Photonics.com Jun 2017 WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., June 9, 2017 Purdue University and Microsoft Corp. have signed a five-year agreement to develop a useable quantum computer.

Purdue is one of four international universities in the collaboration. Michael Manfra, Purdue University's Bill and Dee O'Brien Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor of materials engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, will lead the effort at Purdue to build by producing a "topological qubit."

"Someday, quantum computing will move from the laboratory to actual daily use, and when it does, it will signal another explosion of computing power like that brought about by the silicon chip," said Michael Daniels, president of Purdue. "Its thrilling to imagine Purdue at the center of this next leap forward.

With quantum computers, information is encoded in qubits, which are quantum units of information. With a qubit, however, this physical state isn't just 0 or 1, but can also be a linear combination of 0 and 1. Because of the quantum mechanic phenomenon of "superposition," a qubit can be in both states at the same time. This characteristic is essential to quantum computations potential power, allowing for solutions to problems that are intractable using classical architectures.

The team assembled by Microsoft will work on a type of quantum computer that is expected to be especially robust against interference from its surroundings, a situation known in quantum computing as decoherence. The scalable topological quantum computer is theoretically more stable and less error-prone.

Purdue and Microsoft entered into an agreement in April 2016 that extends their collaboration on quantum computing research, effectively establishing "Station Q Purdue," one of the Station Q experimental research sites that work closely with two Station Q theory sites. This new, multi-year agreement extends that collaboration and includes Microsoft employees being embedded in Manfra's research team at Purdue.

Manfras group at Station Q Purdue will collaborate with Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft team members, as well as a global experimental group established by Microsoft including experimental groups at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, TU Delft in the Netherlands and the University of Sydney, Australia. They are also coupled to the theorists at Microsoft Station Q in Santa Barbara. All groups are working together to solve quantum computings biggest challenges.

"What's exciting is that we're doing the science and engineering hand in hand, at the same time," Manfra says. We are lucky to be part of this truly amazing global team.

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Purdue, Microsoft to Collaborate on Quantum Computer - Photonics.com

June 08, 2017 08:00 ET | Source: ISARA Corporation

WATERLOO, Ontario, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Many technology-driven sectors will be affected by the advent of universal quantum computing which experts say will happen by 2026, or sooner, but the financial industry has particular reason for concern. ISARAs CEO, Scott Totzke, is among the featured speakers at the upcoming FinDEVr show, the premier international event for FinTech developers taking place in London on June 1213. Totzke will discuss the impact of the quantum threat on the financial industry, and provide recommendations for mitigation.

A quantum computer could be used to stage an attack on the cryptography behind the encryption and authentication used today across banking institutions and in FinTech development. Without the appropriate quantum-safe protections, traditional cybersecurity standards will become vulnerable.

Any technology that relies on public-key cryptography, including blockchain, is at risk in the quantum age. Businesses and financial institutions cannot afford to ignore the threat of quantum computers to the cryptography those solutions rely on, said Totzke.

Details:

What: Why (And How) You Should Make Your FinTech Security Quantum Safe Today

When: Monday, June 12th, 14:10 pm

Where: Tobacco Dock, The Dock, Tobacco Quay, Wapping Lane, London, UK

Who: Scott Totzke, Co-Founder and CEO, ISARA

Totzke will also lead the roundtable discussion topic, We're all in it together: Making global FinTech crypto-agile, on Tuesday, June 13th, at 12:30 pm. For more information please visit, http://london2017.findevr.com/.

About ISARA:

ISARA Corp. is the largest organization in the world focused on developing quantum safe cryptographic solutions for easy integration into commercial products to protect against emerging security threats. For more information, visit https://www.isara.com/.

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FinDEVr London: Preparing for the Dark Side of Quantum Computing - GlobeNewswire (press release)

Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Getty Images

Quantum computing is real. But its also hard. So hard that only a few developers, usually trained in quantum physics, advanced mathematics, or most likely both, can actually work with the few quantum computers that exist. Now D-Wave, the Canadian company behind the quantum computer that Google and NASA have been testing since 2013, wants to make quantum computing a bit easier through the power of open source software.

Traditional computers store information in bits, which can represent either a 1 or a 0. Quantum computing takes advantage of quantum particles in a strange state called superposition, meaning that the particle is spinning in two directions at once. Researchers have learned to take advantage of these particles to create what they call qubits, which can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time. By stringing qubits together, companies like D-Wave hope to create computers that are exponentially faster than todays machines.

IBM demonstrated a working quantum computer in 2000 and continues to improve on its technology. Google is working on its own quantum computer and also teamed up with NASA to test D-Waves system in 2013. Lockheed Martin and the Los Alamos National Laboratory are also working with D-Wave machines. But todays quantum computers still arent practical for most real-world applications. qubits are fragile and can be easily knocked out of the superposition state. Meanwhile, quantum computers are extremely difficult to program today because they require highly specialized knowledge.

D-Wave is driving the hardware forward, says D-Wave International president Bo Ewald. But we need more smart people thinking about applications, and another set thinking about software tools.

Thats where the companys new software tool Qbsolv comes in. Qbsolv is designed to help developers program D-Wave machines without needing a background in quantum physics. A few of D-Waves partners are already using the tool, but today the company released Qbsolv as open source, meaning anyone will be able to freely share and modify the software.

Not everyone in the computer science community realizes the potential impact of quantum computing, says Fred Glover, a mathematician at the University of Colorado, Boulder who has been working with Qbsolv. Qbsolv offers a tool that can make this impact graphically visible, by getting researchers and practitioners involved in charting the future directions of quantum computing developments.

