IQM Quantum Computers (IQM) the European leader in building superconducting quantum computers, today announced that it has raised 39 M in Series A funding, bringing the total amount of funding raised to date to 71 M.

This ranks among the highest fundraising rounds by a European deep-tech startup within a year. MIG Fonds has led this round, with participation from all existing investors including Tesi, OpenOcean, Maki.vc, Vito Ventures, Matadero QED. New investors Vsquared, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capital GmbH, and Tencent, have also joined this round.

"IQM has a strong track record of research and in achieving high growth. They continue to attract the best global talent across functions and have exceeded their hardware and software milestones. We are thrilled to lead this round and continue to support IQM as the company accelerates its next phase of business and hardware growth," said Axel Thierauf, Partner at MIG Fonds, and Chairman of the Board of IQM.

Since 2019, IQM has been among the fastest-growing companies in the quantum computing sector and already has one of the world's largest quantum hardware engineering teams. This funding will be used to accelerate IQMs hardware development and to co-design application-specific quantum computers. A significant part of the funding will also be used to attract and retain the best global talent in quantum computing, and to establish sales and business development teams.

"Today's announcement is part of our ongoing Series-A funding round. I am extremely pleased with the confidence our investors have shown in our vision, team, product, and the ability to execute and commercialize quantum computers. This investment also shows their continued belief in building the future of quantum technologies. This is a significant recognition for our fantastic team that has achieved all our key milestones from the previous round. We're just getting started," said Jan Goetz, CEO of IQM.

"It is impressive to be a part of the IQM journey and see the progress of their technology. We're proud to see another startup from Finland making a global impact. IQM will have a lasting impact on the future of computing, and consequently will help solve some of the global challenges related to healthcare, climate change and development of sustainable materials among many others," said Juha Lehtola, Head of Direct VC Investments at Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment).

IQM delivers on-premises quantum computers for research laboratories and supercomputing centers. For industrial customers, IQM follows an innovative co-design strategy to deliver quantum advantage based on application-specific processors, using novel chip architectures and ultrafast quantum operations. IQM provides the full hardware stack for a quantum computer, integrating different technologies, and invites collaborations with quantum software companies.

"We want to invest in deep technology startups that shape the future and advance society. IQM is the perfect example of a company that is on top of its game; their work on quantum computing will make an impact for generations to come," said Herbert Mangesius, Founding Partner at Vsquared and Vito Ventures.

While quantum computing is still under development, governments and private organizations across the world are investing today to retain their competitive edge and become quantum-ready for the future.

The next decade will be the decade of quantum technology, and we will see major breakthroughs with real-world applications using quantum computers in healthcare, logistics, finance, chemistry and beyond.

About IQM Quantum Computers:

IQM is the European leader in superconducting quantum computers, headquartered in Espoo, Finland. Since its inception in 2018, IQM has grown to 70+ (TBC) employees and has also established a subsidiary in Munich, Germany, to lead the co-design approach. IQM delivers on-premises quantum computers for research laboratories and supercomputing centers and provides complete access to its hardware. For industrial customers, IQM delivers quantum advantage through a unique application-specific co-design approach. IQM has also received a 3.3 M grant from Business Finland and has been awarded a 15 M equity investment from the EIC Accelerator program.

For more information, visit http://www.meetiqm.com

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Europe Is on Its Way To Quantum Leadership, IQM Raises 39 M in Series A Funding - Embedded Computing Design

1 December

The Quantum Inspire consortium has received a 4.5 million euro grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to bring quantum technology closer to potential users. We hope that different people from all parts of society will interact with Quantum Inspire, so that we can work together to figure out the full range of possibilities offered to our society by quantum computing including which societal challenges it will be able to solve, said Lieven Vandersypen, coordinator of the grant application and research director of Qutech.

Quantum technology is expected to find applications in many different fields, such as energy, food supply, security and health care. Being an emerging technology, however, not much people in these fields are actively investigating its potential yet. And even if they wanted to, where would they go? Getting access to a quantum computer is not exactly easy.

This why Quantum Inspire was started: people can run their own quantum algorithms on Quantum Inspires simulators or hardware backends and experience the possibilities of quantum computing. Qutech launched a first version of Quantum Inspire in April 2020, and the grant will allow the consortium to develop it further.

Quantum Inspires capital infusion is funded by the Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA) program Research along routes by consortia (NWA-ORC). In total, NWO distributed 93 million euros over 21 interdisciplinary research projects.

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NWA funding for taking quantum technology to the public Bits&Chips - Bits&Chips

ACCESSWIRE2020-11-30

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE /November 30, 2020 /01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (TSXV:ONE)(OTCQB:OONEF) (the "Company") one of the first-to-market, enterprise level cybersecurity providers for the quantum computing era today announced that the Company will be presenting at the upcoming virtual Benzinga Global Small Cap Conferenceon Tuesday, December 8th at 12:00PM ET and will also be hosting virtual one-to-one investor meetings with management. Complimentary investor registration and virtual one-to-one meeting requests can be accessed through the conference link above.

The inaugural Benzinga Global Small Cap Conference is planned for December 8th and 9th in an entirely virtual setting. Designed to bridge the gap between publicly traded companies, investors and traders, the Conference will enable small-cap companies to network and communicate with a broad and diverse investor base.

About IronCAP and IronCAP X:

IronCAP is at the forefront of the cyber security market and is designed to protect our customers from cyber-attacks. IronCAP's patent-pending cryptographic system is designed to protect users and enterprises against the ever-evolving illegitimate and malicious means of gaining access to their data today as well as in the future with the introduction of powerful quantum computers. Based on improved Goppa code-based encryption it is designed to be faster and more secure than current standards. It operates on conventional computer systems, so users are protected today while being secure enough to safeguard against future attacks from the world of quantum computers. An IronCAP API is available which allows vendors of a wide variety of vertical applications to easily transform their products to ensure their customers are safe from cyber-attacks today and from quantum computers in the future.

IronCAP X, a new cybersecurity product for email/file encryption, incorporating our patent-pending technology was made available for commercial use on April 23, 2020. The new product has two major differentiations from what is in the market today. Firstly, many offerings in today's market store users secured emails on email-servers for recipients to read, making email-servers a central target of cyber-attack. IronCAP X, on the other hand, delivers each encrypted message end-to-end to the recipients such that only the intended recipients can decrypt and read the message. Consumers' individual messages are protected, eliminating the hackers' incentive to attack email servers of email providers. Secondly, powered by our patent-pending IronCAP technology, we believe IronCAP Xis the world's first quantum-safe end-to-end email encryption system; secured against cyberattacks from today's systems and from quantum computers in the future. Consumers and businesses using our new products will have tomorrow's cybersecurity today.

