Category Archives: Quantum Computing

Ed Heinbockel, president and chief executive officer of SavantX, said hes excited about how a powerful new generation of quantum computers can bring practical solutions to industries such as trucking and cargo transport.

With quantum computing, Im very keen on this, because Im a firm believer that its a step change technology, Heinbockel said. Its going to rewrite the way that we live and the way we work.

Heinbockel referred to recent breakthroughs such as Googles quantum supremacy, a demonstration where a programmable quantum processor solved a problem that no classical computer could feasibly solve.

In October 2019, Googles quantum processor, named Sycamore, performed a computation in 200 seconds that would have taken the worlds fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to solve, according to Google.

Jackson, Wyoming-based SavantX also recently formed a partnership with D-Wave Systems Inc., a Burnaby, Canada-based company that develops and offers quantum computing systems, software and services.

With D-Waves quantum services, SavantX has begun offering its Hyper Optimization Nodal Efficiency (HONE) technology to solve optimization problems to customers such as the Pier 300 container terminal project at the Port of Los Angeles.

The project, which began last year, is a partnership between SavantX, Blume Global and Fenix Marine Services. The projects goal is to optimize logistics on the spacing and placement of shipping containers to better integrate with inbound trucks and freight trains. The Pier 300 site handles 1.2 million container lifts per year.

With Pier 300, when do you need trucks at the pier and when and how do you get them scheduled optimally?, Heinbockel said. So the appointing part of it is very important and that is a facet of HONE technology.

Heinbockel added, Were very excited about the Pier 300 project, because HONE is a generalized technology. Then its a question of what other systems can we optimize? In all modes of transportation, the winners are going to be those that can minimize the energy in the systems; energy reduction. Thats all about optimization.

Heinbockel co-founded SavantX in 2015 with David Ostby, the companys chief science officer. SavantX offers data collection and visualization tools for industries ranging from healthcare to nuclear energy to transportation.

Heinbockel also recently announced SavantX will be relocating its corporate research headquarters to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The new center, which could eventually include 100 employees, will be focused on the companys HONE technology and customizing it for individual clients.

Heinbockel said SavantX has been talking to trucking, transportation and aviation companies about how HONE can help solve issues such as driver retention and optimizing schedules.

One of the problems Ive been hearing consistently from trucking companies is that they hire somebody. The HR department tells the new employee well have you home every Thursday night, Heinbockel said. Then you get onto a Friday night or Saturday, and [the driver] is still not home.

Heinbockel said if quantum computing and HONE can be used to help trucking companies with driver retention, and that it will make a lot of companies happy.

Heinbockel said cross-border operations could use HONE to understand what the flow patterns are like for commercial trucks crossing through different ports at various times of the day.

You would optimize your trucking flow based on when those lax periods were at those various ports, or you could ask yourself, is it cheaper for me to send a truck 100 miles out of the way to another port, knowing that it can get right through that port without having to sit for two or three hours in queue, Heinbockel said.

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Tech company uses quantum computers to help shipping and trucking industries - FreightWaves

June 22, 2020 A simple pseudo-2D architecture for connecting qubitsthe building blocks of quantum computershas been devised by RIKEN physicists1. This promises to make it easier to construct larger quantum computers.

Quantum computers are anticipated to solve certain problems overwhelmingly faster than conventional computers, but despite rapid progress in recent years, the technology is still in its infancy. Were still in the late 1940s or early 1950s, if we compare the development of quantum computers with that of conventional computers, notes Jaw-Shen Tsai of the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and the Tokyo University of Science.

One bottleneck to developing larger quantum computers is the problem of how to arrange qubits in such a way that they can both interact with their neighbors and be readily accessed by external circuits and devices. Conventional 2D networks suffer from the problem that, as the number of qubits increases, qubits buried deep inside the networks become difficult to access.

To overcome this problem, large companies such as Google and IBM have been exploring complex 3D architectures. Its kind of a brute-force approach, says Tsai. Its hard to do and its not clear how scalable it is, he adds.

Tsai and his team have been exploring a different tack from the big companies. Its very hard for research institutes like RIKEN to compete with these guys if we play the same game, Tsai says. So we tried to do something different and solve the problem they arent solving.

Now, after about three years of work, Tsai and his co-workers have come up with a quasi-2D architecture that has many advantages over 3D ones.

Their architecture is basically a square array of qubits deformed in such a way that all the qubits are arranged in two rows (Fig. 1)a bilinear array with cross wiring, as Tsai calls it. Since all the qubits lie on the edges, it is easy to access them.

