The first quantum-cryptographically secured connection between two federal authorities was presented to the public on Monday. The project is part of a whole series of research initiatives with which the German government wants to secure the technological sovereignty of Europe. She identified quantum technology as one of the key technologies.

The fact that quantum physics is considered incomprehensible and puzzling is not only due to the rather abstract mathematics on which the theory is based. What is particularly irritating is the permanent violation of common sense by quantum systems: The mostly microscopic quantum objects move through barriers like ghosts, are apparently in two different places at the same time and can instantly influence each other in a puzzling way, even over great distances. Quantum technology makes targeted use of these phenomena by specifically preparing and manipulating the states of individual quantum systems.

In this way one can at least theoretically carry out calculations with quantum computers that cannot be carried out with classical computers. Quantum cryptography makes it possible to encrypt data so that it cannot be cracked, and quantum sensors can be used to measure things that were previously considered impossible to measure. Although it sounds like an empty phrase, the potential of this technology is actually revolutionary. However, it is still largely theoretical much is still at an early stage of research.

This article is from issue 5/2021 of the Technology Review. The magazine will be available from July 8th, 2021 in stores and directly in the heise shop. Highlights from the magazine:

For some time now, however, there have been rapid technical advances in the field of quantum technology. Quantum cryptography, for example, the mathematically verifiable unbreakable encryption of data, was still considered an exciting theoretical concept in the 1980s and was first implemented in practice in the early 2000s albeit only in the laboratory. The same applies to quantum computing: in 1994, the mathematician Peter Shor devised a method to use quantum computers to break down numbers into their prime factors a core component of classic encryption algorithms. In 2001, IBM ran the algorithm for the first time on a quantum computer, which, however, was very small and could only break down the number 15 into its components 5 and 3.

In many such research projects, European researchers came out on top. However, they have been made technically usable for around 20 years mainly by large US corporations such as Google and IBM, which primarily want to use the potential of quantum computers for themselves. Quantum computers can be used, for example, to simulate the design of new molecules for drugs, predict traffic flows in megacities in real time, or take machine learning to a new level.

The physicist Tommaso Calarco from Forschungszentrum Jlich, together with colleagues, therefore initiated a kind of roadmap, a plan for a Europe-wide, coordinated research program that should make it possible to use the second quantum revolution also technically. The Quantum Manifesto was signed by over 900 researchers when it was published in 2016. In 2018, the EU decided to actually support the development of quantum technology with one billion euros albeit over a ten-year period. In addition to the EU package, individual EU states such as Germany decided on further national funding programs. In Germany, the government recently provided almost two billion euros in funding for the development of quantum technology.

The funding focuses on three technical areas with very different degrees of technical maturity and application potential: quantum computers, quantum communication and quantum sensors. From a technical point of view, the development is furthest in quantum communication: as early as the early 2000s, the first commercially available systems were available with which tap-proof quantum communication can be implemented. However, these systems could not prevail for three main reasons:

First, they solved a very theoretical problem: strong, well-implemented, classic cryptography is theoretically vulnerable. In practice, however, it requires attackers with considerable resources to break this encryption.

Second, the technology is the only one that is theoretically mathematically provable not open to attack. In practical installation, however, there are also gaps in quantum encryption that hackers can exploit. The Russian physicist Vadim Makarov, for example, was able to show in 2008 with its Quantum Hacking Lab how photon detectors can be blinded in order to outsmart quantum cryptographic systems.

Thirdly, there are annoying technical restrictions: Until now, quantum cryptographic connections can only be established between two points further networking is only possible at the expense of security. In addition, the range of such connections is limited to a few hundred kilometers. Researchers in the Netherlands are working on a quantum repeater that allows more than two points to be genuinely networked, but the work is still at a very early stage.

For all three points, however, the situation has changed significantly over the past ten years. State or at least state-supported cyber attacks with considerable resources are now the order of the day. In addition, potential attackers but also competitors invest considerable resources in the development of quantum computers, with the help of which conventional encryption can easily be cracked. At the same time, China is massively expanding its own quantum cryptographic network and even if it may be technically imperfect is gaining valuable practical experience with it. This has led to a re-evaluation of quantum technology.

There is now a great deal of interest, especially on the corporate side, in examining the potential of quantum computing and quantum communication specifically for its suitability for practical use. While computing is primarily about exploring how optimization problems can be practically transferred to quantum computers and what can actually be extracted from the currently still very limited quantum hardware, the focus in quantum communication is on the stability and practicality of the components.

