Monthly Archives: September 2020

The emergence of quantum computing has led industry heavyweights to fast track their research and innovations. This week, Google conducted the largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date. The U.S. Department of Energy, on the other hand, launched five new Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers. Will this accelerate quantum computings progress?

Quantum technology is the next big wave in the tech landscape. As opposed to traditional computers where all the information emails, tweets, YouTube videos, and Facebook photos are streams of electrical pulses in binary digits, 1s and 0s; quantum computers rely on quantum bits or qubits to store information. Qubits are subatomic particles, such as electrons or photons which change their state regularly. Therefore, they can be 1s and 0s at the same time. This enables quantum computers to run multiple complex computational tasks simultaneously and faster when compared to digital computers, mainframes, and servers.

Introduced in the 1980s, quantum computing can unlock the complexities across different industries much faster than traditional computers. A quantum computer can decipher complex encryption systems that can easily impact digital banking, cryptocurrencies, and e-commerce sectors, which heavily depend on encrypted data. Quantum computers can expedite the discovery of new medicines, aid in climate change, power AI, transform logistics, and design new materials. In the U.S., technology giants, including IBM, Google, Honeywell, Microsoft, Intel, IonQ, and Rigetti Computing, are leading the race to build quantum computers and gain a foothold in the quantum computing space. Whereas Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei are leading companies in China.

For a long time, the U.S. and its allies, such as Japan and Germany, had been working hard to compete with China to dominate the quantum technology space. In 2018, the U.S. government released the National Strategy Overview for Quantum Information Science to reduce technical skills gaps and accelerate quantum computing research and development.

In 2019, Google claimed quantum supremacy for supercomputers when the companys Sycamore processor performed specific tasks in 200 seconds, which would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years to complete. In the same year, Intel rolled out Horse Ridge, a cryogenic quantum control chip, to reduce the quantum computing complexities and accelerate quantum practicality.

Tech news: Is Data Portability the Answer To Anti-Competitive Practices?

Whats 2020 Looking Like For Quantum Computing?

In July 2020, IBM announced a research partnership with the Japanese business and academia to advance quantum computing innovations. This alliance will deepen ties between the countries and build an ecosystem to improve quantum skills and advance research and development.

More recently, in June 2020, Honeywell announced the development of the worlds highest-performing quantum computer. AWS, Microsoft, and several other IaaS providers have announced quantum cloud services, an initiative to advance quantum computing adoption. In August 2020, AWS announced the general availability of its Amazon Braket, a quantum cloud service that allows developers to design, develop, test, and run quantum algorithms.

Since last year, auto manufacturers, such as Daimler and Volkswagen have been leveraging quantum computers to identify new methods to improve electric vehicle battery performance. Pharmaceutical companies are also using the technology to develop new medicines and drugs.

Last week, the Google AI Quantum team used their quantum processor, Sycamore, to simulate changes in the configuration of a chemical molecule, diazene. During the process, the computer was able to describe the changes in the positions of hydrogen accurately. The computer also gave an accurate description of the binding energy of hydrogen in bigger chains.

If quantum computers develop the ability to predict chemical processes, it would advance the development of a wide range of new materials with unknown properties. Current quantum computers, unfortunately, lack the augmented scaling required for such a task. Although todays computers are not ready to take on such a challenge yet, computer scientists hope to accomplish this in the near future as tech giants like Google invest in quantum computing-related research.

Tech news: Will Googles Nearby Share Have Anything Transformative to Offer?

It, therefore, came as a relief to many computer scientists when the U.S. Department of Energy announced an investment of $625 million over the next five years for five newly formed Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers in the U.S. The newly formed hubs are an amalgam of research universities, national labs, and tech titans in quantum computing. Each of the research hubs is led by the Energy Departments Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermi National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; powered by Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Riggeti, and ColdQuanta. This partnership aims to advance quantum computing commercialization.

Chetan Nayak, general manager of Quantum Hardware at Microsoft, says, While quantum computing will someday have a profound impact, todays quantum computing systems are still nascent technologies. To scale these systems, we must overcome a number of scientific challenges. Microsoft has been tackling these challenges head-on through our work towards developing topological qubits, classical information processing devices for quantum control, new quantum algorithms, and simulations.

