TOKYO, CAMBRIDGE, England and BROOMFIELD, Colo., Oct. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mitsui & Co., Ltd ("Mitsui") and Quantinuum have signed a strategic partnership agreement to collaborate in the delivery of quantum computing in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

Mitsui, which is committed to digital transformation, and Quantinuum, one of the world's leading quantum computing companies, integrated across hardware and software, have entered this strategic partnership to develop quantum computing use cases, which are expected to drive significant business transformation and innovation in the future.

Mitsui and Quantinuum will accelerate collaboration, cooperation, and development of new business models. They will jointly pursue quantum application development and provide value added services to organizations working across a variety of quantum computing domains, which is expected to be worth US$450B US$850B worldwide by 2040.*

Yoshio Kometani, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Information Officer of Mitsui & Co., Ltd. stated:"We are very pleased with the strategic partnership between Mitsui and Quantinuum. By combining Quantinuum's cutting-edge quantum computing expertise and diverse quantum talents with Mitsui's broad business platform and network, we will work together to provide new value to our customers and create new business value in a wide range of industrial fields."

Ilyas Khan, Founder and CEO of Quantinuum stated:"The alliance between Mitsui and Quantinuum demonstrates our shared commitment to accelerating quantum computing across all applications and use cases in a diverse range of sectors, including chemistry, finance, and cybersecurity. Today's announcement reinforces our belief in the global quantum leadership shown by corporations and governments in Japan, pioneered by corporate leaders like Mitsui."

Details of the Strategic Partnership

Collaboration areas and applications

Recent Achievements by Quantinuum

About Mitsui & Co., Ltd.

Location: 1-2-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

Established: 1947

Representative: Kenichi Hori, President and Representative Director

Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (8031: JP) is a global trading and investment company with a diversified business portfolio that spans approximately 63 countries in Asia, Europe, North, Central & South America, The Middle East, Africa and Oceania.

Mitsui has about 5,500 employees and deploys talent around the globe to identify, develop, and grow businesses in collaboration with a global network of trusted partners. Mitsui has built a strong and diverse core business portfolio covering the Mineral and Metal Resources, Energy, Machinery and Infrastructure, and Chemicals industries.

Leveraging its strengths, Mitsui has further diversified beyond its core profit pillars to create multifaceted value in new areas, including innovative Energy Solutions, Healthcare & Nutrition and through a strategic focus on high-growth Asian markets. This strategy aims to derive growth opportunities by harnessing some of the world's main mega-trends: sustainability, health & wellness, digitalization and the growing power of the consumer.

Mitsui has a long heritage in Asia, where it has established a diverse and strategic portfolio of businesses and partners that gives it a strong differentiating edge, provides exceptional access for all global partners to the world's fastest growing region and strengthens its international portfolio.

For more information on Mitsui & Co's businesses visit, https://www.mitsui.com/jp/en/index.html

About Quantinuum

Location: Cambridge, U.K., Broomfield, Colorado, U.S.A.

Established: December 2021 (through the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions (U.S.) and Cambridge Quantum Computing (U.K.))

Representative: Ilyas Khan, CEO; Tony Uttley, COO; Shuya Kekke, CEO & Representative Director, Japan

Quantinuum is one of the world's largest integrated quantum computing companies, formed by the combination of Honeywell Quantum Solutions' world-leading hardware and Cambridge Quantum's class-leading middleware and applications. Science-led and enterprise-driven, Quantinuum accelerates quantum computing and the development of applications across chemistry, cybersecurity, finance, and optimization. Its focus is to create scalable and commercial quantum solutions to solve the world's most pressing problems in fields such as energy, logistics, climate change, and health. The company employs over 480 individuals, including 350 scientists, at nine sites across the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Selected major customers (in Japan): Nippon Steel Corporation, JSR Corporation

http://www.quantinuum.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1923231/Quantinuum.jpgPhoto - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1923232/Quantinuum_System_Model.jpg

SOURCE Quantinuum LLC

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Strategic Partnership Agreement to Develop the Quantum Computing Market in Japan and Asia-Pacific - PR Newswire

In the few images that IBM has released, its quantum computing lab looks like the engine room of a spaceship: bright white rooms with countless cables dangling from the ceiling down to a floating floor, pierced with vents. This technological tangle is just the background for the main show: rows of metal supports on which hang what look like... white solar boilers.

There, within these boilers, a historical revolution is taking shape. IBM, a computing dinosaur more than a century old, is trying to reinvent itself by winning one of the most grueling, expensive and potentially promising scientific races ever: the race to develop the quantum computer. "We are living in the most exciting era in the history of computing," says Dario Gil, Senior Vice President of IBM and head of the company's research division, in an exclusive interview with Calcalist. "We are witnessing a moment similar to the one recorded in the 40s & 50s of the last century, when the first classic computers were built." A few weeks after this conversation, his statements were further confirmed, when the Nobel Prize Committee announced the awarding of the prize in the field of physics to three researchers whose research served as a milestone in the development of the field.

The name Dario Gil shakes a lot of quanta and cells in the brains, and maybe even in the hearts, of physicists and computer engineers all over the world. This is the person who leads the most advanced effort in the world to develop a quantum computer. In September, when Gil landed in Tel Aviv for a short visit to give the opening lecture at the IBM conference, the hall was packed with senior engineers, researchers from the top universities in Israel, and representatives of government bodies - all enthralled by what Gil had to say.

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Dario Gil.

