Igor L. Markov

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Leonidovich and the family name is Markov.

Igor Leonidovich Markov^[a] (born in 1973) is an Ukrainian-American professor, computer scientist and engineer. Markov is known for results in quantum computation, work on limits of computation, research on algorithms for optimizing integrated circuits and on electronic design automation, as well as artificial intelligence platforms and AI for chip design.^[1] Markov serves on the board of Nova Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit that has delivered large-scale humanitarian aid to Ukraine and has participated in oversight and fundraising activities.^[2][3][4][5]

Igor Leonidovich Markov
Ігор Леонідович Марков
Born	(1973-03-31) 31 March 1973 (age 52) Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Kyiv, Ukraine)
Nationality	Ukraine
Alma mater	UCLA Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Scientific career
Fields	Computer science, Electrical engineering, Optimization, Electronic design automation, Artificial intelligence, Quantum computing
Institutions	University of Michigan, Stanford University, Meta Platforms, Google
Thesis	Top-Down Timing-Driven Placement with Direct Minimization of Maximal Signal Delay  (2001)
Doctoral advisor	Andrew B. Kahng
Doctoral students	Smita Krishnaswamy
Other notable students	Vivek Shende

Igor L. Markov has no known relation to the mathematician Andrey Markov.

Education

Markov graduated from Kyiv Natural Science Lyceum No. 145. He completed his undergraduate studies in mathematics at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Markov obtained an M.A. degree in mathematics and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in computer science from UCLA in 2001.^[1][6]

Career

University appointments

From the early 2000s through 2018, Markov was a professor at University of Michigan.^[1] In 2007, he was a visiting Associate Professor at the National Taiwan University.^[7] He has been promoted to full professor in 2012.^[6] In 2013-2014 Markov was a visiting professor at Stanford University.^[8]

Industry

In the 1990s, Markov worked as a software engineer at the Parametric Technology Corporation. In 2008, he worked as a principal engineer at Synopsys during a sabbatical leave from University of Michigan.^[9][10] Between 2014 and 2017 Markov worked at Google on Search and information retrieval.^[11] From 2018 to 2023, he worked at Meta on machine learning platforms and news feed integrity.^[12][13][14] In the early 2020s, he consulted for IonQ on quantum computer design and optimization.^[15] Markov returned to Synopsys in 2024 to work on computing hardware^[16] and remains a Distinguished Architect as of 2025.^[17]

Nonprofit leadership

Since 2017, Markov has been a member of the Board of Directors of Nova Ukraine, a California 501(c)(3) charity organization that provides aid and services to people in Ukraine.^[4] According to annual IRS Form 990 filings, the organization has raised over $100 million in aid and distributed a large part of it in Ukraine;^[3][18] newsmedia reporting in the US and Ukraine corroborates large-scale shipments of medical supplies to Ukraine and numerous aid projects during 2022–2024.^{[4][19][5][20]}

Markov is also the Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Coalition for Ukraine, an umbrella organization that coordinates one hundred US-based nonprofits concerned about events in Ukraine.^[21]

Accolades

The ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation honored Markov with an Outstanding New Faculty Award in 2004.^[22] Markov received the NSF CAREER award in 2005. Along with Andrew Kahng, in 2011 Igor Markov won the A. Richard Newton GSRC Industrial Impact Award for research on circuit placement and the Capo software package, used by researchers and companies.^[23]

Markov was the 2009 recipient of IEEE CEDA Ernest S. Kuh Early Career Award "for outstanding contributions to algorithms, methodologies and software for the physical design of integrated circuits."^[24][25] Markov became ACM Distinguished Scientist in 2011.^[26][27] In 2013 he was named an IEEE fellow^[28] "for contributions to optimization methods in electronic design automation".^[29]

Markov won 2007-08 EECS Outstanding Achievement Awards at University of Michigan in recognition of excellence in research, teaching, and service.^[30]