Qbsolv joins a small but growing pool of tools for would-be quantum computer programmers. Last year Scott Pakin of Los Alamos National Laboratoryand one of Qbsolvs first usersreleased another free tool called Qmasm, which also eases the burden of writing code for D-Wave machines by freeing developers from having to worry about addressing the underlying hardware. The goal, Ewald says, is to kickstart a quantum computing software tools ecosystem and foster a community of developers working on quantum computing problems. In recent years, open source software has been the best way to build communities of both independent developers and big corporate contributors.

Of course to actually run the software you create with these tools, youll need access to one of the very few existing D-Wave machines. In the meantime, you can download a D-Wave simulator that will let you test the software on your own computer. Obviously this wont be the same as running it on a piece of hardware that uses real quantum particles, but its a start.

Last year, IBM launched a cloud-based service that enables people to run their own programs on the companys quantum computer. But at least for the moment, Qbsolv and Qmasm will only be useful for creating applications for D-Waves hardware. D-Waves machines take a radically different approach to computing than traditional computers, or even other quantum computing prototypes. While most computersranging from your smartphone to IBMs quantum computerare general purpose, meaning they can be programmed to solve all sort of problems, D-Waves machines are designed for a single purpose: solving optimization problems. The classic example is known as the traveling salesman problem: calculating the shortest route that passes through a list of specific locations.

In the early days, critics wondered whether D-Waves expensive machines were even quantum computers at all, but most researchers now seem to agree that the machines do exhibit quantum behavior. There are very few doubts left that there are indeed quantum effects at work and that they play a meaningful computational role, University of Southern California researcher Daniel Lidar told us in 2015 after Google and NASA released a research paper detailing some of their work with the D-Wave. The big question now is whether D-Waves are actually any faster than traditional computers, and if its unique approach is better than that taken by IBM and other researchers.

Pakin says his team are believers in D-Waves potential, even though they admit its systems might not yet offer performance improvements except in very narrow cases. He also explains that D-Waves computers dont necessarily provide the most efficient answers to an optimization problemor even a correct one. Instead, the idea is to provide solutions that are probably good, if not perfect solutions, and to do it very quickly. That narrows the D-Wave machines usefulness to optimization problems that need to be solved fast but dont need to be perfect. That could include many artificial intelligence applications.

Ideally, however, the hardware and software will improve to the point that other types of computing problems can be translated into optimization problems, and Qbsolv and Qmasm are steps towards building exactly that. But to get there, theyll need more than just open source software. Theyll need an open source community.

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Quantum Computing Is Real, and D-Wave Just Open ... - WIRED

The quantum computing processor, a physical device enabling the principle of quantum computing, is still rather a theoretical concept than a ready-to-implement engineering solution. Yet this notion has been broken recently by D-Waves announcement of shipping the first commercially available quantum computer model D-Wave 2000Q. IBM is also launching a new quantum computing division IBM Q, a move that might be a turning point in commercialization of quantum computing technology. IBM has pioneered quantum computing in the cloud with API enabling apps mostly for research purposes. We expect vigorous development of the cloud market segment to continue at double digit rate.

The quantum computing market is projected to surpass $5 Billion through 2020.

Despite technology advances the quantum computing market is still fledgling. At the same time this rapidly evolving market is one of the most active R&D fields, attracting substantial government funding that supports research groups at internationally leading academic institutions, national laboratories, and major industrial-research centers. The governments are the major driving force behind investments in quantum computing R&D, fiercely competing for what is perceived as the most promising technology of the 21st century. The worlds largest government IT/Defense contractors follow the government suit.

So, what is the rationale for quantum computing market?

a. National Security Considerations:

b. National Economy Considerations:

The report covers the quantum computing R&D, products, technologies and services as well as government, corporate and venture capital investments in quantum computing.

The report provides detailed year-by-year (2017 2022) forecasts for the following quantum computing (QC) market segments:

Quantum Computing Market Forecast 2017-2022, Tabular Analysis, May 2017, Pages: 23, Figures: 13, Tables: 6, Single User Price: $5,950.00 Reports are delivered in PDF format within 24 hours. Analysis provides quantitative market research information in a concise tabular format. The tables/charts present a focused snapshot of market dynamics.

2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by Market Research Media Ltd.

Quantum Computing Market Forecast 2017-2022, Tabular Analysis, May 2017, Pages: 23, Figures: 13, Tables: 6, Global Site License: $9,950.00 Reports are delivered in PDF format within 24 hours. Analysis provides quantitative market research information in a concise tabular format. The tables/charts present a focused snapshot of market dynamics.

2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by Market Research Media Ltd.

Table of Contents

1. Market Report Scope & Methodology 1.1. Scope 1.2. Research Methodology

2. Executive Summary

3. Quantum Computing Market in Figures 2017-2022 3.1. Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022 3.2. Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022 by Technology Segments 3.3. Quantum Computing in the Cloud Market 2017-2022 3.4. Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022 by Country

List of Figures Fig. 1- Quantum Computing Market Forecast 2017-2022, $Mln Fig. 2- Quantum Computing Market: Growth Rates 2017-2022 by Technology Segments, CAGR % Fig. 3- Cumulative Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022, Market Share by Technology Segments, % Fig. 4- Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022 by Technology Segments, $Mln Fig. 5- Quantum Computing Market Dynamics 2017-2022: Market Share by Technology Segments, % Fig. 6- Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022: Quantum Cryptography, $Mln Fig. 7- Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022: Physical QC Device, $Mln Fig. 8- Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022: QC Simulation, $Mln Fig. 9- Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022: QC Programming Infrastructure, $Mln Fig. 10- Quantum Computing in the Cloud Market 2017-2022, $Mln Fig. 11- Cumulative Quantum Market 2017-2022, market share by country, % Fig. 12- Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022 by Country, $Mln Fig. 13- Quantum Computing Market Dynamics 2017-2022: Market Share by Country, %

List of Tables Table 1 The Rationale for Quantum Computing Market Table 2 Quantum Computing Approaches by Physical Principle Table 3 Quantum Computing Market Forecast 2017-2022, $Mln Table 4 Global Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022 by Technology Segments, $Mln Table 5 Quantum Computing in the Cloud Market 2017-2022, $Mln Table 6 Quantum Computing Market 2017-2022 by Top 8 Countries, $Mln

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Quantum Computing Market Forecast 2017-2022 | Market ...

