The wild finale of Alex Garlands sci-fi series Devs managed to do the impossible and reveal the full capabilities for the mysterious super computer. But like all good Garland creations, the answers only lead to more questions from the audience. Looking for clarity, we turned to the woman who runs the Devs operation, Katie, played by Alison Pill, for a conversation about whats next for the resolute right-hand of the Devs operation.

A longtime fan of Garlands work, Pill had previously read his novels The Beach and The Tesseract. In fact, the actress actually auditioned for a part in his 2018 film Annihilation, but it would seem that her track was destined to lead her to Devs.

Carmen Cuba texted my husband and said, Alex Garland is interested in your wife for this movie, can he email her?' Pill explained to Variety over the phone. After sending over all eight scripts of the mini-series, Pill was hooked. The next step? Become an expert on quantum mechanics.

I read A Briefer History of Time, which is excellent. I guess I can say it now, we were really trying to keep the multi-verse out of the conversation for the first little bit, but David Wallace, whos an incredible philosopher of science, wrote a great book about the many worlds theory. Its a tome.

Then I read a David Foster Wallace book on infinity, but Briefer History of Time was the most helpful in terms of the history of the science, the development of the ideas. In every single one of these books I could sort of grasp [the concepts] in the beginning and toward the end as the concepts become more and more abstract, the tethering to the physical world is just is gone. [Laughs] Its like, What are you talking about? Thats crazy! You cant have particles in two places at once, doing two things at once at the same time. My brain wont accept that! But then thats what physicists have been struggling with for a long time.

Alex was definitely helpful. Sonoya [Mizuno] was too because she had been on board a little bit before me, and she had done a lot of reading as well. Her recommendations were really helpful. The David Wallace books I just read on my own. His lectures are great. I think hes a fantastic speaker. Also in terms of character studies it was really interesting, too. What does somebody who thinks about this type of thing all the time do with their body? Interesting little character things. Theyre pretty eccentric folks considering that they think about the nature of reality and the unnatural nature of quantum physics. Theyre odd ducks.

The first decision I made was physical. I didnt want her to move very much because Im thinking about the self-consciousness that must be involved in every move you make, having already been decided. If thats your worldview you cant just unconsciously take your hand out of your pocket anymore, because you know that was what the universe was always going to have you do. That was my way in, just trying to keep her as still as possible.

Its also a really interesting show of power. As a woman, I often find myself smiling and talking a lot to try and make other people comfortable, to make myself comfortable. I will just fill in those gaps and just be a little too out there sometimes.

I imagined being somebody so completely sure of their place in the world, their own power, their brains, and just not giving a f. And that was really thrilling to play. Shes not going to smile politely. Shes not going to do the polite thing that we expect of womenMaking her not, not unemotional, but in control of her emotions was really important to me. Shes not heartless at all, the furthest thing from it. I think shes one of the most generous people Ive ever played. Shes not obsequious, shes not polite in the way that people expect, but she is emotional. And I think those complications are really interesting.

Alison Pill as Katie, Cailee Spaeny as Lyndon on the edge of the Crystal Springs Dam.

Her belief system is that theres not a world in which Lyndon doesnt stand on the other side of the dam. So its not that she wants him to, its not that she wishes that it happens, its just the way it is. And thats why in the finale, the idea that freewill could exist destroys her whole moral outlook. Once that becomes true, if determinism is real, but that freewill is possible if you know what is determined, then her whole moral view just crumbles.

Then I think she is at fault and I think she realizes that. But I think in the moment, its not something that she desires, its something that she wishes wouldnt happen. I think she really likes Lyndon. But also [she] believes that there are truly a near infinite number of universes where Lyndon doesnt fall, truly, and comes back to work at Devs Its a real moral quandary only if free will exists. And it also begs the question, could we do anything wrong in a truly deterministic universe? Could we be blamed for anything we did in a deterministic universe if there was never going to be another action taken?

Yeah. I dont think Katie believes shes morally culpable. I think shes really very sad about Lyndon. And its Cailee [Spaeny] who was the best, it was so hard.

Oh, no, hes very much up for those discussions. Luckily hes also a big believer in rehearsal, so I could come in and sit down and be like, Alex, physics of the observer, what are we going to do about it? You know, the statistics of near infinite variations, what do you do with statistics!?

So yes, he would allow me some time to go over stuff. We would have classroom moments with different groupings of us [the lab people] and have those discussion. And then on set to a degree because sometimes I would come in and just have read another excerpt from the Wallace book just going, What does it mean! [Laughs]

He is one of the more generous listeners Ive ever met. He doesnt play down anything, he doesnt make you feel dumb and hell take any question seriously and take time to consider it. Its a real gift. Yes, we had fascinating conversations about politics and gender and also quantum physics just because were all in that headspace of giving consideration. And I think thats what he expects as an audience.

Being around this group of people, to some degree, primed for this. I think were just curious people and I think most humans are incredibly curious. I dont think we give ourselves enough benefit of the doubt in terms of our intelligence. In terms of our ability to really challenge our brains with new concepts. I think its something that we just sort of give up on unnecessarily, because I think were better at it than we might suppose.

Alison Pills reading list for playing Katie in Hulus Devs.

Hmmmm many worlds is just, yeah, it doesnt make a difference? Which is to say, Im in this one, I can only live one. Would it feel better if I knew that in some [world] I might make a different choice? To a degree, but also the maths involved are so extraordinary. When you think about branching and the amount of branching that every person, every thing, every blade of grass, the wind blowing one way this time it becomes meaningless to me.

Determinism, however, its a really interesting concept that I still do struggle with and I dont think that human brains are particularly capable of dealing with it. We really are wired to believe that we have choice. So in both cases, while I consider determinism pretty likely which is a crazy thing to think about but you know what else is crazy? Space is a thing. You know what I mean? Space is a thing, the universe is expanding. Spanning into what? Space is already an existing thing. Its not nothing. It cant be nothing. Which is in itself a real quandary anyway.

The multiverse map, I just cant even. So each person, every instant of their life branching however many times. Infinity is crazy, I cant make my brain understand that to such a degree, I find it interesting to read about. But its not going to effect my everyday life neither is quantum physics because we cant see it. We could have been pretty happy humans with just Newtonian physics. It wouldnt have been entirely true, but its fine, I mean, it gets us by.

I was looking forward to it and had been thinking about it since I first got the scripts because what a rarity to have, I was just so excited to have this scene between two women. First that shes like, I want answers, let me talk to Forest. And I say, No, if you want answers, you should talk to me. Just the power dynamics, its such an interesting way to start a scene.

We shot it over two days. I love working with Sonoya. Its such an interesting thing because that much dialogue doesnt happen that often on TV, but at the same time its not theatrical dialogue. Its not as though someone said, Oh, it should be a play! Because so much of it is about the cinematography and the setting. Its something that you dont often get to see, which is just people thinking through their thoughts and taking their time and having these slower scenes. That whole episode is basically just a series of two-person scenes. Its just so ballsy to do that in the midst of this like techno thriller, plot-heavy, cool action thing and youre just like, and then we sit.

I was so aware of the importance of the scene in terms of explaining things but also wanting to make it real for Katie. There are emotional stakes for her too, because she does like Lily. She thinks shes really cool, she spent hours watching her. Its like meeting a celebrity, finally, in our kitchen. Alex and I talked, did she always set the pen out there before because its there, its on the table. [Was Katie] thinking about her the day before she goes to bed thinking, I have to put the pen there because Lilys going to be by soon.

Its not the expectation. The expectation is partly that Forest is going to sit down with Lilly.

Well its the only way he survives. She asks [Forest] whether he wants to deal with the fact that there will be a near infinite number, where Amaya will have died, where all of this will still happen. But that there will be somewhere he does get to be with Amaya. That has been his ultimate goal. That has been their ultimate goal. And thats what I mean about Katie being generous. She literally needs this man and says, yeah, Ill bring back your daughter for you.

I think thats also the happiness of working on this project. Its not her life goal until it becomes it over time. I do think Forest makes the decision to be part of the sim, and therefore I think Katie doesnt want to let it go. Because she wants to keep those two alive as long as she can.

Its so hard to know what the power will actually mean in the world. Even five years on, if the U.S. government knew everything, what would the world look like? Pretty fing scary! So I dont know if she would want to be part of the machine at that point. If Katie died of natural causes 40 years after the events that we see in episode 8, the changes that would have occurred in both quantum computing, would everybody have an everything machine? I dont know. Im cleaning out my office and Im just getting rid of a bunch of DVDs, and those are not that old. Thinking about 40 years from now, in terms of tech, especially in terms of quantum computing, I dont even know what it would mean? But if it was under government control Id say probably, no, she doesnt really like authority.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

View original post here:
Alison Pill on the Devs Finale and Whats Next for Katie - Variety

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 18, 2020 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED) today announced that it has started to accept papers for the 2021 event. ISQED is an internationally reputable conference, sponsored by IEEE CASS, IEEE EDS, and IEEE Reliability Societies, and in cooperation with ACM/SigDA.

PHOTO CAPTION: 2021 Conference theme is AI/ML in Electronic Design, Quantum Computing, Hardware Security, 3D Integration, and IoT.

To be considered for presentation and publication by IEEE, authors are asked to send their articles before Oct. 2, 2020. The conference is planned to be held on April 2021 in a combination of physical and virtual formats in Santa Clara, California, USA.

The final format will be announced later when the COVID-19 situation becomes clear.

A partial list of topics of interest includes:

Hardware and System Security

Electronic Design Automation Tools and Methodologies

Design Test and Verification

Emerging Device and Process Technologies and Applications

Circuit Design, 3D Integration and Advanced Packaging

System-level Design and Methodologies

Cognitive Computing Hardware

Submission of Papers (Regular, WIP, Special Sessions)

For any information about submission process refer to: https://www.isqed.org/English/Conference/Call_for_Papers.html

About ISQED

ISQED is the premier interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary Electronic Design conferencebridges the gap among Electronic/Semiconductor ecosystem members providing electronic design tools, integrated circuit technologies, semiconductor technology, packaging, assembly & test to achieve total design quality. Current and all past ISQED events have been held with the technical sponsorship of IEEE CASS, IEEE EDS, and IEEE Reliability Society.

All past Conference proceedings & Papers have been published in IEEE Xplore digital library and indexed by Scopus.

For further information please contact ISQED by sending email to isqed2021@gmail.com.

News Source: ISQED

Read the original here:
ISQED'21 Accepts Papers for the 2021 Event - Send2Press Newswire

Where would we be without computers? Whether giving us the chance to work remotely, work on files with colleagues in real time, or for recreational activities like streaming there can be no doubt that computing devices have changed the way we go about our day-to-day lives.

However, while more traditional computers are great for completing run-of-the-mill tasks, there are many more complex problems in the world that these machines will struggle to solve. For problems above a certain size and complexity, traditional machines simply dont have enough computational power to tackle them. To put this in perspective, Fugaku, the worlds fastest supercomputer is over 1,000 times faster than a regular computer, and, in 2019 Google claimed its Sycamore quantum processor was more than a billion times faster at solving problems than a supercomputer.