About 01 Communique

Established in 1992, 01 Communique (TSX-V: ONE; OTCQB: OONEF) has always been at the forefront of technology. The Company's cyber security business unit focuses on post-quantum cybersecurity with the development of its IronCAP technology. IronCAP's patent-pending cryptographic system is an advanced Goppa code-based post-quantum cryptographic technology that can be implemented on classical computer systems as we know them today while at the same time can also safeguard against attacks in the future post-quantum world of computing. The Company's remote access business unit provides its customers with a suite of secure remote access services and products under its I'm InTouch and I'm OnCall product offerings. The remote access offerings are protected in the U.S.A. by its patents #6,928,479 / #6,938,076 / #8,234,701; in Canada by its patents #2,309,398 / #2,524,039 and in Japan by its patent #4,875,094. For more information, visit the Company's web site at http://www.ironcap.ca and http://www.01com.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking" statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, such statements use such words as "may", "will", "expect", "believe", "anticipate", "plan", "intend", "are confident" and other similar terminology. Such statements include statements regarding the business prospects of IronCAP X, the future of quantum computers and their impact on the Company's product offering, the functionality of the Company's products and the intended product lines for the Company's technology. These statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the matters discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, a delay in the anticipated adoption of quantum computers and a corresponding delay in Q day, the ability for the Company to generate sales, and gain adoption of, IronCAP X, the ability of the Company to raise financing to pursue its business plan, competing products that provide a superior product, competitors with greater resources and the factors discussed under "Risk and Uncertainties" in the company's Management`s Discussion and Analysis document filed on SEDAR. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

INVESTOR CONTACT:

Brian StringerChief Financial Officer01 Communique(905) 795-2888 x204Brian.stringer@01com.com

SOURCE:01 Communique Laboratory, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/618717/01-Communique-to-Present-at-the-Benzinga-Global-Small-Cap-Conference-on-December-8

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01 Communique to Present at the Benzinga Global Small Cap Conference on December 8 - IT News Online

Kenneth Research has published a detailed report on Quantum Computing Market which has been categorized by market size, growth indicators and encompasses detailed market analysis on macro trends and region-wise growth in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa region. The report also includes the challenges that are affecting the growth of the industry and offers strategic evaluation that is required to boost the growth of the market over the period of 2019-2026.

The report covers the forecast and analysis of the Quantum Computing Market on a global and regional level. The study provides historical data from 2015 to 2019 along with a forecast from 2019-2026 based on revenue (USD Million). In 2018, the worldwide GDP stood at USD 84,740.3 Billion as compared to the GDP of USD 80,144.5 Billion in 2017, marked a growth of 5.73% in 2018 over previous year according to the data quoted by International Monetary Fund. This is likely to impel the growth of Quantum Computing Marketover the period 2019-2026.

The Final Report will cover the impact analysis of COVID-19 on this industry.

Request To Download Sample of This Strategic Report:https://www.kennethresearch.com/sample-request-10307113The report provides a unique tool for evaluating the Market, highlighting opportunities, and supporting strategic and tactical decision-making. This report recognizes that in this rapidly-evolving and competitive environment, up-to-date marketing information is essential to monitor performance and make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments, and focuses on markets capacities and on the changing structure of the Quantum Computing.

The quantum annealing category held the largest share under the technology segment in 2019. This is attributed to successful overcoming of physical challenges to develop this technology and further incorporated in bigger systems. The BFSI category held the largest share in the quantum computing market in 2019. This is owing to the fact that the industry is growing positively across the globe, and large banks are focusing on investing in this potential technology that can enable them to streamline their business processes, along with unbeatable levels of security

Automotive to lead quantum computing market for consulting solutions during forecast periodAmong the end-user industries considered, space and defense is the largest contributor to the overall quantum computing market, and it is expected to account for a maximum share of the market in 2019. The need for secure communications and data transfer, with the demand in faster data operations, is expected to boost the demand for quantum computing consulting solutions in this industry. The market for the automotive industry is expected to grow at the highest CAGR

Quantum computing can best be defined as the use of the attributes and principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations and solve problems. The global market for quantum computing is being driven largely by the desire to increase the capability of modeling and simulating complex data, improve the efficiency or optimization of systems or processes, and solve problems with more precision. A quantum system can process and analyze all data simultaneously and then return the best solution, along with thousands of close alternatives all within microseconds, according to a new report from Tractica.

2018 was a growth year for the market, as businesses from the BFSI sector showed tremendous interest in quantum computing and the trend is likely to continue in 2019 and beyond. Moreover, the public sector presents significant growth opportunity for the market. In the forthcoming years, the application opportunities for quantum computing is expected to expand further, which may lead to a higher commercial interest in the technology.

Market SegmentationThe report focuses on the following end-user sectors and applications for quantum computing:By Based on offering*Consulting solutions*Systems

By End-user sectors*Government.*Academic.*Healthcare.*Military.*Geology/energy.*Information technology.*Transport/logistics.*Finance/economics.*Meteorology.*Chemicals.

By Applications*Basic research.*Quantum simulation.*Optimization problems.*Sampling.

By Regional AnanlysisNorth America*U.S.*Canada

Europe*Germany*UK*France*Italy*Spain*Belgium*Russia*Netherlands*Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific*China*India*Japan*Korea*Singapore*Malaysia*Indonesia*Thailand*Philippines*Rest of Asia-Pacific

Latin America*Brazil*Mexico*Argentina*Rest of LATAM

Middle East & Africa*UAE*Saudi Arabia*South Africa*Rest of MEA

The quantum computing market is highly competitive with high strategic stakes and product differentiation. Some of the key market players include International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Telstra Corporation Limited, IonQ Inc., Silicon Quantum Computing, Huawei Investment & Holding Co. Ltd., Alphabet Inc., Rigetti & Co Inc., Microsoft Corporation, D-Wave Systems Inc., Zapata Computing Inc., and Intel Corporation.

Click Here to Download Sample Report >>https://www.kennethresearch.com/sample-request-10307113

Competitive Analysis:The Quantum Computing Market report examines competitive scenario by analyzing key players in the market. The company profiling of leading market players is included in this report with Porters five forces analysis and Value Chain analysis. Further, the strategies exercised by the companies for expansion of business through mergers, acquisitions, and other business development measures are discussed in the report. The financial parameters which are assessed include the sales, profits and the overall revenue generated by the key players of Market.