In the area of quantum computers, Europe is also relying on the independent development of its own hardware in order not to fall into a one-sided technical dependency. The Europeans chances are not as bad as they look at first glance. Because Google and IBM are currently the most advanced in building quantum computers both rely on superconducting loops in their quantum processors. In the OpenSuperQ project, European researchers want to catch up within the next five years and build their own superconducting quantum chip with 50 qubits. In any case, the researchers see the main task in developing a functioning error correction for the quantum computer a problem that all research groups around the world are still working on.

In addition, superconducting chips are not the only hardware to build a quantum computer and the question of which hardware is best has not yet been decided. In the AQTION project, for example, European researchers are developing a quantum computer based on so-called ion traps. Ions, which are held in place by electrical fields and excited with laser pulses, serve as qubits. Within two years, they were able to accommodate the prototype of such a quantum computer in a server module. In other working groups, scientists are researching spin qubits in silicon or ion traps that are controlled with microwaves.

The entire field of quantum technology is very research-intensive technically highly specialized developments such as extremely low-noise electronics for controlling the quantum systems are closely interlinked with experimental and theoretical basic research. In order to get ahead at this point, the quantum community has so far relied on strong international cooperation.

In August 2016, for example, a rocket was launched from the Chinese spaceport Jiuquan and carried a communications satellite into near-Earth orbit, from which a quantum connection between two continents was realized for the first time. This experiment was made possible by the collaboration between Jian-Wei Pan, the Chinese University of Science and Technology and the quantum pioneer Anton Zeilinger from Vienna. Pan had written his doctoral thesis at Zeilinger.

Such a carefree cooperation is likely to become more difficult in the future. Not only with researchers in China: The rules for projects in the research framework program Horizon Europe could prove to be groundbreaking. For months, however, the EU Commission and the governments of the member states discussed the participation of researchers from third countries in sensitive research projects, including in the field of quantum technology. An original draft that would have excluded researchers from Switzerland, Israel or Great Britain from participating in such projects in the future was deleted at the initiative of the German government, among other things. According to the compromise, which the EU Commission still has to agree to, the applicants only have to prove credibly that their participation would not harm European interests, security and autonomy.

How to turn it around: International cooperation remains a sticking point in the development of quantum technology. So whether a purely European quantum technology can ever be realized can at least be viewed as very unlikely. But that is commonplace for quantum researchers.

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Quantum technology: how the EU wants to catch up with the competition - Market Research Telecast

Amazon Web Services has partnered with the National University of Singapore (NUS) in hopes of improving quantum technology and its applications. The duo announced this week that it has signed a memorandum of understanding.

The collaboration is a quantum engineering program hosted by NUS (QEP), Five-year SG $ 25m ($ 18.5m, 13.3m, 15.6m) initiative launched in 2018 by Singapores National Research Foundation to become a technology that can commercialize the abstract science of quantum physics. Focus on converting.

So far, QEP has eight major research projects that could ultimately outperform todays supercomputers, such as hardware and software, to simulate chemicals and help design drugs. I have supported it. reality.

QEP is currently working with companies to identify the problems they are facing that quantum technology may or may not be able to address soon or soon. QEP director Alexander Lynn said. Register..

For example, we help quantum computing software researchers explore algorithms and simulation techniques that can be applied to real-world data. They aim to address supply chain management, finance, trade, chemistry, and materials challenges. The proposal is currently being considered for financing.

Quantum computing may require a leap of science and engineering to create a working system, but one day it will be able to provide powerful computing tools that go beyond the boundaries of traditional computers. maybe. And if the quantum computer takes off (if it is still in the scientific experiment stage), the communication needs to be quantum protected. These computers may be able to computeally decipher unquantum-protected data.

Some forms of encryption used today can be broken by large quantum computers in the future, which also facilitates the search for alternatives, says Ling.

and Canned statement, NUS said AWS will be able to access the universitys National Quantum-Safe Network. It is a vendor-neutral platform for developing technology and integrating some of it into local fiber networks.

The understanding that we are using quantum communication technology to support experiments with existing fibers is correct, said Tan Lee Chew, managing director of AWS ASEAN. Register.

According to Tan, AWS has the opportunity to support Singapores SmartNation initiatives such as traffic optimization, financial planning, shipping and port operations, and material design applications within commercial organizations.

The goal is to train Singaporean scholars, students, and commercial organizations to develop quantum computing skills.

Quantum technology could help Singapore accelerate the smart nation agenda, Tan added. own products.

Inevitably, there are also some joint public relations activities.