The deformation means that some wires cross each other, but the team overcame this problem by using airbridges so that one wire passes over the other one, much like a bridge at the intersection of two roads allows traffic to flow without interruption. Tests showed that there was minimal crosstalk between wires.

The scheme is much easier to construct than 3D ones since it is simpler and can be made using conventional semiconductor fabrication methods. It also reduces the number of wires that cross each other. And importantly, it is easy to scale up.

The team now plans to use the architecture to make a 1010 array of qubits.

About RIKEN

RIKEN is Japans largest comprehensive research institution renowned for high-quality research in a diverse range of scientific disciplines. Founded in 1917 as a private research foundation in Tokyo, RIKEN has grown rapidly in size and scope, today encompassing a network of world-class research centers and institutes across Japan.

Source: RIKEN

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RIKEN Physicists Develop Pseudo-2D Architecture for Quantum Computers that is Simple and Scalable - HPCwire

Behind these smart drones are well-trained deep-learning models based on Baidus PaddlePaddle, the first open-source deep-learning platform in China. Like mainstream AI frameworks such as Googles TensorFlow and Facebooks PyTorch, PaddlePaddle, which was open sourced in 2016, provides software developers of all skill levels with the tools, services, and resources they need to rapidly adopt and implement deep learning at scale.

PaddlePaddle is being used by more than 1.9 million developers and 84,000 enterprises globally. Industries throughout China are using the platform to create specialized applications for their sectors, from the automotive industrys acceleration ofautonomous vehiclesto the health-care industrysapplications for fighting covid-19.

Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic, which has spread over 150 countries and caused a worldwide economic shock, is increasing demands for AI transformation. Now is an unprecedented opportunity for the development of PaddlePaddle given the rise of industrial intelligence and the acceleration of AI-powered infrastructure, says Haifeng Wang, chief technology officer at Baidu. We will continue to embrace the open-source spirit, driving technological innovation, partnering with developers to advance deep-learning and AI technologies, and speeding up the process of industrial intelligence.

Deep-learning technologies create opportunities for revamping operations, workload management, and productivity, even in traditional industries such as manufacturing, forestry, energy, and waste management. For example, in waste management, AI is transforming refuse picking, sorting, and recycling, supporting efforts to conserve natural resources, reduce carbon emissions, and lessen waste going into landfill sites. According to a World Bank report, more than2 billion tons of municipal solid wasteare produced in the world each year. Collecting it and separating it exposes waste pickers to any number of risk factors and hazards, making this a critical area for the development of innovative AI technologies.

In Europe and the US, computer-vision technology has been extensively used for detecting different types of waste, such as glass, plastic, and cardboard, to make waste sorting more efficient. But the task is not as efficient in all countries.

Using traditional computer-vision models in China would be useless, says Zhiwen Zhang, CEO of Jinlu Technology. The garbage in China is not compatible with what can be detected by this technology. Complications tend to arise with the detection quality and with identifying diverse garbage, says Zhang.

A computer-vision veteran, Zhang was eyeing PaddlePaddle to develop applications for improving waste sorting in China. Although the industry lacks the expertise of deep learning, with PaddlePaddle, developers dont necessarily have to be deep-learning experts or build things like data-processing models from scratch.

Jinlu Technology uses a garbage-sorting robot programmed with an object-detection model to identify different types of garbage. It also uses an image-segmentation model to find garbage and do things like detect the edge of a bottle and determine its center point. The model takes just half a second to recognize an image.

For plastic bottles, Jinlu Technology trains an instance-segmentation model using Paddle Detection, a PaddlePaddle toolkit for image processing. The model predicts on Edgeboard (PaddlePaddles edge computing development platform) through Paddle Lite, PaddlePaddles deep-learning framework tailored for lightweight models, and sends signals to robotic arms that classify the garbage. While traditional algorithm-accuracy screening stays between 60% and 90%, depending on the quality of the garbage, deep-learning algorithms deliver an accuracy of 93% to 99%.

Using AI in waste management promises further potential. AI can not only spare human labor by 96%, but it can also refine sorting and further identify waste that can be difficult to categorize, such as large pieces of organic matter, small pieces of metal, and other particles. Not to mention, AI can self-learn to optimize the pipeline, says Zhang.

Currently, PaddlePaddle offers 146 algorithms and has advanced more than 200 pretraining models, some of them with open-source codes to facilitate the rapid development of industrial applications. The platform also hosts toolkits for cutting-edge research purposes, like Paddle Quantum for quantum-computing models and Paddle Graph Learning for graph-learning models.