Given their processing superiority, if we want to have a chance at solving some of the worlds most complex issues, we must look to quantum computers.

Understanding Quantum Computing

In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, quantum computing leverages the substantial mechanics principles of superposition and entanglement in order to create states that scale exponentially with the number of quantum bits or qubits. Rather than just being on or off, qubits can also be in whats called superposition where theyre both on and off at the same time, or somewhere on a spectrum between the two.

Put more simply, for scientists to properly simulate scientific situations, the calculations they make on a computer must be able to handle uncertainty in the way that traditional, and even supercomputers cant. This is the key characteristic of quantum computing.

Today, real quantum processors are used by researchers from all over the world to test out algorithms for applications in a variety of fields. Indeed, these computers may soon be able to spur the development of new breakthroughs in science, medication for currently incurable diseases, discovering materials to make more efficient devices and structures like more powerful solar panels as well as creating algorithms to quickly direct resources to where they are needed, such as ambulances.

Quantum Computing and Cybersecurity

However, not only do these machines have to be protected from hackers, they themselves could also pose a threat to digital life as we know it.

Right now, for example, cyberattacks can be carried out with relative ease, due to the fact many organisations do not have protections in place for their confidential information. As such, placing a much greater emphasis on improving the security of communications and data storage is crucial for guaranteeing the protection of sensitive information for states, private entities and individuals, than say 20 years ago. However, if quantum computers can launch attacks that break asymmetric cryptography, they then render the entire PKI-based encryption method we currently use to protect our sensitive information, obsolete. Which begs the question: Then what?

To take advantage of the time quantum computers will be able to break such systems, some countries are already beginning to collect encrypted foreign communications, with the expectation that they will be able to extract valuable secrets from that data in the future. Indeed, countries need to be aware that when quantum cryptanalysis does become available, it will significantly affect international relations by making any broadcast communications in the state open to decryption. For countries that extensively rely on encryption to secure military operations, diplomatic correspondence or other sensitive data, this could be a watershed event.

As quantum computers continue to improve, businesses and the general public will become increasingly aware of the threat cryptographic systems pose to all digital security globally. The ability to update cryptographic algorithms, keys and certificates quickly in response to advances in cracking techniques and processing speed will therefore be key.

To prepare for these inevitable cryptographic updates, more enterprises than ever will need to explore automation as a critical component for ensuring future-proofed security. Quantum resistant communication technology will soon be an inevitable part of cybersecurity mitigation.

Business and technology strategists must monitor progress on the evolution and potential implications of quantum computing starting now. Confidential data, over-the-air software updates, identity management systems, connected devices, and anything else with long-term security obligations must be made quantum safe before large quantum computers are developed and are reliable, meaning their error rates are low.

We have announced collaborations with ISARA Corporation and ID Quantique to make quantum-safe crypto more widely available for data protection in the cloud, applications and networks. Innovations like these can help combat the future security threats of quantum computing. With governments and organisations, such as NIST, racing to become cryptographically quantum resilient, readying enterprises for this change has never been more important.

You can find out more information on our quantum cybersecurity solutions here and if you have any other questions please feel free to tweet us @ThalesDigiSec.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Enterprise Security Thales blog authored by Aline Gouget. Read the original post at: https://dis-blog.thalesgroup.com/security/2020/08/05/quantum-computing-and-the-evolving-cybersecurity-threat/

Go here to see the original:
Quantum Computing and the evolving cybersecurity threat - Security Boulevard

By U.S. Department of EnergyAugust 6, 2020

To keep qubits used in quantum computers cold enough so scientists can study them, DOEs Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory uses a sophisticated cooling system. Credit: Image courtesy of Thor Swift, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A quintillion calculations a second. Thats one with 18 zeros after it. Its the speed at which an exascale supercomputer will process information. The Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing for the first exascale computer to be deployed in 2021. Two more will follow soon after. Yet quantum computers may be able to complete more complex calculations even faster than these up-and-coming exascale computers. But these technologies complement each other much more than they compete.

Its going to be a while before quantum computers are ready to tackle major scientific research questions. While quantum researchers and scientists in other areas are collaborating to design quantum computers to be as effective as possible once theyre ready, thats still a long way off. Scientists are figuring out how to build qubits for quantum computers, the very foundation of the technology. Theyre establishing the most fundamental quantum algorithms that they need to do simple calculations. The hardware and algorithms need to be far enough along for coders to develop operating systems and software to do scientific research. Currently, were at the same point in quantum computing that scientists in the 1950s were with computers that ran on vacuum tubes. Most of us regularly carry computers in our pockets now, but it took decades to get to this level of accessibility.

In contrast, exascale computers will be ready next year. When they launch, theyll already be five times faster than our fastest computer Summit, at Oak Ridge National Laboratorys Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility. Right away, theyll be able to tackle major challenges in modeling Earth systems, analyzing genes, tracking barriers to fusion, and more. These powerful machines will allow scientists to include more variables in their equations and improve models accuracy. As long as we can find new ways to improve conventional computers, well do it.

Once quantum computers are ready for prime time, researchers will still need conventional computers. Theyll each meet different needs.

DOE is designing its exascale computers to be exceptionally good at running scientific simulations as well as machine learning and artificial intelligence programs. These will help us make the next big advances in research. At our user facilities, which are producing increasingly large amounts of data, these computers will be able to analyze that data in real time.

Quantum computers, on the other hand, will be perfect for modeling the interactions of electrons and nuclei that are the constituents of atoms. As these interactions are the foundation for chemistry and materials science, these computers could be incredibly useful. Applications include modeling fundamental chemical reactions, understanding superconductivity, and designing materials from the atom level up. Quantum computers could potentially reduce the time it takes to run these simulations from billions of years to a few minutes. Another intriguing possibility is connecting quantum computers with a quantum internet network. This quantum internet, coupled with the classical internet, could have a profound impact on science, national security, and industry.

Just as the same scientist may use both a particle accelerator and an electron microscope depending on what they need to do, conventional and quantum computing will each have different roles to play. Scientists supported by the DOE are looking forward to refining the tools that both will provide for research in the future.

For more information, check out this infographic:

Read more here:
A Quintillion Calculations a Second: DOE Calculating the Benefits of Exascale and Quantum Computers - SciTechDaily

Google security lead Miles Taylor takes leave ahead of Presidential election.

Miles Taylor, President Donald Trump's former homeland security chief of staff and current Google staffer who became a controversial figure within the company for his work on Trump's child separation policies, is taking a leave from Google until after the presidential election.

Taylor appeared in an anti-Trump ad Monday and backed Joe Biden for president, drawing the president's ire on Twitteron Tuesday morning. Taylor will use his time off to engage in more political activity, according to a source familiar with the situation. He'll then continue a new role he recently took after he returns to Google.

"What we saw week in and week out, after 2 years in that administration was terrifying," Taylor said in the video released Monday. "The president wanted to exploit the Department of Homeland Security for his own political purposed and to fuel his own agenda."

Last fall, Google hired Taylor, who served as chief of staff for Kirstjen Nielsen, the former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and with now-acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf. Taylor joined Google to work on government affairs and national security issues, but it caused a stir among lawmakers and employees, some of whom had actively protested their company's relationship with the government and its policies.

In July, the company and Taylor agreed on transitioning him off of a general national security role and into a position that focuses on security policy for things like artificial intelligence, the source told CNBC. Last week, they agreed he'd take a leave of absence so that he could pursue personal political activity ahead of the election, the source said. His leave of absence is effective until Nov. 4, the day after Election Day.

Google declined to comment.

Since Taylor joined the company, employees have expressed concern about him at all-hands meetings, where executives defended his hiring and downplayed his involvement in DHS policies. That came a few months after more than 1,000 Google employees signed a petitiondemanding that Google abandon bids or potential bids with U.S. Customs and Border Protection contract.A couple of months later, Democratic congressional leaders scolded Google CEO Sundar Pichai for hiring Taylor, whose team hadsupportedTrump's executive order to ban travel to the U.S. from Muslim countries and DHS' family separation policies.

In an op-ed in The Washington Post published Monday, Taylor tried to distance himself from the Trump administration's decision to separate immigrant families entering the country, despite the fact he worked closely on the policy, as BuzzFeed news previously reported.

On Tuesday, Trump attacked Taylor on Twitter, claiming he did not know his former staffer. Pictures of the two men together quickly surfaced on Twitter in response.

Just before Taylor took leave last week, he changed roles to U.S. lead for advanced technology and security strategy, where he'll focus on driving Google's agenda related to AI, quantum computing, cybersecurity and emerging digital threats, according to the source. Previously, his role was overseeing Google's national security policy efforts, including Google work related to the defense, law enforcement and security.

Taylor's transition comes ahead of a tumultuous U.S. election, where Trump is seeking a second term against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Tech companies and their staffers have found themselves in the line of fire as both sides particularly the Trump administration launch public attacks against them in recent weeks ranging from allegations of bias to antitrust violations.

Among Taylor's claims Monday were that Trump withheld funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Californians dealing with the fallout from wildfires because the state didn't support him and because it wasn't a base for him "politically." He also claimed Trump wanted to push the boundaries on border policies for the purpose of scaring off potential violators. "He didn't want us to tell us it was illegal anymore because he knew and these are his words he had 'magical authority,'" he is seen saying in the video.

"Even though I'm not a Democrat and disagree on key issues, I'm confident that Joe Biden will protect the country and I'm confident he won't make the same mistakes as this president," Taylor's video concluded.

See the original post here:
Former Trump staffer who joined Google is now on leave to support Biden - CNBC

New Jersey, United States,- The latest research study on Quantum Computing Market Added by Verified Market Research, offers details on current and future growth trends pertaining to the business besides information on myriad regions across the geographical landscape of the Quantum Computing market. The report also expands on comprehensive details regarding the supply and demand analysis, participation by major industry players and market share growth statistics of the business sphere.

Global Quantum Computing Market was valued at USD 89.35 million in 2016 and is projected to reach USD 948.82 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 30.02% from 2017 to 2025.

Download Sample Copy of Quantum Computing Market Report Study 2020-2027 @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/download-sample/?rid=24845&utm_source=COD&utm_medium=007

The research report on the Quantum Computing market provides a granular assessment of this business vertical and includes information concerning the market tendencies such as revenue estimations, current remuneration, market valuation, and market size over the estimated timeframe.

Major Players Covered in this Report are:

The research report is broken down into chapters, which are introduced by the executive summary. Its the introductory part of the chapter, which includes details about global market figures, both historical and estimates. The executive summary also provides a brief about the segments and the reasons for the progress or decline during the forecast period. The insightful research report on the global Quantum Computing market includes Porters five forces analysis and SWOT analysis to understand the factors impacting consumer and supplier behavior.