Last August, AWS debuted a cloud-based quantum computing-like service. bracket.. Products that pay only what they need provide access to quantum annealers. A gate-based system built on superconducting cubits and trapped ions. Hybrid quantum and classical algorithm tools. Users work in a Jupyter notebook environment.

The quantum cloud initiative is nothing new. IBM and Microsoft are already doing that.In fact, IBM is already 3 years collaboration Big Blue uses QEP to provide NUS researchers with cloud access to 15 of IBMs current generation quantum computing systems.

How about A huge machine that is AWS, Ling said, an existing relationship already exists. Singapore researchers already had connections with companies working with AWS to provide cloud access to quantum hardware.

AWS leverages Singapore scientists to overcome the hurdles facing quantum computing The Register

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AWS leverages Singapore scientists to overcome the hurdles facing quantum computing The Register - Illinoisnewstoday.com

Global Quantum Computing Market Size, Status And Forecast 2021-2025

MarketInsightsReports, a leading global market research firm, is pleased to announce its new report on Quantum Computing market, forecast for 2021-2025, covering all aspects of the market and providing up-to-date data on current trends.

The report covers comprehensive data on emerging trends, market drivers, growth opportunities, and restraints that can change the market dynamics of the industry. It provides an in-depth analysis of the market segments which include products, applications, and competitor analysis. The report also includes a detailed study of key companies to provide insights into business strategies adopted by various players in order to sustain competition in this highly competitive environment.

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With our Quantum Computing market research reports, we offer a comprehensive overview of this sector such as sales analysis, impact of domestic and global market players, value chain optimization, trade regulations, recent developments, opportunities analysis, strategic market growth analysis, product launches, area marketplace explaining, and technological innovations

Top Companies in the Global Quantum Computing Market: The Quantum Computing market was dominated by International Business Machines (US), D-Wave Systems (Canada), Microsoft (US), Amazon (US), Rigetti Computing (US), Google (US), Intel (US), Honeywell International (US), Quantum Circuits (US),and QC Ware (US).

Recent Developments

In January 2020, IBM partnered with Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, to enhance the capacity and increase the charging speed of batteries of electric vehicles. These companies used a quantum computer to model the dipole moment of three lithium-containing molecules that paves the way for the development of the next-generation lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries that will be more powerful, long-lasting, and cost-effective than lithium-ion batteries. The Quantum Computing market is expected to grow from USD 472 million in 2021 to USD 1,765 million by 2026, at a CAGR of 30.2%.

In November 2019, IBM partnered with the Unitary Fund to provide grants and priority access to certain IBM Q systems. Similar to the quantum computing mission of IBM, the Unitary Fund aims to create a quantum technology industry that benefits most of the people.

For comprehensive understanding of market dynamics, the global Quantum Computing market is analyzed across key geographies namely: United States, China, Europe, Japan, South-east Asia, India and others. Each of these regions is analyzed on basis of market findings across major countries in these regions for a macro-level understanding of the market.

Key Takeaways from Quantum Computing Report

Evaluate the supply-demand gaps, import-export statistics and regulatory landscape for more than top 20countries globally for the Quantum Computing market.

Browse the report description and TOC: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/05202915819/global-quantum-computing-market-analysis-by-solution-type-hardware-software-full-stack-application-optimization-simulation-sampling-machine-learning-end-user-by-region-by-country-2020-edition-market-insight-competition-and-forecast-2020-2025?mode=54

-Key Strategic Developments: The study also includes the key strategic developments of the market, comprising R&D, new product launch, M&A, agreements, collaborations, partnerships, joint ventures, and regional growth of the leading competitors operating in the market on a global and regional scale.

-Key Market Features: The report evaluates key market features, including revenue, price, capacity, capacity utilization rate, gross, production, production rate, consumption, import/export, supply/demand, cost, market share, CAGR, and gross margin. In addition, the study offers a comprehensive study of the key market dynamics and their latest trends, along with pertinent market segments and sub-segments.

-Analytical Tools: The Global Quantum Computing Market report includes the accurately studied and assessed data of the key industry players and their scope in the market by means of a number of analytical tools. The analytical tools such as Porters five forces analysis, SWOT analysis, feasibility study, and investment return analysis have been used to analyze the growth of the key players operating in the market.

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MarketInsightsReports provides syndicated market research on industry verticals including Healthcare, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Technology and Media, Chemicals, Materials, Energy, Heavy Industry, etc.MarketInsightsReports provides global and regional market intelligence coverage, a 360-degree market view which includes statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.

