Monthly Archives: January 2020

IBM Q System One

Hyper-accurate long-term weather forecasting. Life-saving drugs discovered through deep study of the behavior of complex molecules. New synthetic carbon-capturing materials to help reverse climate change caused by fossil fuels. Stable, long-lasting batteries to power electric vehicles and store green energy for the utility grid.

It may read like an ambitious wish list. But many scientists predict that the emerging era of quantum computing could lead to breakthroughs like these, while also tackling other major problems that are beyond reach of our current computing regime.

Quantum computing is not a new idea. But its only been in recent years that workable technology has begun to catch up to the theory.

IBM in 2016 made a quantum computer available to the public by connecting it to the clouda true turning point in the development of this technology by enabling outside researchers and developers to explore its possibilities. And the industry took a major stride in September 2019 with the opening of IBMs Quantum Computation Center. That fleet of 15 systems includes the most advanced quantum computer yet available for external use.

Scientists are tantalized by the possibilities. One analyst predicted quantum will be as world altering in the 2020s as the smartphone was in the decade just ended.

The Quantum Computation Center offers about 100 IBM clients, academic institutions and more than 200,000 registered users access to this cutting-edge technology through a collaborative effort called the IBM Q Network and the rapidly growing community around Qiskit, IBMs open-source development platform for quantum computing. Through these efforts, IBM and others are exploring the ways quantum computing can address their most complicated problems, while training a workforce to use this technology.

Facilitating education and developing the next-generation workforce is a big focus for IBM. That includes spurring access to Qiskit and educational tools like the Coding With Qiskit video series that has generated more than 1.5 million impressions and over 10,000 hours of content consumed by users.The company has also released an open source textbook written by experts in the field, including several from IBM Research, as well as professors who have used some of the material in their own university courses.

Q Network partners include ExxonMobil, Daimler, JPMorgan Chase, Anthem, Delta Airlines, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Georgia Tech University, Keio University, Stanford Universitys Q-Farm program and Mitsubishi Chemical among dozens of others.

Last year IBM announced partnerships with the University of Tokyo and the German research company Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which will greatly expand the companys already broad network of quantum researchers globally. The history of computing tells us that creative people around the world will find uses for these systems that no one could have predicted.

Katie Pizzolato

At this stage, its difficult to predict what kind of impact quantum will have on employment or the economy. But the research firm Gartner projects that, by 2023, 20 percent of organizations will be budgeting for QC projects, up from less than 1 percent in 2018.*

How do we get to the quantum future? asks Katie Pizzolato, Director of Applications Research within the IBM Q Network. By building the most advanced quantum systems and a developmental platform and making it available to the world.

How does quantum differ from classical digital computing? Conventional computers use transistors that can only store information in two electrical statesOn or Offwhich binary computer code represents as 1 or 0. These are the binary digits, or bits, of classical computing.

Quantum computing is an altogether different beast. It derives its origins from the field of quantum physics, which emerged in the early 20th century when scientists began studying the behavior of subatomic particles.

What they discovered shocked many of them. Simply put, subatomic particles can exist in two places, or two states, at the same time, defying previously accepted laws of the physical world. The term for this is superposition. Researchers also discovered that particles separated by distances are able to share information instantaneously, faster than the speed of light. This is called entanglement.

If this sounds strange and implausible, thats because it is. Niels Bohr, one of the scientists who pioneered the field of quantum mechanics, quipped that anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory doesn't understand it.

This subatomic reality has profound implications for computing. The binary bits used by conventional computersthose 0s and 1slimit the kind of task classical computers can perform, and the speed at which they can do those tasks.

Qubits are the basis for quantum computers. They transcend this 1 or 0 binary limitation. Unlike bits, qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously. This gives them the potential to processexponential amounts ofinformation.

A quantum machine with just a couple of qubits can process only about as much information as a classical 512-bit computer. But because of the exponential nature of the platform, the dynamic changes very quickly. Assuming perfect stability, 300 qubits could represent more data values than there are atoms in the observable universe. This opens the opportunity to solve highly complex problems that are well beyond the reach of any classical computer.

Dario Gil

A beauty of quantum computers is that they will offer a more subtle way of thinking about problems that goes beyond binarythat goes beyond simple 0 or 1, Yes or No, True or False, says Dario Gil, the Director of IBM Research. That doesnt mean there wont be specific answers in the end. But quantum computing will make it possible to confront many of the worlds most complex problems that are beyond the ability of classical binary computing to quickly solve.

What can quantum computing do for us?

Quantum computers will be orders of magnitude more powerful than anything we have today. But what problems will they solve? What are scientists doing with them now?