The scope of the Report:

The report segments the global Quantum Computing market on the basis of application, type, service, technology, and region. Each chapter under this segmentation allows readers to grasp the nitty-gritty of the market. A magnified look at the segment-based analysis is aimed at giving the readers a closer look at the opportunities and threats in the market. It also addresses political scenarios that are expected to impact the market in both small and big ways. The report on the global Quantum Computing market examines changing regulatory scenarios to make accurate projections about potential investments. It also evaluates the risk for new entrants and the intensity of the competitive rivalry.

Ask for Discount on Quantum Computing Market Report @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/ask-for-discount/?rid=24845&utm_source=COD&utm_medium=007

As per the regional scope of the Quantum Computing market:

Highlights of the report:

Key Questions Answered in the report:

Learn More about this report @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/Quantum-Computing-Market/?utm_source=COD&utm_medium=007

About us:

Verified Market Research is a leading Global Research and Consulting firm servicing over 5000+ customers. Verified Market Research provides advanced analytical research solutions while offering information enriched research studies. We offer insight into strategic and growth analyses, Data necessary to achieve corporate goals, and critical revenue decisions.

Our 250 Analysts and SMEs offer a high level of expertise in data collection and governance use industrial techniques to collect and analyze data on more than 15,000 high impact and niche markets. Our analysts are trained to combine modern data collection techniques, superior research methodology, expertise, and years of collective experience to produce informative and accurate research.

Contact us:

Mr. Edwyne Fernandes

US: +1 (650)-781-4080UK: +44 (203)-411-9686APAC: +91 (902)-863-5784US Toll-Free: +1 (800)-7821768

Email: [emailprotected]

Our Trending Reports

Rugged Display Market Size, Growth Analysis, Opportunities, Business Outlook and Forecast to 2026

Quantum Computing Market Size, Growth Analysis, Opportunities, Business Outlook and Forecast to 2026

Sensor Patch Market Size, Growth Analysis, Opportunities, Business Outlook and Forecast to 2026

Data Center Interconnect Market Size, Growth Analysis, Opportunities, Business Outlook and Forecast to 2026

Industrial Lighting Market Size, Growth Analysis, Opportunities, Business Outlook and Forecast to 2026

See the original post here:
Quantum Computing Market Size, Analysis, Trends and Segmented Data by Top Companies and Opportunities 2020-2027 - Cole of Duty

Quantum computing or the use of quantum mechanics to create a genre of next-generation quantum computers with nearly unlimited compute power has long been a concept stuck in the theory phase.

But quantum computing is starting to grow up. Recent breakthroughs in this emerging field such as Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) claiming to achieve quantum supremacy in late 2019 have laid the foundation for the quantum computing space to go from theory, to reality, over the next several years. This transition will spark huge growth in the global quantum computing market.

The investment implication?

Its time to buy quantum computing stocks.

At scale, quantum computing will disrupt nearly every industry in the world, ranging from finance, to biotechnology, to cybersecurity, and everything in between.

It will improve the way medicines are developed by simulating molecular processes. It will reduce energy loss in batteries through optimized routing and design, thereby allowing for the creation of things like hyper-efficient electric car batteries. In finance, it will speed up and optimize portfolio optimization, risk modeling and derivatives creation. In cybersecurity, it will disrupt the way we think about encryption. It will create superior weather forecasting models, unlock advancements in autonomous vehicle technology and help humans fight climate change.

Im not kidding when I say quantum computing will change everything.

And quantum computing stocks are positioned to be big winners over the next decade.

So, with that in mind, here are seven quantum computing stocks to buy for the next 10 years:

Source: rvlsoft / Shutterstock.com

Among the various quantum computing stocks to buy for the next 10 years, the best buy is probably Alphabet stock.

That is because many many consider Alphabets quantum computing arm Google AI Quantum, which is built on the back of a state-of-the-art 54-qubit processor dubbed Sycamore to be the leading quantum computing project in the world. Why? This thinking is bolstered mostly by the fact that, in late 2019, Sycamore performed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken the worlds most powerful supercomputers 10,000 years to perform.

This achievement led Alphabet to claim that Sycamore had reached quantum supremacy. What does this mean? Well, this benchmark is loosely defined as point when a quantum computer can perform a task in a relatively short amount of time that no other supercomputer could complete in any reasonable amount of time.

Many have since debated whether or not Alphabet has indeed reached quantum supremacy.

But thats somewhat of a moot point.

The reality is that Alphabet has built the worlds leading quantum computer. The engineering surrounding this supercomputer will only get better. So will Sycamores compute power. As that happens, Alphabet has the ability to through its Google Cloud business turn Sycamore into a market-leading quantum-computing-as-a-service business with huge revenues at scale.

To that end, GOOG stock is one of the best quantum computing stocks to buy today for the next 10 years.

Source: JHVEPhoto / Shutterstock.com

The other big dog in the quantum computing space that closely rivals Alphabet is IBM.

IBM has been big in the quantum computing space for years. But Big Blue has attacked this space in a fundamentally different way than its peers.

That is, while other quantum computing players like Alphabet have forever chased quantum supremacy, IBM has shunned that idea in favor of building on something the company calls the quantum advantage.

Ostensibly, the quantum advantage really isnt too different from quantum supremacy. The former deals with a continuum focused on making quantum computers perform certain tasks faster than traditional computers. The latter deals with a moment focused on making quantum computers permanently faster at all things than traditional computers.

But its a philosophical difference with huge implications. By focusing on building the quantum advantage, IBM is specializing its quantum computing efforts into making quantum computing measurably useful and economic in certain industry verticals, for certain tasks.

In so doing, IBM is actually creating a fairly straightforward go-to market strategy for its quantum computing services in the long run. Help this industry, do this task, really well.

And so, with such a realizable, simple and tangible approach, IBM stock is one of the most sure-fire quantum computing stocks to buy today for the next 10 years.

Source: NYCStock / Shutterstock.com

Another big tech player in the quantum computing space with promising long-term potential is Microsoft.

Microsoft already has a huge infrastructure cloud business, Azure. Building on that infrastructure foundation, Microsoft has launched Azure Quantum, a quantum computing business with potential to turn into a huge QCaaS business at scale.

In its current state, Azure Quantum is a secure, stable and open ecosystem which serves as a one-stop-shop for quantum computing software, hardware and applications.

The bull thesis here is that Microsoft will lean into its already huge Azure customer base in order to cross-sell Azure Quantum. Doing so will give Azure Quantum a big and long runway for widespread early adoption, which is the first step in turning Azure Quantum into a huge QCaaS business.

It also helps that Microsofts core Azure business is absolutely on fire right now.

Putting it all together, quantum computing is simply one facet of the much broader Microsoft enterprise cloud growth narrative. That growth narrative will remain robust for the next several years. And it will continue to support further gains in MSFT stock.

Source: Shutterstock

The most interesting, smallest and potentially most explosive quantum computing stock on this list is Quantum Computing.

The Quantum Computing bull thesis is fairly simple.

Quantum computing is going to change everything over the next several years. But the hardware is expensive. It likely wont be ready to deliver measurable benefits at reasonable costs to average customers for several years. So, Quantum Computing is building a portfolio of affordable quantum computing software and apps that deliver quantum compute power, but can be run on traditional legacy supercomputers.

In so doing, Quantum Computing is hoping to fill the gap and turn into a widespread, low-cost provider of easily accessible quantum computing software for companies that cannot afford full-scale quantum compute hardware.

Quantum Computing is just starting to commercialize this software in 2020, through three products currently in beta mode. Those three products will likely start signing up financial, healthcare and government customers to long-term contracts in the back half of the year. Those early signups could be the beginning of tens of thousands of companies signing up for Quantums services over the next five to 10 years.

Connecting the dots, you really could see this company go from zero dollars in revenue today, to several hundred million dollars in revenue in the foreseeable future.

If that happens, QUBT stock which has a market capitalization of just $12 million today could soar.

Source: Kevin Chen Photography / Shutterstock.com

Much like the other big tech players on this space, Alibaba is in the business of creating a robust QCaaS arm to complement its already huge infrastructure-as-a-service business.

Long story short, Alibaba is the leading public cloud provider in China. Indeed, Alibaba Cloud owns about 10% of the global IaaS market. Alibaba intends to leverage this leadership position to cross-sell quantum compute services to its huge existing client base, and eventually turn into the largest QCaaS player in China, too.

Will it work?

Probably.

The Great Tech Wall of China will prevent many of the other companies on this list from reaching scale, or even sustainably doing operations in, China. Alibaba does have some in-country quantum computing competition. But this isnt a winner-take-all market. And given Alibabas enormous resource advantages, it is highly likely that the company eventually turns into either the No. 1 or No. 2 player in Chinas quantum computing market.

Thats just another reason to buy and hold BABA stock for the long haul.

Source: StreetVJ / Shutterstock.com

The other big Chinese tech company diving head-first into quantum computing is Baidu.

Baidu launched its own quantum computing research center in 2018. According to the company website, the goal of this research center is to integrate quantum computing into Baidus core businesses.

If so, that means Baidus goal with quantum computing diverges from the norm. Others in this space want to build out quantum compute power to sell it, as a service, to third parties. Baidu wants to build out quantum compute power to, at least initially, improve its own operations.

Doing so will pay off in a big way for Baidu.

Baidus core search and advertising businesses could markedly improve with quantum computing. Advancements in compute power could dramatically improve search algorithms and ad-targeting techniques.

BIDU stock does have healthy upside thanks to its early research into quantum computing.

Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com

Last, but not least, on this list of quantum computing stocks to buy is Intel.

While Intel may be falling behind competitors namely Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) on the traditional CPU front, the semiconductor giant is on the cutting edge of creating potential quantum CPU candidates.

Intels newly announced Horse Ridge cryogenic control chip is widely considered the markets best quantum CPU candidate out there today. The chip includes four radio frequency channels that can control 128 qubits. That is more than double Tangle Lake, Intels predecessor quantum CPU.

In other words, Intel is the leader when it comes to quantum compute chips.

The big idea, of course, is that when quantum computers are built at scale, they will likely be built on Intels quantum CPUs.

To that end, potentially explosive growth in the quantum computing hardware market over the next five to 10 years represents a huge, albeit speculative, growth catalyst for both Intel and INTC stock.

Luke Lango is a Markets Analyst for InvestorPlace. He has been professionally analyzing stocks for several years, previously working at various hedge funds and currently running his own investment fund in San Diego. A Caltech graduate, Luke has consistently been rated one of the worlds top stock pickers by various other analysts and platforms, and has developed a reputation for leveraging his technology background to identify growth stocks that deliver outstanding returns. Luke is also the founder of Fantastic, a social discovery company backed by an LA-based internet venture firm. As of this writing, he was long MSFT.

Continue reading here:
7 Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy for the Next 10 Years - InvestorPlace

Exponential change is happening in the world around us and within governments.Since the main goal for governments is to serve their citizens, promote well-being, influence positive societal change, and enhance their public services, they need to build a strategy to address all challenges and opportunities. As we move to the new era of public services, we observe new priorities on the agenda appearing, e. g. strengthening the economy, managing and minimizing unemployment impact on society, solidifying and protecting digital assets, and ensuring intelligent management of national data assets to improve analytic reporting and predictive capabilities drastically. It is imperative for governments to embrace this new standard, redefine strategies that will break information silos to empower government employees to prioritize issues and opportunities, and design citizen-centric services and experiences. And the right technology is key to bringing that mission into a rapidly changing, digital world.