(Photo: Elad Gershgoren)

Gil (46) was born in Spain and moved to the United States to study at MIT University. He completed his doctoral studies there, and immediately after graduation began working at IBM in a series of research and development positions. Since 2019, he has been leading the company's research division, which has 3,000 engineers at 21 sites, including Israel. Under his management, in 2016, IBM built the first quantum computer whose services are available to anyone: if you have a complicated question, you can go to the IBM Quantum Experience website, remotely access one of the quantum computers through the cloud - and, perhaps, receive an answer. But as with everything related to quantum computing, it just sounds simple.

"Quantum computing is not just a name for an extremely fast computer," says Gill. In fact, he explains, the quantum computer is no longer a supercomputer that uses the same binary method that is accepted in every classical computer, but a completely new machine, another step in the evolution leading from strings of shells, through beaded invoices and calculating bars, to gear-based mechanical computers, to the electronic computer and now to the quantum computer. "Essentially, the quantum computer is a kind of simulator of nature, through which it is possible to simulate natural processes, and thus solve problems that previously had no solution," explains Gil. "If the classical computer is a combination of mathematics and information, then quantum computing is a combination of physics and information."

This connection makes it possible to solve certain types of problems with unprecedented speed: Google, which is also developing a quantum computer, claimed in 2019 that it had reached "quantum supremacy" a demonstration of a calculation that a quantum computer would perform more efficiently than a classical computer. The researchers at Google showed how a quantum computer performed in 200 seconds a calculation that they claim would have required a classical computer ten thousand years to complete. This claim has since been disproved by other researchers, who have presented an algorithm that allows a classical computer to perform the same calculation in a reasonable amount of timebut even this Google failure provides an idea of the enormous power a quantum computer will have.

"The quantum computer does not make the classical computer superfluous: they will live together, and each of them will solve different problems," explains Gil. "It's like asking you how to get from point A to point B: you can walk, ride a bicycle, travel by car or fly. If the distance between these points is 50 km, you won't fly between them, right? Accordingly, it is a mode suitable for a classic computer. A quantum computer allows you to fly, even to the moon, and quickly."

You will soon explain to me how it works, and in which areas exactly, but before that, let's start from the bottom line: what can we do with it?

"Quantum computing will make it possible to crack a series of problems that seemed unsolvable, in a way that will change the world. Many of these issues are related to energy. Others are related to the development of new and exciting materials. We tend to take the materials available to us for granted, but in the past there were eras that were defined by the materials that dominated them - The Stone Age', the 'Bronze Age', the 'Iron Age'. Quantum computing will help us develop materials with new properties, therefore the first sector that is already using it is industry, especially the car industry: the car manufacturers are interested in better chemistry, which will enable the production of more efficient and durable batteries for electric vehicles. For a normal computer this is a huge task, and to complete it we have to give up accuracy and settle for approximate answers only, but quantum computing can help quickly develop materials that will fit the task, even without entering the lab. The efficiency of a quantum computer when it comes to questions in chemistry is also used in the pharmaceutical industry, There they are beginning to make initial use of such computers to examine the properties of molecules, and in this way to speed up the development of new drugs; and also in the fertilizer industry, which will be able to develop substances whose production will not harm the environment.

The uses are not limited to the material world. "For the financial sector, for example, the quantum computer enables the analysis of scenarios, risk management and forecasting, and the industry is already very interested in such possible applications, which could provide the general public with dramatically improved performance in investment portfolios, for example.

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IBM.

(Photo: Shutterstock)

At the same time, there are industries that quantum computing will force to recalculate their course, and the information security industry is at the forefront. The modern encryption systems (mainly RSA, one of whose developers is the Israeli Prof. Adi Shamir) are asymmetric: each recipient publishes a code that allows the information sent to them to be encrypted ("public key"), which includes the product of two large prime numbers that are kept secret. To decipher the encrypted information, this product must be broken down into factors - but without knowing what the initial numbers are, "this task would require a normal computer to calculate for many years," explains Gil. "However, for the quantum computer, such a calculation can be a matter of seconds."

There is a real threat here to an entire industry, the logic behind which has been built since the 1970s, and now suddenly the ground is cracking under it.

"True, a normal computer needs ten thousand years to solve an encryption that a quantum computer would solve in an instant. That is why the quantum computer threatens the world of cyberspace and encryption, which are the basis of all global information security. This is an example that is not related to physics or nature, but simply to the stronger and faster computing power of the quantum computer.

The computer that works against all the rules of intuition

To understand the power of the quantum computer, this concept, "quantum computing", must first be broken down. The first step is to stop thinking in the familiar concepts of one and zero. Forget about bits and binaries. The key to understanding quantum computing is the recognition that this dichotomy is not there: instead of the bit, quantum computing relies on a basic unit of information called a qubit (short for "quantum bit"). The qubit is simultaneously one, zero and everything in between.

This is the moment to stop and explain the theory that underlies the quantum computer, and which seems to go against common sense. "Quantum theory makes it possible to explain the behavior of very, very small particles," Gil explains. "At school we are presented with a model of an atom that looks like a planet, with a nucleus and electrons moving around, but at the beginning of the 20th century, this model turned out to be not very accurate." This happened when physicists such as Max Planck and Albert Einstein realized that light, which until then physics saw as a wave, also behaves as a particle - and the energy of this particle can only be described in "quantum" jumps, that is, as discrete packets. In the decades that followed, this theory was developed more and more, and proved to be effective in describing a variety of phenomena in the world of particles. And yet, its deep meanings remain obscure even today.

Such is, for example, the idea that a particle is in more than one place. According to quantum theory, a particle moving between two points moves simultaneously in all the paths between them, a state called "superposition". It's not that we don't know its exact location: it just doesn't have one. Instead, it has a distribution of possible locations that coexist. In other words, reality is not certain, but probabilistic.