Its generally agreed that most important quantum applications are years away. But researchers say some promising applications stand out:

Climate change

Quantum computing could lead to a novel yet ambitious plan to reverse the negative impacts of climate change, by helping find efficient ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

To do that, scientists require a better understanding of the carbon atom and how it interacts with other elements. Researchers need to be able to observe and model the way each carbon atoms eight orbiting electrons might interact with the electrons of an almost infinite variety of other molecules, until researchers find the combination that can best bind the carbon.

Batteries to store more electricity for clean-energy uses

One fundamental building block of our clean-energy future will be batteries. Todays batteries lose power too quickly.They also cant hold enough charge to meet increasing demands. And at times, theyre unstable. Todays most-used battery type, lithium-ion, is dependent on cobalt, a metal whose global supplies are dwindling.

Well need better batteries for applications like powering electric vehicles. Utility companies will need them to store solar and wind energy, for example, for use when the sun isnt shining or the wind isnt blowing.

We need to find a fundamentally different chemistry to create the batteries of the future, Pizzolato says. Quantum computing could let us effectively peer inside the batteries chemical reactions, to better understand the materials and reactions that will give the world those better batteries.

New insights into chemistry

Learning more about chemical reactions on the atomic level could also lead to breakthroughs in pharmaceuticals, or materials like energy-efficient fertilizer (currently a massively energy-intensive endeavor, and a major contributor to carbon emissions).

The catalysts that spark these sorts of discoveries are the essence of nearly all progress in chemistry. But because of the infinitely complex ways in which atoms interact with each other, almost all chemistry breakthroughs have come about through accident, intuition or exhausting numbers of experiments. Quantum computing could make this work faster and more methodical, leading to new discoveries in medicine, energy, materials and other fields.

Portfolio management

Its no surprise that that financial institutions are exploring the use of quantum to balance portfolios and pricing options, the instruments used for hedging risk. Because of the complexity of processing a large number of continually changing variables it often takes a full day to come to a correct price.

Quantum promises to make such calculations in a matter of minutes, meaning these derivatives could be bought and sold in near real time. Some banks, like JPMorgan Chase, are already testing quantum computing for this very purpose.

For consumers, whether saving for a home, nurturing a college-savings plan, or building assets for a secure retirement, the peace-of-mind benefits of lower-risk and higher-profit financial products could be significant.

Encryption

Cryptography is a field that has attracted considerable attention in the quantum conversation. So far, much of the discussion has involved the perceived perils of a new class or code breakers. But the counter argumentnew types of more secure data privacy systemscould prove just as compelling.

Either way, true breakthroughs are probably not coming soon.

The most sophisticated data security software now uses complex algorithms to generate passwords that would take classical computers a long time to break. Quantum threatens to completely overturn this paradigm, making current encryption effectively useless. A quantum computer algorithm created a quarter-century ago, called Shors algorithm, could theoretically crack even the most powerful of todays forms of encryption. But Shors algorithm would require fault-tolerant quantum computers that dont yet exist and might still be many years away.

Still, the possibility that current cybersecurity standards could be made obsolete has drawn the attention of governments. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, for example, has a competition to develop new encryption tools resistant to the potential danger.

What Must Happen To Fulfill Quantums Promise?

Despite the flurry of activity and rapidly growing interest in quantum computing, major breakthroughs with real-world applications are probably years away.

One reason is the fickleness of subatomic matter. Qubits are extremely delicate, and even a small disturbance knocks particles out of quantum state. Thats why quantum computers are kept at temperatures slightly above absolute zero, colder than outer space, since matter becomes effectively more stable the colder it gets. Even at that temperature, qubit particles typically remain in superposition for only fractions of a second.

Figuring out how to keep qubits in a prolonged state of superpostition is a major challenge that scientists still need to overcome.

A next major benchmark, Pizzolato says, will be the successful implementation of logical qubits that can maintain a quantum state longer than is now technologically possible. Logical qubits are necessary for fault-tolerancethe true test of quantum computings utility. Like others at IBM, Pizzolato is reluctant to predict a timeline but says the logical qubit is likely to arrive sometime in the next decade.

Another open question is economic: How will the arrival of the Quantum Age impact the number, categories and quality of jobs in the decades to come? Its difficult to say right now how big an industry quantum computing will eventually be. But currently, a major skills gap has left nearly every quantum organization struggling to find qualified recruits.

The National Quantum Initiative, signed into law in early 2019, is meant to provide federal funds to bridge this skills gap. But practical training of the sort made possible by the IBM Q Network will be crucial to a long-term solution.

While the quantum era may develop slowly, its worth remembering that the Internetor an early version of itwas around for decades before it was established as the truly revolutionary force it would become. But like the Internet, the work researchers are doing now on quantum computing lead to a world we cant now imagine.

Only by doing the hard work on quantum computing that we and our partners around the world are doing now, says Pizzolato, can we hope to solve the big global problems that well be facing together in the years ahead.