At the start of this year, Daniel Newman, principal analyst and founding partner at Futurum Research, predicted that 2020 will be a big year for investors and Silicon Valley to invest in quantum computing companies. He said, It will be incredibly impactful over the next decade, and 2020 should be a big year for advancement and investment.

Quantum computing is still in the development phase, and the lack of suppliers and skilled researchers might be one of the influential factors in its establishment. However, if tech giants, and researchers continue to collaborate on a large scale, quantum technology can turbocharge innovation at a large scale.

What are your thoughts on the progress of quantum computing? Comment below or let us know on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. Wed love to hear from you!

See the article here:

The Quantum Dream: Are We There Yet? - Toolbox

It might all sound like a sci-fi concept, but building quantum networks is a key ambition for many countries around the world. Recently the US Department of Defense (DoE) published the first blueprint of its kind, laying out a step-by-step strategy to make the quantum internet dream come true, at least in a very preliminary form, over the next few years.

The US joined the EU and China in showing a keen interest in the concept of quantum communications. But what is the quantum internet exactly, how does it work, and what are the wonders that it can accomplish?

WHAT IS THE QUANTUM INTERNET?

The quantum internet is a network that will let quantum devices exchange some information within an environment that harnesses the weird laws of quantum mechanics. In theory, this would lend the quantum internet unprecedented capabilities that are impossible to carry out with today's web applications.

SEE: Managing AI and ML in the enterprise 2020: Tech leaders increase project development and implementation (TechRepublic Premium)

In the quantum world, data can be encoded in the state of qubits, which can be created in quantum devices like a quantum computer or a quantum processor. And the quantum internet, in simple terms, will involve sending qubits across a network of multiple quantum devices that are physically separated. Crucially, all of this would happen thanks to the whacky properties that are unique to quantum states.

That might sound similar to the standard internet. But sending qubits around through a quantum channel, rather than a classical one, effectively means leveraging the behavior of particles when taken at their smallest scale so-called "quantum states", which have caused delight and dismay among scientists for decades.

And the laws of quantum physics, which underpin the way information will be transmitted in the quantum internet, are nothing short of unfamiliar. In fact, they are strange, counter-intuitive, and at times even seemingly supernatural.

And so to understand how the quantum ecosystem of the internet 2.0 works, you might want to forget everything you know about classical computing. Because not much of the quantum internet will remind you of your favorite web browser.

WHAT TYPE OF INFORMATION CAN WE EXCHANGE WITH QUANTUM?

In short, not much that most users are accustomed to. At least for the next few decades, therefore, you shouldn't expect to one day be able to jump onto quantum Zoom meetings.

Central to quantum communication is the fact that qubits, which harness the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, behave very differently to classical bits.

As it encodes data, a classical bit can effectively only be one of two states. Just like a light switch has to be either on or off, and just like a cat has to be either dead or alive, so does a bit have to be either 0 or 1.

Not so much with qubits. Instead, qubits are superposed: they can be 0 and 1 simultaneously, in a special quantum state that doesn't exist in the classical world. It's a little bit as if you could be both on the left-hand side and the right-hand side of your sofa, in the same moment.

The paradox is that the mere act of measuring a qubit means that it is assigned a state. A measured qubit automatically falls from its dual state, and is relegated to 0 or 1, just like a classical bit.

The whole phenomenon is called superposition, and lies at the core of quantum mechanics.

Unsurprisingly, qubits cannot be used to send the kind of data we are familiar with, like emails and WhatsApp messages. But the strange behavior of qubits is opening up huge opportunities in other, more niche applications.

QUANTUM (SAFER) COMMUNICATIONS

One of the most exciting avenues that researchers, armed with qubits, are exploring, is security.

When it comes to classical communications, most data is secured by distributing a shared key to the sender and receiver, and then using this common key to encrypt the message. The receiver can then use their key to decode the data at their end.

The security of most classical communication today is based on an algorithm for creating keys that is difficult for hackers to break, but not impossible. That's why researchers are looking at making this communication process "quantum". The concept is at the core of an emerging field of cybersecurity called quantum key distribution (QKD).