And this is not the only puzzle posed by quantum theory. Another confusing concept is "entanglement", a situation in which several particles exhibit identical physical values, and respond simultaneously to a change in one of them, even if they are at a great distance from each other. Gil suggests thinking of it as tossing two coins: anyone who has studied statistics knows that the probabilities of getting a "head" or a "tail" on each of them are independent. But in the quantum model, if the coins (representing particles here) are intertwined, then tossing one of them will result in the same result in the other. "Einstein didn't believe in interweaving, and hated these patterns," Gil says with a smile.

Measurements that affect the results? A reality that is not absolute but statistical? Particles that become twins even at infinite distance? If these ideas sound puzzling, incomprehensible or counter-intuitive to you, you are not alone: "Whoever comes across quantum theory and is not left stunned, has not understood it," said the physicist Niels Bohr, Einstein's contemporary and his great nemesis, who won the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the development of the theory (Einstein, by the way, had reservations about Bohr's interpretation of the theory's conclusions). Another physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the theory, Richard Feynman, commented on this when he said: "If you think you have understood quantum theory, you have not."

The same Feynman is the father of quantum computing: he wanted to simulate the behavior of particles, but due to the probabilistic nature of the theory, a classical computer that would try to perform such a simulation would require an enormous amount of calculations, so that the simulation would become impractical. "Feynman, and like him other physicists, thought that the field of computing focused on mathematical horizons and moved too far away from nature, and that physics could be more connected to the world of information," explains Gil. "In a historic lecture he gave in 1981, Feynman claimed that there was nothing to give a classical computer to deal with particle simulation, because nature is not classical. He said, 'If we want to simulate nature, we need a machine that behaves like nature, in a quantum way.'" In 1998, this vision was realized, when the first quantum computer was built at the University of Oxford in Great Britain.

A quantum computer utilizes the enigmatic properties of quantum theory, those that are not fully understood by us, to perform calculation operations. In a normal computer, the basic unit of information is a "bit", which can have one of two values, 0 or 1; Using such bits makes it possible to perform any calculation imaginable - although some of these calculations may take a very long time. In a quantum computer, the qubit, thanks to superposition, represents not one absolute value, but a distribution of values. "You can think of it as a question of more dimensions: one and zero are just the ends, the poles of a coin for example, but it can also have a sideways tilt," explains Gil. Using statistical approaches it is possible to examine the state of the qubit and obtain useful results. This probabilistic approach is not suitable for every problem, but in solving certain problems it is infinitely more efficient than the classical computer's search for an absolute answer.

"Because of the entanglement effect, it is also possible to cause the qubits to influence each other," says Gil. And since each qubit represents an entire field of possibilities, each addition of a qubit increases the number of possible connections between the qubits with exponentially increasing power (in the classical computer, on the other hand, the addition of bits grows linearly). At the moment, IBM holds the record for qubits: last year it unveiled a quantum processor with 127 qubits, and its stated goal is to launch a processor with 433 qubits this year, and a processor with 1,021 qubits next year.

Three degrees colder than outer space

This ambition is more pretentious than it seems. It turns out that "building a machine that will behave like nature" is a complex story like no other: the qubits are very sensitive to outside influences, which makes building a computer a very complicated and expensive business. "The quantum computer is very powerful, but at the same time also very delicate," explains Gil: "It utilizes physical processes that occur in the world, but such processes are a system in which everything is connected, everything affects everything, and this can disrupt the results: if energy from the outside world goes inside and connect to the qubits, this will make them behave like normal bits, and thus the unique ability of quantum computation will be lost. Therefore, a quantum computer must be very isolated from the entire environment. The big challenge is to produce a system that is sufficiently isolated from the outside world, but not too isolated."

When I try to find out what the cost of building a quantum computer is - and IBM has already built 40 of them - Gil avoids a clear answer, but it is enough to hear what this effort entails: "There are several different approaches to building a quantum computer; IBM chose a cryogenic approach, meaning deep freezing, and the use of superconductors. The temperature in the computer is close to absolute zero: at the bottom of its case the temperature is minus 273 degrees Celsiusthree degrees less than the temperature of outer space, and less than one degree above absolute zero. The temperature should be close to absolute zero, but not reach it, because then there is no movement at all, Not even of the atoms."

The result is a cooling and protection case that resembles a water heater in its shape, and inside it has the calculation unit, whose shape gave it the nickname "chandelier" according to Gil and his team. "Inside the layers of protection there is a cylinder with the processor in it. Even if only a fraction of an energy particle enters the computer, literally a fraction of nothing, it will be enough to disrupt the results," Gil clarifies.

The great sensitivity, and the protection requirements derived from it, mean that the quantum computer is quite cumbersome: in the newest models, which try to include more and more qubits, the case already reaches a height of several meters. To some extent it is reminiscent of the first generations of classic computers, which looked like huge cabinets. Those classic computers kept getting smaller and smaller, until today we squeeze millions of times more computing power into a simple smartphone, but in the case of quantum computers, we cannot expect a similar process: "The quantum computer requires unique conditions that cannot be produced in a simple terminal device, and this will not change in the foreseeable future," Gil explains. "I believe that quantum computing will be a service that we can access remotely, as we access cloud services today. It will work similar to what IBM already enables today: the computer sits with us, and we make it possible to access the 'brain' and receive answers. Of the 40 computers we have built since 2016, today 20 are available to the public. About half a million users all over the world have already made use of the capabilities of the quantum computer we built, and based on this use, about a thousand scientific publications have already been published."