*Gartner, Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019: Quantum Computing, March 2019

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The Quantum Computing Era Is Here. Why It MattersAnd How It May Change Our World. - Forbes

A theoretical class of particles called Majorana fermions remains a mystery. In 2017, scientists believed they had uncovered evidence for the existence Majorana fermions. Unfortunately, recent research shows that their findings were actually due to a faulty experimental device, bringing researchers back to the drawing board in the search for the exotic particles.

The Standard Model of particle physics currently is our best means of explaining the fundamental forces of the universe. It classifies the various elementary particles, like photons, the Higgs boson, and the various quarks and leptons. Broadly, its particles are divided into two classes: Bosons, like the photon and Higgs, and fermions, which comprise the quarks and leptons.

There are a few major differences between these types of particles. One, for instance, is that fermions have antiparticles, while bosons do not. There can be an anti-electron (i.e., a positron), but there's no such thing as an antiphoton. Fermions also can't occupy the same quantum state; for instance, electrons orbiting an atom's nucleus can't both occupy the same orbital level and spin in the same direction two electrons can hang out in the same orbital and spin in opposite directions because this represents a different quantum state. Bosons, on the other hand, don't have this problem.

But back in 1937, a physicist named Ettore Majorana discovered that there a different, unusual kind of fermion could exist; the so-called Majorana fermion.

All the fermions in the Standard Model are referred to as Dirac fermions. Where they and Majorana fermions differ is that the Majorana fermion would be its own antiparticle. Because of this quirk, the Majorana fermion has been nicknamed the "angel particle" after the Dan Brown novel "Angels and Demons," whose plot involved a matter/anti-matter bomb.

Until 2017, however, there remained no definitive experimental evidence for Majorana fermions. But during that year, physicists constructed a complicated experimental device involving a superconductor, a topological insulator which conducts electricity along its edges but not through its center and a magnet. The researchers observed that in addition to electrons flowing along the edge of the topological insulator, this device also showed signs of producing Majorana quasiparticles.

Quasiparticles are an important tool that physicists use when searching for evidence of "real" particles. They aren't the real thing themselves, but they can be thought of as disturbances in a medium that represent a real particle. You can think of them like bubbles in a Coca Cola a bubble itself isn't an independent object, but rather a phenomenon that emerges from the interaction between carbon dioxide and the Coca Cola. If we were to say there was some hypothetical "bubble particle" that really existed, we could measure the "quasi"-bubbles in a Coca Cola to learn more about its characteristics and provide evidence for this imaginary particle's existence.

By observing quasiparticles with properties that matched theoretical predictions of Majorana fermions, the researchers believed that they had found a smoking gun that proved these peculiar particles really existed.

Regrettably, recent research showed that this finding was in error. The device that the 2017 researchers used was only supposed to generate signs of Majorana quasiparticles when exposed to a precise magnetic field. But new researchers from Penn State and the University of Wurzburg found that these signs emerged whenever a superconductor and topological insulator were combined regardless of the magnetic field. The superconductor, it turns out, acted as an electrical short in this system, resulting in a measurement that looked right, but was really just a false alarm. Since the magnetic field wasn't contributing to this signal, the measurements didn't match theory.

"This is an excellent illustration of how science should work," said one of the researchers. "Extraordinary claims of discovery need to be carefully examined and reproduced. All of our postdocs and students worked really hard to make sure they carried out very rigorous tests of the past claims. We are also making sure that all of our data and methods are shared transparently with the community so that our results can be critically evaluated by interested colleagues."

Majorana fermions are predicted to appear in devices where a superconductor is affixed on top of a topological insulator (also referred to as a quantum anomalous Hall insulator [QAH]; left panel). Experiments performed at Penn State and the University of Wrzburg in Germany show that the small superconductor strip used in the proposed device creates an electrical short, preventing the detection of Majoranas (right panel).

Cui-zu Chang, Penn State

Beyond the intrinsic value of better understanding the nature of our universe, Majorana fermions could be put to serious practical use. They could lead to the development of what's known as a topological quantum computer.

A regular quantum computer is prone to decoherence essentially, this is the loss of information to the environment. But Majorana fermions have a unique property when applied in quantum computers. Two of these fermions can store a single qubit (the quantum computer's equivalent of a bit) of information, as opposed to a regular quantum computer where a single qubit of information is stored in a single quantum particle. Thus, if environmental noise disturbs one Majorana fermion, its associated particle would still store the information, preventing decoherence.

To make this a reality, researchers are still persistently searching for the angel particle. As promising as the 2017 research appeared, it looks like the hunt continues.

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The hunt for the 'angel particle' continues - Big Think

(Photo: http://www.canva.com)Is our world what it is a reality or a simulation as the quantum begins to unravel and confuse. What is it really, is the answer coming with all these musings.