The first digital event in the Government Industry created by Microsoft Government Virtual Summit will open future perspectives on how digital agility can provide resilient and agile public services. Microsoft Public Sector experts Panayiotis Ioannou and Evangelos Chrysafidis will cover the importance of tech-intensity philosophy in responding to changes, perspectives for growth, and setting Modern Government foundations. They will explain how to engage and connect with citizens, modernize the government workplace, and enhance government services.

Intelligent cloud and intelligent edge solutions make possible technology transformation that is unlocking new mission scenarios for government agencies that were not possible before. They make it possible to provide consistent power to critical institutions like hospitals and schools, manage precious resources like energy, food, and water, as well as helping government improve citizen services comments Mykhaylo Shmyelov, Microsoft National Tech Officer for 24 countries in CEE. For the audience of the Summit, he will highlight top-preferred technologies in the Government industry, among which AI, Quantum Computing, Open Data, and Big Data.

When the whole world drastically moved online, one of the essential topics globally became cybersecurity. It was set as a priority for governments around the world, as they consider how to protect assets, systems, and networks vital to the operation and stability of a nation and the livelihood of its people. According to Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, in the last 30 days, more than 86 million devices have been encountered with various sorts of malware across the cities in most populated countries. Therefore, Microsoft Security expert Yoad Dvir will present how to enhance cybersecurity and protect critical information infrastructures that became essential to every nations security and economic well-being. Dr. Rytis Rainys, Director of the National Cyber Security Center Lithuania, Neboja Joki, the Head of CERT of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, and Robert Kosla, Director of Department of Cybersecurity of the Ministry of the Digital Affairs of Poland, will share experiences and learnings on cybersecurity approaches.

International experience exchange will become the highlight of the event. Jnis Ziedi, Project Manager of Culture Information Systems Centre of Latvia, will share the experience of how the Ministry of Latvia is utilizing the national chatbot platform and offering cooperation to other governments on knowledge sharing and joint development. Masha Melkova, Microsoft Modern Workplace Lead for 24 countries in CEE, will illustrate the digital transformation of the Estonian government, one of the worlds best examples of e-government. Estonia started its digital transformation journey 20 years ago, starting from changing legislation and creating our first e-solutions. The idea is to make sure all public services involve as little bureaucracy as possible Melkova is underlining.

At the same time, when introducing new services, the government needs to upgrade employees skills to keep pace with changes. Governments that are investing in improving the skills of their employees are proved to be more resilient and future-ready. Dragana Jovi Tucakov, Microsoft Enterprise Marcom for 24 countries in CEE, will share useful resources that government entities can leverage already starting from now.

There is an excellent opportunity for governments and society to stay more connected than ever, despite the difficult times all of us have been going through. It is a time for learning from each other and sharing practices, experiences, and ideas. Microsoft stays committed to partnering with governments around the world and support based on local needs, bringing the best of the global practice.

Register now to join the first Microsoft Government Virtual Summit in CEE Multi-Country region, which is going to be delivered in English language. More information: https://info.microsoft.com/CE-DTGOV-WBNR-FY20-06Jun-16-GovernmentVirtualSummitCEEMultiCountryRegion-SRDEM25061_LP01Registration-ForminBody.html

Tags: Government, MultiCountry

View post:
What is Modern Government: Opinion leaders from CEE will discuss the new approach to public services at the Government Virtual Summit - Microsoft

In this bimonthly feature,HPCwirehighlights newly published research in the high-performance computing community and related domains. From parallel programming to exascale to quantum computing, the details are here.

Developing a performance model-based predictor for parallel applications on the cloud

As cloud computing becomes an increasingly viable alternative to on-premises HPC, researchers are turning their eyes to addressing latency and unreliability issues in cloud HPC environments. These researchers a duo from the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology and Benha University propose a predictor for the execution time of MPI-based cloud HPC applications, finding an 88% accuracy on ten benchmarks.

Authors: Abdallah Saad and Ahmed El-Mahdy.

Investigating portability, performance and maintenance tradeoffs in exascale systems

As the exascale era swiftly approaches, researchers are increasingly grappling with the difficult tradeoffs between major system priorities that will be demanded by such massive systems. These researchers a team from the University of Macedonia explore these tradeoffs through a case study measuring the effect of runtime optimizations on code maintainability.

Authors: Elvira-Maria Arvanitou, Apostolos Ampatzoglou, Nikolaos Nikolaidis, Aggeliki-Agathi Tzintzira, Areti Ampatzoglou and Alexander Chatzigeorgiou.

Moving toward a globally acknowledged HPC certification

Skillsets are incredibly important in the HPC world, but certification is far from uniform. This paper, written by a team from four universities in the UK and Germany, describes the HPC Certification Forum: an effort to categorize, define and examine competencies expected from proficient HPC practitioners. The authors describe the first two years of the community-led forum and outline plans for the first officially supported certificate in the second half of 2020.

Authors: Julian Kunkel, Weronika Filinger, Christian Meesters and Anja Gerbes.

Uncovering the hidden cityscape of ancient Hermione with HPC

In this paper, a team of researchers from the Digital Archaeology Laboratory at Lund University describe how they used a combination of HPC and integrated digital methods to uncover the ancient cityscape of Hermione, Greece. Using drones, laser scanning and modeling techniques, they fed their inputs into an HPC system, where they rendered a fully 3D representation of the citys landscape.

Authors: Giacomo Landeschi, Stefan Lindgren, Henrik Gerding, Alcestis Papadimitriou and Jenny Wallensten.

Examining thermal neutrons threat to supercomputers

Off-the-shelf devices are performant, efficient and cheap, making them popular choices for HPC and other compute-intensive fields. However, the cheap boron used in these devices makes them susceptible to thermal neutrons, which these authors (a team from Brazil, the UK and Los Alamos National Laboratory) contend pose a serious threat to those devices reliability. The authors examine RAM, GPUs, accelerators, an FPGA and more, tinkering with variables that affect the thermal neutron flux and measuring the threat posed by the neutrons under various conditions.

Authors: Daniel Oliveira, Sean Blanchard, Nathan DeBardeleben, Fernando Fernandes dos Santos, Gabriel Piscoya Dvila, Philippe Navaux, Andrea Favalli, Opale Schappert, Stephen Wender, Carlo Cazzaniga, Christopher Frost and Paolo Rech.

Deploying scientific AI networks at petaflop scale on HPC systems with containers

The computational demands of AI and ML systems are rapidly increasing in the scientific research sphere. These authors a duo from LRZ and CERN discuss the complications surrounding the deployment of ML frameworks on large-scale, secure HPC systems. They highlight a case study deployment of a convolutional neural network with petaflop performance on an HPC system.

Authors: David Brayford and Sofia Vallecorsa.

Running a high-performance simulation of a spiking neural network on GPUs

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) are the most commonly used computational model for neuroscience and neuromorphic computing, but simulations of SNNs on GPUs have imperfectly represented the networks, leading to performance and behavior shortfalls. These authors from Tsinghua University propose a series of technical approaches to more accurately representing SNNs on GPUs, including a code generation framework for high-performance simulations.

Authors: Peng Qu, Youhui Zhang, Xiang Fei and Weimin Zheng.

Do you know about research that should be included in next months list? If so, send us an email at[emailprotected]. We look forward to hearing from you.

Link:
What's New in HPC Research: Hermione, Thermal Neutrons, Certifications & More - HPCwire

Seeqc, the Digital Quantum Computing company, today announced its UK team has been selected to receive two British grants totaling 1.8 million from Innovate UKs Industrial Challenge Strategy Fund.

We are looking forward to applying our deep expertise in design, testing and manufacturing of quantum-ready superconductors, along with our resource-efficient approach to qubit control and readout to this collaborative development of quantum circuits.

Quantum Foundry

The first 800,000 grant from Innovate UK is part of a 7M project dedicated to advancing the commercialization of superconducting technology. Its goal is to bring quantum computing closer to business-applicable solutions, cost-efficiently and at scale.

Seeqc UK is joining six UK-based companies and universities in a consortium to collaborate on the initiative. This is the first concerted effort to bring all leading experts across industry and academia together to advance the development of quantum technologies in the UK.

Other grant recipients include Oxford Quantum Circuits, Oxford Instruments, Kelvin Nanotechnology, University of Glasgow and the Royal Holloway University of London.

Quantum Operating System

The second 1 million grant is part of a 7.6 million seven-organization consortium dedicated to advancing the commercialization of quantum computers in the UK by building a highly innovative quantum operating system. A quantum operating system, Deltaflow.OS, will be installed on all quantum computers in the UK in order to accelerate the commercialization and collaboration of the British quantum computing community. The universal operating system promises to greatly increase the performance and accessibility of quantum computers in the UK.

Seeqc UK is joined by other grant recipients, Riverlane, Hitachi Europe, Universal Quantum, Duality Quantum Photonics, Oxford Ionics, and Oxford Quantum Circuits, along with UK-based chip designer, ARM, and the National Physical Laboratory.

Advancing Digital Quantum Computing

Seeqc owns and operates a multi-layer superconductive electronics chip fabrication facility, which is among the most advanced in the world. The foundry serves as a testing and benchmarking facility for Seeqc and the global quantum community to deliver quantum technologies for specific use cases. This foundry and expertise will be critical to the success of the grants. Seeqcs Digital Quantum Computing solution is designed to manage and control qubits in quantum computers in a way that is cost-efficient and scalable for real-world business applications in industries such as pharmaceuticals, logistics and chemical manufacturing.

Seeqcs participation in these new industry-leading British grants accelerates our work in making quantum computing useful, commercially and at scale, said Dr. Matthew Hutchings, chief product officer and co-founder at Seeqc, Inc. We are looking forward to applying our deep expertise in design, testing and manufacturing of quantum-ready superconductors, along with our resource-efficient approach to qubit control and readout to this collaborative development of quantum circuits.

We strongly support the Deltaflow.OS initiative and believe Seeqc can provide a strong contribution to both consortiums work and advance quantum technologies from the lab and into the hands of businesses via ultra-focused and problem-specific quantum computers, continued Hutchings.

Seeqcs solution combines classical and quantum computing to form an all-digital architecture through a system-on-a-chip design that utilizes 10-40 GHz superconductive classical co-processing to address the efficiency, stability and cost issues endemic to quantum computing systems.

Seeqc is receiving the nearly $2.3 million in grant funding weeks after closing its $6.8 million seed round from investors including BlueYard Capital, Cambium, NewLab and the Partnership Fund for New York City. The recent funding round is in addition to a $5 million investment from M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

Read the original here:
Seeqc UK Awarded 1.8M In Grants To Advance Quantum Computing Initiatives - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

This announcement marks a new step in the partnership between Atos and CSC, which was initiated in 2018 with the signing of a contract for a supercomputer based on Atos' architecture.