About Kenneth Research:

Kenneth Research is a reselling agency which focuses on multi-client market research database. The primary goal of the agency is to help industry professionals including various individuals and organizations gain an extra edge of competitiveness and help them identify the market trends and scope. The quality reports provided by the agency aims to make decision making easier for industry professionals and take firm decisions which helps them to form strategies after complete assessment of the market. Some of the industries under focus include healthcare & pharmaceuticals, ICT & Telecom, automotive and transportation, energy and power, chemicals, FMCG, food and beverages, aerospace and defense and others. Kenneth Research also focuses on strategic business consultancy services and offers a single platform for the best industry market research reports.

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Quantum Computing Market : Analysis and In-depth Study on Size Trends, and Regional Forecast - Cheshire Media

BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The preliminary round of the 2020-2021 ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge (ASC20-21) officially kicked off on November 16, 2020. More than 300 university teams from five continents registered to participate in this competition. Over the next two months, they will be challenged in several cutting-edge applications of Supercomputing and AI. The 20 teams that eventually make out of the preliminaries will participate in the finals from May 8 to 12, 2021 at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China. During the finals, they will compete for various awards including the Champion, Silver Prize, Highest LINPACK, and e- Prize.

Among the registered participants for ASC20-21 are three prior champion teams: the SC19/SC20 champion team of Tsinghua University, the ISC20 champion team of University of Science and Technology of China, and the ASC19 champion of National Tsing Hua University. Other power competitors include teams from University of Washington (USA), University of Warsaw (Poland), Ural Federal University (Russia), Monash University (Australia), EAFIT University (Columbia) and so much more.

For the tasks of this preliminary round of merged ASC20 and ASC21, the organizing committee has retained the quantum computing simulation and language exam tasks from the ASC20, and added a new fascinating, cutting-edge task in astronomy -- searching for pulsars.

Pulsars are fast-spinning neutron stars, and remnants of collapsed super stars. Pulsars feature a high density and strong magnetic field. By observing and studying the extreme physic of pulsars, the scientists can delve into the mysterious space around black holes and detect the gravitational waves triggered from the intense merge of super massive black holes in distant galaxies. Because of the unique nature of pulsars, the Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded twice for pulsar-related discoveries. Using radio telescopes over the previous decades, astronomers have discovered nearly 3,000 pulsars with 700 being discovered by PRESTO, the open-source pulsar search and analysis software. In ASC20-21, the participants are asked to use PRESTO from its official website, and the observational data from Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), the worlds largest single-dish radio telescope located in Guizhou, China, operated by National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Participating teams should achieve the applications maximum parallel acceleration, while searching for a pulsar in the FAST observational data loaded in the computer cluster they build. Practically the teams will need to understand the pulsar search process, complete the search task, analyze the code, and optimize the PRESTO application execution, by minimizing the computing time and resources.

The quantum computing simulation task will require each participating team to use the QuEST (Quantum Exact Simulation Toolkit) running on computer cluster to simulate 30 qubits in two cases: quantum random circuits (random.c), and quantum fast Fourier transform circuits (GHZ_QFT.c). Quantum simulations provides a reliable platform for studying of quantum algorithms, which are particularly important because quantum computers are not practically available yet in the industry.

The Language Exam task will require all participating teams to train AI models on an English Cloze Test dataset, striving to achieve the highest "test scores". The dataset covers multiple levels of English language tests used in China.

This years ASC training camp will be held on November 30 to help the participating teams from all around the world prepare for the competition. HPC and AI experts from Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peng Cheng Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of High-end Server & Storage Technology will introduce in details the competition rules, computer cluster build and optimization, and provide guidance.

About ASC

The ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge is the worlds largest student supercomputer competition, sponsored and organized by Asia Supercomputer Community in China and supported by Asian, European, and American experts and institutions. The main objectives of ASC are to encourage exchange and training of young supercomputing talent from different countries, improve supercomputing applications and R&D capacity, boost the development of supercomputing, and promote technical and industrial innovation. The first ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge was held in 2012 and since has attracted nearly 10,000 undergraduates from all over the world. Learn more ASC at https://www.asc-events.org/.

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ASC20-21 Student Supercomputer Challenge Kickoff: Quantum Computing Simulations, AI Language Exam and Pulsar Searching with FAST - Business Wire

November 23, 2020• Physics 13, 183

Classical computers can efficiently simulate the behavior of quantum computers if the quantum computer is imperfect enough.

With a few quantum bits, an ideal quantum computer can process vast amounts of information in a coordinated way, making it significantly more powerful than a classical counterpart. This predicted power increase will be great for users but is bad for physicists trying to simulate on a classical computer how an ideal quantum computer will behave. Now, a trio of researchers has shown that they can substantially reduce the resources needed to do these simulations if the quantum computer is imperfect [1]. The arXiv version of the trios paper is one of the most Scited papers of 2020 and the result generated quite a stir when it first appeared back in FebruaryI overheard it being enthusiastically discussed at the Quantum Optics Conference in Obergurgl, Austria, at the end of that month, back when we could still attend conferences in person.

In 2019, Google claimed to have achieved the quantum computing milestone known as quantum advantage, publishing results showing that their quantum computer Sycamore had performed a calculation that was essentially impossible for a classical one [2]. More specifically, Google claimed that they had completed a three-minute quantum computationwhich involved generating random numbers with Sycamores 53 qubitsthat would take thousands of years on a state-of-the-art classical supercomputer, such as IBMs Summit. IBM quickly countered the claim, arguing that more efficient memory storage would reduce the task time on a classical computer to a couple of days [3]. The claims and counterclaims sparked an industry clash and an intense debate among supporters in the two camps.

Resolving the disparity between these estimates is one of the goals of the new work by Yiqing Zhou, of the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, and her two colleagues [1]. In their study, they focused on algorithms for classically replicating imperfect quantum computers, which are also known as NISQ (noisy intermediate-scale quantum) devices [4]. Todays state-of-the-art quantum computersincluding Sycamoreare NISQ devices. The algorithms the team used are based on so-called tensor network methods, specifically matrix product states (MPS), which are good for simulating noise and so are naturally suited for studying NISQ devices. MPS methods approximate low-entangled quantum states with simpler structures, so they provide a data-compression-like protocol that can make it less computationally expensive to classically simulate imperfect quantum computers (see Viewpoint: Pushing Tensor Networks to the Limit).

Zhou and colleagues first consider a random 1D quantum circuit made of neighboring, interleaved two-qubit gates and single-qubit random unitary operations. The two-qubit gates are either Controlled-NOT gates or Controlled-Z (CZ) gates, which create entanglement. They ran their algorithm for NISQ circuits containing different numbers of qubits, N, and different depths, Da parameter that relates to the number of gates the circuit executes (Fig. 1). They also varied a parameter in the MPS algorithm. is the so-called bond dimension of the MPS and essentially controls how well the MPS capture entanglement between qubits.