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Quantum Computing Market 2021 with Top Countries Data Analysis by Industry Trends, Size, Share and Company Overview - Digital Journal

Quantum computing is proving to be enormously exciting for financial institutions. Already,Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Brse are exploring quantum algorithms to calculate risk model simulations 1,000 times faster than currently possible, whileBBVA is looking to quantum to optimise investment portfolio management.

But a more sinister aspect to the technology also lurks just around the corner. Because of their computing power, quantum machines will be able to smash through the mathematical algorithms underpinning all modern encryption - posing an unparalleled cybersecurity risk.

It would take a traditional computer years to break the public-key encryption relied on today by just about every financial services company, but a fully-scalable quantum computer could achieve the same in a matter of hours.

According to roadmaps laid out by major players in the field, we will have a quantum computer capable of doing this within the next decade.

Mapping the vulnerabilities

Banks and financial institutions use a range of cryptographic algorithms to ensure the security of transactions, including symmetric key cryptography (e.g. 3DES) and public key cryptography. Although public key cryptography is most exposed to the quantum threat, some types of symmetric key cryptography are also vulnerable to attack.

Core to these operations are hardware security modules (HSMs). These form a key part of the physical infrastructure that stores and generates secure keys using cryptographic asymmetric algorithms to authenticate and validate transaction information.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so unless up-to-date, quantum-secure HSMs are in place, theres a risk of quantum attackers exploiting a single vulnerability to expose all data within the payments ecosystem.

What complicates the issue is that quantum decryption can be applied retrospectively.

Bad actors could begin collecting encrypted data from institutions today, with the intent to harvest now, decrypt later. Financial services companies could unknowingly be victim to an attack today, and only suffer the consequences in the future when quantum computers become available.

Thankfully, some institutions are already paying attention, with early movers likeScotiabank,JP Morgan and Visaall taking the threat seriously.

Beginning the fight back

The world began to take note of the quantum threat when, in 2016, the US National Security Agency issued an officialwarning to industry. Shortly thereafter, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched a post-quantum cryptography standardisation project to lay out the path to a quantum-secure future.

NIST is running the process as a competition. The project is now in its final stages, with seven finalist algorithms left after 80 submissions from six continents. The final algorithms will be chosen in 2021, with draft standards to be published thereafter.

Its anticipated that the US government will require contractors to incorporate the new NIST standards in order to conduct business with its agencies. As critical infrastructure, financial institutions are also likely to find that quantum-secure cryptography soon becomes a technical necessity.

The path to quantum security

The migration to new cryptography standards will be a massive undertaking - one of the biggest cybersecurity shifts in decades.

The transition will be complicated for banks, too. Each institution will be starting from its own unique position, with its own legacy systems and infrastructure, and each will be vulnerable to the quantum threat in a different way.

Financial institutions can save time in the long-run by taking steps to plan their own transition before NISTs new standards are even announced.

The first step is to conduct an audit, pinpointing each and every place where encryption is being used within the organisation. This will help to identify weak spots, find areas in need of rationalisation, and so on.

NISTagrees that companies should start preparing for the transition today: 'Itis critical to begin planning for the replacement of hardware, software, and services that use public-key algorithmsnow, so the information is protected from future attacks'.

Looking ahead

Institutions have invested huge amounts of time and effort building customer trust in digital banking, and cryptography was the main mathematical tool that allowed this to happen.

Now that quantum computers threaten to break it, its time for the sector to fight back.

The security of all sensitive data, past and present, relies on it.

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Why it's time to wake up to the quantum threat - Finextra - Finextra - Finextra

MIT researchers have made a significant advance on the road toward the full realization of quantum computation, demonstrating a technique that eliminates common errors in the most essential operation of quantum algorithms, the two-qubit operation or gate.

Despite tremendous progress toward being able to perform computations with low error rates with superconducting quantum bits (qubits), errors in two-qubit gates, one of the building blocks of quantum computation, persist, says Youngkyu Sung, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science who is the lead author of a paper on this topic published today in Physical Review X. We have demonstrated a way to sharply reduce those errors.

In quantum computers, the processing of information is an extremely delicate process performed by the fragile qubits, which are highly susceptible to decoherence, the loss of their quantum mechanical behavior. In previous research conducted by Sung and the research group he works with, MIT Engineering Quantum Systems, tunable couplers were proposed, allowing researchers to turn two-qubit interactions on and off to control their operations while preserving the fragile qubits. The tunable coupler idea represented a significant advance and was cited, for example, by Google as being key to their recent demonstration of the advantage that quantum computing holds over classical computing.

