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Perimeter Research Links 3D Gravity to 2D Quantum Surfaces

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June 30, 2026 by Ivy Delaney

Researchers at Perimeter Institute are applying techniques from quantum cryptography to reveal surprising connections between gravity and entanglement, offering new insight into one of physics’ most enduring challenges. The work centers on the AdS/CFT correspondence, where a three-dimensional gravitational spacetime, or Anti-de Sitter space, can be described by a two-dimensional quantum field theory, functioning like a “3D hologram of a 2D surface.” Alex May, Murray Gell-Mann Chair in Theoretical Physics at Perimeter Institute, explains that “entanglement is one of the ingredients that makes this correspondence work.” Perimeter Institute, a research hub devoted to theoretical physics, believes understanding how gravity and quantum mechanics fit together is crucial, as unifying them remains a primary goal in modern physics.

AdS/CFT Correspondence Links Gravity and Quantum Fields

These tools are helping to expose the underlying principles governing the correspondence, offering a novel approach to understanding the relationship between dimensionality and information content. The Institute’s research, funded in part by the Governments of Ontario and Canada, aims to catalyze innovation through fundamental scientific advancements, believing that theoretical physics will drive future technologies. This exploration of AdS/CFT is not simply an academic exercise, but a step towards a more complete understanding of the universe at its most fundamental level.

Quantum cryptography, a field dedicated to secure communication, is now providing unexpected insights into the relationship between gravity and quantum mechanics. Researchers are applying its tools to explore the perplexing AdS/CFT correspondence, a theoretical framework where a gravitational spacetime and a quantum field theory describe the same physical reality.

Here, a special kind of gravitational spacetime (Anti-de Sitter space or AdS) and a specific kind of quantum field theory (conformal field theory or CFT) are able to describe the same physics – even though the spacetime has one more dimension than the field theory, as if it were a 3D hologram of a 2D surface.

Alex May, Murray Gell-Mann Chair in Theoretical Physics at Perimeter Institute
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AdS/CFT correspondence Entanglement quantum cryptography Quantum Gravity
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Ivy Delaney

Ivy Delaney has been working with neural networks and machine learning since the mid-nineties, back when a couple of hidden layers and a long afternoon of training counted as ambitious. She has watched the field go from academic curiosity to the thing quietly running underneath everything, and she brings that long view to quantum computing. For Quantum Zeitgeist she covers the ground where the two fields meet. That means quantum machine learning and the variational algorithms it leans on, and it also means the less glamorous but more interesting story of classical machine learning already doing real work inside quantum machines, decoding error-correcting codes, calibrating noisy hardware and learning the error models that simulators depend on. She writes about the hardware those algorithms have to run on too, and about the post-quantum cryptography scramble that the same hardware has set off. Her stories typically start with the paper, whether that is peer-reviewed work, conference proceedings or an arXiv preprint, with the source linked so you can hold a claim up against the research it came from. She is unimpressed by benchmarks that will not say what they beat, and by demonstrations that only work in the press release.

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