QKD works by having one of the two parties encrypt a piece of classical data by encoding the cryptography key onto qubits. The sender then transmits those qubits to the other person, who measures the qubits in order to obtain the key values.

SEE: The UK is building its first commercial quantum computer

Measuring causes the state of the qubit to collapse; but it is the value that is read out during the measurement process that is important. The qubit, in a way, is only there to transport the key value.

More importantly, QKD means that it is easy to find out whether a third party has eavesdropped on the qubits during the transmission, since the intruder would have caused the key to collapse simply by looking at it.

If a hacker looked at the qubits at any point while they were being sent, this would automatically change the state of the qubits. A spy would inevitably leave behind a sign of eavesdropping which is why cryptographers maintain that QKD is "provably" secure.

SO, WHY A QUANTUM INTERNET?

QKD technology is in its very early stages. The "usual" way to create QKD at the moment consists of sending qubits in a one-directional way to the receiver, through optic-fibre cables; but those significantly limit the effectiveness of the protocol.

Qubits can easily get lost or scattered in a fibre-optic cable, which means that quantum signals are very much error-prone, and struggle to travel long distances. Current experiments, in fact, are limited to a range of hundreds of kilometers.

There is another solution, and it is the one that underpins the quantum internet: to leverage another property of quantum, called entanglement, to communicate between two devices.

When two qubits interact and become entangled, they share particular properties that depend on each other. While the qubits are in an entangled state, any change to one particle in the pair will result in changes to the other, even if they are physically separated.The state of the first qubit, therefore, can be "read" by looking at the behavior of its entangled counterpart. That's right: even Albert Einstein called the whole thing "spooky action at a distance".

And in the context of quantum communication, entanglement could in effect, teleport some information from one qubit to its entangled other half, without the need for a physical channel bridging the two during the transmission.

HOW DOES ENTANGLEMENT WORK?

The very concept of teleportation entails, by definition, the lack of a physical network bridging between communicating devices. But it remains that entanglement needs to be created in the first place, and then maintained.

To carry out QKD using entanglement, it is necessary to build the appropriate infrastructure to first create pairs of entangled qubits, and then distribute them between a sender and a receiver. This creates the "teleportation" channel over which cryptography keys can be exchanged.

Specifically, once the entangled qubits have been generated, you have to send one half of the pair to the receiver of the key. An entangled qubit can travel through networks of optical fibre, for example; but those are unable to maintain entanglement after about 60 miles.

Qubits can also be kept entangled over large distances via satellite, but covering the planet with outer-space quantum devices is expensive.

There are still huge engineering challenges, therefore, to building large-scale "teleportation networks" that could effectively link up qubits across the world. Once the entanglement network is in place, the magic can start: linked qubits won't need to run through any form of physical infrastructure anymore to deliver their message.

During transmission, therefore, the quantum key would virtually be invisible to third parties, impossible to intercept, and reliably "teleported" from one endpoint to the next. The idea will resonate well with industries that deal with sensitive data, such as banking, health services or aircraft communications. And it is likely that governments sitting on top secret information will also be early adopters of the technology.

WHAT ELSE COULD WE DO WITH THE QUANTUM INTERNET?

'Why bother with entanglement?' you may ask. After all, researchers could simply find ways to improve the "usual" form of QKD. Quantum repeaters, for example, could go a long way in increasing communication distance in fibre-optic cables, without having to go so far as to entangle qubits.

That is without accounting for the immense potential that entanglement could have for other applications. QKD is the most frequently discussed example of what the quantum internet could achieve, because it is the most accessible application of the technology. But security is far from being the only field that is causing excitement among researchers.

The entanglement network used for QKD could also be used, for example, to provide a reliable way to build up quantum clusters made of entangled qubits located in different quantum devices.

Researchers won't need a particularly powerful piece of quantum hardware to connect to the quantum internet in fact, even a single-qubit processor could do the job. But by linking together quantum devices that, as they stand, have limited capabilities, scientists expect that they could create a quantum supercomputer to surpass them all.