Google and Microsoft are heating up the competition

IBM is not the only company participating in the quantum computing race, but Gil exudes full confidence in its ability to lead it: according to him, most competitors only have parts of the overall system, but not a complete computer available to solve problems. Google, as mentioned, is a strong contender in this race, and it also allows remote access to its quantum computing service, Google Quantum AI; Microsoft is also working to provide a similar service on its cloud platform, Azure.

Meanwhile, quantum computing is a promise "on paper". The theoretical foundations for this revolution were laid already 40 years ago, the first proofs were presented more than 20 years ago, the industry has been buzzing around this field for several years - and we still haven't seen uses that would serve a regular person.

"If you go back to the 1940s, when the first computers were invented, you will see that even then the uses and advantages of the new invention were not clear. Those who saw the first computers said, 'Oh, great, you can use it to crack the code of encryption machines in wars, maybe even calculate routes of ballistic missiles, and that's it. Who's going to use it? Nobody,'" Gil laughs. "In the same way, the success of quantum computing will depend on its uses: how easy it will be to program, how large the community of users will be, what talents will get there. The quantum revolution will be led by a community, which is why education for this field is so important: we need more and more smart people to start to think 'how can I use quantum computing to advance my field'.

"What is beginning these days is the democratization phase of quantum computing, which will allow anyone to communicate with the computer without being an advanced programmer in the field: it will be possible to approach it with a question or a task that will be written in the classical languages of one or zero. That is why we are already seeing more use of quantum computing capacity today.

"There are also many startups that do not actually work to establish a quantum computer, but focus on various components of this world (for example, the Israeli company Quantum Machines, which develops hardware and software systems for quantum computers, and last July was selected by the Innovation Authority to establish the Israeli Quantum Computing Center). The activity of such companies creates a completely new ecosystem, thus promoting the industry and accelerating its development, just as is happening today in the field of ordinary computers. IBM will not rely only on itself either: we would like to benefit from the innovation of smart people in this field, of course also in Israel.

"I am convinced that the big bang of quantum computing will happen in this decade. Our ambition at IBM is to demonstrate 'quantum supremacy' already in the next three years. I believe that the combination of advances in artificial intelligence, together with quantum computing, will bring about a revolution in the industry of the kind that Nvidia made in its market (Nvidia developed unique processors for gaming computers, which made it the chip company that reached a billion dollar revenue the fastest.) Quantum computing can generate enormous value in the industry. It is phenomenally difficult, but it is clear to me that we will see the uses already in the current decade."

The Nobel Prize opens a new horizon for quantum computing

Quantum computing has ignited the imagination of researchers for many decades, but until now it has not left the confines of laboratories. However, the awarding of the Nobel Prize to three researchers in the field indicates that the vision is becoming a real revolution. Alain Aspect of France, the American John Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger received the award for research they conducted (separately) since the 1970s, in which they examined the phenomenon of quantum entanglement (described in the article), proved its existence and laid tracks for its technological use.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize to the entanglement researchers proves that quantum computing is more than a mental exercise for a sect of physicists, and is a defining moment for companies that invest capital in the development of the field. They are pushed to this effort due to a fundamental change in the world in which they operate: in recent decades, the world of computing has operated according to "Moore's Law", which foresees that the density of transistors in computer processors will double every two years in a way that will increase the computing power of these chips. However, as the industry approaches the physical limit after which it will be impossible to cram more transistors onto a chip, the need to develop a quantum computer has become acute.

The numbers also signal that something is happening in the field. In 2020, the scope of the quantum computing market was less than half a billion dollars, but at the end of 2021, in a signal that the vision is beginning to be realized, the research company IDC published an estimate according to which in 2027 the scope of the market will reach $8.6 billion and investments in the field will amount to $16 billion (compared to $700 million in 2020 and $1.4 billion in 2021). IBM CEO Arvind Krishna also recently estimated that in 2027 quantum computing will become a real commercial industry.

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Quantum Leap: "The big bang of quantum computing will come in this decade" - CTech

Quantum computing, Ardey added in a release, might trigger a revolution in material science that will feed into the companys in-house battery expertise.

Leaving the bits and bytes of classical computing behind, quantum computers rely on qubits, and are widely seen as having potential to solve complex problems that traditional computers could not work through on reasonable timelines.

The automaker and Toronto-based technology firm have already been collaborating on research into material science, computational chemistry, and quantum algorithms for about a year. That early work set the foundation for the formal partnership, Volkswagen said.

The goal of the research is to develop quantum algorithms that can simulate how a blend of battery materials will interact more quickly than traditional computer models. Computational chemistry, which is traditionally used for such work, Ardey said, is reaching limitations when it comes to battery research.

Juan Miguel Arrazola, head of algorithms at Xanadu, said the partnership is part of the Canadian companys drive to make quantum computers truly useful.

Focusing on batteries is a strategic choice given the demand from industry and the prospects for quantum computing to aid in understanding the complex chemistry inside a battery cell.

Using the quantum algorithms, Volkswagen said it aims to develop battery materials that are safer, lighter and cheaper.

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VW teams with Canadian quantum computing company Xanadu on batteries - Automotive News Canada

Cleveland Clinicand IBM have begundeployment of the first private sector onsite,IBM-managedquantum computer in the United States.The IBM Quantum Systemis to be located on Cleveland Clinics main campus in Cleveland.