The trio demonstrate that they can exactly simulate any imperfect quantum circuit if D and N are small enough and is set to a value within reach of a classical computer. They can do that because shallow quantum circuits can only create a small amount of entanglement, which is fully captured by a moderate . However, as D increases, the team finds that cannot capture all the entanglement. That means that they cannot exactly simulate the system, and errors start to accumulate. The team describes this mismatch between the quantum circuit and their classical simulations using a parameter that they call the two-qubit gate fidelity fn. They find that the fidelity of their simulations slowly drops, bottoming out at an asymptotic value f as D increases. This qualitative behavior persists for different values of N and . Also, while their algorithm does not explicitly account for all the error and decoherence mechanisms in real quantum computers, they show that it does produce quantum states of the same quality (perfection) as the experimental ones.

In light of Googles quantum advantage claims, Zhou and colleagues also apply their algorithm to 2D quantum systemsSycamore is built on a 2D chip. MPS are specifically designed for use in 1D systems, but the team uses well-known techniques to extend their algorithm to small 2D ones. They use their algorithm to simulate an N=54, D=20 circuit, roughly matching the parameters of Sycamore (Sycamore has 54 qubits but one is unusable because of a defect). They replace Googles more entangling iSWAP gates with less entangling CZ gates, which allow them to classically simulate the system up to the same fidelity as reported in Ref. [2] with a single laptop. The simulation cost should increase quadratically for iSWAP-gate circuits, and although the team proposes a method for performing such simulations, they have not yet carried them out because of the large computational cost it entails.

How do these results relate to the quantum advantage claims by Google? As they stand, they do not weaken or refute claimswith just a few more qubits, and an increase in D or f, the next generation of NISQ devices will certainly be much harder to simulate. The results also indicate that the teams algorithm only works if the quantum computer is sufficiently imperfectif it is almost perfect, their algorithm provides no speed up advantage. Finally, the results provide numerical insight into the values of N, D, f, and for which random quantum circuits are confined to a tiny corner of the exponentially large Hilbert space. These values give insight into how to quantify the capabilities of a quantum computer to generate entanglement as a function of f, for example.

So, whats next? One natural question is, Can the approach here be transferred to efficiently simulate other aspects of quantum computing, such as quantum error correction? The circuits the trio considered are essentially random, whereas quantum error correction circuits are more ordered by design [5]. That means that updates to the new algorithm are needed to study such systems. Despite this limitation, the future looks promising for the efficient simulation of imperfect quantum devices [6, 7].

Jordi Tura is an assistant professor at the Lorentz Institute of the University of Leiden, Netherlands. He also leads the institutes Applied Quantum Algorithms group. Tura obtained his B.Sc. degrees in mathematics and telecommunications and his M.Sc. in applied mathematics from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain. His Ph.D. was awarded by the Institute of Photonic Sciences, Spain. During his postdoctoral stay at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, Tura started working in the field of quantum information processing for near-term quantum devices.

A nanopatterned magnetic structure features an unprecedently strong coupling between lattice vibrations and quantized spin waves, which could lead to novel ways of manipulating quantum information. Read More

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Imperfections Lower the Simulation Cost of Quantum Computers - Physics

In this weeks podcast, Enrique Blair on quantum computing, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with fellow computer engineer Enrique Blair about why Quantum mechanics pioneer Niels Bohr said, If quantum mechanics hasnt profoundly shocked you, you havent understood it yet. Lets look at some of the reasons he said that:

The Show Notes and transcript follow.

Enrique Blair: Its really quite different from our daily experience. Quantum mechanics really is a description of the world at the microscopic scale. And its really weird, because there are things that initially we thought maybe were particles but then we learned that they have wave-like behaviors. And there are other things that we thought were waves and then we discovered they have particle-like behaviors.

But thats hardly the strangest part. The strangest part is that a quantum particle does not actually have a position until we measure it, according to the generally accepted Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Robert J. Marks: Whats the Copenhagen interpretation?

Enrique Blair (pictured): Its that the quantum mechanical wave function describes measurement outcomes in probabilities. You cant predict with certainty the outcome of a measurement. Which is really shocking, because in the classical world, if you have a particle and you know its position and its velocity, you can predict where its going to be in the next second or minute or hour. Now in quantum mechanics, the really weird thing is, we say that a particle doesnt even have a position until you measure its position.

Robert J. Marks: It doesnt exist?

Enrique Blair: Not that it doesnt exist, but its position is not defined.

Dr. Marks compared quantum mechanics (QM) to one of the characters in a 1999 film, Mystery Men, featuring inept amateur superheroes, including one who says, Im invisible as long as nobodys looking at me. With QM, thats not a joke. The quantum particle doesnt have a position until we measure it. But how did we discover this? The story goes back to the early 1800s when British physicist Thomas Young (17731829) did a famous experiment with a card held up to a small window

Enrique Blair: Youngs double-slit experiment goes all the way back to 1801, where Young shot light at a couple of slits and then the light passing through the slits would show up on a screen behind them.

So light behaves like a wave, with interference patterns. But what happens when we try doing the same thing with a single particle of lighta photon? Thats something we can do nowadays.

Enrique Blair: We can reduce a beam of light so that its single photon. One photon is emitted at a time, and were shooting it at our double slit again.

What happens when each particle of light goes through these slits? Well, each particle splats up against this screen, and so you can know where the photon hits. But if you do this over a long period of time, the interference pattern shows up again. You have particles hitting the screen, so we see the particle behavior. But we also see the interference pattern which suggests that okay, weve got some wave interference going on here.

So the only way to explain both of these at the same time is that each photon, which is an indivisible packet of light, has to go through both slits at the same time and interfere with itself, and then the buildup of many, many photons gives you that interference pattern.

Robert J. Marks: A particle was hypothesized to go through both slits?

Enrique Blair: Yes, and thats the mind-blowing ramification of this thing.

Robert J. Marks: How do we decide which slit the particles go through? Suppose we went down and we tried to measure? We put out one photon and we put it through the double slit. Weve tried to measure which slit it went through. If its a particle, it can only go through one, right?

Enrique Blair: Right. That introduces this concept of measurement. Like you said, which slit does it go through? Now the interesting thing is, if we know which slit it goes through maybe we set up a detector and we say, Hey, did it go through Slit One or Slit Two? we detect that, we measure it and the interference pattern goes away because now its gone through one slit only, not both.

Robert J. Marks: Just by the act of observation, we are restricting that photon to go through one slit or the other. Observation really kind of screws things up.