PaddlePaddle facilitates AI development while lowering the technical burden for users, using a programmable scheme to architect the neural networks. It supports declarative and imperative programming with development flexibilityso can develop software with different types of requirementsall while preserving a high runtime performance. Algorithms can automatically design neural architectures that offer better performance than those developed by human experts.

PaddlePaddle has also made breakthroughs in ultra-large-scale deep neural networks training. Its platform, the first in the world of its kind, supports the training of deep neural networks with more than 100 billion features and trillions of parameters using data sources distributed over hundreds of nodes.One of the beneficiaries is Oppo, a smartphone producer in China, which uses PaddlePaddle to boost the training efficiency of its recommendation system by 80%.

Not only is PaddlePaddle compatible with other open-source frameworks for model training, it also accelerates the inference of deep neural networks for a variety of processors and hardware platforms. At the recent Baidu Deep Learning Developer Conference Wave Summit 2020, PaddlePaddle announced its collaboration in a hardware ecosystem that includes leading global tech companies such as Intel, NVIDIA, Arm China, Huawei, MediaTek, Cambricon, Inspur, and Sugon.

PaddlePaddle still has room for improvement, says Baidus corporate vice president Tian Wu. In the future, PaddlePaddle will keep advancing large-scale distributed computing and heterogeneous computing, providing the most powerful production platform and infrastructure for developers to accelerate the development of intelligent industries.

One of the industrial applications developed from PaddlePaddle is currently in use for medical purposes to combat covid-19. The primary diagnostic tool for pneumonia, one of the severe effects of covid-19, is a chest computed-tomography (CT) scan. With limited front-line doctors and resources to read an exponentially growing number of scans quickly and accurately, CT imaging technology is crucial to helping clinicians detect and monitor infections more effectively.

LinkingMed, a Beijing-based oncology data platform and medical data analysis company, released Chinas first open-source AI model for pneumonia CT image analysis, powered by PaddlePaddle. The AI model can quickly detect and identify pneumonic lesions while providing a quantitative assessment for diagnosis information, including the number, volume, and proportion of pneumonic lesions.

By using PaddlePaddle and its semantic segmentation toolkit PaddleSeg, LinkingMed has developed an AI-powered pneumonia screening and lesion-detection system being used in the hospital affiliated with Xiangnan University in Hunan Province. The system can pinpoint the disease in less than one minute with a detection accuracy of 92% and a recall rate of 97% on test data sets.

Robust AI will be needed to manage the increasingly complex tasks required for technological growth. Baidu is committed to developing the PaddlePaddle deep-learning platform along with AI researchers to create a better future. Were thrilled to see what weve accomplished in 2020 and look forward to new breakthroughs in the future.

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Baidus deep-learning platform fuels the rise of industrial AI - MIT Technology Review

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This study covers following key players:1QB Information TechnologiesAirbusAnyon SystemsCambridge Quantum ComputingD-Wave SystemsGoogleMicrosoftIBMIntelQC WareQuantumRigetti ComputingStrangeworksZapata Computing

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Global Quantum Information Processing Market Expanding Rapidly with Forecast 2025 and Top Players : 1QB Information Technologies, Airbus, Anyon...

WRAL TechWire keeps tabs on the latest and greatest meetups, panels, workshops, conferences, application deadlines and all things happening in the North Carolina startup/tech world. The Headliners is a multi-part weekly roundup of upcoming events to add to your calendar.

Following is a list of June events in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and the greater Triangle area.

However, links to events are not available due to technical problems with our interactive calendar.

If youd like your event to be included, feel free to send me an email.

Also, check outour comprehensive resource guide for startups in the Triangle.

Note: The following list is our lineup of Triangle events through the end of Junemost have been switched to a virtual format due to COVID-19 social distancing requirements.

This monthly webinar series hosts a global health professional who will share insights and advice for advancing your career.

Led by The Storytelling Companion podcast host Chris Thiede, this workshop will teach participants how storytelling can help them connect with their audience.

Raleigh Chambers next virtual Networking 101 event features a talk from Barfield Revenue Consulting CEO and President Will Barfield, who will discuss how to maximize online networking tools. (Tickets are free for employees of Raleigh Chamber member firms.)

The North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association is hosting a monthly webinar serieswith local and national experts covering clean energy trends.

