

Event Details
The Humming Tree, Indiranagar
Wednesday, 25 October | 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM

Note: There’s a mandatory cover charge of ₹500 to be paid at the venue upon arriving, redeemable against any F&B.

Seating will be on first-come, first-served basis.

What to Expect:
A 60-minute lecture
30–45 minutes of interactive Q&A
Social mixer and personal Q&As with the lecturer

About Pint of View
Inspired by the successful Lectures on Tap community in the U.S., Pint of View brings this format to India for the first time. It’s where big ideas meet bar tables, and where you enjoy a drink in hand, walking out with a new way of seeing the world.

Book now & develop your own pint of view! 🍻