  In this paper, we consider fermionic systems in discrete spacetime evolving
with a strict notion of causality, meaning they evolve unitarily and with a
bounded propagation speed. First, we show that the evolution of these systems
has a natural decomposition into a product of local unitaries, which also holds
if we include bosons. Next, we show that causal evolution of fermions in
discrete spacetime can also be viewed as the causal evolution of a lattice of
qubits, meaning these systems can be viewed as quantum cellular automata.
Following this, we discuss some examples of causal fermionic models in discrete
spacetime that become interesting physical systems in the continuum limit:
Dirac fermions in one and three spatial dimensions, Dirac fields and briefly
the Thirring model. Finally, we show that the dynamics of causal fermions in
discrete spacetime can be efficiently simulated on a quantum computer.
