How hard is it to solve? Problem Complexity Theory and Quantum Computing
The Association of IT Professionals, Lehigh Valley Chapter
Details
** IMPORTANT ** NEW MEETING LOCATION **
Our next local AITP Chapter will be meeting on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at Kutztown University, Old Main building, Room 159.
This presentation is open for members and non-members, faculty, staff, and students.
ABSTRACT:
How hard is it to solve? Problem Complexity Theory and Quantum Computing
This lecture introduces problem complexity theory, an important area of theoretical computer science. We start with simple problems like multiplication and build up to much more complicated problems, to help analyze how the difficulty of solving them should be understood. We will discuss various classes of problem classification based on the time/space requirements needed to solve them, theoretical models used in such analysis and available resources, including Quantum Computing, when the complexity involved in solving a problem is too high.
These are the expected takeaways:
- An awareness about problem complexity and different classes of problems - Realization that once you hit NP-Complete level, exhaustive search won't work
- When deterministic algorithms can't be developed to solve these problems, how do heuristic solutions work?
- How does Quantum Computing work and affect this order?
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr. Sundar Vedantham, Ex-Director of Software Development at Intel, worked in the Network and Edge Group (NEX) of Intel Corporation in Allentown, PA. His skillset and experience cover a wide range of telecommunication related domains. His team was recently involved in delivering highly optimized software layer that drive silicon hardware accelerators, designed to aid mobile and cloud networks. He joined Lucent Technologies couple of decades back and has traveled through various incarnations of his division to eventually become part of Intel Corporation.
His research interests include network traffic and congestion management, high-speed networking, security, and theoretical computer models, areas in which he holds patents and has published papers, book chapters & articles. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1997 from Louisiana State University. In his early years he has worked in a Helicopter Design Bureau and served two years as a maintenance engineer in an offshore Oil & Gas platform.
He enjoys writing articles in English and Tamil to help improve public understanding of the technical details behind the fields he has worked on and to attract young students to get into STEM fields. Many of his articles are available online for free. As part of this effort, he has published a book titled Thought Experiments available online to help anyone from high school students onwards understand complex ideas embedded in fields like Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Ethics, Democracy and Medicine.
LOCATION & DIRECTIONS:
The meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at Kutztown University, Old Main building, Room 159. Please see directions below if attending in person:
Directions after arrival at Kutztown University: 1) Please park in Parking Lot F1 of Kutztown University. 2) Walk through the tunnel to enter the rear of Building#30 (Old Main). 3) Proceed upstairs of Old Main and make a right at the first landing. 4) Make a left of the main hallway. 5) Go down the hallway. 6) Look for us in Room 159.
DINNER & MEETING DETAILS
In-Person Attendance:
Join us at 6:00 PM for complimentary light refreshments—pizza and drinks will be served. If you wish, you are welcome to make a donation to help support future events.
Virtual Attendance:
If you prefer to attend the presentation remotely, please use the following Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81747041229.
AGENDA:
- 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM (Arrival and professional networking)
- 6:00 – 7:00 PM (Networking light dinner - complimentary)
- 7:00 – 8:00 or 8:30 PM EST (Presentation -- complimentary)
For a listing of our AITP Lehigh Valley Chapter events, please visit our website at http://www.lv-aitp.org/
WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15th!!