Now with the Atos QLM30, CSC brings together users from academia and industry, in order to acquire skills and develop further expertise in the field of quantum computing. Atos QLM enables the advanced study of applications of quantum theory, thereby creating new technologies and solutions for a wide range of problems.

"Kvasi will bring a novel and interesting addition to CSCs computing environment. The quantum processor simulator enables learning and design of quantum algorithms, supported by an ambitious user program. All end-users of CSCs computing services will have access to Kvasi", says Dr. Pekka Manninen, Program Director, CSC.

The Atos QLM is a quantum simulation platform that consists of an accessible programming environment, optimization modules to adapt the code to targeted quantum hardware constraints, and simulators that allow users to test their algorithms and visualize their computation results. This allows for realistic simulation of existing and future quantum processing units, which suffer from quantum noise, quantum decoherence, and manufacturing biases. Performance bottlenecks can thus be identified and circumvented.

"We are proud to be recognized by CSC as a trusted partner and to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the competitiveness of the Finnish research and academic community. The Atos Quantum Learning Machine will allow researchers, engineers and students to develop and experiment with quantum software without having to wait for quantum machines to be available", says Harri Saikkonen, Managing Director, Atos in the Nordics.

Finland is at the forefront of quantum research. In 2016, Finnish and American researchers were the first in the world to observe and tie a quantum knot, using CSC computers to drive key simulations. In 2020, researchers from CSC, Aalto University and bo Akademi and their collaborators from Boston University, demonstrated for the first time how the noise impacts on quantum computing in a systematic way.

In November 2016, Atos launched an ambitious program to anticipate the future of quantum computing and to be prepared for the opportunities as well as the risks that come with it. As a result of this initiative, Atos was the first to successfully model quantum noise. To date, the company has installed Quantum Learning Machines in numerous countries including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, the United States and Japan empowering major research programs in various sectors, such as industry or energy.

Read this article:
Atos and CSC empower the Finnish quantum research community with Atos Quantum Learning Machine - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

In late October 2019, Google CEO Sundar Pichai likened the latest result from the companys quantum computing hardware lab in Santa Barbara, California, to the Wright brothers first flight.

One of the labs prototype processors had achieved quantum supremacyevocative jargon for the moment a quantum computer harnesses quantum mechanics to do something seemingly impossible for a conventional computer. In a blog post, Pichai said the milestone affirmed his belief that quantum computers might one day tackle problems like climate change, and the CEO also name-checked John Martinis, who had established Googles quantum hardware group in 2014.

Heres what Pichai didnt mention: Soon after the team had first got its quantum supremacy experiment working a few months earlier, Martinis says, he had been reassigned from a leadership position to an advisory one. Martinis tells WIRED that the change led to disagreements with Hartmut Neven, the longtime leader of Googles quantum project.

Martinis resigned from Google early this month. Since my professional goal is for someone to build a quantum computer, I think my resignation is the best course of action for everyone, he adds.

A Google spokesman did not dispute this account, and says that the company is grateful for Martinis contributions and that Neven continues to head the companys quantum project. Parent company Alphabet has a second, smaller, quantum computing group at its X Labs research unit. Martinis retains his position as a professor at the UC Santa Barbara, which he held throughout his tenure at Google, and says he will continue to work on quantum computing.

Googles quantum computing project was founded by Neven, who pioneered Googles image search technology, in 2006, and initially focused on software. To start, the small group accessed quantum hardware from Canadian startup D-Wave Systems, including in collaboration with NASA.

Everything you ever wanted to know about qubits, superpositioning, and spooky action at a distance.

The project took on greater scale and ambition when Martinis joined in 2014 to establish Googles quantum hardware lab in Santa Barbara, bringing along several members of his university research group. His nearby lab at UC Santa Barbara had produced some of the most prominent work in the field over the past 20 years, helping to demonstrate the potential of using superconducting circuits to build qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers.

Qubits are analogous to the bits of a conventional computer, but in addition to representing 1s and 0s, they can use quantum mechanical effects to attain a third state, dubbed a superposition, something like a combination of both. Qubits in superposition can work through some very complex problems, such as modeling the interactions of atoms and molecules, much more efficiently than conventional computer hardware.

How useful that is depends on the number and reliability of qubits in your quantum computing processor. So far the best demonstrations have used only tens of qubits, a far cry from the hundreds or thousands of high quality qubits experts believe will be needed to do useful work in chemistry or other fields. Googles supremacy experiment used 53 qubits working together. They took minutes to crunch through a carefully chosen math problem the company calculated would take a supercomputer on the order of 10,000 years, but does not have a practical application.

Martinis leaves Google as the company and rivals that are working on quantum computing face crucial questions about the technologys path. Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft, as well as Google offer their prototype technology to companies such as Daimler and JP Morgan so they can run experiments. But those processors are not large enough to work on practical problems, and it is not clear how quickly they can be scaled up.

When WIRED visited Googles quantum hardware lab in Santa Barbara last fall, Martinis responded optimistically when asked if his hardware team could see a path to making the technology practical. I feel we know how to scale up to hundreds and maybe thousands of qubits, he said at the time. Google will now have to do it without him.

More Great WIRED Stories

Continue reading here:
Google's Head of Quantum Computing Hardware Resigns - WIRED

In the 1960s the U.S. government funded a series of experiments developing techniques to shuttle information from one computer to another. Devices in single labs sprouted connections, then neighboring labs linked up. Soon the network had blossomed between research institutions across the country, setting down the roots of what would become the internet and transforming forever how people use information. Now, 60 years later, the Department of Energy is aiming to do it again.

The Trump administration's 2021 budget request currently under consideration by Congress proposes slashing the overall funding for scientific research by nearly 10% but boosts spending on quantum information science by about 20%, to $237 million. Of that, the DOE has requested $25 million to accelerate the development of a quantum internet. Such a network would leverage the counterintuitive behavior of nature's particles to manipulate and share information in entirely new ways, with the potential to reinvent fields including cybersecurity and material science.

Whilethetraditional internet for general useisn't going anywhere, a quantum networkwouldoffer decisive advantages for certain applications: Researchers could use it to develop drugs and materials by simulating atomic behavior onnetworked quantum computers, for instance, and financial institutions and governments would benefit from next-level cybersecurity. Many countries are pursuing quantum research programs, and with the 2021 budget proposal, the Trumpadministration seeks to ramp up thateffort.

"That level of funding will enable us to begin to develop the groundwork for sophisticated, practical and high-impact quantum networks," says David Awschalom, a quantum engineer at the University of Chicago. "It's significant and extremely important."

A quantum internet will develop in fits and starts, much like the traditional internet did and continues to do. China has already realized an early application, quantum encryption, between certain cities, but fully quantum networks spanning entire countries will take decades, experts say. Building it willrequire re-engineering the quantum equivalent of routers, hard drives, and computers from the ground up foundational work already under way today.

Where the modern internet traffics in bits streaming between classical computers (a category that now includes smart phones, tablets, speakers and thermostats), a quantum internet would carry a fundamentally different unit of information known as the quantum bit, or qubit.

Bits all boil down to instances of nature's simplest eventsquestions with yes or no answers. Computer chips process cat videos by stopping some electric currents while letting others flow. Hard drives store documents by locking magnets in either the up or down position.

Qubits represent a different language altogether, one based on the behavior of atoms, electrons, and other particles, objects governed by the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics. These objects lead more fluid and uncertain lives than their strait-laced counterparts in classical computing. A hard drive magnet must always point up or down, for instance, but an electron's direction is unknowable until measured. More precisely, the electron behaves in such a way that describing its orientation requires a more complex concept known as superposition that goes beyond the straightforward labels of "up" or "down."

Quantum particles can also be yoked together in a relationship called entanglement, such as when two photons (light particles) shine from the same source. Pairs of entangled particles share an intimate bond akin to the relationship between the two faces of a coin when one face shows heads the other displays tails. Unlike a coin, however, entangled particles can travel far from each other and maintain their connection.

Quantum information science unites these and other phenomena, promising a novel, richer way to process information analogous to moving from 2-D to 3-D graphics, or learning to calculate with decimals instead of just whole numbers. Quantum devices fluent in nature's native tongue could, for instance, supercharge scientists' ability to design materials and drugs by emulating new atomic structures without having to test their properties in the lab. Entanglement, a delicate link destroyed by external tampering, could guarantee that connections between devices remain private.

But such miracles remain years to decades away. Both superposition and entanglement are fragile states most easily maintained at frigid temperatures in machines kept perfectly isolated from the chaos of the outside world. And as quantum computer scientists search for ways to extend their control over greater numbers of finicky particles, quantum internet researchers are developing the technologies required to link those collections of particles together.

The interior of a quantum computer prototype developed by IBM. While various groups race to build quantum computers, Department of Energy researchers seek ways to link them together.

IBM

Just as it did in the 1960s, the DOE is again sowing the seeds for a future network at its national labs. Beneath the suburbs of western Chicago lie 52 miles of optical fiber extending in two loops from Argonne National Laboratory. Early this year, Awschalom oversaw the system's first successful experiments. "We created entangled states of light," he says, "and tried to use that as a vehicle to test how entanglement works in the real world not in a lab going underneath the tollways of Illinois."

Daily temperature swings cause the wires to shrink by dozens of feet, for instance, requiring careful adjustment in the timing of the pulses to compensate. This summer the team plans to extend their network with another node, bringing the neighboring Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory into the quantum fold.

Similar experiments are under way on the East Coast, too, where researchers have sent entangled photons over fiber-optic cables connecting Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York with Stony Brook University, a distance of about 11 miles. Brookhaven scientists are also testing the wireless transmission of entangled photons over a similar distance through the air. While this technique requires fair weather, according to Kerstin Kleese van Dam, the director of Brookhaven's computational science initiative, it could someday complement networks of fiber-optic cables. "We just want to keep our options open," she says.

Such sending and receiving of entangled photons represent the equivalent of quantum routers, but next researchers need a quantum hard drive a way to save the information they're exchanging. "What we're on the cusp of doing," Kleese van Dam says, "is entangled memories over miles."

When photons carry information in from the network, quantum memory will store those qubits in the form of entangled atoms, much as current hard drives use flipped magnets to hold bits. Awschalom expects the Argonne and University of Chicago groups to have working quantum memories this summer, around the same time they expand their network to Fermilab, at which point it will span 100 miles.

But that's about as far as light can travel before growing too dim to read. Before they can grow their networks any larger, researchers will need to invent a quantum repeater a device that boosts an atrophied signal for another 100-mile journey. Classical internet repeaters just copy the information and send out a new pulse of light, but that process breaks entanglement (a feature that makes quantum communications secure from eavesdroppers). Instead, Awschalom says, researchers have come up with a scheme to amplify the quantum signal by shuffling it into other forms without ever reading it directly. "We have some prototype quantum repeaters currently running. They're not good enough," he says, "but we're learning a lot."

Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science Paul M. Dabbar (left) sends a pair of entangled photons along the quantum loop. Also shown are Argonne scientist David Awschalom (center) and Argonne Laboratory Director Paul Kearns.

Argonne National Laboratory

And if Congress approves the quantum information science line in the 2021 budget, researchers like Awschalom and Kleese van Dam will learn a lot more. Additional funding for their experiments could lay the foundations for someday extending their local links into a country-wide network. "There's a long-term vision to connect all the national labs, coast to coast," says Paul Dabbar, the DOE's Under Secretary for Science.

In some senses the U.S. trails other countries in quantum networking. China, for example, has completed a 1,200-mile backbone linking Beijing and Shanghai that banks and other companies are already using for nearly perfectly secure encryption. But the race for a fully featured quantum internet is more marathon than sprint, and China has passed only the first milestone. Kleese van Dam points out that without quantum repeaters, this network relies on a few dozen "trusted" nodes Achilles' heels that temporarily put the quantum magic on pause while the qubits are shoved through bit-based bottlenecks. She's holding out for truly secure end-to-end communication. "What we're planning to do goes way beyond what China is doing," she says.

More from Tech Drivers:With America at home, Facebook, Google make moves to win more of gaming marketThe 87-year-old doctor who invented the rubella vaccine now working to fight the coronavirus

Researchers ultimately envision a whole quantum ecosystem of computers, memories, and repeaters all speaking the same language of superposition and entanglement, with nary a bit in sight. "It's like a big stew where everything has to be kept quantum mechanical," Awschalom says. "You don't want to go to the classical world at all."

After immediate applications such as unbreakable encryptions, he speculates that such a network could also lead to seismic sensors capable of logging the vibration of the planet at the atomic level, but says that the biggest consequences will likely be the ones no one sees coming. He compares the current state of the field to when electrical engineers developed the first transistors and initially used them to improve hearing aids, completely unaware that they were setting off down a path that would someday bring social media and video conferencing.

As researchers at Brookhaven, Argonne, and many other institutions tinker with the quantum equivalent of transistors, but they can't help but wonder what the quantum analog of video chat will be. "It's clear there's a lot of promise. It's going to move quickly," Awschalom says. "But the most exciting part is that we don't know exactly where it's going to go."

See the original post:
Trump betting millions to lay the groundwork for quantum internet in the US - CNBC

This partnership is an opportunity to leverage a unique industrial and technological expertise for the design, integration and validation of advanced quantum solutions that has been applied for more than a decade to quantum gravimeters and atomic clocks. It will speed up the development of Pasqals processors and will bring them to an unprecedented maturity level.

Muquans will supply several key technological building blocks and a technical assistance to Pasqal, that will offer an advanced computing and simulation capability towards quantum advantage for real life applications.

We have the strong belief that the neutral atoms technology developed by Pasqal has a unique potential and this agreement is a wonderful opportunity for Muquans to participate on the great adventure of quantum computing. It will also help us find new opportunities for our technologies. We expect this activity to significantly grow in the coming years and this partnership will allow us to become a key stakeholder in the supply chain of quantum computers., Bruno Desruelle, CEO Muquans

Muquans laser solutions combine extreme performance, advanced functionalities and industrial reliability. When you develop the next generation of quantum computers, you need to rely on strong bases and build trust with your partners. Being able to embed this technology in our processors will be a key factor for our company to consolidate our competitive advantage and bring quantum processors to the market., Georges-Olivier Reymond, CEO Pasqal

Here is the original post:
Muquans and Pasqal partner to advance quantum computing - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

In the most recent episode of his YouTube series Science vs. Cinema, UC Santa Barbara physicist Andy Howell takes on Star Trek: Picard, exploring how the CBS offerings presentation of supernovae and quantum computing stack up against real world science.

For Howell, the series that reviews the scientific accuracy and portrayal of scientists in Hollywoods top sci-fi films is as much an excuse to dive into exciting scientific concepts and cutting edge research.

Science fiction writers are fond of grappling with deep philosophical questions, he said. I was really excited to see that UCSB researchers were thinking about some of the same things in a more grounded way.

For the Star Trek episode, Howell spoke with series creators Alex Kurtzman and Michael Chabon, as well as a number of cast members, including Patrick Stewart. Joining him to discuss quantum science and consciousness were John Martinis a quantum expert at UC Santa Barbara and chief scientist of the Google quantum computing hardware group and fellow UCSB Physics professor Matthew Fisher. Fishers group is studying whether quantum mechanics plays a role in the brain, a topic taken up in the new Star Trek series.

Howell also talked supernovae and viticulture with friend and colleague Brian Schmidt, vice- chancellor of the Australian National University. Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for helping to discover that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

"We started Science vs. Cinema to use movies as a jumping-off point to talk science Howell said. Star Trek Picard seemed like the perfect fit. Star Trek has a huge cultural impact and was even one of the things that made me want to study astronomy.

Previous episodes of Science vs. Cinema have separated fact from fiction in films such as Star Wars, The Current War, Ad Astra, Arrival and The Martian. The success of prior episodes enabled Howell to get early access to the show and interview the cast and crew.

"What most people think about scientific subjects probably isn't what they learned in a university class, but what they saw in a movie, Howell remarked. That makes movies an ideal springboard for introducing scientific concepts. And while I can only reach dozens of students at a time in a classroom, I can reach millions on TV or the internet.

Read the original post:
Science of Star Trek - The UCSB Current

RALEIGH IBM is scheduled to announced its latest quarterly earnings today after the markets close and a big question to be answered is: Will Raleigh-based Red Hat deliver another bottom-line boost even in the times of the COVID-19 crisis?

Last quarter which occurred as IBM (NYSE: IBM) was closing on the $34 billion acquistion of Red Hat the Hatters sales helped since its own sales surged 24 percent and cloud sales climbed 21 percent.

Wall Street financial firm Zacks Research notes that new CEO Arvind Krishna he took over April 6 is putting more emphasis on cloud as well as emerging tech sectors such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. (IBM works closely with NC State on quantum research.)

IBMs new CEO spells out priorities, especially cloud, and makes exec changes as he takes over

Last quarter, IBM surprised Wall Street with Q4 revenue growth, after five straight periods of declining sales. More specifically, Red Hat revenue jumped 24%, with total cloud revenue up 21%. Despite this solid expansion from vital growth units, IBMs overall quarterly sales only climbed 0.1%, Zacks reports.

And the coronavirus could hurt sales since it emerged as a pandemic.

Our Zacks estimates call for IBMs Q1 sales to slip 1.2% from the year-ago period to $17.97 billion, Zacks says.

Meanwhile, its adjusted quarterly earnings are projected to fall by 24.4% to hit $1.70 a share. Peeking ahead, IBMs adjusted fiscal 2020 EPS figure is expected to slip 4.8%, on 2.6% lower revenue.

On top of that, the historic tech giants consensus Q1 earnings estimate has slipped nearly 13% in the last 60 days.

IBM employs thousands of people across North Carolina, including Red Hat and one of Big Blues largest corporate campuses in RTP.

Read more online.

Red Hat names longtime exec Paul Cormier as CEO, replacing Jim Whitehurst

See the article here:
Can Red Hat give IBM another boost in earnings? We'll find out soon - WRAL Tech Wire

The pace at which technology is evolving in this 21st century is mind-blowing. It could be a herculean task catching up with all the trends as they seem to be evolving at lightspeed. Especially for those who just newly started getting interested into those subjects.

Among top technologies that have gained huge attention and recognition in the past and present decade; Blockchain, AI, Quantum and 5G technologies seem to be erupting in a more disruptive manner. Today Ive decided to take an in-depth look at each of these technologies.

The technologies are leading the way for industry 4.0. They are attempting to bridge the gap between work inefficiencies and bloated workforce, and ultimately making life easier for everyone. It provides industries with the needed competitive edge.

These cutting-edge technologies are what is needed to streamline work processes, create unimaginable synergies and solve real-time problems. This is true to the extent at which you are able to leverage these technologies to build your businesses or use these technologies in your day to day business. Most beneficially they surely will be used in big industries and the government sector. Probably to a point where these technologies can start to become scary and shall not be tolerated, but that is another subject to separately write about.

The uniqueness of these technologies is that they enact on data in different ways, the possibilities are endless when two or more of these technologies are combined.

Many people think about blockchain technology with regard to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Blockchain, however, has found increasing use-cases across various industries. It has seen wide range applications across most industries where security and privacy are of utmost importance, thanks to blockchain immutability and tamper-proof ledger.

The positive impact of blockchain has been felt in almost all spheres of human endeavors. Even though blockchain is more pronounced in the financial and service payment sector, its impact, however, is fast rising in other sectors such as healthcare, supply chain, security, politics, real estate, legal industry, education, etc.

Blockchain is the most innovative technology of the present decade because of its promise of financial bureaucracy. Blockchain transparency has the potential of reducing the degree of fraudulent practices, data reveals that banks and other financial institutions lose close to $4 trillion to cyber-theft every year. Blockchain has the potentials to put an end to this.

Blockchain-related jobs have also been identified as the second-fastest growing category of jobs, with over 14 job openings for every one blockchain developer. Picking up a career in this sector looks very lucrative. It was estimated that global business value will rise to $3.1 trillion in 2030 as a result of the implementation of blockchain technology.

Businesses that fail to embrace this technology might stand the risk of becoming redundant. Using blockchain can have just unlimited scenarios and advantages if applied right, the most important problem which a blockchain can solve is the issue of trust.

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of a human-like intelligence through computer systems. Usually, these computer systems are programmed in a way to mimic human-like actions. Due to the complex nature of human activities, the simulation process is nevertheless complicated as well.

Since the AI technology came to limelight, it has been breaking new grounds in almost all areas of human endeavors. A lot of speculations have it that AI will seize a larger part of the workforce, help entrepreneurs cut costs, and automate business processes. In some big industries AI is already fully operating and making its limited, but super accurate decisions.

Recent AI developments have contributed to major advancements in the world of medicine. In medicine, Artificial intelligence will be able to improve cancer diagnosis and prevent around 22,000 deaths a year by 2033.

In business, AI is aiding managers in business analytics and faster decision making. AI is also touching base with the professional and corporate workforce through the automation of business processes.

PwC predicts that by 2030 AI will rake in about $15.7 trillion to the world economy, causing world GDP to shoot up by 14%. It will achieve these feet by ultimately improving business processes, cutting down cost and increasing work efficiency. Canadian Genius Entrepreneur Geordie Rose who is the founder of Kindred AI believes that by 2030 AI will be more intelligent than all of us humans. He goes that far that he says that a super-smart AI can be seen like another entity, like a kind of a digital species or in his words like a super-intelligent Alien. A very informative Youtube Video where Geordie talks to students in a Vancouver university with the target of recruiting some geniuses.

A 4G enabled-device will let you download a 2-hour video in 3 minutes, with a 5G device, you will do the same in just 3 seconds. However, this technology is not just about downloading movies.

