Lloyd was born on August 2, 1960. Lloyd's mother was Susan Lloyd, a history teacher at Phillips Andover.[2][3] His maternal grandparents wereRustin McIntosh, a pediatrician, andMillicent Carey McIntosh, an educational administrator.[2] His father, Robert Lloyd, was an art teacher at Phillips Andover.[2][4] His paternal grandparents were teachers of history and dance atPhillips Exeter.[4]
From 1988 to 1991, Lloyd was a postdoctoral researcher atCaltech working withMurray Gell-Mann on applications of information to quantum systems, and from 1991 to 1994 he was a postdoctoral researcher atLos Alamos National Laboratory working on quantum computation. In 1994 he joined the mechanical engineering department atMIT. Lloyd has also been an external faculty member at theSanta Fe Institute.
In 2007 he was named a Fellow of theAmerican Physical Society.[6] In 2012 he was given the International Quantum Communication Award.[7]
WithAram Harrow and Avinatan Hassidim he introduced theHHL algorithm[15] for solving systems of linear equations, and later several quantum machine learning algorithms based on it.[16][17] These algorithms were widely thought to give an exponential speedup relative to the best classical algorithms, until the discovery byEwin Tang of classical algorithms achieving the same exponential speedup.[18]
In his 2006 book,Programming the Universe, Lloyd contends that the universe itself is a largequantum computer. According to Lloyd, once the laws ofphysics are understood completely, small-scale quantum computing can be used to understand the universe completely as well. He states that the whole universe could be simulated on a computer in 600 years provided that computational power increases according toMoore's Law.[19]
Lloyd was introduced toJeffrey Epstein by his literary agentJohn Brockman at the Edge Billionaires' Dinner in 2004.[20] Lloyd appears in a photo taken at a dinner hosted by Epstein at Harvard in 2004, together with several other Harvard and MIT faculty.[21] Photos of Lloyd, and other professors, appeared in blogs maintained by Epstein and his foundation.[22][23][failed verification] Lloyd acknowledged funding from Epstein in 19 papers,[24] visited Epstein in prison after his conviction,[25] and visited Epstein's private island for a scientific conference.[26] TheEpstein files, released in 2025 and 2026, included a number of emails by or about Lloyd.[27][28]
Public controversy began in July 2019, when reports surfaced that MIT and other institutions had accepted funding from Epstein.[29]Lloyd's connections to Epstein drew strong criticism at MIT. In August 2019, Lloyd published a letter apologizing for accepting grants totaling $225,000 from Epstein.[25] The controversy at MIT continued despite this, including student protests demanding Lloyd's resignation and criticizing MIT's decision to allow him to continue teaching.[26][30][31][32][33][34][35]
TheMIT Corporation hired a law firm to prepare a report on MIT's many interactions with Epstein, which was released in January 2020.[36] Concerning Lloyd, the report stated that Epstein had made two donations of $50,000 to Lloyd that were meant to test whether MIT would still accept his donations despite his criminal conviction.[37]: 13 The report further stated that Lloyd took deliberate steps "to obscure the fact that Epstein was the donor and to hinder any possible due diligence or vetting by MIT."[37]: 20 Lloyd denied that he had misled MIT.[38][39]
After the release of the report, MIT appointed a committee of five senior MIT faculty to assess whether Lloyd had violated any MIT policy.[40] In December 2020, the committee reported that Lloyd did not attempt to circumvent the MIT vetting process, and Lloyd was allowed to keep his tenured faculty position.[41] However, a majority of the committee members concluded that Lloyd had violated MIT policy by not disclosing "crucial information about Epstein’s background."[40] A separate evaluation panel set a series of disciplinary actions over the next 5 years, including limits on Lloyd's ability to solicit donors and to advise students.[40][41] Some students saw the administration's response as too lenient.[42]
^Lloyd, Seth (20 October 2002)."THE COMPUTATIONAL UNIVERSE".Edge.org. Edge Foundation. Retrieved7 October 2020.'Every physical system registers information, and just by evolving in time, by doing its thing, it changes that information ...'