Join Cary Chamber of Commerce for an evening social event with Wake County elected officials.

Code for Durham brings together technologists, designers, developers, data scientists, map makers and activists to collaborate on civic technology projects. Meetings are held every two weeks on Tuesdays. Pizza will be provided.

The Small Business and Technology Development Center is hosting a four-week business development program for entrepreneurs that are ready to take their ideas to the next level by getting their business up and running. Classes are held every Tuesday from June 2-23.

NC TECHs Diversity + Inclusion Summit will bring together executives, professionals and organizational leaders to discuss the benefits of a diverse workplace. The virtual event will take place over two days.

In this virtual session, IT leaders at NC TECH member companies will discuss relevant topics and best practices in their field.

This online meeting will convene CISOs, VPs and director-level security leaders from NC TECH member companies.

1 Million Cups, presented by Kauffman, is a weekly informal pitch event for the startup community. Join for free coffee and entrepreneurial support as local startups deliver their presentations.

NC4ME (North Carolina for Military Employment) is hosting a virtual hiring event where job seekers can meet face-to-face with hiring managers and recruiters.

In this four-week virtual summit series, Raleigh Chamber will cover a range of topics relevant to the local business community, from COVID-19s impact on the economy to economic mobility, talent and other topics.

The Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina is hosting a summer-long webinar series covering topics of interest to businesses seeking the latest information on exports and the global trade landscape. This webinar will cover trade opportunities for North Carolina companies in Canada.

In this lunch and learn, Agustin Pelez and Cristina Botero of Ubidots will discuss how solopreneurs around the world are using IoT technologies for their business.

Wake Technical Community College is hosting a free virtual career fair where students and alumni can chat individually with local organizations.

Grow With Google is hosting regularly scheduled webinars for North Carolina-based small businesses. Sessions are led by Latesha Byrd, founder and CEO of Byrd Career Consulting. Every webinar covers a different topic relevant to local businesses.

The Council for Entrepreneurial Development is hosting a virtual event presenting the organizations 2019 Innovators Report. Learn about last years successes within the local startup community.

Join this webinar to learn about how quantum computing is used in economic models, including quantum money and quantum speed-ups.

ProductCampRTP is hosting an online conference spread across four weeks in June and July. The series is aimed towards product professionals worldwide. Join to hear talks from global experts. (More TechWire coverage here.)

Hosted by Forward Cities, this webinar will feature an economic development case study on how Kensington, PA is partnering with small businesses to promote growth.

RIoT is hosting a virtual town hall to discuss topics around racism and strategies to create change. The discussion will feature Denitresse Ferrell of DF Consulting and Brandon Johnson of NetApp.

Capitol Broadcasting Company and WRAL are hosting a webinar series featuring local industry experts and business owners. Each week brings a new topic relevant to businesses in the Triangle. More coverage here.

Wake Technical Community College is hosting a virtual event series featuring experts sharing their insights on the role of technology in solving problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DHIT is hosting a panel with healthcare technology leaders discussing how biomedical sensors can be applied in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster, the Triangle Clean Cities Coalition and greater Charlottes Centralina Clean Fuels Coalition are co-hosting a webinar with public and private sector leaders discussing the current transportation landscape and the opportunities to futurize it.

This weekly meetup brings together developers, IT professionals and tech enthusiasts who are interested in the Google Cloud Platform.

The 12-week RIoT Accelerator Program connects early-stage IoT startups with an industry consortium of more than 80 companies to learn, partner and bring your product to market. The fall 2020 cohort will run from August 24 to November 13 in Raleigh.

Raleigh Chambers first virtual Courageous Conversation will feature Opal Tometi, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter, along with other panelists discussing how companies can have honest conversations about race that lead to positive change.

Join the Code for Chapel Hill meetup to network with like-minded individuals and work on civic hacking projects. Meetings are held every two weeks on Tuesdays.

Bring your ideas and opinions to the next Midtown Techies meetup. Events are held on the last Tuesday of every month.

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Headliners, part I: 32 upcoming events & program deadlines in the Triangle - WRAL Tech Wire

Tulika Saxena

COVID19 has highlighted the importance of technology-led transformation across industries. The coming decade is expected to witness a transformation catalysed by the emergence and confluence of variety of technologies.

How has COVID19 changed the status quo?

Biologists Stephen Goulds and Niles Eldredges punctuated equilibrium theory states that evolutionary change happens in short, stressful bursts of time. We can consider these brief moments akin to a revolution that drives a much-needed transformation. The entities that can undertake such a transformation succeed in the new normal.

