Monthly Archives: May 2021

BOLOGNA, ITALY and BURNABY, BC, May 11, 2021 CINECA, the Italian inter-university consortium and supercomputing center, and D-Wave Systems Inc., the quantum computing systems, software and services company, today announced a formal collaboration to offer Italian universities, researchers,= and developers expanded access to practical quantum computing technology and resources through D-Waves Leap quantum cloud service.

CINECA, which is made up of 69 Italian universities, 25 national research institutions, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Universities and Research, will benefit from expanded, real-time access to theLeapquantum cloud service. This access includes D-Waves hybrid quantum/classical solvers, which leverage both quantum solutions and best-in-class classical algorithms to run large-scale business-critical problems. With real-time access to quantum computers via the cloud, the Italian and international scientific community have the opportunity to further quantum education, publication, and R&D, while boosting the development of real-world quantum applications.

This collaboration aids the consortiums mission to support Italys scientific community and improve quantum computing literacy and skills training for university partners. This, in turn, will benefit the larger public administration and private enterprise ecosystem. CINECA university members, such as the Polytechnic University of Milan, have already expressed interest in leveraging quantum computing to explore drug repurposing and development, natural disaster response and relief, and sustainability challenges such as decarbonization and energy production. As an example of the value of the collaboration, D-Wave and CINECA hosted a jointwebinaron March 31st showcasing CINECAs work on molecular docking for drug discovery utilizing D-Waves quantum system.

D-Wave will also provide cloud access via Leap to its latest generation quantum system, Advantage, which includes:

Updated Topology:The topology in Advantage makes it the most connected of any commercial quantum system in the world. In the Advantage system, each qubit may connect to 15 other qubits, enabling the embedding of larger, more complex problems.

Increased Qubit Count:Advantage includes more than 5,000 qubits. More qubits and richer connectivity provide quantum programmers access to a larger, denser, and more powerful graph for building commercial quantum applications.

Greater Performance & Problem Size:With the capacity to solve problems with up to 1 million variables, the hybrid solver service in Leap allows researchers to run large-scale, business-critical problems, expanding the complexity and more than doubling the size of problems that can run directly on the quantum processing unit (QPU).

Expansion of Hybrid Software & Tools in Leap:The hybrid solver service, new solver classes, ease-of-use, automation, and new tools provide an even more powerful hybrid rapid development environment in Python for business-scale problems.

Ongoing Releases:D-Wave continues to bring innovations to market with additional hybrid solvers, QPUs, and software updates through the cloud. Users can get started today with Advantage and the hybrid solver service, and will benefit from new components of the platform throughLeapas they become available.

We have enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the pioneering team at CINECA, which was one of the first non-profit consortiums to explore quantum computing with us, said Daniel Ley, SVP Global Sales, D-Wave. Bringing quantum computing to the world requires more than just vendors alone. We need to continue to build a robust ecosystem of developers and researchers, innovative scientific institutions, cutting-edge academic organizations, and forward-thinking businesses to work together. CINECA is aligned with us in that mission and committed to helping their ecosystem build practical and applied quantum computing applications.

At CINECA we are very happy to be part of this agreement with D-Wave. Quantum computing is a field that has been strongly emerging in recent years, said Sanzio Bassini, Head of the HPC Department at CINECA. Its natural association with HPC, which CINECA has been dealing with for more than 50 years, makes the issue of high interest both for CINECA and for the entire ecosystem of universities and research institutions that it represents. Thanks to D-Wave for the collaboration. I have no doubt that it will be a wonderful experience for both parties.

Thanks to the quantum team at CINECA we were able to start addressing part of our molecular docking problem using D-Waves system, said Gianluca Palermo, Associate Professor at the Polytechnic University of Milan. They supported us in the problem formulation such that it was manageable by the quantum solver, and in its deployment on the quantum machine. This is the key to educating a team with no prior experience and helping them evaluate the endless possibilities offered by quantum systems.

