Introduction to the Quantum Metascience Initiative (QMI) (September 2022)
In the wake of the Human Genome Project, biologists and medical researchers in hundreds of subdisciplines were confronted by vast quantities of data associated with entirely new experimental technologies. To link the results of rapid advances with traditional life science concerns, a biological metascience was devised, built on the basis of a suite of evolving controlled vocabularies, called “ontologies”. The reach of this new biological metascience extended well beyond basic sciences to encompass data provenance, (data) product life-cycle management and engineering of machines and equipment used in biolaboratories. The underlying approach has been standardized as ISO/IEC 21838.
We are now developing a quantum metascience, based on ontologies appropriate to quantum information science and technology (QIST). QIST encompasses mathematics, quantum sciences (both physics and the quantum information sciences), communications, engineering and – increasingly – finance and investment. QIST deploys a wide range of technologies and protocols that are also evolving rapidly. It engages aspects of human and institutional infrastructure in some ways parallel to those encountered in the genomics era and raising parallel problems of siloing of data arising through incompatibility of definitions, codes and formats. Development and application of common ontologies can help to solve these problems and thereby advance progress in QIST and enhance access to data by quantum scientists and technologists and also customers, suppliers and new entrants to the field. For more information see https://www.quantumsci.org/