The ongoing COVID19 pandemic is one such brief moment. Although technologies such as AI, IoT and big data analytics (BDA) made their presence felt in the last decade, their adoption had not reached their full potential. COVID19 transformed the scenario; some enterprises underwent a transformation in a matter of weeks; something that might have taken a few years.

In the post-COVID19 business landscape, technologies will play a critical role in enabling enterprises to create scalable business impact and design highly personalised offerings; thereby creating a strong foundation for success. This in turn will enable them to navigate through challenges, from geo-political tensions to trade wars and natural disasters.

Which technologies and use cases will shape the next decade?

Relatively well-established technologies will be sought after, given their proven capabilities in paving the way for transformation. However, the real difference will lie in the ability of organisations to leverage the advancements in these technologies. For instance, in AI and machine learning, the open sourcing movement will accelerate their innovation, facilitating the development of highly customised solutions. Enhancements in analytical, predictive, and prescriptive capabilities will enable them to assist humans in complex use cases such as improving product design and reducing customer churn. Decentralisation of AI will transform IoT into IoT 2.0, enabling remote assets to leverage edge computing for generating and acting on actionable insights, almost independent of cloud connectivity. This will be immensely useful in scenarios such as remote health monitoring and autonomous vehicles where compromised network connectivity could have life-threatening implications.

Advancements in AI techniques such as NLP and machine vision will drive advancements in BDA, enabling enterprises to leverage troves of structured and unstructured data to generate actionable insights. Sectors such as healthcare, BFSI and retail will be able to leverage historic and real-time customer insights to tailor experiences and offerings based on their preferences. Digital twins, leveraging AI, IoT and BDA, will benefit from enhanced functionality, thus driving their adoption. Advancements in mechatronics will lead to more capable and safer Cobots. Blockchain will continue to be adopted in diverse areas. Blockchain-based smart contracts will gain traction as enterprises increasingly adopt code-based and automated legal solutions to optimise their operations. Blockchains decentralised architecture and its use of encryption algorithms will also find applications in protecting remote assets using IoT solutions.

Some of last decades technologies that were ahead of their time will witness a resurgence as their use cases become more established. For instance, 3D printing will gain traction as enterprises from automobile OEMs to medical device manufacturers develop contingency plans for supply chain disruptions. Amid advancements in raw materials and product design, 3D printed parts will be used in medical prosthetics and modular construction. Adoption of AR and VR solutions will increase as they become portable, affordable, and powerful. Besides use cases such as training and equipment maintenance, they will also be sought for creating virtual experiences in sectors such as entertainment, sports, and retail. Quantum computers will also progress beyond the R&D stage. Given their high speed, they are ideal for complex use cases, ranging from asset degradation modelling to drug development.

The coming decade will also witness transformation in technologies that enable and accelerate the adoption of technologies covered above. For instance, in cloud computing, a mature technology, hybrid cloud model will gain traction. It enables enterprises to strike the perfect balance between private and third-party clouds, and is flexible, cost-effective, and secure. In telecom, 5G will pave the way for dynamic and self-regulating networks capable of supporting use cases from autonomous vehicles to remote surgery. 6G, featuring 100Gbps speeds and sub 1ms end-to-end latency, could also appear on the horizon, rendering applications such as high-fidelity holograms and pervasive AI possible. In cybersecurity, the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture model will gain traction. It will allow enterprises to replace multiple security solutions with a unified SaaS-based network and security platform, thereby offering more flexibility and cost benefits.

What must be done to derive the maximum benefit from technologies?

The decade 202030 will see enterprises leverage past learnings, including the COVID19 pandemic. Optimising technology usage for maximising benefits will depend on multiple factors having a flexible organisational culture, pursuing customer-centric approach, drawing and applying insights from the most relevant and feasible technology use cases, effectively implementing the roadmap, and monitoring the right key performance indicators. This knowledge and experience will enable enterprises to be cognisant of the evolving business landscape, take appropriate tactical and strategic decisions, improve resilience, and succeed in the coming decade.

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These are the technologies that will revolutionise businesses in the Post-COVID era - Moneycontrol

Editors note: Ken Pedersen holds a PhD in electrical engineering and is a retired Vice President of Raytheon. Jonathan Witt is a senior fellow with Discovery Institutes Center for Science & Culture and the author or co-author of numerous articles and books. A version of this article appears inSalvo 52. It is published here with permission of the authors.