Enrique Blair: Thats right. This is one of the things that is hard to understand about quantum mechanics. In the classical world that we deal with every day, we can just observe something and we dont have to interact with it. So we can measure somethings position or its velocity without altering it. But in quantum mechanics, observation or measurement inherently includes interacting with that thing, that particle.

Again, youve got this photon that goes through both slits, but then you measure it and it actually ends up going through oneonce you measure it.

Robert J. Marks: This reminds me again of Invisible Boy in Mystery Men. The photon goes through one of the two slits while youre looking at it. Unless you look away. Then it goes through both slits.

Enrique Blair: Right. Very tricky, those photons.

Next: How scientists have learned to work with the quantum world

Note: The illustration of the double-slit experiment in physics is courtesy NekoJaNekoJa and Johannes Kalliauer (CC BY-SA 4.0).

You may also enjoy: A materialist gives up on determinism. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne undercuts his own argument against free will by admitting that quantum phenomena are real (Michael Egnor)

Quantum randomness gives nature free will. Whether or not quantum randomness explains how our brains work, it may help us create unbreakable encryption codes (Robert J. Marks)

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Here's Why the Quantum World Is Just So Strange - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Theres a lingering fear among crypto investors that their bitcoin might get swooped by a hacker.

Thats not very likely, but its not impossible either, particularly once quantum computing gets into the wrong hands. Last year Googles quantum computer called Sycamore was given a puzzle that would take even the most powerful supercomputers 10 000 years to solve and completed it in just 200 seconds, according to Nature magazine.

That kind of processing power unleashed on the bitcoin blockchain which is a heavily encrypted ledger of all bitcoin transactions is a cause for concern.

Read:

The encryption technology used by the bitcoin blockchain has proven itself robust enough to withstand any and all attacks. Thats because of its brilliant design, and ongoing improvements by an ever-growing community of open-source cryptographers and developers.

A report by research group Gartner (Hype Cycle for Blockchain Technologies, 2020) suggests blockchain researchers are already anticipating possible attacks by quantum computers that are perhaps five to 10 years away from commercial availability. Its a subject called Postquantum blockchain which is a form of blockchain technology using quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms that can resist attack by future quantum computers.

The good news is that quantum-resistant algorithms are likely to remain several steps ahead of the hackers, but its an issue that is drawing considerable attention in the financial, security and blockchain communities.

Postquantum cryptography is not a threat just yet, but crypto exchanges are going to have to deploy quantum-resistant technologies in the next few years, before quantum computers become generally available.

Phishing is probably a bigger threat

In truth, youre far more likely to be hit by a phishing scam, where identity thieves use emails, text messages and fake websites to get you to divulge sensitive personal information such as bank account or crypto exchange passwords.

As a user, you should be using LastPass or similar software to generate complex passwords, along with two-factor authentication (requiring the input of a time-sensitive code before you can access your crypto exchange account).Most good exchanges are enabled for this level of security.

There are many sad stories of bitcoin theft, but these are usually as a result of weak security on the part of the bitcoin holder, much like leaving your wallet on the front seat of your car while you pop into the shop for a minute.

Like all tech breakthroughs, quantum computing can be used for good and bad.

On the plus side, it will vastly speed drug discovery, molecular modelling and code breaking. It will also be a gift to hackers and online thieves, which is why financial services companies are going to have to invest in defensive technologies to keep customer information and assets safe.

Most crypto exchanges invest substantial amounts in security. The vast majority of crypto assets (about 97%) are stored in encrypted, geographically-separated, offline storage. These cannot be hacked.

The risk emerges when bitcoin are moved from offline (or cold storage) to online, such as when a client is about to transact.

But even here, the level of security is usually robust. A further level of protection is the insurance of all bitcoin that are stored in online systems. They also have systems in place to prevent any employee from making off with clients assets, requiring multiple keys before a bitcoin transaction is authorised.

There have been hacks on crypto exchanges in the past (though not on the blockchain itself), and millions of dollars in crypto assets stolen. In more recent years, this has become less common as exchanges moved to beef up their security systems.

In 2014 Mt.Gox, at the time responsible for about 70% of all bitcoin transactions in the world, suffered an attack when roughly 800000 bitcoin, valued at $460 million, were stolen. In 2018, Japan-based crypto exchange Coincheck was hit with a $534 million fraud impacting 260000 investors.

As the value of bitcoin and other crypto assets increases, the incentive for hackers rises proportionately, which is why problems such as quantum-enabled thievery are already being addressed.

Read:Moneyweb Crypto glossary

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Is the blockchain vulnerable to hacking by quantum computers? - Moneyweb.co.za

In a new realm of materials, PhD student Thanh Nguyen uses neutrons to hunt for exotic properties that could power real-world applications.

Thanh Nguyen is in the habit of breaking down barriers. Take languages, for instance: Nguyen, a third-year doctoral candidate in nuclear science and engineering (NSE), wanted to connect with other people and cultures for his work and social life, he says, so he learned Vietnamese, French, German, and Russian, and is now taking an MIT course in Mandarin. But this drive to push past obstacles really comes to the fore in his research, where Nguyen is trying to crack the secrets of a new and burgeoning branch of physics.

My dissertation focuses on neutron scattering on topological semimetals, which were only experimentally discovered in 2015, he says. They have very special properties, but because they are so novel, theres a lot thats unknown, and neutrons offer a unique perspective to probe their properties at a new level of clarity.

Topological materials dont fit neatly into conventional categories of substances found in everyday life. They were first materialized in the 1980s, but only became practical in the mid-2000s with deepened understanding of topology, which concerns itself with geometric objects whose properties remain the same even when the objects undergo extreme deformation. Researchers experimentally discovered topological materials even more recently, using the tools of quantum physics.

Within this domain, topological semimetals, which share qualities of both metals and semiconductors, are of special interest to Nguyen.They offer high levels of thermal and electric conductivity, and inherent robustness, which makes them very promising for applications in microelectronics, energy conversions, and quantum computing, he says.

Intrigued by the possibilities that might emerge from such unconventional physics, Nguyen is pursuing two related but distinct areas of research: On the one hand, Im trying to identify and then synthesize new, robust topological semimetals, and on the other, I want to detect fundamental new physics with neutrons and further design new devices.

My goal is to create programmable artificial structured topological materials, which can directly be applied as a quantum computer, says Thanh Nguyen. Credit: Gretchen Ertl

Reaching these goals over the next few years might seem a tall order. But at MIT, Nguyen has seized every opportunity to master the specialized techniques required for conducting large-scale experiments with topological materials, and getting results. Guided by his advisor,Mingda Li, the Norman C Rasmussen Assistant Professor and director of theQuantum Matter Groupwithin NSE, Nguyen was able to dive into significant research even before he set foot on campus.