May 31, 2017 by Steve Tally Purdue University and Microsoft Corp. have signed a five-year agreement to develop a useable quantum computer. Purdue is one of four international universities in the collaboration.Michael Manfra, Purdue University's Bill and Dee O'Brien Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor of materials engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, will lead the effort at Purdue to build a robust and scalable quantum computer by producing what scientists call a "topological qubit." Credit: Purdue University photo/Rebecca Wilcox

"If this project is successful it will cause a revolution in computing."

That's the forecast of Michael Manfra, Purdue University's Bill and Dee O'Brien Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Professor of Materials Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on a new long-term enhanced collaboration between Purdue and Microsoft Corp. to build a robust and scalable quantum computer by producing what scientists call a "topological qubit."

Purdue President Mitch Daniels noted that Purdue was home to the first computer science department in the United States, and says this partnership and Manfra's work places the university at the forefront of quantum computing.

"Someday quantum computing will move from the laboratory to actual daily use, and when it does, it will signal another explosion of computing power like that brought about by the silicon chip," Daniels says. "It's thrilling to imagine Purdue at the center of this next leap forward."

In the computers that we currently use every day, information is encoded in an either/or binary system of bits, what are commonly thought of as 1s and 0s. These computers are based on silicon transistors, which, like a light switch, can only be in either an on or off position.

With quantum computers, information is encoded in qubits, which are quantum units of information. With a qubit, however, this physical state isn't just 0 or 1, but can also be a linear combination of 0 and 1. Because of a strange phenomenon of quantum mechanics called "superposition," a qubit can be in both states at the same time.

This characteristic is essential to quantum computation's potential power, allowing for solutions to problems that are intractable using classical architectures.

Advocates of quantum computing believe this never-before-seen technology will create a new global "quantum economy."

The team assembled by Microsoft will work on a type of quantum computer that is expected to be especially robust against interference from its surroundings, a situation known in quantum computing as "decoherence." The "scalable topological quantum computer" is theoretically more stable and less error-prone.

"One of the challenges in quantum computing is that the qubits interact with their environment and lose their quantum information before computations can be completed," Manfra says. "Topological quantum computing utilizes qubits that store information "non-locally" and the outside noise sources have less effect on the qubit, so we expect it to be more robust."

Manfra says that the most exciting challenge associated with building a topological quantum computer is that the Microsoft team must simultaneously solve problems of materials science, condensed matter physics, electrical engineering and computer architecture.

"This is why Microsoft has assembled such a diverse set of talented people to tackle this large-scale problem," Manfra says. "No one person or group can be expert in all aspects."

Purdue and Microsoft entered into an agreement in April 2016 that extends their collaboration on quantum computing research, effectively establishing "Station Q Purdue," one of the "Station Q" experimental research sites that work closely with two "Station Q" theory sites.

The new, multi-year agreement extends that collaboration, and includes Microsoft employees being embedded in Manfra's research team at Purdue.

Manfra's group at Station Q Purdue will collaborate with Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft team members, as well as a global experimental group established by Microsoft including experimental groups at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, TU Delft in the Netherlands, and the University of Sydney, Australia. They are also coupled to the theorists at Microsoft Station Q in Santa Barbara. All groups are working together to solve quantum computing's biggest challenges.

"What's exciting is that we're doing the science and engineering hand-in-hand, at the same time," Manfra says. "We are lucky to be part of this truly amazing global team."

Mathematician and Fields Medal recipient Michael Freedman leads Microsoft's Station Q in Santa Barbara working on quantum computing.

"There is another computing planet out there, and we, collectively, are going to land on it. It really is like the old days of physical exploration and much more interesting than locking oneself in a bottle and traveling through space. We will find an amazing unseen world once we have general purpose programmable quantum computers," Freedman says. "Michael Manfra and Purdue University will be a key collaborator on this journey. I'm not interested in factoring numbers, but solving chemistry and materials science problems, and most ambitiously machine intelligence. Curiously, we need great materials science and transport physics Mike Manfra's work to build the systems we will use to do quantum computing and, thus, to usher in the next era of materials science."

Purdue's role in the project will be to grow and study ultra-pure semiconductors and hybrid systems of semiconductors and superconductors that may form the physical platform upon which a quantum computer is built. Manfra's group has expertise in a technique called molecular beam epitaxy, and this technique will be used to build low-dimensional electron systems that form the basis for quantum bits, or qubits.

The work at Purdue will be done in the Birck Nanotechnology Center in the university's Discovery Park, as well as in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The Birck facility houses the multi-chamber molecular beam epitaxy system, in which three fabrication chambers are connected under ultra-high vacuum. It also contains clean-room fabrication and necessary materials characterization tools. Laboratories for low-temperature measurement of the materials electronic properties will be conducted in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Suresh Garimella, executive vice president for research and partnerships, and Purdue's Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, says the tools and laboratories found in Discovery Park have enabled Purdue to become a world leader in several areas.