Scientific materialism is an atheistic worldview that sees all reality as the result of accidental collisions and combinations of elementary particles governed by a mysteriously fortuitous set of laws that control how matter interacts. Its a worldview devoid of higher meaning and purpose.

Today, scientific materialism has captured much of the academic world. Science itself has virtually come to be defined as the study of this mechanical, robotic, meaningless, accidental combination of particles of matter and energy. Any belief in design, purpose, ultimate meaning, inherent values, morality, or beauty is ridiculed as equivalent to belief in the Easter Bunny.

Although scientific materialists in the last century didnt usually pretend to have all the answers, most did express confidence that it was only a matter of time before any shortcomings in their paradigm would be shored up by fresh discoveries.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century.

The computer revolution and information age, combined with advances in microscopy and theoretical physics, have transformed our understanding of the power of information processing and opened our eyes to the deep structures of physical reality. The central insight: the essence of the physical world is energy and information. There is no such thing as mere solid matter. Instead, the substructure of physical reality is an unbelievably complex network of interlocking information-processing systems all working in harmony to afford progressively more capable information-processing systems.

As the renowned theoretical physicist John Wheeler put it, It from Bit. That is, the subatomic realm, along with the laws and constants of physics, which guide and shape physical interactions large and small, are shot through with information. And the information isnt just along for the ride. The material it is literally in-formed by immaterial in-formation. Or as Wheeler elaborated in a fall 1989 paper,1 It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom at a very deep bottom, in most instances an immaterial source and explanation.

We now know that three quantum fields undergird physical reality the electron, the up quark and the down quark. These particles are in fact tiny clouds of pure energy. And somehow, they encode digital information for establishing what is known as a particles quantum state.

We do not understand and cannot visualize what this ghostly energy is. But we do know that it cannot be created or destroyed by any natural power. We also know that we can use mathematics to model how these tiny clouds of digital information behave as they flow through time and combine to undergird larger and larger patterns of energy and information.

Think about it. There is a form of digital computing constantly whirring along at the quantum-field level of reality. And that digital computing proceeds upward through the information-processing capacities that emerge to generate, guide, and allow for atoms, radiant energy, hydrogen clouds, galaxies, stars, stardust, planets, molecular chemistry, the DNA-RNA information-coding system, a living cell, multi-cellular life, ecosystems, and ultimately conscious human minds with a capacity for perception, memory, emotions, learning, curiosity, imagination, free will, creativity, and language.

Since these patterns overlap and interfuse one another, the boundary line between one information layer and another is not always neat and discrete, but we can still profitably delineate them. Below the quantum layer or we might say, interpenetrating and informing the quantum layer are the rule sets governing the fundamental forces of electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Without those precisely tuned rule sets, there are no atoms more complicated than hydrogen and really, good luck even getting hydrogen. Also, no stars and galaxies, no planets, no life.

Above the level of quantum particles is the atomic layer of information processing, where the various atoms combine into the myriad of chemical compounds that make stars and a planet such as Earth possible. Other layers include the information-processing found in DNA and RNA, the accompanying layer found in the amino acids that code for proteins, the higher-level information-processing systems at the cellular level, and on up the hierarchy to the extraordinary information-processing that occurs in conscious creatures such as ourselves, able to unravel and marvel over these layered networks.

Anyone who understands our current scientific knowledge base has to live in awe of existence, of this multi-layered structure of physical reality, of the purposeful flow of energy and information underpinning both matter and man, of the absolute necessity of all of this for the functioning of our brains and the magnificent physical and mental gifts humans have been given.

One of us (Ken) brings to this a background in computer information processing, mathematics, and physics, along with a career as a system engineer working on advanced information-processing systems and sensors, and overseeing the development of sophisticated missile systems. That advanced technology is all about layer upon layer of information-processing. But the sophistication of those systems is dwarfed by the that of the information systems that undergird nature.

Science can observe what each of these information-processing layers does and, in many cases, accurately model its behavior. Each layer of the design is unique, stunningly complex, and precisely tuned to interface with its adjoining layers. However, a science wedded to materialism cannot explain how the layers came to be or why they exist.

Kens recent book, Modern Science Proves Intelligent Design (Archway, 2019), walks the reader through the systematic emergence of all of these progressively more complex information-processing layers. The origin of the total design is a baffling mystery to scientific materialists. However, for any scientist willing simply to follow the evidence, one purpose of it all strongly suggests itself. Physical reality is designed as a multilayered information-processing system to guide the flow of energy and information from the elemental level of quantum computing up to the miraculous information processing found amidst the neural networks of the human mind.