The summer, before I joined the group, Mingda sent me on a trip to Argonne National Laboratory for a very fun experiment that used synchrotron X-ray scattering to characterize topological materials, recalls Nguyen. Learning the techniques got me fascinated in the field, and I started to see my future.

During his first two years of graduate school, he participated in four studies, serving as a lead author in three journal papers. In one notable project,described earlier this yearinPhysical Review Letters, Nguyen and fellow Quantum Matter Group researchers demonstrated, through experiments conducted at three national laboratories, unexpected phenomena involving the way electrons move through a topological semimetal, tantalum phosphide (TaP).

These materials inherently withstand perturbations such as heat and disorders, and can conduct electricity with a level of robustness, says Nguyen. With robust properties like this, certain materials can conductivity electricity better than best metals, and in some circumstances superconductors which is an improvement over current generation materials.

This discovery opens the door to topological quantum computing. Current quantum computing systems, where the elemental units of calculation are qubits that perform superfast calculations, require superconducting materials that only function in extremely cold conditions. Fluctuations in heat can throw one of these systems out of whack.

The properties inherent to materials such as TaP could form the basis of future qubits, says Nguyen. He envisions synthesizing TaP and other topological semimetals a process involving the delicate cultivation of these crystalline structures and then characterizing their structural and excitational properties with the help of neutron and X-ray beam technology, which probe these materials at the atomic level. This would enable him to identify and deploy the right materials for specific applications.

My goal is to create programmable artificial structured topological materials, which can directly be applied as a quantum computer, says Nguyen. With infinitely better heat management, these quantum computing systems and devices could prove to be incredibly energy efficient.

Energy efficiency and its benefits have long concerned Nguyen. A native of Montreal, Quebec, with an aptitude for math and physics and a concern for climate change, he devoted his final year of high school to environmental studies. I worked on a Montreal initiative to reduce heat islands in the city by creating more urban parks, he says. Climate change mattered to me, and I wanted to make an impact.

At McGill University, he majored in physics. I became fascinated by problems in the field, but I also felt I could eventually apply what I learned to fulfill my goals of protecting the environment, he says.

In both classes and research, Nguyen immersed himself in different domains of physics. He worked for two years in a high-energy physics lab making detectors for neutrinos, part of a much larger collaboration seeking to verify the Standard Model. In the fall of his senior year at McGill, Nguyens interest gravitated toward condensed matter studies. I really enjoyed the interplay between physics and chemistry in this area, and especially liked exploring questions in superconductivity, which seemed to have many important applications, he says. That spring, seeking to add useful skills to his research repertoire, he worked at Ontarios Chalk River Laboratories, where he learned to characterize materials using neutron spectroscopes and other tools.

These academic and practical experiences served to propel Nguyen toward his current course of graduate study. Mingda Li proposed an interesting research plan, and although I didnt know much about topological materials, I knew they had recently been discovered, and I was excited to enter the field, he says.

Nguyen has mapped out the remaining years of his doctoral program, and they will prove demanding. Topological semimetals are difficult to work with, he says. We dont yet know the optimal conditions for synthesizing them, and we need to make these crystals, which are micrometers in scale, in quantities large enough to permit testing.

With the right materials in hand, he hopes to develop a qubit structure that isnt so vulnerable to perturbations, quickly advancing the field of quantum computing so that calculations that now take years might require just minutes or seconds, he says. Vastly higher computational speeds could have enormous impacts on problems like climate, or health, or finance that have important ramifications for society. If his research on topological materials benefits the planet or improves how people live, says Nguyen, I would be totally happy.

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Cracking the Secrets of an Emerging Branch of Physics: Exotic Properties to Power Real-World Applications - SciTechDaily

M Squared, the photonics and quantum technology developer, today announces a significant new financing of 32.5m as it expands its backers to support its growth and technology developments.

Santander UK will be providing a 20m debt facility, allowing M Squareds founders and management team, led by Dr Graeme Malcolm OBE, to fund the acquisition of the substantial part of BGFs current shareholding along with fuelling the next stage in business and technological growth. The newly formed Scottish National Investment Bank will also support M Squared with 12.5m of growth capital.

Commenting on the transaction,Richard Mathison, Structured Finance Director, Santander UK said:Santander is delighted to have provided M Squared with 20m of debt facilities to support their strategic buyout and future growth ambitions. M Squared is a truly unique, cutting-edge, business driven by a high calibre management team, who we have got to know well over the last 10 months. Santanders debt structure provided was specifically tailored to M Squareds needs and ambitions, alongside funding provided by the Scottish National Investment Bank.

This significant investment from the newly established Scottish National Investment Bank - which is the first investment being made by the Bank - will enable M Squared to further advance its research and development. This is key to upscaling its pioneering work in quantum innovation alongside its technologies to help tackle climate change. The flexibility shown by the Scottish National Investment Bank and its patient capital approach aligned strongly with M Squareds funding requirements.

M Squareds innovations are addressing global scientific and technology challenges in fields as diverse as climate change, healthcare, quantum computing and virtual reality. Therefore, M Squareds activities will make a contribution to all three of the Scottish National Investment Banks proposed core missions to support Scotlands transition to net zero, build communities and promote equality, and harness innovation to enable our people to flourish.

Eilidh Mactaggart, CEO of the Scottish National Investment Bank said:This Glasgow based business is at the cutting edge of innovation and is a recognised world-leader in its field with huge growth potential. It is a great fit with our missions and our investment will create real economic benefit in Scotland. We worked collaboratively to provide an investment solution tailored to M Squareds needs, and our patient capital approach meant we were able to take the longer-term view that was needed. We are hugely excited about the future for M Squared and look forward to working with Graeme and his team supporting the next phase of its growth.

Earlier this year, M Squared announced it is leading the UKs largest industry-led commercial quantum computing project as part of an Innovate UK Challenge fund,DISCOVERY. M Squared has also leveraged investment as part of the projectSquare meaning that total investment has reached 50m in the year to date despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

M Squared is now at the forefront of UK efforts to commercialise revolutionary quantum technology considered a major component of central governments commitment to research and development and its future industrial strategy. This transaction provides the financial strength and independence for the business to play a significant role in the next stage of this technologys commercialisation.

Dr Graeme Malcolm OBE, Founder & CEO of M Squared, said:M Squared makes the world's purest light - technology that has transformative, real-world, applications that can take on the climate emergency, greatly improve biomedical imaging, realise the next evolution of semiconductors, and now truly unlock the coming quantum age.

Scotland is at the heart of the UKs advanced science and technology sectors and sitting alongside world-leading universities and commercial partners it has become a critical hub of excellence from which we can continue expanding globally.