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CINECA and D-Wave Expand Access to Quantum Computing in Italy - insideHPC

Article By : GLOBALFOUNDRIES

PsiQuantum and GLOBALFOUNDRIES are now manufacturing the silicon photonic and electronic chips that form the foundation of the Q1 system

PsiQuantum and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) have announced a major breakthrough in their partnership to build the worlds first full-scale commercial quantum computer. The two companies are now manufacturing the silicon photonic and electronic chips that form the foundation of the Q1 system, the first system milestone in PsiQuantums roadmap to deliver a commercially viable quantum computer with one million qubits (the basic unit of quantum information) and beyond.

PsiQuantum and GF have now demonstrated a world-first ability to manufacture core quantum components, such as single-photon sources and single-photon detectors, with precision and in volume, using the standard manufacturing processes of GFs world-leading semiconductor fab. The companies have also installed proprietary production and manufacturing equipment in two of GFs 300mm fabs to produce thousands of Q1 silicon photonic chips at its facility in upstate New York, and state-of-the-art electronic control chips at its Fab 1 facility in Dresden, Germany.

Quantum computing is expected to deliver extraordinary advances across a multitude of industries including pharmaceutical development, materials science, renewable energy, climate mitigation, sustainable agriculture, and more. PsiQuantums Q1 system represents breakthroughs in silicon photonics, which the company believes is the only way to scale to 1 million-plus qubits and beyond and to deliver an error-corrected, fault-tolerant, general-purpose quantum computer.

The Q1 system is the result of five years of development at PsiQuantum by the worlds foremost experts in photonic quantum computing. The team made it their mission to bring the world-changing benefits of quantum computing into reality, based on two fundamental understandings: 1) A useful quantum computer capable of performing otherwise impossible calculations requires 1 million-plus physical qubits; and 2) Leveraging the 50-plus years and trillions of dollars invested in the semiconductor industry is the only path to create a commercially viable quantum computer.

In the past year, we have experienced a decade of technological change. Now, due to the digital transformation and the explosion of data we are faced with problems that require quantum computing to further accelerate the Renaissance of Compute, said Amir Faintuch, senior vice president and general manager of Compute and Wired Infrastructure at GF. PsiQuantum and GFs partnership is a powerful combination of PsiQuantums photonic quantum computing expertise and GFs silicon photonics manufacturing capability that will transform industries and technology applications across climate, energy, healthcare, materials science, and government.

GFs leading silicon photonics manufacturing platform enables PsiQuantum to develop quantum chips that can be measured and tested for long-term performance reliability. This is critical to be able to execute quantum algorithms, which require millions or billions of gate operations. PsiQuantum is collaborating with researchers, scientists and developers at leading companies to explore and test quantum use cases across a range of industries, including energy, healthcare, finance, agriculture, transportation and communications.

This is a major achievement for both the quantum and semiconductor industries, demonstrating that its possible to build the critical components of a quantum computer on a silicon chip, using the standard manufacturing processes of a world-leading semiconductor fab, said Pete Shadbolt, chief strategy officer and co-founder of PsiQuantum. When we first envisioned PsiQuantum, we knew that scaling the system would be the existential question. Together with GLOBALFOUNDRIES, we have validated the manufacturing path for silicon photonics and are confident that by the middle of this decade, PsiQuantum will have completely stood up all the manufacturing lines and processes necessary to begin assembling a final machine.

The PsiQuantum and GF partnership is redefining the leading-edge by enabling the move from electrons to photons, while the rest of the world continues to chase traditional node scaling. Moreover, the partnership is playing a critical role in ensuring the United States becomes a global leader in quantum computing, supported by a secure, domestic supply chain. As the only semiconductor manufacturer with a global footprint, GF provides a broad range of platforms with feature-rich solutions enabling customers to develop pervasive products for high-growth market segments.

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PsiQuantum and GF Building the World's First Full-scale Quantum Computer - Eetasia.com

America dodged a major cyber bullet this past weekend, although the end-result of the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline has been disruptive enough, producing economic shock across the country and gas lines in the Northeast.

Still, if the still-unidentified hackers had wanted to break into the technology operating the pipeline, instead of looking for easy blackmail money; the attack could have been catastrophic with effects lasting for months, even years. Instead, operators shut down the pipeline themselves to prevent such an occurrence from happening: a clear admission of how vulnerable our energy grid is, just like our power grid, even after a decade or more of warnings.