The first quantum computer in healthcare, anticipated to be completed in early 2023, is a key part of the two organizations10-year partnership aimed at fundamentally advancing the pace of biomedical research through high-performance computing. Announced in 2021, the Cleveland Clinic-IBM Discovery Accelerator is a joint center that leverages Cleveland Clinics medical expertise with the technology expertise of IBM, including its leadership in quantum computing.

The current pace of scientific discovery is unacceptably slow, while our research needs are growing exponentially, said Lara Jehi, M.D., Cleveland Clinics Chief Research Information Officer. We cannot afford to continue to spend a decade or more going from a research idea in a lab to therapies on the market. Quantum offers a future to transform this pace, particularly in drug discovery and machine learning.

A step change in the way we solve scientific problems is on the horizon, said Ruoyi Zhou, Director, Ph.D., IBM Research Cleveland Clinic Partnership. At IBM, were more motivated than ever to create with Cleveland Clinic and others lasting communities of discovery and harness the power of quantum computing, AI and hybrid cloud to usher in a new era of accelerated discovery in healthcare and life sciences.

The Discovery Accelerator at Cleveland Clinic draws upon a variety of IBMs latest advancements in high performance computing, including:

Lara Jehi, M.D., and Ruoyi Zhou, Ph.D., at the site of the IBM Quantum System One on Cleveland Clinics main campus. (Courtesy: Cleveland Clinic/IBM)

The Discovery Accelerator also serves as the technology foundation for Cleveland Clinics Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, part of the Cleveland Innovation District. The center, supported by a $500 million investment from the State of Ohio, Jobs Ohio and Cleveland Clinic, brings together a team focused on studying, preparing and protecting against emerging pathogens and virus-related diseases. Through Discovery Accelerator, researchers are leveraging advanced computational technology to expedite critical research into treatments and vaccines.

Together, the teams have already begun several collaborative projects that benefit from the new computational power. The Discovery Accelerator projects include a research study developing a quantum computing method to screen and optimize drugs targeted to specific proteins; improving a prediction model for cardiovascular risk following non-cardiac surgery; and using artificial intelligence to search genome sequencing findings and large drug-target databases to find effective, existing drugs that could help patients with Alzheimers and other diseases.

A significant part of the collaboration is a focus on educating the workforce of the future and creating jobs to grow the economy. An innovative educational curriculum has been designed for participants from high school to professional level, offering training and certification programs in data science, machine learning and quantum computing to build the skilled workforce needed for cutting-edge computational research of the future.

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Cleveland Clinic and IBM Begin Installation of IBM Quantum System One - Cleveland Clinic Newsroom

Spun out from Google last March, SandboxAQ is a fascinating, well-funded start-up targeting the intersection of AI and quantum technology. As the world enters the third quantum revolution, AI + Quantum software will address significant business and scientific challenges, is the companys broad self-described mission. Part software company, part investor, SandboxAQ foresees a blended classical computing-quantum computing landscape with AI infused throughout.

Its developing product portfolio comprises enterprise software for assessing and managing cryptography/data security in the so-called post-quantum era. NIST, of course, released its first official post-quantum algorithms in July and SandboxAQ is one of 12 companies selected to participate in its newproject Migration to Post Quantum Cryptography to build and commercialize tools. SandboxAQs AQ Analyzer product, says the company, is already available and being used by a few marquee customers.

Then theres SandboxAQs Strategic Investment Program, announced in August, which acquires or invests in technology companies of interest. So far, it has acquired one company (Cryptosense) and invested in two others (evolutionQ, and Qunnect).

Last week, HPCwire talked with SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary about the companys products and strategy. One has the sense that SandboxAQs aspirations are broad, and with nine figure funding, it has the wherewithal to pivot or expand. The A in the name stands for AI and the Q stands for quantum. One area not on the current agenda: building a quantum computer.

We want to sit above that layer. All these [qubit] technologies ion trap, and NV center (nitrogen vacancy center), neutral atoms, superconducting, photonic are very interesting and we encourage and mentor a lot of these companies who are quantum computing hardware companies. But we are not going to be building one because we really see our value as a layer on top of those computing [blocks], said Hidary. Google, of course, has another group working on quantum hardware.

Hidary joined Google in 2016 as Sandbox group director. A self-described serial entrepreneur, Hidarys varied experience includes founding EarthWeb, being a trustee of the XPrize Foundation, and running for Mayor in New York City in 2013. While at Google Sandbox, he wrote a textbook Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach.

I was recruited in to start a new division to focus on the use of AI and ultimately also quantum in solving really hard problems in the world. We realized that we needed to be multi-platform and focus on all the clouds and to do [other] kinds of stuff so we ended up spinning out earlier this year, said Hidary.

Eric Schmidt joined us about three and a half years ago as he wrapped up his chairmanship at Alphabet (Google parent company). He got really into what were doing, looking at the impact that scaled computation can have both on the AI side and the quantum side. He became chairman of SandboxAQ. I became CEO. Weve other backers like Marc Benioff from Salesforce and T. Rowe Price and Guggenheim, who are very long-term investors. What youll notice here thats interesting is we dont have short-term VCs. Wehave really long term investors who are here for 10 to 15 years.

The immediate focus is on post quantum cryptography tools delivered mostly by a SaaS model. By now were all familiar with the threat that fault-tolerant quantum computers will be able to crack conventionally encrypted (RSA) data using Shors algorithm. While fault-tolerant quantum computers are still many years away, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and others, including SandboxAQ, have warned against Store Now/Decrypt Later attacks. (See HPCwire article, The Race to Ensure Post Quantum Data Security).