Still, addressing error mechanisms is like peeling an onion: Peeling one layer reveals the next. In this case, even when using tunable couplers, the two-qubit gates were still prone to errors that resulted from residual unwanted interactions between the two qubits and between the qubits and the coupler. Such unwanted interactions were generally ignored prior to tunable couplers, as they did not stand out but now they do. And, because such residual errors increase with the number of qubits and gates, they stand in the way of building larger-scale quantum processors. The Physical Review X paper provides a new approach to reduce such errors.

We have now taken the tunable coupler concept further and demonstrated near 99.9 percent fidelity for the two major types of two-qubit gates, known as Controlled-Z gates and iSWAP gates, says William D. Oliver, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, MIT Lincoln Laboratory fellow, director of the Center for Quantum Engineering, and associate director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics, home of the Engineering Quantum Systems group. Higher-fidelity gates increase the number of operations one can perform, and more operations translates to implementing more sophisticated algorithms at larger scales.

To eliminate the error-provoking qubit-qubit interactions, the researchers harnessed higher energy levels of the coupler to cancel out the problematic interactions. In previous work, such energy levels of the coupler were ignored, although they induced non-negligible two-qubit interactions.

Better control and design of the coupler is a key to tailoring the qubit-qubit interaction as we desire. This can be realized by engineering the multilevel dynamics that exist, Sung says.

The next generation of quantum computers will be error-corrected, meaning that additional qubits will be added to improve the robustness of quantum computation.

Qubit errors can be actively addressed by adding redundancy, says Oliver, pointing out, however, that such a process only works if the gates are sufficiently good above a certain fidelity threshold that depends on the error correction protocol. The most lenient thresholds today are around 99 percent. However, in practice, one seeks gate fidelities that are much higher than this threshold to live with reasonable levels of hardware redundancy.

The devices used in the research, made at MITs Lincoln Laboratory, were fundamental to achieving the demonstrated gains in fidelity in the two-qubit operations, Oliver says.

Fabricating high-coherence devices is step one to implementing high-fidelity control, he says.

Sung says high rates of error in two-qubit gates significantly limit the capability of quantum hardware to run quantum applications that are typically hard to solve with classical computers, such as quantum chemistry simulation and solving optimization problems.

Up to this point, only small molecules have been simulated on quantum computers, simulations that can easily be performed on classical computers.

In this sense, our new approach to reduce the two-qubit gate errors is timely in the field of quantum computation and helps address one of the most critical quantum hardware issues today, he says.

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Clearing the way toward robust quantum computing - MIT News

Cryptocurrency

Theres been a lot of focus recently on encryption within the context of cryptocurrencies. Taproot being implemented in bitcoin has led to more cryptographic primitives that make the bitcoin network more secure and private. Its major upgrade from a privacy standpoint is to make it impossible to distinguish between multi-signature and single-signature transactions. This will, for example, make it impossible to tell which transactions involve the opening of Lightning Network channels versus regular base layer transactions. The shift from ECDSA signatures to Schnorr signatures involves changes and upgrades in cryptography.

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Yet these cryptographic primitives might need to shift or transition in the face of new computers such as quantum computers. If you go all the way back down to how these technologies work, they are built from unsolved mathematical problems something humans havent found a way to reduce down to our brains capacity for creativity yet limited memory retrieval, or a computers way of programmed memory retrieval. Solving those problems can create dramatic breaks in current technologies.

I sat down with Dr. Jol Alwen, the chief cryptographer of Wickr, the encrypted chat app, to talk about post-quantum encryption and how evolving encryption standards will affect cryptocurrencies. Heres a summary of the insights:

Despite all of the marketing hype around quantum computing and quantum supremacy, the world isnt quite at the stage where the largest (publicly disclosed) quantum computer can meaningfully break current encryption standards. That may happen in the future, but commercially available quantum computers now cannot meaningfully dent the encryption standards cryptocurrencies are built on.

Quantum computer and encryption experts are not communicating with one another as much as they should. This means that discrete advances in quantum computing may happen with a slight lag in how encryption would operate. Its been the case that nation-states, such as China, have been going dark on research related to quantum this has the effect of clouding whether or not serious attempts can be made on the encryption standards of today, and disguising the sudden or eventual erosion of encryption a sudden break that might mean devastation for cryptocurrencies and other industries that rely on cryptography.

Its been known that many encryption schemes that defeat classical computers may not be able to defeat a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. Grovers algorithm is an example. This is a known problem and with the continued development of quantum computers, will likely be a significant problem in a matter of time.

Encryption standards being diluted now is not only a risk for the future, but also an attack on the conversations and transactions people will have to remain private in the past as well. Past forms of encryption that people relied upon would be lost the privacy they assumed in the past would be lost as well.