Taken together with the weather-related Texas power outage I wrote about in this space more than a month ago, the pipeline attack is a clear and present warningwith trillions of dollars in losses at stake. Unless we get serious about protecting our power and energy infrastructure, attacks like this weekends will become more disastrous and more disruptive, until we face the worst of alla future quantum computer attack that breaks the back of the entire United States economy.

FILE: A Colonial Pipeline Co. sign at the Pelham junction and tank farm in Pelham, Alabama, U.S., on ... [+] Monday, Sept. 19, 2016. Fuel suppliers are growing increasingly nervous about the possibility of gasoline and diesel shortages across the eastern U.S. almost two days after a cyberattack knocked out a massive pipeline. Colonial Pipeline said on Sunday, May 9, 2021, that it was still developing a plan for restarting the nations largest fuel pipeline -- a critical source of supply for the New York region -- and would only bring it back when safe to do so, and in full compliance with the approval of all federal regulations. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

The government says it is really committed to action this time.But weve been here before.In 2007 we had the sweeping cyberattack on the U.S. government, including the Defense Department; an attack so comprehensive that I and others dubbed it a Cyber Pearl Harbor.More recently we had the hacking raid on OPM in 2015, affecting the records of at least 20 million federal employees.That was followed by the revelations about the Solar Winds hacks last year.

Yet here we are, still vulnerable, still exposed.Its as if after the bombs were dropped on Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning in December 1941, Americans had read about the crippling of the U.S. fleet, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sleeping through cyber disasters is no longer an option.Fortunately, the emerging technologies of the quantum revolution offer solutions both long-term and short-term to our worst infrastructure threatsincluding a future quantum computer attack itself.

The first solution are software algorithms that are specifically designed to protect against future quantum computer assault.Under the rubric of post-quantum cryptography (PQC), these algorithms are also insurance against conventional cyberattacks. At the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists and engineers are diligently preparing national standards for PQC, which are slated to be finished by 2024 and will then be ready to deploy to protect all public encryption. These algorithms will be eagerly awaited since they will provide protection against classical hackers, as wellindeed there are companies like Canadas ISARA Corp. which have been deploying PQC algorithms already.

The second quantum solution is even closer at hand.It uses the same scientific phenomenon that makes quantum computing possiblethe entanglement of sub-atomic particlesto provide hack-proof keys for communication between end-to-end users.

Some of these quantum-based cryptographic systems use quantum random number generators to produce quantum encryption keys.Another company, Qubitekk, produces entangled photons to generate identical symmetric keys at both ends of the communication link. In either case any unauthorized intrusion into the communication immediately severs the linkand everyone knows instantly theres been an attack.

Operator at work place in the system control room

These quantum-based solutions are especially suited for the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that control and monitor field devices from a central command center.Utilities and infrastructure companies have used SCADA for years to administer power stations and pipelines.These rely heavily on point-to-point communications for their operations, while communication protocols continually transfer data from sensors to SCADA servers, and back to the sensors.Quantum-based cryptography can offer tamper-proof protections for these protocols.Scientists at both at Oak Ridge Laboratories and Los Alamos have been working on quantum key distribution (QKD) capabilities to secure the energy sector. A range of American and European companies have successfully deployed similar quantum key networks for their clients.

Taken together, then, quantum solutions can secure systems now and in the future against quantum computer attacks.It simply doesnt make sense to spend billions on classical cyber protections that will be obsolete in 3-4 years as hackers inevitably find their way around those safeguards, instead of investing in quantum-based hack-proof protections that will last for decades.

Thanks to our on-going cyber vulnerabilities, America has become like a bank vault with the door wide open.Were simply inviting attackers, and when a truly determined predator like Russia or China steps in, it could mean ruin for the U.S. economy, not just for a few months or a year, but for good.Quantum technology may not offer all the answers, but it may be the ultimate firewall weve all been waiting forand that state and non-state hackers have been hoping we wouldnt discover.

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Protecting Powerlines And Pipelines: The Quantum Solution - Forbes

() recently changed its name from Clear Leisure, which was more than a cosmetic alteration. Our investment programme is focused on selecting the most innovative and out-of-the-box start-ups in the blockchain and cryptocurrencies sector, with whom we will work alongside to develop exciting synergies, it said.