SEE: Guide to Becoming a Digital Transformation Champion (TechRepublic Premium)

By connecting many smaller quantum devices together, therefore, the quantum internet could start solving the problems that are currently impossible to achieve in a single quantum computer. This includes expediting the exchange of vast amounts of data, and carrying out large-scale sensing experiments in astronomy, materials discovery and life sciences.

For this reason, scientists are convinced that we could reap the benefits of the quantum internet before tech giants such as Google and IBM even achieve quantum supremacy the moment when a single quantum computer will solve a problem that is intractable for a classical computer.

Google and IBM's most advanced quantum computers currently sit around 50 qubits, which, on its own, is much less than is needed to carry out the phenomenal calculations needed to solve the problems that quantum research hopes to address.

On the other hand, linking such devices together via quantum entanglement could result in clusters worth several thousands of qubits. For many scientists, creating such computing strength is in fact the ultimate goal of the quantum internet project.

WHAT COULDN'T WE DO WITH THE QUANTUM INTERNET?

For the foreseeable future, the quantum internet could not be used to exchange data in the way that we currently do on our laptops.

Imagining a generalized, mainstream quantum internet would require anticipating a few decades (or more) of technological advancements. As much as scientists dream of the future of the quantum internet, therefore, it is impossible to draw parallels between the project as it currently stands, and the way we browse the web every day.

A lot of quantum communication research today is dedicated to finding out how to best encode, compress and transmit information thanks to quantum states. Quantum states, of course, are known for their extraordinary densities, and scientists are confident that one node could teleport a great deal of data.

But the type of information that scientists are looking at sending over the quantum internet has little to do with opening up an inbox and scrolling through emails. And in fact, replacing the classical internet is not what the technology has set out to do.

Rather, researchers are hoping that the quantum internet will sit next to the classical internet, and would be used for more specialized applications. The quantum internet will perform tasks that can be done faster on a quantum computer than on classical computers, or which are too difficult to perform even on the best supercomputers that exist today.

SO, WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

Scientists already know how to create entanglement between qubits, and they have even been successfully leveraging entanglement for QKD.

China, a long-time investor in quantum networks, has broken records on satellite-induced entanglement. Chinese scientists recently established entanglement and achieved QKD over a record-breaking 745 miles.

The next stage, however, is scaling up the infrastructure. All experiments so far have only connected two end-points. Now that point-to-point communication has been achieved, scientists are working on creating a network in which multiple senders and multiple receivers could exchange over the quantum internet on a global scale.

The idea, essentially, is to find the best ways to churn out lots of entangled qubits on demand, over long distances, and between many different points at the same time. This is much easier said than done: for example, maintaining the entanglement between a device in China and one in the US would probably require an intermediate node, on top of new routing protocols.

And countries are opting for different technologies when it comes to establishing entanglement in the first place. While China is picking satellite technology, optical fibre is the method favored by the US DoE, which is now trying to create a network of quantum repeaters that can augment the distance that separates entangled qubits.

In the US, particles have remained entangled through optical fibre over a 52-mile "quantum loop" in the suburbs of Chicago, without the need for quantum repeaters. The network will soon be connected to one of the DoE's laboratories to establish an 80-mile quantum testbed.

In the EU, the Quantum Internet Alliance was formed in 2018 to develop a strategy for a quantum internet, and demonstrated entanglement over 31 miles last year.

For quantum researchers, the goal is to scale the networks up to a national level first, and one day even internationally. The vast majority of scientists agree that this is unlikely to happen before a couple of decades. The quantum internet is without doubt a very long-term project, with many technical obstacles still standing in the way. But the unexpected outcomes that the technology will inevitably bring about on the way will make for an invaluable scientific journey, complete with a plethora of outlandish quantum applications that, for now, cannot even be predicted.

Originally posted here:

What is the quantum internet? Everything you need to know about the weird future of quantum networks - ZDNet

Amazon (AMZN)

What was the last thing you heard about Amazon (AMZN)?

Let me guess. Its battle with Walmart WMT ? Or was it the FAAs approval of Amazons delivery drones? Most of this news about Amazons store is just noise that distracts investors from Amazons real force.

As Ill show, Amazon is running an operating system that powers some of todays most important technologies such as virtual reality, machine learning, and even quantum computing. Behind the scenes, it is utilized by over a million companiesincluding tech giants Apple AAPL , Netflix NFLX , and Facebook FB .