What adversaries are doing now is siphoning off information over VPNs. Theyre not cracking into your network. Theyre just doing it over VPNs, siphoning that information. They cant read it today, because its RSA protected, but theyll store it and read it in a number of years when they can, he said. The good news is you dont have to scrap your hardware. You could just upgrade the software. But thats still a monumental challenge. As you can imagine, for all the datacenters and the high-performance computing centers this is a non-trivial operation to do all that.

A big part of the problem is simply finding where encryption code is in existing infrastructure. That, in turn, has prompted calls for what is being called crypto-agility a comprehensive yet modular approach that allows easy swapping in-and-out cryptography code.

We want crypto-agility, and what we find is large corporations, large organizations, and large governments dont have crypto-agility. What were hoping is to develop tools to implement this idea. For example, as a first step to crypto-agility, were trying to see if people even have an MRI (discovery metaphor) machine for use on their own cybersecurity, and they really dont when it comes to encryption. Theres no diagnostic tools that these companies are using to find where their [encryption] footprint is or if they are encrypting everything appropriately. Maybe some stuff is not even being encrypted, said Hidary, who favors the MRI metaphor for a discovery tool.

No doubt, the need to modernize encryption/decryption methods and tools represents a huge problem and a huge market.

Without getting into technical details, Hidary said SandboxAQ is leveraging technology from its recent Cryptosense acquisition and internally developed technologies to develop a product portfolio planned to broadly encompass cryptography assessment, deployment and management. Its core current product is AQ Analyzer.

The idea, says Hidary returning to the MRI metaphor, is to take an MRI scan of inside the organization on-premise, cloud, private cloud, and so forth and this feeds into compliance vulnerabilities and post-quantum analysis. Its not just a quantum thing. Its about your general vulnerabilities on encryption. Overall, it happens to be that post quantum is helped by this, but this is a bigger issue. Then that feeds into your general sysops, network ops, and management tools that youre using.

AQ Analyzer, he says, is enterprise software that starts the process for organizations to become crypto-agile. Its now being used at large banks and telcos, and also by Mount Sinai Hospital. Healthcare replete with sensitive information is another early target for SandboxAQ. Long-term the idea is for Sandbox software tools to be able to automate much of the crypto management process from assessment to deployment through ongoing monitoring and management.

Thats the whole crypto-agility ballgame, says Hidary.

The business model, says Hidary, is carbon copy of Salesforce.coms SaaS model. Broadly, SandboxAQ uses a three-prong go-to-market via direct sales, global systems integrators in May it began programs with Ernst & Young (EY) and Deloitte and strategic partners/resellers. Vodafone and SoftBank are among the latter. Even though these are still early days for SandboxAQ as an independent entity, its moving fast, having benefitted from years of development inside Google. AQ Analyzer, said Hidary, is in general availability.

Were doing extremely well in banks and financial institutions. Theyre typically early adopters of cybersecurity because of the regulatory and compliance environment, and the trust they have with their customers, said Hidary.

Looking at near-term milestones, he said, Wed like to see a more global footprint of banks. Well be back in Europe soon now that we have Cryptosense (UK and Paris-based), and we have a local strong team in Europe. Weve had a lot of traction in the U.S. and the Canadian markets. So thats one key milestone over the next 18 months or so. Second, wed like to see [more adoption] into healthcare and telcos. We have Vodafone and Softbank mobile, on the telco side. We have Mount Sinai, wed like to see if that can be extended into additional players in those two spaces. The fourth vertical well probably go into is the energy grid. These are all critical infrastructure pieces of our society the financial structure of our society, energy, healthcare and the medical centers, the telecommunications grid.

While SandboxAQs AQ Analyzer is the companys first offering, its worth noting that the company aggressively looking for niches it can serve. For example, the company is keeping close tab on efforts to build a quantum internet.

Theres going to be a parallel quantum coherent internet to connect for distributed quantum computing, said Hidary. So nothing to do with cyber at all.

Our vision of the future that we share with I think everyone in the industry is that quantum does not take over classical, said Hidary. Its a mesh, a hybridization of CPU, GPU and quantum processing units. And the program, the code, in Python for example: part of it runs on CPUs, part of it on GPUs, and then yes, part of it will run on a QPU. In that mesh, youd want to have access both to the traditional Internet TCP IP today, but you also want to be able to connect over a quantum coherence intranet. So thats Qunnect.

Qunnect, of course, is one of the companies SandboxAQ has invested in and it is working on hardware (quantum memory and repeaters) to enable a quantum internet. Like dealing with post quantum cryptography, outfitting the quantum internet is likely to be as huge business. Looking at SandboxAQ, just seven months after being spun out from Google, the scope of its ambitions is hard to pin down.

Stay tuned.

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CEO Jack Hidary on SandboxAQ's Ambitions and Near-term Milestones - HPCwire

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Quantum computing can soon address many of the worlds toughest, most urgent problems.

Thats why the semiconductor legislation Congress just passed is part of a $280 billion package that will, among other things, direct federal research dollars toward quantum computing.

Quantum computing will soon be able to:

The economy and the environment are clearly two top federal government agenda items.Congress in July was poised to pass the most ambitious climate bill in U.S. history. The New York Times said that the bill would pump hundreds of billions of dollars into low-carbon energy technologies like wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles and would put the United States on track to slash its greenhouse gas emissions to roughly 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. This could help to further advance and accelerate the adoption of quantum computing.

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Because quantum technology can solve many previously unsolvable problems, a long list of the worlds leading businesses including BMW and Volkswagen, FedEx, Mastercard and Wells Fargo, and Merck and Roche are making significant quantum investments. These businesses understand that transformation via quantum computing, which is quickly advancing with breakthrough technologies, is coming soon. They want to be ready when that happens.