Below is an abridged transcript from a recent conversation with chairman Francesco Gardin, which provides a flavour of what is planned. After that is a brief explainer on quantum computing.

Let's focus on quantum [computing] first. There are few things that changed the course of mankind. Recently we witnessed the digital revolution; in the early 60s, computers were basically invented thanks to the transistor. And we are now very close to a similar revolution. [Quantum computers] could do something which are orders of magnitude superior to our digital computers. So, when you have this unlimited amount of computing power, you have no more boundaries to what you can do.

We are building a new team. If you want to use an analogy, then Formula 1 is a good one. We are trying to build the number-one car. So, we need a workshop, excellent engineers, and excellent drivers. And that is exactly what we're doing. We're setting up a workshop. Of course, it will not be a physical one, but a very well-protected data centre. We are setting up a team of experts; former students from the UCL in London and physicists from Milan University. So, we are putting together an excellent team of experts to work on our R&D. We are already working in the direction of using quantum computers and deep learning to explore mega terabytes of data related to, for example, cryptocurrencies and designing new ASIC chips. So, I mean the amount of R&D that we're going to pour into this company is massive.

Our strategy is one where we will deliver intermediate results that are very attractive not only for our own use but might also be useful for other companies too. So, some of our research will be medium- and long-term. Other parts of our research will be short-term that can be exploited with the right partner.

The mechanical and electrical interaction of a traditional computer can be distilled down to an on-off switch; or the ones and zeros that make up the binary code that powers the digisphere. These are called bits. Quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits and tap into the unique ability of subatomic participles to exist in more than one state at the same time. Insert exploding head emoji here. Long story short, using superposition (the aforementioned ability to exist in multiple states) and a process called entanglement (really, dont ask theres a link here), quantum computers can handle exponentially more data than the current supercomputers.

Quantum computers are exceedingly difficult to engineer, build and programme, an article in the Scientific American says.

As a result, they are crippled by errors in the form of noise, faults and loss of quantum coherence, which is crucial to their operation and yet falls apart before any nontrivial program has a chance to run to completion.

Its the point at which the quantum computer outperforms a traditional supercomputer.

Google in 2019 claimed it had passed the supremacy milestone one identified as early as the 1980s. This is a wonderful achievement. The engineering here is just phenomenal, Peter Knight, a physicist at Imperial College London to the NewScientist magazine. It shows that quantum computing is really hard but not impossible. It is a stepping-stone toward a big dream.

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Quantum Blockchain Technologies could help transform the digital economy as we know it - Proactive Investors UK

May 13, 2021 The first annual Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition held their closing ceremony on Friday, May 7th, revealing the winning teams and Brueckner Award scholarship recipients. The Winter Classic is the first cluster competition to exclusively feature Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) along with Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs).

Student teams from ten universities worked to run and optimize real world HPC benchmarks and applications on virtual clusters provided by team mentors. The mentors included Google, Intel, Microsoft, Dell Technologies, AMD, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and HPE. Special assistance was provided by the HPC AI Advisory Council, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and HPC consulting firm BioTeam.

University teams included: Claflin University, Florida A&M University, Morehouse College, Prairie View A&M, Tennessee State University, University of California Santa Cruz, University of Houston, the University of the Virgin Islands, and the University of Texas El Paso with two entries.

In addition to first, second, and third place awards for the teams, the competition also gave out six $1,000 Brueckner Award scholarships to the three most outstanding male and female competitors. Special guest presenters Patricia Damkroger, VP of Intels Data Center Group, and Brent Gorda, Senior Director for HPC Business at Arm, handing out the scholarships for the female and male winners respectively.

Dr. Happy Sithole, Center Manager for the National Integrated Cyber-Infrastructure at South Africas CSIR-NICIS organization, presented the team awards.

Team awards were given to:

Teams that won individual benchmark and application workloads were also recognized, they include:

The winners of the Brueckner Award $1,000 scholarships include:

The Winter Classic organizers urged potential employers, whether for internships or entry-level full-time jobs, to visit their resume board which features the interests and resumes of nearly all of the competitors.

The organizers also announced that the competition next year will take place in mid to late February and will also be aimed at HBSUs and HSIs. Potential mentor organizations and university participants are encouraged to contact chief organizer, Dan Olds from Intersect360 Research as soon as possible.