"Combining these world-leading facilities with our incredibly talented and knowledgeable faculty, such as Professor Manfra, has placed Purdue at the forefront of research and development of nanotechnology, nanoelectronics, next-generation silicon transistor-based electronics, and quantum computing. To have Purdue contribute to the construction of the world's first quantum computer is be a dream come true for us," he says.

Explore further: The mystery of quantum computers

Our computers, even the fastest ones, seem unable to withstand the needs of the enormous quantity of data produced in our technological society. That's why scientists are working on computers using quantum physics, orquantum ...

While technologies that currently run on classical computers, such as Watson, can help find patterns and insights buried in vast amounts of existing data, quantum computers will deliver solutions to important problems where ...

With a combined $1.8 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation and the University of Arizona, materials science and engineering professor Pierre Deymier explores building a quantum computer that uses sound instead of quantum ...

The global race towards a functioning quantum computer is on. With future quantum computers, we will be able to solve previously impossible problems and develop, for example, complex medicines, fertilizers, or artificial ...

What does the future hold for computing? Experts at the Networked Quantum Information Technologies Hub (NQIT), based at Oxford University, believe our next great technological leap lies in the development of quantum computing.

IBM has announced its plans to begin offering the world's first commercial universal quantum-computing servicecalled IBM Q, the system will be made available to those who wish to use it for a fee sometime later this year. ...

The solubility of any given substancethe measure of how well the substance dissolves into another substance referred to as the solventdepends on basic properties like temperature and pressure, as well as the chemical ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University and Nanjing University have developed an "ultra-thin" sound diffuser that is 10 times thinner than the widely used diffusers found in recording studios, concert venues and ...

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A team of researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology has developed a new capacitor with a metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) diode structure that is tunable by illumination. The capacitor, which features embedded ...

Scientists all over the world are working towards new methods to realize an unhackable internet, an internet based on quantum entanglement an invisible quantum mechanical connection as networking links. The greatest ...

The quest for Majorana particles as building blocks for a future computer is on since the first observation of these particles in Delft in 2012. Due to their physical properties, a quantum bit based on them is protected from ...

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Research collaborative pursues advanced quantum computing - Phys.Org

It was a busy week for IoT technologies, with Russia preparing its networks for quantum computer hacks through blockchain.

Earlier this week, Irish forestry organisation Coillte revealed its latest effort to get into the internet of trees space following a 1.2m deal with the European Space Agency to roll out a tree growth analytics system, including a unique tree sensor device.

When operational, the sensors will create a kind of mesh network that maps out a digital forest. The resulting data will be transmitted via satellite to provide real-time analytics for forest managers.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, Android co-founder Andy Rubin was discussingthe prevalence of smart home assistants on the market, and how they are creating a disjointed ecosystem.

Rubin wasspeakingas part of thelaunch of Androids new Essential Home device and a new open source, smart assistant operating system called Ambient OS.

All of these [companies] have ecosystem envy and want to create their own ecosystem, Rubin said.

But consumers dont want just Samsung stuff in their house. They want diversity.

The fields of blockchain and quantum computing are fascinating and complex in their own regard, but new research from Russia claims that a merger between the two could be very interesting.

According to the International Business Times, a team from the Russian Quantum Center in Moscow has developed quantum blockchain technology that would prevent any hacker from accessing connections, despite thecomputing technology still being experimental.

As has been explained before, blockchain is the technology that makes a transaction of currency or information traceable and transparent to both parties and, by its nature, is supposed to be incredibly secure.

However, when quantum computers enter the mainstream, this might not be the case as their incredible processing power would be able to crack any encryption.

Parties that communicate via a quantum channel can be completely sure that they are talking to each other, not anybody else, said Alexander Lvovsky, group lead ofthe research.

This is the main idea. Then we had to reinvent the entire blockchain architecture to fit our new authentication technology, thereby making this architecture immune to quantum computer attacks.

Earlier this week (29 May), Enterprise Ireland held a trade mission in Canada with a focus on IoT, led by Minister Sean Canney, TD.

The biggest success at the event was with Clare-based Tekelek, whichsigned a $1.4m deal with PayGo, a company that provides sensors for businesses to monitor fuel consumption remotely and make changes where necessary.

As part of the deal, Tekelek will begin developing an intrinsically safe sensor to facilitate the expansion of PayGos service offering in the US and Canadian markets.

Oliver McCarthy, general manager of Tekelek, said: Were very excited to apply this thinking and our technology to the industrial fuels marketplace, and were similarly pleased to partner with an organisation of PayGos calibre to bring our technologies to the North America market.

Dublin City Councils (DCC) Smart Dublin initiative has announced a partnership with the Connect Centre and Intel to deploy low-cost sensors across the capital to monitor rainfall, weather conditions and river levels.

The new sensors will communicate data wirelessly to DCCs operations team, which will analyse water levels and use Connects Pervasive Nation IoT network to provide city authorities with an early warning of potential flooding.

Jamie Cudden, DCCs Smart City programme manager, said: Dublin is emerging as a leading location for smart city and IoT innovations.

Intels Dublin Living Lab programme has already carried out some initial flood monitoring activity across the city, which has led to the prototyping of a set of river and rainfall sensors.

Autonomous cars are gradually heading onto our open roads, albeit with a driver behind the wheel to make sure everything goes OKduring the trials.

Now, anew method of testing these cars developed by the University of Michigan may have found a way to drastically cut the amount of time it could take to make them road-legal.

Developed using data from more than 40m km of driving in the real world, a team of researchers believes that they can save 99.9pc of the testing time and costs with their system.