Some may object that this is anthropic narcissism. Surely the vast reaches of the cosmos, with its billions and billions of galaxies stretching across billions of light years, isnt solely about human beings. We dont claim otherwise. If the universe is the work of purposive design, it quite likely has many purposes. We are only arguing that the layer upon layer of information-processing systems fine-tuned to allow for that most impressive of natural information-processing systems, the human mind/brain, has for one of its purposes creatures like ourselves. As the great mathematician and theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson put it, The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.2

Dyson isnt alone. Many theoretical physicists now recognize the sobering challenge of random accidents creating the multi-layered information-processing system one accidental rule at a time and then accidentally self-assembling these accidental rules into the magnificently complex and bizarre system of tiny clouds of energy that constantly process digital information at the speed of light. This layered network that forms the structure of physical reality could not have sprung from a fortuitous string of a few billion random accidents (make that a few quadzillion accidents if you include the DNA program). It is mathematically impossible.

Instead, the fact that each layer is the precise foundational layer for all of the subsequent higher layers of more complex information processing strongly suggests that each layer was foreseen, and intelligently designed for a purpose.

All of this means that the victory lap for the scientific materialists has been put on hold, indefinitely. Instead, they are scrambling to save their accidental universe.

Also, there is an irony in the way many of them are going about it. After generations of labeling their opponents as irrational and anti-science, many of these materialists now appeal to a kind of supernatural genie to save their accidental universe the claim that beyond the space and time of our universe is a myriad perhaps an infinity of other universes, with ours simply being one of the lucky ones fine-tuned to allow for advanced life. In essence, thanks to the genie known as the multiverse, everything happens somewhere, so why not humans here?

Yes, that is their solution. They dream of genie.

Photo credit:Michael DziedzicviaUnsplash.

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Bits and Bytes at the Bottom - Discovery Institute

Honeywell International announced Thursday that it has created the worlds most powerful quantum computer. And some of the things quantum computers can do are truly strange.

With a quantum volume of 64 the Honeywell quantum computer is twice as powerful as the next alternative in the industry, reads a blog post on the companys website.

A 64-volume quantum computer sounds amazing. But what is it? It means software-industrial conglomerate Honeywell (ticker: HON) has tethered together six high-functioning q-bits, or quantum bits.

OK, amazing. But who should care? The short answer is everyone.

Its tough to find an area of human activity where [quantum computing] wont help, Christopher Savoie, CEO of Zapata Computing, tells Barrons.

Quantum computing is still in its infancy, and the science is daunting, to say the least, but Savoie has a useful analogy. The Wright brothers took their flight in 1903, and by 1918 we had global air forces, he says. Honeywell is months past the Wright brothers in terms of quantum computing development, according to Savoie.

Quantum computers are, essentially, way more powerful computers. Problems which would might take days, weeks, or years to solve on a traditional computer can take minutes on a quantum computer.

Climate change, drug discovery, logistics, notes Savoie, right now you are limited by the number of variable your computer can handle. Quantum-computing speed grows exponentially. There is a hockey-stick graphic look in computing power as new q-bits get added to the system.

Honeywell stock doesnt trade on quantum fundamentals yet. Shares are down about 16% year to date, worse than the comparable drops of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. Honeywell is a large aerospace supplier, and the commercial aviation business has been hammered by Covid-19. Boeing (BA) stock, for instance, is off more than 40% year to date.

Honeywell stock is flat in early Friday trading. The S&P is up about 0.8%.

The quantum-computing industry hasnt yet arrived, despite todays announcement. But quantum computers are already better than regular computers in certain instances. Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) demonstrated the ability of its rudimentary quantum computer to beat traditional systems.

Our quantum computing starts with having a MEMS layer that acts to trap individual ytterbium atoms. We take atoms and hit them with a laser, which strips an electron and traps an ion in an electric field, Tony Uttley, president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions, told Barrons a few months ago, when the company embarked on its quest to make the most powerful computer. The ion is the q-bit. The cool thing about quantum mechanics is a q-bit can be a one or a zero at the same time.

The explanation of the quantum-computing hardware is nearly incomprehensible to most people. And the analogy between the quantum world and the regular world breaks down eventually. Its totally different tech. Quantum computers arent faster just because of the dual nature of a q-bit. They are also faster because of quantum entanglement and constructive interference.