Our commercial and technological potential is enormous and with this transaction we have the ideal financial and structural platform to progress and realise substantial growth and launch major new developments. We are delighted to now be working with both Santander UK and the Scottish National Investment Bank, alongside continued support from BGF, on funding a shared goal to innovate and scale.

BGF will realise the majority of its existing shareholding in M Squared, but will continue to retain a meaningful stake going forward having first invested in the business in 2012 as a long-term partner.

Patrick Graham Head of BGF for Central Scotland and Northern Ireland said:M Squared, one of BGFs first investments, received 6.4m across three rounds of funding over the course of the past eight years. The company has grown ten-fold since, crystalising a strong return for BGF. Our long-term view on investment and supporting growth via follow-on funding can provide a strong platform for businesses like M Squared to realise their full potential. Our flexible model also allows us to collaborate with other institutions and we are pleased to be partnering with both Santander and the Scottish National Investment Bank in its first investment. We are also delighted to continue as an equity shareholder in M Squared and look forward to supporting the management team and the business in the next phase of its growth journey.

M Squareds strategic stakeholders including Scottish Enterprise, the University of Strathclyde and the University of St Andrews were highly supportive of this new funding development which represents one of Scotlands most ambitious funding projects this year and will further help Glasgow gain recognition as a global location for quantum and many other advanced technologies.

Stuart Malcolm, M Squareds General Counsel, who led the transaction said:This financing is the culmination of over 18 months determined effort and commitment to ensure that M Squared is now supremely well placed for the next stage in our journey. A challenging and technical transaction such as this, involving a number of stakeholders and inputs, required a proactive and agile advisory team and our thanks go out to all the team members in their efforts and determination to complete this dynamic transaction.

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M Squared Receives Financing to Accelerate Growth and Advance Quantum Technologies - Novus Light Technologies Today

1. Quantum computer race intensifies as alternative technology gains steam  Nature.com
2. Quantum Computing Market is Expected to Reach $2.2 Billion by 2026  GlobeNewswire
3. Quantum Computing Market 2020 Size, Demand, Share, Opportunities And Forecasts To 2026 | Major Giants ID Quantique, Toshiba Research Europe Ltd, Google,Inc., Microsoft Corporation  re:Jerusalem
4. Quantum Computing in Aerospace and Defense Market Statistics Shows Revolutionary growth in Coming decade | Want to Know Biggest Opportunity for Growth?  TechnoWeekly
5. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Quantum computer race intensifies as alternative technology gains steam - Nature.com

DURHAM Construction is currently underway on a 10,000-square foot expansion of Dukes existing quantum computing center in the Chesterfield Building, a former cigarette factory in downtown Durham.

The new space will house what is envisioned to be a world-beating team of quantum computing scientists. The DQC, Duke Quantum Center, is expected to be online in March 2021 and is one of five new quantum research centers to be supported by a recently announced$115 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Error-corrected Universal Reconfigurable Ion-trap Quantum Archetype, or EURIQA, is the first generation of an evolving line of quantum computers that will be available to users in Dukes Scalable Quantum Computing Laboratory, or SQLab. The machine was built with funding from IARPA, the U.S. governments Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. The SQLab intends to offer programmable, reconfigurable quantum computing capability to engineers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians or anyone who comes forward with a complex optimization problem theyd like to try on a 20-qubit system.

Unlike the quantum systems that are now accessible in the cloud, the renamed Duke Quantum Archetype, DQA, will be customized for each research problem and users will have open access to its gutsa more academic approach to solving quantum riddles.

(C) Duke University

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Construction begins for Duke University's new quantum computing center - WRAL Tech Wire

Quantum computing is bright and shiny, with demonstrations by Google suggesting a kind of transcendent ability to scale beyond the heights of known problems.

But there's a real bummer in store for anyone with their head in the clouds: All that glitters is not gold, and there's a lot of hard work to be done on the way to someday computing NP-hard problems.

"ETL, if you get that wrong in this flow-based programming, if you get the data frame wrong, it's garbage in, garbage out," according to Christopher Savoie, who is the CEO and a co-founder of a three-year-old startup, Zapata Computing of Boston, Mass.

"There's this naive idea you're going to show up with this beautiful quantum computer, and just drop it in your data center, and everything is going to be solved it's not going to work that way," said Savoie, in a video interview with ZDNet. "You really have to solve these basic problems."

"There's this naive idea you're going to show up with this beautiful quantum computer, and just drop it in your data center, and everything is going to be solved it's not going to work that way," said Savoie, in a video interview with ZDNet. "You really have to solve these basic problems."

Zapata sells a programming tool for quantum computing, called Orquestra. It can let developers invent algorithms to be run on real quantum hardware, such as Honeywell's trapped-ion computer.

But most of the work of quantum today is not writing pretty algorithms, it's just making sure data is not junk.

"Ninety-five percent of the problem is data cleaning," Savoie told ZDNet. "There wasn't any great toolset out there, so that's why we created Orquestra to do this."

The company on Thursday announced it has received a Series B round of investment totaling $38 million from large investors that include Honeywell's venture capital outfit and returning Series A investors Comcast Ventures, Pitango, and Prelude Ventures, among others. The company has now raised $64.4 million.

Also:Honeywell introduces quantum computing as a service with subscription offering

Zapata was spun out of Harvard University in 2017 by scholars including Aln Aspuru-Guzik, who has done fundamental work on quantum. But a lot of what is coming up are the mundane matters of data prep and other gotchas that can be a nightmare in a bold new world of only partially-understood hardware.

Things such as extract, transform, load, or ETL, which become maddening when prepping a quantum workload.

"We had a customer who thought they had a compute problem because they had a job that was taking a long time; it turned out, when we dug in, just parallelizing the workflow, the ETL, gave them a compute advantage," recalled Savoie.

Such pitfalls, said Savoie, are thingsthat companies don't know are an issue until they get ready to spend valuable time on a quantum computer and code doesn't run as expected.

"That's why we think it's critical for companies to start now," he said, even though today's noisy intermediate-scale quantum, or NISQ, machines have only a handful of qubits.

"You have to solve all these basic problems we really haven't even solved yet in classical computing," said Savoie.

The present moment in time in the young field of quantum sounds a bit like the early days of microcomputer-based relational databases. And, in fact, Savoie likes to make an analogy to the era of the 1980s and 1990s, when Oracle database was taking over workloads from IBM's DB/2.

Also:What the Google vs. IBM debate over quantum supremacy means

"Oracle is a really good analogy, he said. "Recall when SQL wasn't even a thing, and databases had to be turned on a per-on-premises, as-a-solution basis; how do I use a database versus storage, and there weren't a lot of tools for those things, and every installment was an engagement, really," recalled Savoie.

