On January 9, Danish Minister of Higher Education and Science Christina Egelund and a delegation of 14 people, including leaders of Danish universities and foundations, visited the RIKEN Wako Campus to meet with President Gonokami on issues including the state of quantum science and international collaboration in Japan and Denmark.

At this session, Executive Director Makiko Naka gave an introduction to RIKEN, while Research Strategy Advisor Masashi Kawasaki and Mitsuhisa Sato, Director of the Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division (RIKEN Center for Computational Science), gave an overview of RIKEN's quantum strategy.

Before the meeting with President Gonokami, they visited the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science (RNC) for a facility tour guided by Center Director Hiroyoshi Sakurai. Director Sakurai explained the highlights of the center’s work, including the accelerator facilities and the Nishina Yoshio Memorial Room, which exhibits letters exchanged between Yoshio Nishina and Niels Bohr of Denmark.

Dr. Nishina studied in Copenhagen for five years from 1923, and brought back the “Copenhagen Spirit” of free, open-minded, and humorous debate and dialogue that established the foundation for the birth of quantum mechanics and modern physics, which had only just begun at the time.

Following that, at the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing (RQC), they discussed quantum research with Yasunobu Nakamura, Director of RQC, and four other RQC researchers, followed by a tour of the quantum computer facility.