Ishaan Kannan

About me

I'm a PhD Student at the Harvard Quantum Initiative, advised by Jordan Cotler. I work on theoretical physics, quantum computing, and machine learning. Most recently, I've been developing applications of quantum processors to experimental science and future technology.

Prior to Harvard I studied physics and computer science at Caltech, where I worked in John Preskill's group under Hsin-Yuan Huang and Leo Zhou.

Publications

* denotes equal contribution. † denotes corresponding authorship on alphabetically ordered work.

  1. Exponential quantum advantage for learning signals with a single qubit
    I. Kannan*, S. Prabhu*, S. A. Khan, M. M. Sohoni, X. Song, S. Roy, A. Senanian, V. Fatemi, P. L. McMahon, J. Cotler.
    arXiv (2026). [PDF]
  2. Restrictions on non-Clifford fault tolerance and ruling out beyond-SQL quantum metrology
    C. C. V. de Pradenne*, I. Kannan*, H. Putterman, J. Cotler.
    arXiv (2026). [PDF]
  3. Learning Arbitrary Lindbladians with Quantum Error Correction
    N. Romanov, P. Ivashkov, W. Gong, I. Kannan, A. Gu, H.-Y. Hu, S. F. Yelin.
    arXiv (2026). [PDF]
  4. Exponential speedups in fault-tolerant processing of quantum experiments
    I. Kannan*, H. Putterman*, J. Cotler.
  5. Quantum Advantage for Sensing Properties of Classical Fields
    J. Cotler, D. L. Danielson, I. Kannan†.
    Physical Review X (to appear). [PDF] [Talk at EPFL]
  6. Noisy Quantum Learning Theory
    J. Cotler, W. Gong, I. Kannan†.
    Nature Communications 17, 6979 (2026). [PDF] [Talk at Foxconn] [Talk at EPFL]
  7. A Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm for Local Hamiltonian Problems
    I. Kannan, R. King, L. Zhou.
    arXiv (2024). [PDF]
  8. Learning Quantum States and Unitaries of Bounded Gate Complexity
    H. Zhao*, L. Lewis*, I. Kannan*, Y. Quek, H.-Y. Huang, M. C. Caro.
    PRX Quantum 5, 040306 (2024). [PDF]

Recent

New blog post: Bringing quantum advantage to today's classical world