Source: Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition

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Winter Classic Cluster Competition: Results and Awards - HPCwire

IBM announced advances in AI, hybrid cloud and quantum computing at its flagship event Think Conference, 2021, on May 11. Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna said, In the same way that we electrified factories and machines in the past century, we will use hybrid cloud to infuse AI into software and systems in the 21st Century.

IBM plans to invest in partner ecosystem to facilitate deep industry collaboration, he added.

Lindsey Lurie, CMO at IBM Cloud and Cognitive, said, The innovations highlight IBMs role in helping its customers and partners so they can accelerate their digital transformations, return to work smarter and build strategic ecosystems to help drive better business outcomes.

Here are the key announcements from Think 2021:

IBM Watson Orchestrate is a self-serve, interactive AI tool to help an organisation perform mundane and mission-critical tasks faster. These tasks may include something as simple as scheduling meetings and sending emails to more complex tasks such as preparing sales pitches and procuring approvals.

Unlike a static bot programmed by IT, Watson Orchestrate works in a human-like fashion. It uses collaboration tools such as Slack and emails to initiate work. Dinesh Nirmal, General Manager of Cloud Automation at IBM, said that Watson orchestrate will specifically help employees automate everyday work; operate in one tool, interacting with all the data that they need; and get the complex mission-critical work done swiftly and efficiently.

IBM has announced a capability to its IBM Cloud Pak for Data a new AutoSQL technology. IBM had introduced IBM Cloud Pak for Data three years ago to help its clients expedite data-driven and predictive outcomes. The recent generation of IBM Cloud Pak for Data will help customers operationalise AI swiftly while removing complexity by connecting the right data to the right people.

Auto SQL is a high-performance, universal query engine that will simplify customers data landscape by enabling them to use the same query across dissimilar data sources including data warehouses, data lakes, and streaming data. This will enable customers to save time and resources that would otherwise go into moving data and maintaining multiple query engines.

Steven Astorino, VP of Development, Data and AI at IBM, said, In conjunction with the platforms existing data and virtualisation capabilities, AutoSQL empowers users to easily query data across hybrid, multi-cloud and multi-vendor environments.

The AI-backed technology will be used to automate access, integration and management of data for AI, irrespective of where and how the data resides and is sorted. AutoSQL also includes pre-integrated data governance capabilities, assuring the quality and validity of the data to consumers.

AutoSLQ capabilities will be one of the key technologies underlying a new data fabric from IBM in the Cloud Pak for Data, Lindsey said.

Available with IBM WebSphere Hybrid Edition, Mono2Micro will help enterprises apply AI to help modernise applications for hybrid cloud. It will use AI capabilities developed in IBM Research to scan and analyse enterprise applications and offer recommendations on rewriting the application for containers and microservices.

IBM Project CodeNet is an open-source dataset comprising 14 million code samples and close to 500 million lines of code, in more than 55 different programming languages, starting from COBOL, Pascal and FORTRAN to more modern languages like C++, Java, Python and Go.

Chief Scientist at IBM Research, Ruchir Puri, said, Given its wealth of programmes written in a multitude of languages, we believe Project CodeNet can serve as a benchmark dataset for source-to-source translation and do for AI and code what ImageNet dataset did years ago for computer vision.

Maximo Mobile is an easy-to-deploy mobile platform built on next-generation mobile technology.

What Watson Orchestrate does for business professionals, Maximo Mobile does for professionals in the field. Maximo Mobile will help technicians with intelligent enterprise asset management (EAM) to manage critical physical assets.

Maximo Mobile can be deployed on any cloud environment or on premise. It helps technicians scale their expertise, improve asset reliability, and streamline business operations. Even in the remotest of locations, Maximo Mobile allows technicians to use AI, intelligent workflows, expert human assistance, digital twin information and in-depth organisational knowledge to solve complex issues.

A product of IBM Quantum, Qiskit Runtime is a containerised service for quantum computers. It streamlines computations requiring many iterations. IBM reported that it demonstrated a 120x speedup in simulating molecules. Qiskit Runtime is currently in beta.

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Highlights From IBM's Think 2021 Conference - Analytics India Magazine