The evaluation process breaks down typical driving situations into components that can be tested or simulated over and over again, exposing autonomous vehicles to a condensed set of the most challenging driving situations.

This, the researchers argue, means that 1,600km of testing would equate to 1.6m km in real-world testing, but, in order to make the public feel safe being in these vehicles, as much as 20bn km of testing will need to be done.

The teams white paper is published here.

Want stories like this and more direct to your inbox? Sign up for Tech Trends, Silicon Republics weekly digest of need-to-know tech news.

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Team develops first blockchain that can't be hacked by quantum computer - Siliconrepublic.com

Due to the changes needed to algorithms and computational thinking, Telstra chief scientist Hugh Bradlow believes the first commercial users of quantum computers will need some help adjusting -- and the Australian incumbent telco will be there to offer that help at a price.

"I can assure you they are not going to walk in on day one and know how to use these things," Bradlow said on Wednesday evening.

"We want to be able to offer it as-a-service to them ... they will need a lot of hand holding, and they are not going to run the equipment themselves, it's complicated."

Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) are two of the companies backing the work of a team at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) that is looking to develop quantum computing in silicon.

At the end of 2015, both companies contributed AU$10 million over five years to UNSW.

Despite racing against far greater funded rivals, head of UNSW's quantum effort professor Michelle Simmons said she is happy with the funding the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology has received.

"At the moment, you have to prove you have the best hardware of anything out there to know whether you are going to go further or not," Simmons said. "I guess one of the things we've been very much driven by is milestone-based research.

"Can we actually develop the qubits, qubit by qubit, and prove that they are better than other qubits that out there? And so if you have lots of money in the beginning, and you are not doing that systematic thorough approach, it's actually not that helpful to you. You have to do it, proving it along the way."

Simmons said her team is currently looking at producing a 10-qubit system by the end of the decade, and, if successful, will be looking to move up to 100 qubits.

In October last year, the UNSW team announced that they had created a new qubit that remains in a stable superposition for 10 times longer than previously achieved.

A year earlier, the team built the first 2-qubit logic gate in silicon.

"The prototype chip we want to make within five years is a pretty shrinkable manufacturing process, and it will be able to perform a variety of calculations; we hope it will be able to potentially solve the problem that currently can't be solved on an existing computer," Andrew Dzurak, scientia professor at the university, said at the time.

"That particular type of problem may not be the sort of problem that is going to excite many commercial people in the first instance, but it will be an important principal."

Even though UNSW is at the frontier of quantum computing, however, Bradlow said Telstra just wants to get its hands on one.

"We are agnostic at the end of the day; we just want a quantum computer," he said. "We do hope Michelle's team wins ... we've gone and put our money on it because we think it's got the best odds, so it's not just a random bet, but we are obviously keeping across anything that is out there.

"Over the last year and a half, I've probably visited every major group in the world, and they all have very different views and by seeing multiple views you get a much better perspective.

"So it's important to keep across everything."

For its part, CBA is preparing for a quantum future by using a quantum computing simulator from QxBranch.

"The difference between the emulator of a quantum computer and the real hardware is that we run the simulator on classical computers, so we don't get the benefit of the speed up that you get from quantum, but we can simulate its behaviour and some of the broad characteristics of what the eventual hardware will do," QxBranch CEO Michael Brett told ZDNet in April.

"What we provide is the ability for people to explore and validate the applications of quantum computing so that as soon as the hardware is ready, they'll be able to apply those applications and get the benefit immediately of the unique advantages of quantum computing."

See more here:

Telstra just wants a quantum computer to offer as-a-service - ZDNet

Not even the greatest geniuses in the world could explain quantum computing.

In the early 1930s Einstein, in fact, called quantum mechanics the basis for quantum computing spooky action at a distance.

Then theres a famous phrase from the late Nobel Laureate in physics, Richard Feynman: If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you dont understand quantum mechanics.

That may be so, but the mystery behind quantum has not stopped D-Wave Systems Inc. from making its mark in the field. In the 1980s it was thought maybe quantum mechanics could be used to build a computer. So people starting coming up with ideas on how to build one, says Bo Ewald, president of D-Wave in Burnaby, B.C.

Two of those people were UBC PhD physics grads Eric Ladizinsky and Geordie Rose, who had happened to take an entrepreneur course before founding D-Wave in 1999. Since there werent a lot of businesses in the field, they created and collected patents around quantum, Ewald says.

What we have with D-Wave is the mother of all ships: that is the hardware capability to unlock the future of AI

While most who were exploring the concept were looking in the direction of what is called the universal gate model, D-Wave decided to work on a different architecture, called annealing. The two do not necessarily compete, but perform different functions.

In quantum annealing, algorithms quickly search over a space to find a minimum (or solution). The technology is best suited for speeding research, modelling or traffic optimization for example.

Universal gate quantum computing can put basic quantum circuit operations together to create any sequence to run increasingly complex algorithms. (Theres a third model, called topological quantum computing, but it could be decades before it can be commercialized.)

When D-Wave sold its first commercial product to Lockheed Martin about six years ago, it marked the first commercial sale of a quantum computer, Ewald says. Google was the second to partner with D-Wave for a system that is also being run by NASA Ames Research Center. Each gets half of the machine, Ewald says. They believed quantum computing had an important future in machine learning.

Most recently D-Wave has been working with Volkswagen to study traffic congestion in Beijing. They wanted to see if quantum computing would have applicability to their business, where there are lots of optimization problems. Another recent coup is a deal with the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Theres no question that any quantum computing investment is a long-term prospect, but that has not hindered their funding efforts. To date, the company has acquired more than 10 rounds of funding from the likes of PSP, Goldman Sachs, Bezos Expeditions, DFJ, In-Q-Tel, BDC Capital, GrowthWorks, Harris & Harris Group, International Investment and Underwriting, and Kensington Partners Ltd.