Award-winning publications

Markov's peer-reviewed scholarly work was recognized with five best-paper awards, including four at major conferences and a journal in the field of electronic design automation, and one in theoretical computer science:

• The 2003 IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems Donald O. Pederson Best Paper Award, shared with Vivek Shende and John P. Hayes for work^[31] on reversible logic circuits.^[32]
• The 2004 best-paper award at the Design Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) conference, shared with Smita Krishnaswamy, George F. Viamontes, and John P. Hayes for work^[33] on circuit reliability evaluation with probabilistic transfer matrices.^[34] Full journal version of this work was published four years later.^[35]
• The 2008 best-paper award at the International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD), shared with Stephen Plaza and Valeria Bertacco, for work^[36] on physical synthesis.^[37]
• The 2010 best-paper award at the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD) for work^[38] on circuit placement.^[39] The full journal version of this work was published two years later.^[40]
• The best-paper award at the 2012 Alan Turing Centenary Conference in Manchester, UK, shared with Karem A. Sakallah for work^[41] on graph automorphism and canonical labeling.^[42]

Key technical contributions

Quantum computing

Markov's contributions include results on quantum circuit synthesis (creating circuits from specifications) and simulation of quantum circuits on conventional computers (obtaining the output of a quantum computer without a quantum computer).

• An algorithm for the synthesis of linear reversible circuits with at most ${\displaystyle O(n^{2}/\log n)}$ CNOT gates (asymptotically optimal)^[43] that was extended by Scott Aaronson and Daniel Gottesman to perform optimal synthesis of Clifford circuits,^[44] with applications to quantum error correction.
• Optimal synthesis of a two-qubit unitary that uses the minimal number of CNOT gates^[45][46]
• Asymptotically optimal synthesis of an ${\displaystyle n}$-qubit quantum circuit that (a) implements a given unitary matrix using no more than${\displaystyle (23/48)\times 4^{n}-(3/2)\times 2^{n}+4/3}$ CNOT gates (less than a factor of two away from the theoretical lower bound) and (b) induces an initial quantum state using no more than ${\displaystyle 2^{n+1}-2n}$ CNOT gates (less than a factor of four away from the theoretical lower bound).^[45] In independent evaluations, researchers observed strong performance of the circuit synthesis algorithm published by Markov as implemented in IBM Qiskit software.^[47]
• Efficient simulation of quantum circuits with low tree-width using tensor-network contraction.^[48] Follow-up works extended this technique with approximations, which allowed them to simulate quantum Fourier transform in polynomial time.^[49][50] Markov's work was used in an essential way in the first proof (by Dorit Aharonov et al.) that quantum Fourier transform can be classically simulated.^[49]
• Markov contributed to advancements in ion trap quantum computing at IonQ as a consultant and research collaborator.^[51] He led research on an error mitigation technique called "debiasing via frugal symmetrization" that addresses computational inaccuracies in quantum systems by using computational symmetries to reduce errors across multiple algorithm implementations. The method improved the accuracy of quantum computations without additional execution overhead.^[15][52]

Markov has been leading early quantum computing efforts at Synopsys with emphasis on leveraging the existing design and manufacturing ecosystem for silicon chips.^[17][53][54]

Physical design of integrated circuits

Markov's Capo placer^[55] provided a baseline for comparisons used in the placement literature. The placer was commercialized and used to design industry chips.^[24] Markov's contributions include algorithms, methodologies and software for

• Circuit partitioning:^[56][57] high-performance heuristic optimizations for hypergraph partitioning
• Placement:^[40][55] algorithms for finding ${\displaystyle (x,y)}$ locations of circuit components that optimize interconnects between those components
• Floorplanning:^[58] algorithms and methodologies for chip planning in terms of locations of large components
• Routing:^[59] algorithms based on Lagrangian relaxation to construct global wire routs on a multilayer grid structure
• Physical synthesis:^[36] algorithms and methodologies for altering logic circuits to admit layouts with shorter interconnects or lower latency