"There are a lot of close analogies to that" with today's quantum, said Savoie. "It's enterprise, it's tough problems, it's a lot of big data, it's a lot of big compute problems, and we are the software company sitting in the middle of all that with a lot of tools that aren't there yet."

Mind you, Savoie is a big believer in quantum's potential, despite pointing out all the challenges. He has seen how technologies can get stymied, but also how they ultimately triumph. He helped found startup Dejima, one of the companies that became a component of Apple's Siri voice assistant, in 1998. Dejima didn't produce an AI wave, it sold out to database giant Sybase.

"We invented this natural language understanding engine, but we didn't have the great SpeechWorks engine, we didn't have 3G, never mind 4G cell phones or OLED displays," he recalled. "It took ten years from 1998 till it was a product, till it was Siri, so I've seen this movie before I've been in that movie."

But the technology of NLP did survive and is now thriving. Similarly, the basic science of quantum, as with the basic science of NLP, is real, is validated. "Somebody is going to be the iPhone" of quantum, he said, although along the way there may be a couple Apple Newtons, too, he quipped.

Even an Apple Newton of quantum will be a breakthrough. "It will be solving real problems," he said.

Also: All that glitters is not quantum AI

In the meantime, handling the complexity that's cropping up now, with things like ETL, suggests there's a role for a young company that can be for quantum what Oracle was for structured query language.

"You build that out, and you have best practices, and you can become a great company, and that's what we aspire to," he said.

Zapata has fifty-eight employees and has had contract revenue since its first year of operations, and has doubled each year, said Savoie.

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Quantum computing now is a bit like SQL was in the late 80s: Wild and wooly and full of promise - ZDNet

COVID-19 has been a gut punch. Our response? Largely frantic, like deer caught in the headlights. Researchers are racing to find a vaccine, as we pause in lockdown mode. But the process of drug discovery is lengthy and expensive, just like the process of discovering and designing any material crucial to fighting existential problems.

But these problems are piling up: pandemics, climate change, antibiotic resistance, food security, cyber-challenges, shared-economic prosperity and so on. We urgently need to change our traditional approach to science.

We have a rare and narrowing window of change to build a better world after the pandemic.

The World Economic Forum's inaugural Pioneers of Change meeting will bring together leaders of emerging businesses, social entrepreneurs and other innovators to discuss how to spark and scale up meaningful change.

To follow the Summit as an individual, you can become a digital subscriber here. As a company, you can participate in the summit by becoming a member of our New Champions Community.

For centuries, weve done science in a linear way: an issue prompts a hypothesis, followed by a model and a test. If the result is a failure, the process starts again, and iterations may take years. And its got us far; its how weve developed better plastics, more efficient solar panels and lighter-but-stronger composites for modern aircraft.

But the world is changing rapidly; in order to tackle todays global challenges with the speed and effectiveness they demand, we need a new way to do science.

Science is an inherently creative process; scientists are constantly expanding their imagination to explore new designs of drugs and chemicals. But the human brain has its limits. After all, there are more possible designs of a molecule than there are atoms in the universe. No human can sift through all of them to come up with the best option.

The good news is we do have the ingredients to give science or our brains limits a boost: cutting-edge computing technology and talent. The real challenge is to apply them strategically, in both public and private sectors.

Image: IBM Research

Helping science determine a new path

The world is witnessing a revolution in computing. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is enhancing traditional computing and could soon boost the emerging quantum ones: the very machines that could allow us to solve some of the worlds greatest problems. They can be accessed from anywhere on the planet through a hybrid cloud.

More and more companies and labs are now using AI, whose deep neural networks are able to extract scientific knowledge at scale from all the literature published on a specific topic.

Say a scientist needs to create a new catalyst for better artificial fertilizers. Instead of blindly trying to determine the catalysts chemical structure, AI would first sift through a multitude of patents, academic papers and other publications to see what had already been done on this topic.

Next, AI would automatically generate hypotheses based on the data it found, to expand the search for new molecular designs. Based on the most promising hypothesis, high-performance computers and quantum computers would simulate a new molecule.

Digital work done, the simulation would be confirmed or refuted during increasingly autonomous lab tests. Finally, AI would assess the result, identify anomalies and extract new knowledge. New questions would surface and the loop would continue.

To shift the paradigm of scientific discovery, we need to enable AI, hybrid cloud, and eventually quantum computing to converge. We also need a second ingredient new types of scientific collaborations or communities of discovery to be added to the mix.

What would we gain? An accelerated scientific method, fit for catalysing major transformations in science, and with unprecedented speed and automation. We could design new materials faster than ever before, impacting all aspects of our lives from healthcare to manufacturing, to agriculture and beyond.

For the first time, closing the loop in scientific discovery seems a very real and imminent possibility. When it does happen, we will have achieved the dream of scientific advancement being a self-propelled and never-ending process.

The need for new communities of discovery

But its not just technology that that will drive this new level of discovery; people will too. The world is teeming with the talent and creativity of millions of scientists spread across academia and industry, who shouldnt be tackling the numerous global crises they face independently. Indeed, no single company or university lab can overcome a pandemic on its own.

National and international private-public collaborations share knowledge, data and the latest technology, speeding up the process of discovery. Our need for more of them has never been greater.

They also need to be diverse. In science, problems can be big and complex, or small and more focused. For instance, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) requires a deeply coordinated community with scientists from 42 countries to run some two-million experiments every day across about 170 labs and thats just for the science coming from Large Hadron Collider.

And yet, science is becoming more open, with researchers from private and public sectors increasingly sharing papers, experiments, data, results and resources.

One successful example of such a smaller, new community of discovery is the COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium. A collaboration of 87 partners from academia, industry and national labs, it has been granting researchers from around the world who are fighting the current pandemic access to supercomputers.

Industry partners are often rivals, but not in the current coronavirus vaccine endeavour. Every member of the Consortium is united by a common goal: to accelerate our search for a new treatment or vaccine against COVID-19. The benefits of collaboration are greater speed and accuracy; a freer exchange of ideas and data; and full access to cutting-edge technology. In sum, it supercharges innovation and hopefully means the pandemic will be halted faster than otherwise.

But material design isnt the limit.

With continuing evolution as an AI-accelerated approach that builds on data, advanced compute in hybrid cloud, progress in quantum computing and growing communities of discovery, the upgraded, self-propelled continuous scientific method should greatly impact multiple aspects of our lives. And with all the global crises of today and tomorrow, the need for it has never been greater.

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Scientific discovery must be redefined. Quantum and AI can help - World Economic Forum