Its wise for businesses to invest in quantum computing because the risk is low and the payoff is going to be huge. As BCG notes: No one can afford to sit on the sidelines as this transformative technology accelerates toward several critical milestones.

The reality is that quantum computing is coming, and its likely not going to be a standalone technology. It will be tied to the rest of the IT infrastructure supercomputers, CPUs and GPUs.

This is why companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise are thinking about how to integrate quantum computing into the fabric of the IT infrastructure. Its also why Terra Quantum AG is building hybrid data centers that combine the power of quantum and classical computing.

Amid these changes, employees should start now to get prepared. There is going to be a tidal wave of need for both quantum Ph.D.s and for other talent such as skilled quantum software developers to contribute to quantum efforts.

Earning a doctorate in a field relevant to quantum computing requires a multi-year commitment. But obtaining valuable quantum computing skills doesnt require a developer to go back to college, take out a student loan or spend years studying.

With modern tools that abstract the complexity of quantum software and circuit creation, developers no longer require Ph.D.-level knowledge to contribute to the quantum revolution, enabling a more diverse workforce to help businesses achieve quantum advantage. Just look at the winners in the coding competition that my company staged. Some of these winners were recent high school graduates, and they delivered highly innovative solutions.

Leading the software stack, quantum algorithm design platforms allow developers to design sophisticated quantum circuits that could not be created otherwise. Rather than defining tedious low-level gate connections, this approach uses high-level functional models and automatically searches millions of circuit configurations to find an implementation that fits resource considerations, designer-supplied constraints and the target hardware platform. New tools like Nvidias QODA also empower developers by making quantum programming similar to how classical programming is done.

Developers will want to familiarize themselves with quantum computing, whichwill be an integral arrow in their metaphorical quiver of engineering skills. People who add quantum skills to their classical programming and data center skills will position themselves to make more money and be more appealing to employers in the long term.

Many companies and countries are experimenting with and adopting quantum computing. They understand that quantum computing is evolving rapidly and is the way of the future.

Whether you are a business leader or a developer, its important to understand that quantum computing is moving forward. The train is leaving the station will you be on board?

Erik Garcell is technical marketing manager at Classiq.

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The world, and todays employees, need quantum computing more than ever - VentureBeat

DUBAI, United Arab of Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Breakthroughs in quantum computing will enable humans to cure diseases like cancer, Alzheimers, and Parkinsons as easily as we treat the common cold.

That was one of the major insights to emerge from the Dubai Future Forum, with renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku telling the worlds largest gathering of futurists that humanity should brace itself for major transformations in healthcare.

The forum concluded with a call for governments to institutionalize foresight and engrain it within decision making.

Taking place in Dubai, UAE at the Museum of the Future, Amy Webb, CEO of Future Today Institute, criticized nations for being too pre-occupied with the present and too focused on creating white papers, reports and policy recommendations instead of action.

Nowism is a virus. Corporations and governments are infected, she said.

One panel session heard how humans could be ready to test life on the Moon in just 15 years and be ready for life on Mars in another decade. Sharing his predictions for the future, Dr. Kaku also said there is a very good chance humans will pick up a signal from another intelligent life form this century.

Dr. Jamie Metzl, Founder and Chair, OneShared.World, urged people to eat more lab-grown meat to combat global warming and food insecurity.

If we are treating them like a means to an end of our nutrition, wouldnt it be better instead of growing the animal, to grow the meat? he said.

Among the 70 speakers participating in sessions were several UAE ministers. HE Mohammad Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Vice Chairman, Board of Trustees and Managing Director of the Dubai Future Foundation, said ministers around the world should think of themselves as designers of the future. Our stakeholders are 7.98 billion people around the world, he noted.

Dubais approach to foresight was lauded by delegates, including HE Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, who said: What makes our city and nation successful is not natural resources, but a unique ability to embrace all ideas and individuals.

More than 30 sessions covered topics including immortality, AI sentience, climate change, terraforming, genome sequencing, legislation, and the energy transition.

*Source: AETOSWire

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Cancer to Be Treated as Easily as Common Cold When Humans Crack Quantum Computing - Business Wire

Replete with tunneling particles, electron wells, charmed quarks and zombie cats, quantum mechanics takes everything Sir Isaac Newton taught about physics and throws it out the window.

Every day, researchers discover new details about the laws that govern the tiniest building blocks of the universe. These details not only increase scientific understanding of quantum physics, but they also hold the potential to unlock a host of technologies, from quantum computers to lasers to next-generation solar cells.

But theres one area that remains a mystery even in this most mysterious of sciences: the quantum mechanics of nuclear fuels.

Until now, most fundamental scientific research of quantum mechanics has focused on elements such as silicon because these materials are relatively inexpensive, easy to obtain and easy to work with.

Now, Idaho National Laboratory researchers are planning to explore the frontiers of quantum mechanics with a new synthesis laboratory that can work with radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium.

An announcement about the new laboratory appears online in the journalNature Communications.

Uranium and thorium, which are part of a larger group of elements called actinides, are used as fuels in nuclear power reactors because they can undergo nuclear fission under certain conditions.

However, the unique properties of these elements, especially the arrangement of their electrons, also means they could exhibit interesting quantum mechanical properties.

In particular, the behavior of particles in special, extremely thin materials made from actinides could increase our understanding of phenomena such as quantum wells and quantum tunneling (see sidebar).

To study these properties, a team of researchers has built a laboratory around molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a process that creates ultra-thin layers of materials with a high degree of purity and control.