Cryptographic primitives are baked into cryptocurrencies regardless of their consensus algorithm. A sudden shift in encryption standards will damage the ability for proof-of-work miners or those looking to demonstrate the cryptographic proof that theyve won the right to broadcast transactions in the case of proof-of-stake designs such as the one proposed by Ethereum. Digital signatures are the common point of vulnerability here, as well as the elliptic curve cryptography used to protect private keys.

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Everything here breaks if the digital signatures are no longer valid anybody with access to public keys could then spend amounts on other peoples behalf. Wallet ownership would be up for grabs. says Dr. Alwen. Proof-of-work or proof-of-stake as a consensus algorithm would be threatened as well in all cases, the proof would no longer be valid and have it be authenticated with digital signatures anybody could take anybody elses blocks.

While proof-of-work blocks would have some protection due to the increasingly specialized hardware (ASICs) being manufactured specifically for block mining, both systems would have vulnerabilities if their underlying encryption scheme were weakened. Hashing might be less threatened but quantum compute threatens key ownership and the authenticity of the system itself.

Post-quantum encryption is certainly possible, and a shift towards it can and should be proactive. Theres real stuff we can do. Dr. Alwen says here. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may take some time to move on this issue, so any preparatory work should be regarded as important, from looking at benefits and costs you can get a lot of mileage out of careful analysis.

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Its helped here by the fact that there is a good bottleneck in a sense: there are only really two or three types of cryptographic techniques that need replacement. Digital signatures and key agreement are the two areas that need the focus. Patching these two areas will help the vast majority of vulnerabilities that might come from quantum computation.

Its important to note that a sudden and critical break in encryption would affect other industries as well and each might have different reasons why an attack would be more productive or they might be more slow to react. Yet if there were a revolution tomorrow, this would pose a clear and direct threat to the decentralization and security promises inherent in cryptocurrencies. Because of how important encryption and signatures are to cryptocurrencies, its probable that cryptocurrency communities will have many more debates before or after a sudden break, but time would be of the essence in this scenario. Yet, since encryption is such a critical part of cryptocurrencies, there is hope that the community will be more agile than traditional industries on this point.

If a gap of a few years is identified before this break happens, a soft fork or hard fork that the community rallies around can mitigate this threat along with new clients. But it requires proactive changes and in-built resistance, as well as keeping a close eye on post-quantum encryption.

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It is likely that instead of thinking of how to upgrade the number of keys used or a gradual change, that post-quantum encryption will require dabbling into categories of problems that havent been used in classical encryption. Dr. Alwen has written about lattice-based cryptography as a potential solution. NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology currently responsible for encryption standards has also announced a process to test and standardize post-quantum public-key encryption.

Hardware wallets are in principle the way to go now for security in a classical environment Dr. Alwen points out, having done research in the space. The fact that theyre hard to upgrade is a problem, but its much better than complex devices like laptops and cell phones in terms of the security and focus accorded to the private key.

In order to keep up with cryptography and its challenges, MIT and Stanford open courses are a good place to start to get the basic terminology. There is for example, an MIT Cryptography and Cryptanalysis course on MIT OpenCourseWare and similar free Stanford Online courses.

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There are two areas of focus: applied cryptography or theory of cryptography. Applied cryptography is a field that is more adjacent to software engineering, rather than math-heavy cryptography theory. An important area is to realize what role suits you best when it comes to learning: making headway on breaking cryptography theory or understanding from an engineering perspective how to implement solid cryptography.

When youre a bit more advanced and focused on cryptography theory, Eprint is a server that allows for an open forum for cryptographers to do pre-prints. Many of the most important developments in the field have been posted there.

Forums around common cryptography tools help with applied cryptography as well as some of the cryptography theory out there: the Signal forums, or the Wickr blog are examples.

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Cryptocurrencies are co-evolving with other technologies. As computers develop into different forms, there are grand opportunities, from space-based cryptocurrency exchange to distributed devices that make running nodes accessible to everybody.

Yet, in this era, there will also be new technologies that force cryptocurrencies to adapt to changing realities. Quantum computing and the possibility that it might eventually break the cryptographic primitives cryptocurrencies are built on is one such technology. Yet, its in the new governance principles cryptocurrencies embody that might help them adapt.

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Here's How Quantum Computers Will Really Affect Cryptocurrencies - Forbes

Cambridge Quantum Computing, a quantum computing and algorithm company founded by Ilyas Khan, Leader in Residence and a Fellow in Management Practice at Cambridge Judge Business School, announced it will combine with Honeywell Quantum Solutions, a unit of US-based Honeywell, which has been an investor in Cambridge Quantum since 2019.