Artificial intelligence

At Meta, Markov led the development of an end-to-end AI platform called Looper, an internal machine learning platform that supports end-to-end product decision-making and optimization. It provides easy-to-use APIs for data ingestion, feature extraction, model training, and real-time inference, along with built-in support for multi-objective optimization and feedback collection. Looper’s modular architecture enables rapid experimentation and deployment, and by 2022 it was adopted by over 90 Meta product teams for tasks ranging from content ranking to user engagement analysis.^[60][61][62]

At Synopsys, Markov leads the AI Disruption Task Force that tracks the impact of AI on chip design and evaluates possible business disruptions.^[63] In June 2025, he delivered a one-hour tutorial titled “AI for EDA: Challenges and Opportunities” as part of Short Course 2 at the Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits in Kyoto.^[64]

Nonprofit contributions

As part of Ukraine Action Summits organized by the American Coalition for Ukraine, Markov participates in Congressional advocacy that informs elected officials about Ukraine.^[65][66] At Nova Ukraine, Markov oversees advocacy activities.^[67][68] He also organized medical and evacuation projects, and participated in fundraising efforts.

Since 2022, Igor Markov has served as a public spokesman for Nova Ukraine. In this role, he has represented the organization in the media, advocating for relief efforts and raising awareness of the ongoing crisis. On 25 February 2022, the day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine commenced, Markov appeared in a Fox News interview discussing the humanitarian impact of the conflict.^[69] In May 2022, Markov appeared in interviews on CNN Newsroom discussing the evacuation of civilians during the Siege of Mariupol and highlighting Nova Ukraine's significant fundraising achievements and aid delivery efforts.^[67][68] In 2023, Markov told the Associated Press that the organization faced repeated debates over how to distinguish humanitarian aid from military support. He explained that Nova Ukraine chose not to fund volunteer fighters, partly because corporate partners require assurances that donations are used only for humanitarian purposes, though he noted that some dual-use items, such as vehicles, can blur that line.^[4]

In March 2022, Igor Markov, serving as a director of Nova Ukraine, coordinated one of the organization's largest humanitarian aid operations following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Under Markov's leadership, Nova Ukraine partnered with the Ukrainian Student Association at Stanford University and the Ukrainian Association of Washington State to organize the shipment of 32 tons of emergency medical supplies valued at $3.5 million. These efforts involved the aggregation of donations from hospitals throughout the Pacific Northwest, key medical surplus facilities, and the broader Ukrainian American community. The supplies included surgical kits, syringes, anesthesia machines, life-saving first aid kits, and pediatric medicines, among other critical equipment, destined for hospitals and front-line medical personnel in Ukraine. The operation culminated in a chartered Airbus A330 flight departing from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport and arriving in Lublin, Poland, on March 29, 2022, where the cargo was subsequently transported to Ministry of Health of Ukraine for further distribution across the country.^[70][71]

Markov highlighted the use of air cargo flights to reduce delivery times for medical supplies to under two weeks, compared with months via traditional shipping. The effort was widely recognized by community leaders and public officials in Washington State and led to the establishment of further transatlantic supply efforts following its success.^[72]

In October 2023, Igor Markov played a key role in organizing a visit of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) to the United States.^[73][74] The UCCRO delegation, representing more than 95 percent of Ukraine’s religious communities, aimed to raise international awareness about the consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion for religious freedom and civil society in Ukraine. The visit was coordinated with the support of Nova Ukraine, with Razom for Ukraine and other Ukrainian-American organizations. As part of the delegation’s program, religious leaders held meetings with members of the United States Senate,^[75] the Department of State, think-tanks, and faith-based organizations. The initiative was recognized by the Embassy of Ukraine in the United States as an important demonstration of Ukraine’s religious unity and democratic values in the context of war.^[76][77][78]

Teaching and mentoring

At the University of Michigan, where he supervised research and dissertations of 12 doctoral students in electrical engineering and computer science, Markov taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in computer engineering and computer science:^[79]

