Daily Archives: March 4, 2020

By Leah Crane

Honeywell

A company that used to make home thermostats is now building a quantum computer. Honeywell, which is known for making control systems for homes, businesses and planes, says it has big plans for the quantum future.

You would have never suspected Honeywell was doing this, says Tony Uttley, the president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions. The company has been working on its plans for a decade, he says. We wanted to wait until we could just show people how good we are at this instead of telling them about it.

Now the wait is over: on 3 March, the company announced that its computer will be open for business within the next three months, with customers able to access it over the internet.

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Like all the quantum computers currently available, it will probably be used to more easily solve problems that involve huge amounts of data, like optimising aeroplane routes or simulating molecules. It isnt expected to outperform ordinary computers at this point.

Honeywell measures its computers efficacy using a metric coined by IBM called quantum volume. It takes into account the number of quantum bits or qubits the computer has, their error rate, how long the system can spend calculating before the qubits stop working and a few other key properties.

IBMs System Q One, its first commercial device, has a quantum volume of 16, which the company claims makes it the most powerful quantum computer in existence. Honeywells new computer had a quantum volume of 16 when the firm began testing it in January, but Uttley says the company expects to reach a quantum volume of up to 64 when the computer becomes available for commercial use.

While IBMs computer used 20 qubits to reach a quantum volume of 16, Honeywells only used four. That is an indication that Honeywells qubits are longer-lasting with fewer errors than IBMs, but this kind of system can also be difficult to scale up.

Honeywells quantum computer uses trapped ions charged particles held in place by precise electromagnetic fields as its qubits. Many of the other big players in quantum computing, such as Google and IBM, use superconducting qubits instead, which are based on supercooled electrical circuits. Superconducting qubits are easier to mass-produce and can run calculations faster, but trapped ions tend to be more accurate and they have longer-lasting quantum states.

The firm also announced an ambitious promise: Honeywell plans to add additional qubits to their computer each year for the next five years, increasing its quantum volume by a factor of 10 each time. This is not a science project for us, says Uttley. Were doing this because we believe we can make that step to value creation with a useful quantum computer.

It isnt clear yet how Honeywells computer will compare with those that are already available, says Scott Aaronson at the University of Texas at Austin. Several other major companies already have quantum computers, and some of these have had a years-long head start, he says.

Thanks to its longer-lasting trapped-ion qubits, Honeywell does have one thing that the other firms dont, says Uttley something known as mid-circuit measurement. This essentially lets you redirect a quantum calculation as it is being executed.

We can stop the calculation, take one qubit, ask what are you right now, are you a 1 or a 0? and change the rest of the calculation based on that answer, says Uttley. Its like putting an if statement in an algorithm, and its something thats unique to us.

One can easily imagine situations where mid-circuit measurements would extend what one is able to do, says Aaronson, at least in the near-term. Mid-circuit measurements also play a central role in the proposals for how to someday achieve quantum error-correction, he says, which is the next major milestone in the growing field of quantum computing.

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Honeywell no longer makes home thermostats

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Surprise contender Honeywell enters the quantum computing race - New Scientist News

Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) is looking to explore and advance the application of quantum technologies to particle physics as part of the QUATERNION project in the CERN openlab.

Quantum computers and their potential is being researched by CERN through the openlab. The team is collaborating with major hardware vendors and users of quantum computing, launching a number of projects in this realm.

According to CERN, the enhanced computational capabilities of quantum computers could help to improve the analysis and classification of their vast data sets, thus helping to push back the boundaries of particle physics.

More recently, the CERN openlab team have stated they will leverage the power of t|ket, CQC's proprietary quantum development platform for the QUATERNION project.

CQC's t|ket converts machine-independent quantum circuits into executable circuits, reducing the number of required operations whilst optimising physical qubit arrangements.

The architecture-agnostic nature of t|ket will help the members of the CERN openlab project team to work across multiple platforms to achieve optimal results even on today's noisy quantum hardware, CERN states.

The QUATERNION project will also investigate the application of CQC's four qubit quantum technology device named Ironbridge to CERN's Monte Carlo methods for data analysis.

Such methods are not only a vital component of particle physics research, but are also applicable to many other areas, such as financial and climate modelling, CERN states.

Monte Carlo methods use high-quality entropy sources to simulate and analyse complex data. Using CQC's IronBridge platform, the world's first commercially available device-independent and quantum-certifiable cryptographic device, the teams will investigate for the first time the effects of certified entropy on Monte Carlo simulations.

CQC founder and CEO Ilyas Khan says, We are excited to collaborate with CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, on this innovative quantum computing based research project.

CQC is focussed on using the world's best science to develop technologies for the coming quantum age. Joining CERN openlab is a special development for any organisation and we look forward to developing advances together.

CERN openlab head Alberto Di Meglio says, Our unique public-private partnership works to accelerate the development of cutting-edge computing technologies for our research community.

Quantum computing research is one of the most exciting areas of study today; we are pleased to welcome CQC and their world-class scientists into collaboration with us.

CQC is a quantum computing software company that builds tools for the commercialisation of quantum technologies that will have a global impact.

CQC combines expertise in quantum software, specifically a quantum development platform (t|ket), enterprise applications in the areas of quantum chemistry (EUMEN), quantum machine learning (QML), and quantum augmented cybersecurity (IronBridge).

The company states it has a deep commitment to the cultivation of scientific research.

Link:

Cambridge Quantum Computing teams up with CERN to advance quantum technologies - IT Brief Australia

Gilles Brassard, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at Universit de Montral, along with Charles Bennett of IBM's New York State Research Center and Peter Shor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been awarded the BBVA Foundation's Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the basic sciences category for "outstanding contributions to the areas of computing and quantum communication."

Thee three researchers will receive the award June 2 in Bilbao, Spain, and will share the 400,000 that comes with it.

Professor Brassard is the seventh Canadian to receive the prize and the first ever in the basic sciences category (physics, chemistry, mathematics).

In 1984, Brassard and Bennett devised the first quantum cryptography technique, which makes it possible to encode messages in order to exchange information with absolute confidentiality. Then, in 1993, they laid the foundations for quantum teleportation in collaboration with four other researchers. The group proved that it was possible to transport information in subatomic particles, such as photons, from one place in the galaxy to another, without physically moving them. This principle is based on the rules of quantum theory, according to which a particle can simultaneously exist in several states.

Industry is currently investing billions of dollars in quantum technologies, particularly in China and Europe, and the theoretical work of Brassard, Bennett and Shor has helped put this discipline on track.

This is the third major award that Brassard and Bennett have jointly won on the international scene. In 2018, the duo received the Wolf Prize in Physics from the President of Israel, a prize often seen as leading to a Nobel Prize in Physics. Last year in China, they were awarded the Micius Prize for their breakthroughs in quantum theory.

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Gilles Brassard honoured by the BBVA Foundation for his work in quantum computing - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source