Ilyas was also the inaugural Chairman of the Stephen Hawking Foundation, is a fellow commoner of St Edmunds College, and was closely involved in the foundation of the Accelerate Cambridge programme run by the Business Schools Entrepreneurship Centre.

The new company is extremely well-positioned to lead the quantum computing industry by offering advanced, fully integrated hardware and software solutions at an unprecedented pace, scale and level of performance to large high-growth markets worldwide, Cambridge Quantum said in an announcement.

The combination will form the largest, most advanced standalone quantum computing company in the world, setting the pace for what is projected to become a $1 trillion quantum computing industry over the next three decades, Honeywell said in a companion announcement.

The new company, which will be formally named at a later date, will be led by Cambridge Quantum founder Ilyas Khan as Chief Executive with Tony Uttley of Honeywell Quantum Solutions as President. Honeywell Chairman and CEO Darius Adamczyk will serve on the board of directors as the Chairman. Honeywell will have a 54% share of the merged entity, which was dubbed by publication Barrons as the Apple of Quantum Computing, and CQCs shareholders will have a 46% share.

In addition, Honeywell will invest between $270 million to $300 million in the new company. Cambridge Quantum was founded in 2014, and has offices in Cambridge, London and Oxford, and abroad in the US, Germany and Japan.

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New quantum computing company will set the pace - Cambridge Network

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Multinational conglomerate Honeywell said it will combine with Cambridge Quantum Computing in a bid to form the largest standalone quantum computing company in the world.

According to Honeywell, the merger will be completed in the third quarter of 2021 and will set the pace for what is projected to become a $1 trillion quantum computing industry over the next three decades.

In the yet to be named company, Honeywell will invest between $270 million and $300 million, and will own a major stake. It will also engage in an agreement for manufacturing critical ion traps needed to power quantum hardware.

The new company will be led by Ilyas Khan, the CEO and founder of CQC, a company that focuses on building software for quantum computing. Honeywell Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Darius Adamczyk will serve as chairman of the new company while Tony Uttley, currently the president of HQS, will serve as the new company's president.

"Joining together into an exciting newly combined enterprise, HQS and CQC will become a global powerhouse that will develop and commercialize quantum solutions that address some of humanity's greatest challenges, while driving the development of what will become a $1 trillion industry," Khan said in a statement.

With this new company, both firms plan to use Honeywells hardware expertise and Cambridges software platforms to build the worlds highest-performing computer.

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Honeywell joins hands with Cambridge Quantum Computing to form a new company - The Hindu

Quantum computing potential extends beyond simply processing things faster, offering scope to create entire new consumer services and product offerings

Neil Cumins Thursday, 17 June, 2021

Its common for new technologies to be treated with a healthy degree of scepticism when theyre first unveiled.

From the internet to social media, it often takes a while for potential to become reality.

Today, theres excitable talk about the blockchains potential, or how light-powered LiFi may supplant WiFi in the nations homes. Talk, but not much action as yet.

Quantum computing potential may be unmatched in terms of transforming our world even more so than the Internet of Things, or fully automated robotics.

And while you dont need a degree in quantum physics to understand quantum computing, its important to appreciate the basics of this highly complex (and unstable) technology.

Regardless of what theyre being asked to do, electronic devices only understand binary inputs. Zero or one, on or off. Thats it.

Every FIFA tournament, CAD package, Netflix marathon and email is composed of immense strings of zeroes and ones the binary data bits computers can process and interpret.

Quantum computing potentially subverts this by allowing bits to be both zeroes and ones at the same time.

This status fluidity involves holding data in whats called a superposition state a coin spinning on its side rather than landing heads-up or tails-up.

Superpositions grant a single bit far more potential, offering exponentially more processing power than a modern (classical) computer can deliver.

Quantum computers are theoretically capable of achieving feats todays hardware couldnt manage in a hundred lifetimes.

Google claims to own a quantum computer which can perform tasks 100,000,000 times faster than its most powerful classical computer.

Indeed, computer scientists have already demonstrated that quantum processing can encrypt data in such a way it becomes impossible to hack.

This alone could transform online security, rendering spyware and most modern malware redundant, while ensuring a far safer world for consumers and businesses.

Quantum computing may be able to process the vast repositories of digital information being generated by billions of AI devices, which would otherwise result in huge data siloes.

It could unlock the secrets of our universe, helping us to achieve nuclear fusion or test drugs in ways wed never be able to accomplish with classical computing and brainpower alone.