When 5G rolls out more widely in the coming years, it will accelerate the production of more sophisticated applications to address problems and improve industry-wide innovations. This technology is poised to provide wireless communication at the speed and latency required for complex applications in IoT devices.

When globally implemented, 5G can enable emerging markets to reach the same pace of operation as their already established counterparts. Service providers creating 5G-based solutions for business-specific applications will then have valuable advantage early-adoption.

Telecom networks such as Qualcomm, Huawei, AT&T, Verizon, and Nokia are competing on who will lead the pace of 5G development.

There are lot of conspiracies with health issues about 5G and recently seen videos of people damaging the 5G Antennas.

Quantum technology encompasses far more than just quantum computing, this is going to become the next wave of superfast personal and commercial computers.

Nonetheless, the broader category of quantum innovations exploits the strange behavior of small particles for a wide range of applications, including navigation aids, advanced imaging technology, and extremely accurate timing systems.

This technology has also found increased applications in communication, cryptography, sensors, and measurement instruments. Businesses within this space will be looking at adopting quantum technology to transform the way they enact on objects.

IBM explains in this wonderful 4-minute video what exactly the difference is between the normal ways of binary computing and the advanced way of computing with qubits and how they exactly work to solve a calculation.

2020 Looks Promising

The pace of the emergence of new technologies is leading the 21st-century innovation and creating myriad opportunities for businesses to expand and enhance service delivery at the ideal time. These four technologies are certainly taking the lead in providing endless benefits both in the short and the long run. Watch out, keep researching and stay tuned.

Matthias Mende

See the article here:
Top 4 Emerging Technologies Of The Past And Present Decade To Know About - Thrive Global

1qb Information Technologies

Quantum Computing Market: Competitive Landscape

The last chapter of the Quantum Computing market research report focuses exclusively on the competitive landscape. It examines the main market players. In addition to a brief overview of the business, analysts provide information on their assessment and development. The list of important products in preparation is also mentioned. The competitive landscape is analyzed by understanding the companies strategies and the initiatives they have taken in recent years to overcome intense competition.

Quantum Computing Market: Drivers and Restraints

The report explains the drivers of the future of the Quantum Computing market. It assesses the different forces which should have a positive impact on the whole market. Analysts have looked at investments in research and development for products and technologies, which should give players a significant boost. In addition, the researchers undertook an analysis of the evolution of consumer behavior which should have an impact on the cycles of supply and demand in the Quantum Computing market. In this research report, changes in per capita income, improvement in the economic situation and emerging trends were examined.

The research report also explains the potential restrictions on the Quantum Computing market. The aspects assessed are likely to hamper market growth in the near future. In addition to this assessment, it offers a list of opportunities that could prove lucrative for the entire market. Analysts offer solutions to turn threats and restrictions into successful opportunities in the years to come.

Quantum Computing Market: Regional Segmentation

In the following chapters, analysts have examined the regional segments of the Quantum Computing market. This gives readers a deeper insight into the global market and allows for a closer look at the elements that could determine its evolution. Countless regional aspects, such as the effects of culture, environment and government policies, which affect regional markets are highlighted.

Ask for Discount @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/ask-for-discount/?rid=24845&utm_source=COD&utm_medium=007

What will the report contain?

Market Dynamics: The report contains important information on influencing factors, market drivers, challenges, opportunities and market trends as part of the market dynamics.

Global Market Forecast: Readers receive production and sales forecasts for the Quantum Computing market, production and consumption forecasts for regional markets, production, sales and price forecasts for the Quantum Computing market by type and consumption forecasts for the Quantum Computing market per application.

Regional Market Analysis: It can be divided into two different sections: one for the analysis of regional production and one for the analysis of regional consumption. Here, analysts share gross margin, prices, sales, production, CAGR, and other factors that indicate the growth of all regional markets examined in the report.

Market Competition: In this section, the report provides information on the situation and trends of competition, including mergers and acquisitions and expansion, the market shares of the three or five main players and the concentration of the market. Readers could also get the production, revenue, and average price shares of manufacturers.

Key Players: The report provides company profiles for a decent number of leading players in the Quantum Computing market. It shows your current and future market growth taking into account price, gross margin, income, production, service areas, production locations and other factors.

Complete Report is Available @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/Quantum-Computing-Market/?utm_source=COD&utm_medium=007

We also offer customization on reports based on specific client requirement:

1- Free country level analysis for any 5 countries of your choice.

2- Free Competitive analysis of any market players.

3- Free 40 analyst hours to cover any other data points

About us:

Verified market research partners with the customer and offer an insight into strategic and growth analyzes, Data necessary to achieve corporate goals and objectives. Our core values are trust, integrity and authenticity for our customers.

Analysts with a high level of expertise in data collection and governance use industrial techniques to collect and analyze data in all phases. Our analysts are trained to combine modern data collection techniques, superior research methodology, expertise and years of collective experience to produce informative and accurate research reports.

Contact us:

Mr. Edwyne FernandesCall: +1 (650) 781 4080Email: [emailprotected]

Get Our Trending Report

https://www.marketresearchblogs.com/Soy-Desserts-market-size-growth-analysis-opportunities-business-outlook-and-forecast-to-2026/

Tags: Quantum Computing Market Size, Quantum Computing Market Trends, Quantum Computing Market Forecast, Quantum Computing Market Growth, Quantum Computing Market Analysis

The rest is here:
Quantum Computing Market 2020 Break Down by Top Companies, Applications, Challenges, Opportunities and Forecast 2026 Cole Reports - Cole of Duty

The Pentagons Defense Innovation Unit is looking to the private sector to develop space-based quantum sensing prototypes within two years the kind of sensors that could contribute to a space-based quantum internet.

Highlights:

Quantum technologies will render all previously existing stealth, encryption, and communications technologies obsolete, so naturally the Pentagon wants to develop quantum technologies as a matter of national security.

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has opened a solicitation to evaluate commercial solutions that utilize demonstrable quantum technology to achieve significant performance improvements for aerospace and other novel applications to include, but not limited to, inertial sensing, timing and gravimetry.

The DIU wants a prototype within 24 months that consists of acompact, high-performance quantum sensor for precision inertial measurement in deep space and other GPS-denied environments.

There are a lot of technical concepts that go into this technology, but for simplicitys sake, the DIU is looking for quantum sensing technology that can perform accurate measurements by overcoming the effects of gravity on time and space.

While the DIU did not go into any specifics about what the quantum sensing technology would actually be used for, we may gleam some ideas from what the military has already been researching specifically improved communications, precision navigation, and precision timing.

For example, the Air Force Research Laboratory has been investigating a variety of quantum-based sensors to create secure, jam-resistant alternatives to GPS, according to National Defense Magazine.

And because quantum sensors can detect radar signatures and beyond, they may be used by the military tobypass just about any stealth technology.

Other potential applications could include Earth defense mechanisms that could detect, prevent, or respond to missile attacks, asteroids, and comets, as well as keeping track of satellites and space debris that whiz around Earths orbit.

Additionally, a network of quantum technologies could offer the military security, sensing and timekeeping capabilities not possible with traditional networking approaches, according to the US Army Research Laboratory.

If we take the idea of quantum sensors a step further and into the realm of quantum sensing networks, then we are looking at one component of a quantum internet, when combined with quantum computing.

A quantum internet will be the platform of a quantum ecosystem, where computers, networks, and sensors exchange information in a fundamentally new manner where sensing, communication, and computing literally work together as one entity, Argonne Laboratory senior scientistDavid Awschalom told How Stuff Works.

The notion of a space-based quantum internet using satellite constellations is becoming even more enticing, as evidenced in the joint research paper, Spooky Action at a Global Distance Resource-Rate Analysis of a Space-Based Entanglement-Distribution Network for the Quantum Internet.

According to the scientists, Recent experimental breakthroughs in satellite quantum communications have opened up the possibility of creating a global quantum internet using satellite links, and, This approach appears to be particularly viable in the near term.

The paper seems to describe quantum technologies that are nearly identical to the ones the DIU is looking to build.

Aquantum internet would allow for the execution of other quantum-information-processing tasks, such as quantum teleportation, quantum clock synchronization, distributed quantum computation, and distributedquantum metrology and sensing, it reads.

SpaceX is already building a space-based internet through its Starlink program. Starlink looks to have 12,000 satellites orbiting the earth in a constellation that will beam high-speed internet to even the most remote parts of the planet.

The company led by Elon Musk has already launched some 360 satellites as part of the Starlink constellation.

All the news reports say that Starlink will provide either high-speed or broadband internet, and there are no mentions of SpaceX building a quantum internet, but the idea is an intriguing one.

SpaceX is already working with the Pentagon, the Air Force, NASA, and other government and defense entities.

In 2018, SpaceX won a $28.7 million fixed-price contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory for experiments in data connectivity involving ground sites, aircraft and space assets a project that could give a boost to the companys Starlink broadband satellite service, according to GeekWire.

Lets recap:

By the looks of it, the DIUs space-based quantum sensing prototypes could very well be components of a space-based quantum internet.

However, there has been no announcement from SpaceX saying that Starlink will be beaming down a quantum internet.

At any rate, well soon be looking at high-speed, broadband internet from above in the near future, quantum or otherwise.

Quantum computing: collaboration with the multiverse?

US Energy Dept lays foundation for quantum internet, funds $625M to establish quantum research centers over 5 years

See the rest here:
Pentagon wants commercial, space-based quantum sensors within 2 years - The Sociable

Were four weeks into the massive time-out forced on us by coronavirus. Many of us have spent much of that time trying to get used to the radical lifestyle change the virus has brought. But were also beginning to think about the end of the crisis, and what the world will look like afterward.

So its a good time to round up some opinions about how the pandemic might change how we think about various aspects of life and work. We asked some executives, venture capitalists, and analysts for thoughts on the specific changes they expected to see in their worlds.

Naturally, many of them tended to see the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis in optimistic terms, at least when it comes to their own products, ideas, and causes. And at least some of them are probably right. But the general themes in their comments add up to preview of what might be ahead for tech companies and consumers once the virus is no longer the biggest news story in the world.

The responses below have been edited for publication.

Matthew Prince, CEO of CloudflareThe pandemic has resulted in what is effectively the largest work from home experiment ever conducted in human history . . . Were seeing the effect on the internet, in terms of traffic patterns that are shifting. People are accessing more educational resources online for their kids; finding unconventional ways to connect with coworkers, friends, and family; and employers are being more flexible in how they respond to employee needs through more dynamic, cloud-based technology. I think well see these shifts last well beyond the immediate fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Jared Spataro, corporate vice president, Microsoft 365This time will go down as a turning point for the way people work and learn. We have a time machine as China navigates its return back to workand were not seeing usage of Microsoft Teams dip. People are carrying what they learned and experienced from remote work back to their new normal. Were learning so much about sustained remote work during this time.

Remote hiring of technical talent will become the norm.

Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at Creative StrategiesWe talked to CIOs recently, and they told us that they are becoming more comfortable with at least some of their staff working from home. Two CIOs even quantified it by saying they might consider letting as much as 25% of their staff work from home. That would mean less people in the office, and in turn, possibly less demand for office space. I believe that this could signal the death of open space work environments. The experience with COVID-19 will for years make people more aware of working in shoulder-to-shoulder open offices where it is easy for viruses to spread.

Eva Chen, CEO at Trend MicroThe COVID-19 experience will . . . build our courage to adopt new patterns to fix antiquated processes. As a result, organizations will ditch the notion of having a big office and revert back to a small-town model of working in cluster offices with more remote work. Even more so, company headquarters will be located in the cloud, shifting how we protect enterprise data in the virtual cloud and how we secure data from more diverse endpoints.

Sampriti Ganguli, CEO of the social venture firm Arabella AdvisorsWe are . . . all becoming BBC Man, meaning our kids and dogs routinely rush our meetings. Weve probably crossed the chasm between what is acceptable in the office and what is acceptable at home, and in many ways, these more intimate moments allow us to have deeper and more meaningful connections as humans. I dont think were going back to a world of working mostly from offices anytime soon, and as such, there are new business norms that work for home and work.

Steve Case, cofounder AOL, CEO and chairman of Revolution[We] believe the COVID-19 pandemic will encourage peopleentrepreneurs, investors, and employeesto consider opportunities outside of the coastal tech hubs. People who have been considering a move, to tap into the sector expertise (healthcare, food and agriculture, etc.) that exists in many parts of the country, or for a lifestyle change, or to be near family and friends, may choose this moment to relocate, accelerating a talent boomerang, and helping emerging startup cities rise. On top of that, the increased willingness to accept remote working as a viable arrangement following this prolonged work-from-home period will further propel this trend.

Vivek Ravisankar, CEO and cofounder of programming-challenge platform HackerRankRemote hiring of technical talent will become the norm, accelerated by the normalization of remote work. This is a win-win for the economy and the talent pool, as it allows companies to fill positions quickly with qualified talent and opens up high-paying tech positions to developers everywhere. We were already seeing the shift toward prioritizing skills over pedigree in hiring. That will now evolve to skills over geography, making our tech talent pool more diverse, and our businesses and economy stronger.

AJ Shankar, CEO and cofounder of EverlawIn the modern work environment, real-time communication mediums like chat allow for a certain blurring of the line between personal life and work life, an always-on mentality. But now, in a COVID world, that line has never been more blurred: There is no physical separation at all. So I predict that expectations around availability will changefor the better. For employee-friendly companies, evening hours will ultimately revert to family or personal time, as they should. This wont happen automatically; a change in mindset and process is required.

Stan Chudnovsky, VP of Messenger, FacebookIts becoming more clear every day that the way people are using technology to spend quality time with loved ones, engage with businesses, and perform their jobs is fundamentally shifting to a new normal. Loved ones who hadnt seen each other in years are now seeing each other daily, people are getting creative with virtual happy hours and keeping up with their formerly physical lives with shared workouts and virtual birthday parties on products like Messenger. Of course, there will be some tough consequences when we come out the other side of this, but I believe the growing acceptance of technology to help us feel connected will have lasting benefits.

Michael Hendrix, partner and global design director, IdeoRight now, the virus seems like an accelerator for digital change that was already underway . . . the surprise has been to see the resistance to this digital change suddenly evaporate. What organizations resisted for a decade is now core to survival and innovation. It is exciting, because this digital mindset will persist, and it is highly unlikely companies will try to return to what worked prior to the pandemic.

We could get to a state of nearly universal online access at home.

Alex Farr, founder and CEO of voice tech company ZammoUsing videoconferencing is not only going to become a more common part of life due to this pandemicthe way it shows up through our tech devices will multiply. At work and at home, well ask voice assistants to call our client, our boss, our mom, our friends, and on command, Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, etc., will take us right to those live video conversations.

Will Cathcart, head of WhatsAppAs people have been forced physically apart weve seen them make far more video calls on WhatsApp than ever before. These are intimate and private conversations that people expect no one else should seeno different than if you were talking in person. Not criminals, not hackers, not even a company. I believe that our shared experience of being physically isolated from one another will cause us to appreciate and value the privacy and security that comes with end-to-end encryption even more than we did before.

Simon Allen, CEO of McGraw-HillThe change we are seeing right now in education is not something that is likely to revert back to normal in the fall. Although teachers will always be integral to the education process, there will need to be continued flexibility and agility when it comes to things like the delivery of content, testing, and grading. I expect that we will see an increase in blended learning environments that include learning in both the physical classroom setting and online.

Adam Enbar, CEO of Flatiron SchoolRight now, educators are relying on Zoom and Slack to teach and engage with students. Were realizing its falling short in replicating the classroom experience, but the truth is that it was never meant to be a substitute. In fact, no ed-tech tool or platform can or should replicate the in-person classroom; techs role is to create new experiences altogether. Nothing spurs innovation like people experiencing problems. When things are back to normal, Zoom and Slack usage will go downand thats okay. Instead, well see a boom in technology that is built by entrepreneurs looking to create entirely new experiences custom to the remote education or work experience.

Sal Khan, founder and CEO of educational nonprofit Khan AcademyThe need for online access and devices in every home is now so dire that it may finally mobilize society to treat internet connectivity as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have. Were already seeing governments, school districts, philanthropists, and corporations step up to close the digital divide. If this continues to happen, we could get to a state of nearly universal online access at home.

Dr. Claire Novorol, cofounder and chief medical officer, Ada HealthThe adoption of digital health toolsfrom assessment services to telemedicinehas rapidly accelerated, with healthcare organizations across the world looking to digital solutions to support their efforts against the pandemic, and health tech companies keen to rise to the occasion in support of healthcare payers, providers and patients alike. Its clear that we are witnessing a step-change in the adoption of digital health solutions, and that this has long-term potential. The healthcare industry will be greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and we can expect digital health technologies to form an essential part of the way forward.

Pat Combes, worldwide technical leader, healthcare and life sciences at AWSThe biggest barrier to ensuring doctors have the most complete medical history on any patient, at every point of their care, is the lack of interoperability among systems, preventing data and electronic health records from following a patient throughout their care journey. Bringing this information together is a manual and time-consuming process. But, this is one of those pivotal moments in time when we have an opportunity to identify and work to fix the underlying problems that plague our system, with so many researchers, health systems, governments, and enterprises pooling efforts and data to better understand and combat COVID-19.

Ara Katz, cofounder and co-CEO, Seed HealthAt a time when misinformation is especially rampant, and in many recent cases, dangerous, it is imperative that those working in science collectively steward and uphold a standard for how information is translated and shared to the public. COVID-19 is a reminder of how science informs decisions, shapes policy, and can save lives. The antidote to this current infodemic may be as important to our collective future as a vaccine.

Harry Ritter, founder and CEO of wellness professional community AlmaThere will be a monumental shift in attitudes toward mental health. [S]ociety, having experienced this collective trauma and grief, will develop new levels of empathy and a willingness to talk about mental healthcare as an essential part of healthcare in ways we have not seen before. Employers are already seeing how emotional well-being is factoring into their workforces ability to perform under stress. Ideally they will come out of this better able to recognize their obligation to prioritize mental healthcare as an employee benefit.

Peter Chapman, CEO and president, quantum-computing company IonQWithin the next 12 to 18 months, were expecting quantum computers to start to routinely solve problems that supercomputers and cloud computing cannot. When humanity faces the next pandemic, Im hopeful that a quantum computer will be able to model the virus, its interactions within the human body that will drive possible solutions, and limit the future economic damage and human suffering.

David Barrett, CEO and founder of ExpensifyThe COVID-19 crisis has swiftly exposed the fragile underbellies of many companies, especially those in tech that have been propped up by huge funding rounds and strategies that require massive monthly burn rates. Theyre now teetering on the edge of collapse, with most facing layoffs across the board and some searching for buyers as a last resort. On the other hand, profitable companies . . . are simply tightening their belts and carrying on with business (mostly) as usual. Going forward, investors mindsets and qualifications about what constitutes a truly valuable company will change. Rather than focusing on the quantitative aspects like funding rounds and revenue, investors will place a greater emphasis on the qualitative aspects, such as an organizations structure, team, culture, flexibility, and profitability.

Restaurants might permanently link up with delivery service platforms or expand their reach via ghost kitchens.

Michael Masserman, global head of policy and social impact, LyftAs we look to the reopening of cities, people will be looking for affordable, reliable ways to stay socially distant while commuting, including turning to transportation options such as rideshare, bike share, and scooters. There will also be an opportunity for local governments, as well as key advocates and stakeholders, to consider reshaping our cities to be built around people and not cars.

Avi Meir, cofounder and CEO, TravelPerkCountries and regions will emerge from lockdown at different paces, leading to corridors of travel between destinations opening back up one by one. Were already beginning to see early signs of a modest pickup in travel again in Asia Pacific, as the local pressure of the virus lessens. When travel does begin to resume, domestic travel will be first. For most countries, that means taking a train, not least because theyre less crowded.

Ed Barriball, who leads McKinseys Public Sector Practice in North AmericaIn the short term, companies are concerned about the shortages of critical goods across the supply chain, and some are looking for alternative sources closer to home. In the long term, once we emerge from the current crisis, we expect businesses and governments to focus on better quantifying the risks faced and incorporating potential losses into business cases. These businesses will model the size and impact of various shock scenarios to determine actions they should take to rebuild their supply chains and simultaneously build resilience for the future. These actions could include bringing suppliers closer to home but could also include a range of other resilience investments.

Amar Hanspal, former CEO at Autodesk and now CEO at Bright MachinesThis pandemic will have a lasting impact . . . on the way physical products are made. Customers I talk to are grappling with supply chain and factory disruptions across the globe. This has been a wake-up call to manufacturers. The current way of building products in centralized factories with low-cost labor halfway around the world simply cant weather storms of uncertainty. Moving forward, factories and supply chains will require, and businesses will mandate, much more resilient manufacturing through nearshoring and even onshoring, full automation, and software-based management.

Sarah Stein Greenberg, executive director of the Stanford d.schoolIn times of great uncertainty, the most critical skill is to be able to adapt as conditions change. This is a kind of ambidexterity: focusing on surviving in the current moment while you also build toward thriving in a future that will look different. To get there, successful leaders are creating and holding space in organizations for people to be generative, despite the challenging and stressful environment. Drawing from one of the fundamental strengths of design: by separating the process of generating ideas from critiquing and selecting them, we are seeing organizations and individuals rewarded with a far wider range of potential solutions.

Will Lopez, head of accountant community at HR platform GustoCOVID-19 isnt the end of brick-and-mortar storestheyre vital to our communities and our economybut the way they operate will change. This crisis will force small businesses that have historically relied on foot traffic as their main source of income to develop alternative revenue streams so they can weather the next major event. For example, many restaurants might permanently link up with delivery service platforms or expand their geographic reach via ghost kitchens, and more boutiques will develop an online presence that reaches beyond their local neighborhoods.

Original post:
How will the coronavirus change our lives? - Fast Company