What we have with D-Wave is the mother of all ships: that is the hardware capability to unlock the future of AI, says Jrme Nycz, executive vice-president, BDC Capital. We believe D-Waves quantum capabilities have put Canada on the map.

Now, Ewing says, the key for the company moving forward is getting more smart people working on apps and on software tools in the areas of AI, machine earning and deep learning.

To that end, D-Wave recently not only open-sourced its Qbsolv software tool, it launched an initiative with Creative Destruction Lab at the University of Torontos Rotman School of Management to create a new track focused on quantum machine learning. The intensive one-year program will go through an introductory boot camp led by Dr. Peter Wittek, author of Quantum Machine Learning: What Quantum Computing means to Data Mining, with instruction and technical support from D-Wave experts, and access to a D-Wave technology.

While it is still early days in terms of deployment for quantum computing, Ewald believes D-Waves early start gives them a leg up if and when quantum hits the mainstream. So far customers tend to be government and/or research related. Google is the notable exception. But once apps come along that are applicable for other industries, it will all make sense.

The early start has given D-Wave the experience to be able to adopt other architectures as they evolve. It may be a decade before a universal gate model machine becomes a marketable product. If that turns out to be true, we will have a 10-year lead in getting actual machines into the field and having customers working on and developing apps.

Ewald is the first to admit that as an early entrant, D-Wave faces criticism around its architecture. There are a lot of spears and things that we tend to get in the chest. But we see them coming and can deal with it. If we can survive all that, we will have a better view of the market, real customers and relationships with accelerators like Creative Destruction Lab. At the end of day we will have the ability to adapt when we need to.

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D-Wave partners with U of T to move quantum computing along - Financial Post

Still waiting patiently for quantum computing to bring about the next revolution in digital processing power? We might now be a little closer, with a discovery that could help us build quantum computers at mass scale.

Scientists have refined a technique using diamond defects to store information, adding silicon to make the readouts more accurate and suitable for use in the quantum computers of the future.

To understand how the new process works, you need to go back to the basics of the quantum computing vision: small particles kept in a state of superposition, where they can represent both 1, 0, and a combination of the two at the same time.

These quantum bits, or qubits, can process calculations on a much grander scale than the bits in today's computer chips, which are stuck representing either 1 or 0 at any one time.

Getting particles in a state of superposition long enough for us to actually make use of them has proved to be a real challenge for scientists, but one potential solution is through the use of diamond as a base material.

The idea is to use tiny atomic defects inside diamonds to store qubits, and then pass around data at high speeds using light optical circuits rather than electrical circuits.

Diamond-defect qubits rely on a missing carbon atom inside the diamond lattice which is then replaced by an atom of some other element, like nitrogen. The free electrons created by this defect have a magnetic orientation that can be used as a qubit.

So far so good, but our best efforts so far haven't been accurate enough to be useful, because of the broad spectrum of frequencies in the light emitted and that's where the new research comes in.

Scientists added silicon to the qubit creation process, which emits a much narrower band of light, and supplies the precision that quantum computing requires.

At the moment, these silicon qubits don't keep their superposition as well, but the researchers are hopeful this can be overcome by reducing their temperature to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

"The dream scenario in quantum information processing is to make an optical circuit to shuttle photonic qubits and then position a quantum memory wherever you need it," says one of the team, Dirk Englund from MIT. "We're almost there with this. These emitters are almost perfect."

In fact, the researchers produced defects within 50 nanometres of their ideal locations on average, which is about one thousandth the size of a human hair.

Being able to etch defects with this kind of precision means the process of building optical circuits for quantum computers then becomes more straightforward and feasible.

If the team can improve on the promising results so far, diamonds could be the answer to our quantum computing needs: they also naturally emit light in a way that means qubits can be read without having to alter their states.

You still won't be powering up a quantum laptop anytime soon, but we're seeing real progress in the study of the materials and techniques that might one day bring this next-generation processing power to the masses.

The research has been published in Nature Communications.

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Here's How We Can Achieve Mass-Produced Quantum Computers - ScienceAlert

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In a world where we are relying increasingly on computing, to share our information and store our most precious data, the idea of living without computers might baffle most people.

But if we continue to follow the trend that has been in place since computers were introduced, by 2040 we will not have the capability to power all of the machines around the globe, according to a recent report by the Semiconductor Industry Association.

To prevent this, the industry is focused on finding ways to make computing more energy efficient, but classical computers are limited by the minimum amount of energy it takes them to perform one operation.

This energy limit is named after IBM Research Lab's Rolf Landauer, who in 1961 found that in any computer, each single bit operation must use an absolute minimum amount of energy. Landauer's formula calculated the lowest limit of energy required for a computer operation, and in March this year researchers demonstrated it could be possible to make a chip that operates with this lowest energy.

It was called a "breakthrough for energy-efficient computing" and could cut the amount of energy used in computers by a factor of one million. However, it will take a long time before we see the technology used in our laptops; and even when it is, the energy will still be above the Landauer limit.

This is why, in the long term, people are turning to radically different ways of computing, such as quantum computing, to find ways to cut energy use.

Quantum computing takes advantage of the strange ability of subatomic particles to exist in more than one state at any time. Due to the way the tiniest of particles behave, operations can be done much more quickly and use less energy than classical computers.