Unfortunately, there are certain obstacles in the way of achieving full quantum computing potential.

The molecular instability involved in superpositions requires processors to be stored at cryogenic temperatures as close to absolute zero (-273C) as possible.

Devices need to be stored and handled with exceptional care, which in turn makes them incredibly expensive and unsuitable for domestic deployment.

And while the ability to develop uncrackable encryption algorithms is appealing, a quantum processor could also unlock almost any existing encryption method.

The havoc that could wreak in the wrong hands doesnt bear thinking about, and scientists are struggling to develop quantum-resistant algorithms for classical computers.

Like all emerging technologies, quantum computing has some way to go before it achieves mainstream adoption and acceptance.

When it does, the world will be a very different place.

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The spark about quantum computing is considered to have set out from a three-day discussion at the MIT Conference Center out of Boston, in 1981. The meeting, The Physics of Computation, was collaboratively sponsored by IBM and MITs Laboratory of computer science. The discussion aimed to formulate new processes for efficient ways of computing and bring the area of study into the mainstream. Quantum computing was not a popularly discussed field of science till then. The historic conference was presided over by many talented brains including Richard Feynman, Paul Benioff, Edward Fredkin, Leonid Levin, Freeman Dyson, and Arthur Burks, who were computer scientists and physicists.

Richard Feynman was a renowned theoretical physicist who received a Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1965 with other two physicists, for his contributions towards the development of quantum electrodynamics. The conference was a seminal moment in the development of quantum computing and Richard Feynman announced that to simulate quantum computation, there is a need for quantum computers. Later, he went on to publish a paper in 1982, titled Simulating Physics with Computers.The area of study soon got attention from computer scientists and physicists. Hence, the work on quantum computing began.

Before this, in 1980, Paul Benioff had described a first quantum mechanical model of a computer in one of his papers, which had already acted as a foundation for the study. After Feynmans statement in the conference, Paul Benioff went on to develop his model of quantum mechanical Turing machine.

However, almost a decade later, came Shors algorithm, developed by Peter Shor, which is considered a milestone in the history of quantum computing. This algorithm allowed quantum computers to factor large integers at a higher speed and could also break numerous cryptosystems. The discovery garnered a lot of interest in the study of quantum computing as it replaced the years taken by the classic, traditional computing algorithms to perform factoring by just some hours. Later, in 1996, Lov Grover invented the quantum database search algorithm, which exhibited a quadratic speedup that could solve any problem that had to be solved by random brute-force search and could also be applied to a wider base of problems.

The year 1998 witnessed the first experimental demonstration of a quantum algorithm that worked on a 2-qubit NMR quantum computer. Later in the year, a working 3-qubit NMR computer was developed and Grovers algorithm got executed for the first time in an NMR quantum computer. Several experimental progress took place between 1999 and 2009.

In 2009, the first universal programmable quantum computer was unveiled by a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Colorado. The computer was capable of processing 2 quantum bits.

After almost a decade, IBM unveiled the first commercially usable integrated quantum computing system, and later in the year, IBM added 4 more quantum computing systems, along with a newly developed 53-qubit quantum computer. Google also gave a huge contribution to the field in late 2019, when a paper published by the Google research team claimed to have reached quantum supremacy. The 54-qubit Sycamore processor, made of tiny qubits and superconducting materials is claimed to have sampled a computation in just 200 seconds. Last year, IonQ launched its trapped ion quantum computers and made them commercially available through the cloud. There have been several experiments and research that are being carried on today. Each day becomes a new step for quantum computing technology since its proclamation back in the 80s.

According to a report by Fast Company, IBM plans to complete the 127-qubit IBM Quantum Eagle this year and expects to develop a 1000-qubit computing machine called the IBM Quantum Condor by 2023. IBM has been keeping up in the path of developing the best quantum computing solutions since it hosted the conference in 1981. Charlie Bennet, a renowned physicist who was part of the conference as IBMs research contingent, has a huge contribution to these innovations put forward by the company.

The emerging era of quantum computing will invite many breakthroughs. The quantum computing revolution will increase processing efficiency and solve intrinsic quantum problems. Quantum computer works with quantum bits or qubits that can be in the superposition of states that will cater to massive calculations at an extremely faster pace.

Quantum computing will have a greater impact on almost all industries and business operations. It is capable of molecular modeling, cryptography, weather forecasting, drug discovery, and more. Quantum computing is also said to be a significant component of artificial intelligence, which is fuelling several businesses and real-life functions today. We might soon reach the state of quantum supremacy and businesses need to become quantum-ready by then.

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