Readers might have to Google both terms, but Uttley tried to help Barrons understand. With constructive interference, only the correct answer survives, he says. The system filters out the wrong answers.

Ask a question and receive only the correct answer. Quantum computers are always right? That situation feels almost religious, like querying God.

What constructive interference really means is the quantum computer solves a maze like a human does, says Savoie. Looking from overhead and tossing out obvious wrong paths before it even starts. That helps a little, but all the explanations help to drive home the idea that quantum-computing technology is a game-changer.

For Honeywell, its a business opportunity. It can create the hardware and join with business such as Zapata to build quantum software and data-analytic platforms.

Zapata is, essentially, an enterprise software company. Businesses arent likely to hire their own quantum programmers, but now they have someone to call to help with the toughest analytical problems.

It would be hard for each company to build their own quantum-computing department, though some banks are doing that already. Quantum programmers? reflects Uttley. The people who know how to program are called theorists, they are a combination of physicists and mathematician, and there are hundreds in the world, not thousands.

Thats one reason why between Honeywell and its partners, which include Microsoft (MSFT), are building a QaaS, or Quantum as a Service, business model.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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This Is What the Worlds Most Powerful Quantum Computer Looks Like - Barron's

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A quantum computing startup called Quantum Machines has released a new programming language called QUA. The language runs on the startups proprietary Quantum Orchestration Platform.

Quantum Machines says its goal is to complete the stack that includes quantum computing at the very bottom-most level. Yes, those physical interactions between quantum bits (qubits) are what set quantum computers apart from traditional hardwarebut you still need the rest of the hardware that will turn physical interactions into something that will run software.

And, of course, you need the software, too. Thats where QUA comes in.

The transition from having just specific circuitsphysical circuits for specific algorithmsto the stage at which the system is programmable is the dramatic point, CEO Itavar Siman told Tech Crunch. Basically, you have a software abstraction layer and then, you get to the era of software and everything accelerated.

The language Quantum Machine describes in its materials isnt what you think of when you imagine programming, unless youre a machine language coder. Whats machine language? Thats the lowest possible level of code, where the instructions arent in natural or human language and are instead in tiny bits of direct instruction for the hardware itself.

Coder Ben Eater made a great video that walks you through a sample program written in C, which is a higher and more abstract language, and how that information translates all the way down into machine code. (Essentially, everything gets much messier and much less readable to the human eye.)

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Machine code acts as a reminder that, on a fundamental level, everything inside your computer is passing nano-Morse code back and forth to do everything you see on the screen as well as all the behind the scenes routines and coordination. Since quantum computers have a brand new paradigm for the idea of hardware itself, theres an opening for a new machine code.

Quantum Machines seems to want to build the entire quantum system, from hardware to all the software to control and highlight it. And if that sounds overly proprietary or like some unfair version of how to develop new technology, we have some bad news for you about the home PC wars of the 1980s or the market share Microsoft Windows still holds among operating systems.

By offering a package deal with something for everyone when quantum computing isnt even a twinkle in the eye of the average consumer, Quantum Machines could be making inroads that will keep it ahead for decades. A universal language, indeed.

QUA is what we believe the first candidate to become what we define as the quantum computing software abstraction layer, Sivan told TechCrunch. In 20 years, we might look back on QUA the way todays users view DOS.

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This Is the First Universal Language for Quantum Computers - Popular Mechanics

Everyone learns differently, but cognitive research shows that you tend to remember things better if you use spaced repetition. That is, you learn something, then after a period, you are tested. If you still remember, you get tested again later with a longer interval between tests. If you get it wrong, you get tested earlier. Thats the idea behind [Andy Matuschak s]and [Michael Nielsens] quantum computing tutorial. You answer questions embedded in the text. You answer to yourself, so theres no scoring. However, once you click to reveal the answer, you report if you got the answer correct or not, and the system schedules you for retest based on your report.

Does it work? We dont know, but we have heard that spaced repetition is good for learning languages, among other things. We suspect that like most learning methods, it works better for some people than others.

The series of essays are reasonably technical and assume you understand linear algebra, complex numbers, and Boolean logic. Of course, there are links to help you pick up any of those you lack. Honestly, those topics will help you in lots of other areas, too, so if you dont already have those in your tool belt, it wouldnt hurt to follow some of the links.

If you want to play with quantum computing, we like Quirk. There are also quantum computers you can use for real from IBM, although youll run out of gates pretty quickly.

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2 thoughts on Learn Quantum Computing With Spaced Repetition - Hackaday