The MBE technique itself is not new, said Krzysztof Gofryk, a scientist at INL. Its widely used. Whats new is that were applying this method to actinide materials uranium and thorium. Right now, this capability doesnt exist anywhere else in the world that we know of.

The INL team is conducting fundamental research science for the sake of knowledge but the practical applications of these materials could make for some important technological breakthroughs.

At this point, we are not interested in building a new qubit [the basis of quantum computing], but we are thinking about which materials might be useful for that, Gofryk said. Some of these materials could be potentially interesting for new memory banks and spin-based transistors, for instance.

Memory banks and transistors are both important components of computers.

To understand how researchers make these very thin materials, imagine an empty ball pit at a fast-food restaurant. Blue and red balls are thrown in the pit one at a time until they make a single layer on the floor. But that layer isnt a random assortment of balls. Instead, they arrange themselves into a pattern.

During the MBE process, the empty ball pit is a vacuum chamber, and the balls are highly pure elements, such as nitrogen and uranium, that are heated until individual atoms can escape into the chamber.

The floor of our imaginary ball pit is, in reality, a charged substrate that attracts the individual atoms. On the substrate, atoms order themselves to create a wafer of very thin material in this case, uranium nitride.

Back in the ball pit, weve created layer of blue and red balls arranged in a pattern. Now we make another layer of green and orange balls on top of the first layer.

To study the quantum properties of these materials, Gofryk and his team will join two dissimilar wafers of material into a sandwich called a heterostructure. For instance, the thin layer of uranium nitride might be joined to a thin layer of another material such as gallium arsenide, a semiconductor. At the junction between the two different materials, interesting quantum mechanical properties can be observed.

We can make sandwiches of these materials from a variety of elements, Gofryk said. We have lots of flexibility. We are trying to think about the novel structures we can create with maybe some predicted quantum properties.

We want to look at electronic properties, structural properties, thermal properties and how electrons are transported through the layers, he continued. What will happen if you lower the temperature and apply a magnetic field? Will it cause electrons to behave in certain way?

INL is one of the few places where researchers can work with uranium and thorium for this type of science. The amounts of the radioactive materials and the consequent safety concerns will be comparable to the radioactivity found in an everyday smoke alarm.

INL is the perfect place for this research because were interested in this kind of physics and chemistry, Gofryk said.

In the end, Gofryk hopes the laboratory will result in breakthroughs that help attract attention from potential collaborators as well as recruit new employees to the laboratory.

These actinides have such special properties, he said. Were hoping we can discover some new phenomena or new physics that hasnt been found before.

In 1900, German physicist Max Planck first described how light emitted from heated objects, such as the filament in a light bulb, behaved like particles.

Since then, numerous scientists including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr have explored and expanded upon Plancks discovery to develop the field of physics known as quantum mechanics. In short, quantum mechanics describes the behavior of atoms and subatomic particles.

Quantum mechanics is different than regular physics, in part, because subatomic particles simultaneously have characteristics of both particles and waves, and their energy and movement occur in discrete amounts called quanta.

More than 120 years later, quantum mechanics plays a key role in numerous practical applications, especially lasers and transistors a key component of modern electronic devices. Quantum mechanics also promises to serve as the basis for the next generation of computers, known as quantum computers, which will be much more powerful at solving certain types of calculations.

Uranium, thorium and the other actinides have something in common that makes them interesting for quantum mechanics: the arrangement of their electrons.

Electrons do not orbit around the nucleus the way the earth orbits the sun. Rather, they zip around somewhat randomly. But we can define areas where there is a high probability of finding electrons. These clouds of probability are called orbitals.

For the smallest atoms, these orbitals are simple spheres surrounding the nucleus. However, as the atoms get larger and contain more electrons, orbitals begin to take on strange and complex shapes.

In very large atoms like uranium and thorium (92 and 90 electrons respectively), the outermost orbitals are a complex assortment of party balloon, jelly bean, dumbbell and hula hoop shapes. The electrons in these orbitals are high energy. While scientists can guess at their quantum properties, nobody knows for sure how they will behave in the real world.

Quantum tunneling is a key part of any number of phenomena, including nuclear fusion in stars, mutations in DNA and diodes in electronic devices.

To understand quantum tunneling, imagine a toddler rolling a ball at a mountain. In this analogy, the ball is a particle. The mountain is a barrier, most likely a semiconductor material. In classical physics, theres no chance the ball has enough energy to pass over the mountain.

But in the quantum realm, subatomic particles have properties of both particles and waves. The waves peak represents the highest probability of finding the particle. Thanks to a quirk of quantum mechanics, while most of the wave bounces off the barrier, a small part of that wave travels through if the barrier is thin enough.

For a single particle, the small amplitude of this wave means there is a very small chance of the particle making it to the other side of the barrier.

However, when large numbers of waves are travelling at a barrier, the probability increases, and sometimes a particle makes it through. This is quantum tunneling.

Quantum wells are also important, especially for devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.

Like quantum tunneling, to build quantum wells, you need alternating layers of very thin (10 nanometers) material where one layer is a barrier.

While electrons normally travel in three dimensions, quantum wells trap electrons in two dimensions within a barrier that is, for practical purposes, impossible to overcome. These electrons exist at specific energies say the precise energies needed to generate specific wavelengths of light.

About Idaho National LaboratoryBattelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nations center for nuclear energy research and development,and alsoperforms research in each of DOEs strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visitwww.inl.gov.Follow us on social media:Twitter,Facebook,InstagramandLinkedIn.

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New laboratory to explore the quantum mysteries of nuclear materials - EurekAlert