In classical computing, a bit is a single piece of information that can exist in two states 1 or 0. Quantum computing uses quantum bits, or 'qubits' instead. These are quantum systems with two states. However, unlike a usual bit, they can store much more information than just 1 or 0, because they can exist in any superposition of these values.

"Traditionally qubits are treated as separated physical objects with two possible distinguishable states, 0 and 1," Alexey Fedorov, physicist at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology told WIRED.

"The difference between classical bits and qubits is that we can also prepare qubits in a quantum superposition of 0 and 1 and create nontrivial correlated states of a number of qubits, so-called 'entangled states'."

D-Wave

A qubit can be thought of like an imaginary sphere. Whereas a classical bit can be in two states - at either of the two poles of the sphere - a qubit can be any point on the sphere. This means a computer using these bits can store a huge amount more information using less energy than a classical computer.

Last year, a team of Google and Nasa scientists found a D-wave quantum computer was 100 million times faster than a conventional computer. But moving quantum computing to an industrial scale is difficult.

IBM recently announced its Q division is developing quantum computers that can be sold commercially within the coming years. Commercial quantum computer systems "with ~50 qubits" will be created "in the next few years," IBM claims. While researchers at Google, in Nature comment piece, say companies could start to make returns on elements of quantum computer technology within the next five years.

Computations occur when qubits interact with each other, therefore for a computer to function it needs to have many qubits. The main reason why quantum computers are so hard to manufacture is that scientists still have not found a simple way to control complex systems of qubits.

Now, scientists from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Russian Quantum Centre are looking into an alternative way of quantum computing. Not content with single qubits, the researchers decided to tackle the problem of quantum computing another way.

"In our approach, we observed that physical nature allows us to employ quantum objects with several distinguishable states for quantum computation," Fedorov, one of the authors of the study, told WIRED.

The team created qubits with various different energy "levels", that they have named qudits. The "d" stands for the number of different energy levels the qudit can take. The term "level" comes from the fact that typically each logic state of a qubit corresponds to the state with a certain value of energy - and these values of possible energies are called levels.

"In some sense, we can say that one qudit, quantum object with d possible states, may consist of several 'virtual' qubits, and operating qudit corresponds to manipulation with the 'virtual' qubits including their interaction," continued Federov.

"From the viewpoint of abstract quantum information theory everything remains the same but in concrete physical implementation many-level system represent potentially useful resource."

Quantum computers are already in use, in the sense that logic gates have been made using two qubits, but getting quantum computers to work on an industrial scale is the problem.

"The progress in that field is rather rapid but no one can promise when we come to wide use of quantum computation," Fedorov told WIRED.

Elsewhere, in a step towards quantum computing, researchers have guided electrons through semiconductors using incredibly short pulses of light. Inside the weird world of quantum computers

These extremely short, configurable pulses of light could lead to computers that operate 100,000 times faster than they do today. Researchers, including engineers at the University of Michigan, can now control peaks within laser pulses of just a few femtoseconds (one quadrillionth of a second) long. The result is a step towards "lightwave electronics" which could eventually lead to a breakthrough in quantum computing.

A bizarre discovery recently revealed that cold helium atoms in lab conditions on Earth abide by the same law of entropy that governs the behaviour of black holes. What are black holes? WIRED explains

The law, first developed by Professor Stephen Hawking and Jacob Bekenstein in the 1970s, describes how the entropy, or the amount of disorder, increases in a black hole when matter falls into it. It now seems this behaviour appears at both the huge scales of outer space and at the tiny scale of atoms, specifically those that make up superfluid helium.

"It's called an entanglement area law, explained Adrian Del Maestro, physicist at the University of Vermont. "It points to a deeper understanding of reality and could be a significant step toward a long-sought quantum theory of gravity and new advances in quantum computing.

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quantum computing - WIRED UK

China has beaten the world at building the first ever quantum computing machine that is 24,000 times faster than its international counterparts.

Making the announcement at a press conference in the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Studies of University of Science and Technology, the scientists said that this quantum computing machine may dwarf the processing power of existing supercomputers.

Researchers also said that quantum computing could in some ways dwarf the processing power of today's supercomputers.

HOW THE WORLD'S FIRST QUANTUM COMPUTING MACHINE CAME TO BE?

The manipulation of multi-particle entanglement is the core of quantum computing technology and has been the focus of international quantum computing research.

Recently, Pan Jianwei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lu Chaoyang and Zhu Xiaobo of the University of Science and Technology of China and Wang Haohua of Zhejiang University set international records in quantum control of the maximal numbers of entangled photonic quantum bits and entangled superconducting quantum bits.

Pan said quantum computers could, in principle, solve certain problems faster than classical computers.

Despite substantial progress in the past two decades, building quantum machines that can actually outperform classical computers in some specific tasks - an important milestone termed "quantum supremacy" - remains challenging.

In the quest for quantum supremacy, Boson sampling - an intermediate quantum computer model - has received considerable attention, as it requires fewer physical resources than building universal optical quantum computers, Pan was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Last year, the researchers had developed the world's best single photon source based on semiconductor quantum dots.

Now, they are using the high-performance single photon source and electronically programmable photonic circuit to build a multi-photon quantum computing prototype to run the Boson sampling task.

The test results show the sampling rate of this prototype is at least 24,000 times faster than international counterparts, researchers said.

At the same time, the prototype quantum computing machine is 10 to 100 times faster than the first electronic computer, ENIAC, and the first transistor computer, TRADIC, in running the classical algorithm, Pan said.

It is the first quantum computing machine based on single photons that goes beyond the early classical computer, and ultimately paves the way to a quantum computer that can beat classical computers.