• EECS 270: Introduction to Logic Design
• EECS 281: Data Structures and Algorithms
• EECS 478: Logic Synthesis and Optimization
• EECS 527: Circuit Layout Synthesis

Rate My Professors ratings note Markov’s clarity and attention to detail in instruction.^[80] In a 2007 presentation to the University of Michigan Regents, his teaching and curriculum development was highlighted positively based on student evaluations.^[81] In 2008, he received the EECS Outstanding Achievement Award, which cited contributions to both research and teaching.^[30]

In 2014, he served as the primary instructor for Stanford's EE 271: Introduction to VLSI Systems.^[82]

Books and other publications

Markov co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications in journals and archival conference proceedings. Google Scholar reported over 21,000 citations of his publications as of August 2025 with h-index of 75.

In a 2014 Nature article,^[83] Markov surveyed known limits to computation, pointing out that many of them are fairly loose and do not restrict near-term technologies. When practical technologies encounter serious limits, understanding these limits can lead to workarounds. The work was highlighted by the National Science Foundation, where program director Sankar Basu commented that the paper “revolves around this important intellectual question of our time” in its effort to identify laws governing the limits of computation in the information age.^[84] The article was praised for synthesizing diverse constraints—from materials and manufacturing to energy, space–time, and computational complexity—and for framing “loose” versus “tight” limits to guide future innovations in chip design.

In 2024, Markov published a paper in Communications of the ACM critical of a prior Nature publication on chip design.^[85]

Books

Markov has authored and edited several books on electronic design automation, algorithms, and combinatorial optimization.

Authored

• George F. Viamontes; Igor L. Markov; John P. Hayes (2009). Quantum Circuit Simulation. Springer. ISBN 978-90-481-3064-1.
• Kai-hui Chang; Valeria Bertacco; Igor L. Markov (2009). Functional Design Errors in Digital Circuits - Diagnosis, Correction and Repair. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering. Vol. 32. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4020-9364-7.
• David A. Papa; Igor L. Markov (2013). Multi-Objective Optimization in Physical Synthesis of Integrated Circuits. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering. Vol. 166. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4614-1355-4.
• Andrew B. Kahng; Jens Lienig; Igor L. Markov; Jin Hu (2022). VLSI Physical Design - From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure (second ed.). Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-96415-3. (first edition published in 2011)
• Smita Krishnaswamy; Igor L. Markov; John P. Hayes (21 September 2012). Design, Analysis and Test of Logic Circuits Under Uncertainty. Springer. ISBN 978-90-481-9643-2.

Edited

• Luciano Lavagno; Igor L. Markov; Grant Martin; Louis K. Scheffer, eds. (2016). Electronic Design Automation for IC System Design, Verification, and Testing (second ed.). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781138586000.

Public engagement

In May 2016, at the ML Conference in San Francisco, Markov delivered a 30-minute public presentation titled "Can AI Become a Dystopian Threat to Humanity? A Hardware Perspective". He argued that, despite popular concerns about runaway artificial intelligence, inherent hardware and energy constraints impose natural limits on an AI system’s capacity for rapid recursive self-improvement or mass replication. Markov proposed establishing strict boundaries between hierarchical levels of AI autonomy, preventing unrestricted self-modification, and tightly regulating access to critical energy sources and hardware resources. He further recommended domestication strategies—such as deploying benevolent AI overseers—to detect and neutralize potentially malicious systems. By combining technological analogies with evolutionary concepts, Markov outlined a set of abstract safety rules and monitoring frameworks intended to preemptively mitigate a wide spectrum of AI-driven threats.^[86][87][88]

Markov was awarded a Top Writer status on Quora in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014, he has over 80,000 followers. His contributions were republished by Huffington Post, Slate, and Forbes.^{[89][90][91][92]}

Markov serves as a subject-area moderator for the Computer Science section of arXiv.^[93]

Notes

1. Ukrainian: Ігор Леонідович Марков, romanized: Ihor Leonidovych Markov