This is Amazons key and ever-growing moneymaker that has been driving Amazon stock to the moon. But before I pull the curtains, lets step back for a moment.

First, how Amazon makes moneyfor real

For all the online shopping fuss, Amazon doesn't earn much from its store. Yes, Amazon.com AMZN flips hundreds of billions of dollars worth of products every yearand its revenues are on a tear. But Amazon turns only a sliver of that into profits.

In the past year, Amazons store generated a record $282 billion in revenue from Amazon.com. That translated to just $5.6 billion in profitskeep in mind that was Amazon.coms most profitable year ever.

Meanwhile, most of Amazons profits came from the lesser-known side of its business called Amazon Web Services (AWS), as you can see below:

Amazon's profits from AWS vs Amazon.com

Its Amazons cloud arm that is serving over a million companies across the world. You may have heard that AWS has something to do with storing data in the cloud. But its much,muchmore than that.

AWS is the operating system of the internet

To get an idea of how AWS works, take your computer as an example.

Like every other computer, it runs on an operating system such as Windows or MacOS, which comes with a set of programs. This software puts your computer resources to use and helps you carry out daily taskssuch as sending emails or sorting out your files.

Now, think of AWS as an operating system thats running not one, but hundreds of thousands of big computers (in tech lingo: servers). It gives companies nearly unlimited computing power and storageas well as tools to build and run their software on the internet.

The difference is that these big computers sit in Amazons warehouses. And companies work on them remotelyor via the cloud. In other words, AWS is like the operating system of the internet.

Amazons operating system now powers AI, blockchain, and other next-gen technologies

In 2003, when Amazons AWS first started out, it offered only a couple of basic cloud services for storage and mail. Today, this system offers an unmatched set of 175+ tools that help companies build software harnesses todays top technologies.

The list includes blockchain, VR, machine learning (AI), quantum computing, augmented reality (AR), and other technologies that are the building blocks of todays internet.

For example, Netflix is using AWS for more than simply storing and streaming its shows on the internet. Its also employing AWS machine learning technology to recommend movies and shows to you.

Youve also probably heard of Slack (WORK), the most popular messaging app for business. Slack recently announced it will use Amazons media technology to introduce video and audio calls on its app.

And its not just tech companies that are utilizing Amazons AWS tools.

Take GE Power. The worlds energy leader is using AWS analytics technology to store and sift through avalanches of data from its plants. Or Fidelity. Americas mutual fund giant experiments with Amazons VR technology to build VR chat rooms for its clients.

In a picture, Amazons AWS works like this:

How Amazon's AWS powers the internet

Amazons AWS is earning more and more... and more

Amazon is not the only company running a cloud service. Google, Microsoft MSFT , Alibibaba, IBM IBM , and other tech giants are all duking it out for a slice of this lucrative business. But Amazon is the biggest and most feature-rich.

Today, Amazon controls 33% of the market, leaving its closest competitors Microsoft (2nd with 18%) and Google (3rd with 9%) far behind in the dust. That means nearly one third of the internet is running on Amazons AWS.

And it doesnt appear that Amazon will step down from its cloud throne anytime soon. Amazons sales from AWS soared 10X in the past six years. And last year, Amazon reported a bigger sales gain from AWS (dollar-wise) than any other cloud company.

Heres the main takeaway for investors

If you are looking into Amazon stock, dont get caught up in the online shopping fuss.

For years, AWS has been the linchpin of Amazons business. And this invisible side of Amazon is where Amazons largest gears turn.

Problem is, AWS is like a black box. Amazon reports very little on its operations. So if you want to dig deeper, youll have to do your own research.

Youll also have to weigh a couple of risks before putting your money into Amazon stock:

Other than that, Amazon is an outstanding stock, killing it in one of the most lucrative businesses on the planet. And its proven to be resilient to Covid, whose spread could hit the markers again.

Get investing tips that make you go Hmm...

Every week, I put out a big picture story to help explain whats driving the markets. Subscribe here to get my analysis and stock picks right in your inbox.

Continue reading here:

How Amazon Quietly Powers The Internet - Forbes