Last year, China had successfully launched the world's first quantum satellite that will explore "hack proof" quantum communications by transmitting unhackable keys from space, and provide insight into the strangest phenomenon in quantum physics - quantum entanglement.

The research was published in the journal Nature Photonics.

(With inputs from PTI)

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Chinese scientists build world's first quantum computing machine - India Today

Lets make no mistake: The race for a quantum computer is the new arms race.

As Arthur Herman wrote in a recent NRO article, Quantum Cryptography: A Boon for Security, the competition to create the first quantum computer is heating up. The country that develops one first will have the ability to cripple militaries and topple the global economy. To deter such activity, and to ensure our security, the United States must win this new race to the quantum-computer revolution.

Classical computers operate in bits, with each bit being either a 0 or 1. Quantum computers, by contrast, operate in quantum bits, or qubits, which can be both 0 and 1 simultaneously. Therefore, quantum computers can do nearly infinite calculations at once, rather than sequentially. Because of these properties, a single quantum computer could be the master key to hijack our country.

The danger of a quantum computer is its ability to tear through the encryption protecting most of our online data, which means it could wipe out the global financial system or locate weapons of mass destruction. Quantum computers operate much differently from todays classical computers and could crack encryption in less time than it takes to snap ones fingers.

In 2016, 4.2 billion computerized records in the United States were compromised, a staggering 421 percent increase from the prior year. Whats more, foreign countries are stealing encrypted U.S. data and storing it because they know that in roughly a decade, quantum computers will be able to get around the encryption.

Many experts agree that the U.S. still has the advantage in the nascent world of quantum computing, thanks to heavy investment by giants such as Microsoft, Intel, IBM, D-Wave, and Google. Yet with China graduating 4.7 million of its students per year with STEM degrees while the U.S. graduates a little over half a million, how long can the U.S. maintain its lead?

Maybe not for long. Half of the global landmark scientific achievements of 2014 were led by a European consortium and the other half by China, according to a 2015 MIT study. The European Union has made quantum research a flagship project over the next ten years and is committed to investing nearly $1 billion. While the U.S. government allocates about $200 million per year to quantum research, a recent congressional report noted that inconsistent funding has slowed progress.

According to Dr. Chad Rigetti, a former member of IBMs quantum-computing group and now the CEO of Rigetti Computing, computing superiority is fundamental to long-term economic superiority, safety, and security. Our strategy, he continues, has to be viewing quantum computing as a way to regain American superiority in high-performance computing.

Additionally, cyber-policy advisor Tim Polk stated publicly that our edge in quantum technologies is under siege. In fact, China leads in unhackable quantum-enabled satellites and owns the worlds fastest supercomputers.

While quantum computers will lead to astounding breakthroughs in medicine, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, defense, and more, rogue states or actors could use quantum computers for fiercely destructive purposes. Recall the hack of Sony by North Korea, Russian spies hacking Yahoo accounts, and the exposure of 22 million federal Office of Personnel Management records by Chinese hackers.

How can the United States win this race? We must take a multi-pronged approach to guard against the dangers of quantum computers while reaping their benefits. The near-term priority is to implement quantum-cybersecurity solutions, which fully protect against quantum-computer attacks. Solutions can soon be built directly into devices, accessed via the cloud, integrated with online browsers, or implemented alongside existing fiber-optic infrastructure.

Second, the U.S. needs to consider increasing federal research and development and boost incentives for industry and academia to develop technologies that align private interests with national-security interests, since quantum technology will lead to advances in defense and forge deterrent capabilities.

Third, as private companies advance quicker than government agencies, Washington should engage regularly with industry. Not only will policies evolve in a timely manner, but government agencies could become valuable early adopters.

Fourth, translating breakthroughs in the lab to commercial development will require training quantum engineers. Dr. Robert Schoelkopf, director of the Yale Quantum Institute, launched Quantum Circuits, Inc., to bridge this gap and to perform the commercial development of a quantum computer.

The United States achieved the unthinkable when it put a man on the Moon. Creating the first quantum computer will be easier but the consequences if we dont will be far greater.

Idalia Friedson is a research assistant at the Hudson Institute.

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The Quantum Computer Revolution Is Closer Than You May Think - National Review

Its been proven that time crystals do in fact exist. Two different teams of researchers created some time crystals just recently, one of which was from the University of Maryland and the other from Harvard University. While the first team used a chain of charged particles called ytterbium ions, the others used a synthetic diamond to create an artificial lattice.

It took a while for the idea of time crystals to stick because they are essentially impossibilities. Unlike conventional crystals where the lattices simply repeat themselves in space, time crystals also repeat in time to breaking time-translation symmetry. This unique phenomenon is the first in demonstrating non-equilibrium phases of matter.

The Harvard researchers are excited with their discoveries so far and are now hoping to uncover more about these time crystals. Mikhail Lukin and Eugene Demler are both physics professors and joint leaders of the Harvard research group. Lukin said in a recent press release, There is now broad, ongoing work to understand the physics of non-equilibrium quantum systems. The team is keen to move on with further research as they know by researching materials such as time crystals will help us better understand our own world as well as the quantum world.

Research such as that carried out by the Harvard team will allow others to develop new technologies such as quantum sensors, atomic clocks, or precision measuring tools. In regards to quantum computing, time crystals could be the missing link that were searching for when it comes to developing the worlds first workable model. This is an area that is of interest for many quantum technologies, said Lukin, because a quantum computer is a quantum system thats far away from equilibrium. Its very much at the frontier of research and we are really just scratching the surface. Quantum computer could change the way in which research is carried out and help in solving the most complex of problems. We just need to figure it out first.

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Time Crystals Could be the Key to the First Quantum Computer - TrendinTech