One of the ideas that scientists entertain is, whether the real world exists or is it a simulation, like one of their experiments inside the lab. Some conclusions that most people cannot understand is whether the universe follows rules or is in total chaos. An example of this a game of billiards, when the balls are broken when it and goes to a random place. These are many examples of how quantum calculations work, and why it is hard to understand it. Listed down are experiments by quantum scientists to investigate how the quantum space works. It is just a huge billiard table that has billions of possibilities that cannot be controlled.

Kilogram goes the quantum wayQuantum scientists have redefined what a kilogram is, based on the quantum measure. This affects how a kilogram works and how heavy it really is. Once the changes are in place, all scales and measures need to be recalibrated to make this correction.

Reality depends on the observerIn a quantum coin toss done inside a quantum computer that analyzed how photons would react. The result is multiple views of the photons, on where the viewpoint is. One side may not look the same, depending on where the viewer is.

Quantum entanglement has a snapshotCalled "spooky action" because these particles are connected to each other by some unknown force. One example is two black holes that are connected and do not seem to separate. Might even be the reason why wormholes form as speculated on by physicists. Superposition is possible, and multiples are possible too.

Cause and effect is turned topsy turvyThings in the universe follow a logic called cause and effect, an example is an apple falling because of gravity. What if the opposite happens, and it does not fall down but goes up? One reason is the reversal of cause and effect does happen in the right conditions, but not much is known about its mechanics.

Tunneling into the 5th dimensionParticles are proven to dig into space and form pocket wormholes, by a random chance some particle can make to the other side. Although it might entanglement or some other mechanism or the unknown 5th dimension?

Hello there quantum turtleA bit of a mystery is found; how supercooled atoms react to a magnetic field. If this happens a pattern of energy forms around it, like a quantum turtle. But some conclusion when the experiment demonstrated a time-reversal when it happened.

A quantum computer did time travel and 16 alternate futuresScientists caused a particle to travel back in time intentionally and got evidence of the time shift too. Quite a small feat in quantum terms, but shows promise of time-manipulating particles. Another set of experiments done, programmed 16 futures using a quantum device too.

Heat can travel inside a vacuumHeat energy was projected into a void or vacuum and it traveled through it. It was done without a bridge or conductor, which is something to study later.

Related Article: The 12 Most Important and Stunning Quantum Experiments of 2019

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'Is This the Real World or Just a Simulation?' Quantum Musings about Experiments in 2019 - Science Times

Global Quantum Computing Technologies Market valued approximately USD 75.0 million in 2018 is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than 24.0% over the forecast period 2019-2026.

The Quantum Computing Technologies Market is continuously growing in the global scenario at significant pace. As it is recognized as a computer technology based on the principles of quantum theory, which explains the nature and behavior of energy and matter on the quantum level. A Quantum computer follows the laws of quantum physics through which it can gain enormous power, have the ability to be in multiple states and perform tasks using all possible permutations simultaneously. Surging implementation of machine learning by quantum computer, escalating application in cryptography and capability in simulating intricate systems are the substantial driving factors of the market during the forecast period. Moreover, rising adoption & utility in cyber security is the factors that likely to create numerous opportunity in the near future. However, lack of skilled professionals is one of the major factors that restraining the growth of the market during the forecast period.

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The regional analysis of Global Quantum Computing Technologies Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. North America is the leading/significant region across the world in terms of market share due to increasing usage of quantum computers by government agencies and aerospace & defense for machine learning in the region. Europe is estimated to grow at second largest region in the global Quantum Computing Technologies market over the upcoming years. Further, Asia-Pacific is anticipated to exhibit higher growth rate / CAGR over the forecast period 2019-2026 due to rising adoption of quantum computers by BFSI sectors in the region.

The major market player included in this report are:D-Wave Systems Inc.IBM CorporationLockheed Martin CorporationIntel CorporationAnyon Systems Inc.Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited

The objective of the study is to define market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as driving factors & challenges which will define the future growth of the market. Additionally, the report shall also incorporate available opportunities in micro markets for stakeholders to invest along with the detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product offerings of key players. The detailed segments and sub-segment of the market are explained below:

By Application:OptimizationMachine LearningSimulation

By Vertical:BFSIIT and TelecommunicationHealthcareTransportationGovernmentAerospace & DefenseOthers

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By Regions:North AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeUKGermanyAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of the World

Furthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year 2016, 2017Base year 2018Forecast period 2019 to 2026

Target Audience of the Global Quantum Computing Technologies Market in Market Study:Key Consulting Companies & AdvisorsLarge, medium-sized, and small enterprisesVenture capitalistsValue-Added Resellers (VARs)Third-party knowledge providersInvestment bankersInvestors

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Quantum Computing Technologies Market 2019, Size, Share, Global Industry Growth, Business Statistics, Top Leaders, Competitive Landscape, Forecast To...