Dr. Florian Neukart

Principal Scientist Volkswagen Group of America

Dr. Florian Neukart took over as Principal Scientist at Volkswagen Group Region Americas in San Francisco where he has been conducting research in the fields of quantum computing and artificial intelligence.  Before his current post, he was the CTO of Volkswagen Group’s Data Lab in Munich and responsible for its efforts in Research and Technology. He made various contributions to the fields of mathematics and computer science, specifically in optimization, quantum computing and bio-inspired algorithms. In 2013, he joined Audi from SAP, where he worked as a data science consultant. 

Florian Neukart holds a Ph.D. in quantum computing and artificial intelligence from the Transilvania University of Brasov, as well as a Master’s degree in information technology from the CAMPUS02 University of Applied Sciences in Graz, and a Master’s degree in computer science from the Joanneum University of Applied Sciences in Kapfenberg.

Neukart is also an assistant professor at Leiden University, where he works on quantum computing and artificial intelligence. He is the author of the book "Reverse Engineering the Mind - Consciously Acting Machines and Accelerated Evolution". He was one of the first researchers to propose and implement quantum neural networks, and among the first ones to solve real-world problems of society and environment by means of quantum computing/ annealing. In 2014, Neukart was awarded for his work in biologically-inspired artificial intelligence software by the Science Park Austria.