Future of Computing - on the Road to Quantum

Course
  • Cloud and Operating Systems

Future of Computing - on the Road to Quantum

We present technologies that are building blocks for the “Future of Computing”. Improvements in system architecture are required to satisfy the ever-growing need for computational power.

In 3 weeks we will cover the topics: technology trends, new system architectures, and quantum computing.
We are working together with IBM Research and Development experts to give you insights from the industry.

Offered by Prof. Andreas Polze, Hildegard Gerhardy, Dr. Wolfgang Maier | Last updated on Jul 15, 2026 | 3666 enrollments

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  • Intermediate
  • EN
  • Certificate
Course information

Digitalization and exponential growth of data are challenges for future IT-Systems. They need to leverage accelerators of different kinds, such as GPUs, FPGAs as well as special-purpose units to meet these new requirements. This in turn will lead to more heterogeneous systems and the interconnection of these different units becomes a field of innovation. However, the integration into the system as well as programming models still offers room for improvement. Cache coherent interconnects like OpenCAPI, CCIX and CXL are examples of recent developments. We will give you an introduction to OpenCAPI and show new possible computing models.

New system architectures like edge computing place computing capabilities closer to the data-producing facilities. Open questions like the best placement of computing tasks, dependability, and others remain. Workloads will nevertheless use the cloud, but there will be data or other workloads which won't be moved to a third-party provider. Thus the interconnection of the private cloud and the public need to address those challenges. With microservices, there is a way to structure and deploy applications on these computing infrastructures.

Completely different computing paradigms, such as quantum computing become available. It becomes clear, that it will accelerate certain algorithms and requires software to be compatible with this new way of computing. There are still technical challenges to solve, but quantum computers will soon be ready to make a significant impact. IBM experts leading the field will present to you the current status of this exciting new technology.

Course contents

Week 1 – Technology Trends (~140 Minutes of Material)

Week 2 – New System Architecture (~160 Minutes of Material)

Week 3 – Quantum Computing (~150 Minutes of Material)

Attention: This course is currently in self-study mode, in which you do not have access to graded assignments/exams. Therefore, we can only issue you a certificate of participation.

Requirements for Proofs of Achievement
  • Confirmation of Participation: You will automatically receive a free Confirmation of Participation once you have completed at least 50% of the content.
  • Certificate: You will receive your official openHPI Certificate by earning at least 50% of the maximum number of points from all graded assignments.

Find out more on our page for Proofs of Achievement and Guidelines.

Our teachers

Prof. Dr. Andreas Polze

Prof. Andreas Polze's group Operating Systems and Middleware develops programming paradigms, design patterns and description methods for large, distributed component systems. The group’s work focuses on the integration of middleware with embedded systems and the predictability of their behavior with respect to real-time capability, fault tolerance and safety.

Hildegard Gerhardy

Hildegard Gerhardy is as a consultant in IBM responsible for the IBM Power Systems/Cognitive Solutions Academic Initiative (PSAI) for Europe.
She is located at one of the german IBM metro locations based in Düsseldorf.

The objective in the academic environment is to raise awareness at universities and schools for what IBM in these days is standing for.
She is focussing around Europe supporting Professors/Phd´s and students in different universities and schools, to enable them to use IBM education materials and downloadable software as well as getting access to systems and cloud offerings. To get this done we are building up collaboration with different chairs at several universities. Last but not least IBM focuses on attracting young talents with special skills that IBM and clients are looking for.

Hildegard Gerhardy started her career in IBM Learning Services in 1999 as Leading Technical Trainer and took on various responsibilities in different areas during the last 20 years. She built up experiences in different departments like Marketing, Sales, Brand&Product Management as well as Strategy and Business Development.

Dr. Wolfgang Maier

Wolfgang Maier is Director Hardware Development at the german sited IBM R&D lab close to Stuttgart.

His career with IBM started as design engineer for Mainframe Firmware in 1996. 3 years later he accepted
the role of department manager for System z IO Firmware and started to focus on the employment of
industry standard IO technologies in IBM high end servers. During his international assignment
in Austin (Tx) he directed the first implementation of the Infiniband technology for the IBM POWER line.
After his return to germany he extended the use of industry standards within the mainframe
and headed the development of central IO hardware as well as mainframe and POWER CMOS processors.
His current responsibilities also span the system packaging and system control area with special focus
on workload optimization and power efficiency. He is leading the european business development of the
OpenPower foundation which was founded by IBM and several other technology partners in 2013. His current
focus in innovation is on Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing.

Wolfgang Maier obtained his PhD in Laserphysics from the University of Tuebingen in 1996.
He enjoys to spend his spare time with his family, loves skiing and motorbikes.