Category Archives: Quantum Computing

Resilience is at the heart of information security. As threats adapt and evolve and we accept that systems will be compromised, it is no longer enough just to have strong defences in place. The sophisticated tools and techniques of threat actors will find a way around them. Organisations, their security architecture, systems, policies and strategies need to be resilient, able to cope, recover and, most of all, to learn from incidents.

Our sector as a whole needs to be resilient; human skills and expertise are at the heart of this. We must attract, recruit and retain the talent and skills to tackle new and emerging risks and challenges. We must also embrace diversity in all its forms to find, nurture and train professionals.

It is the responsibility of every organisation to drive inclusivity and diversity in the industry. We should look beyond the traditional routes into information security and think about other transferable skills and attitudes that can offer so much. These include broader business skills, such as the ability to negotiate, financial acumen and leadership skill, that are increasingly needed as part of a modern-day security team.

It also includes skills from outside the industry, so it is encouraging to see organisations starting to recruit more people from sectors like healthcare, the emergency services, design and gaming.

But resilience goes much further than this. We, as infosecurity professionals, need to be resilient ourselves, developing new skills and, on a personal level, being resilient to the pressures and stress currently facing our industry.

Employee mental health and wellbeing should be an essential consideration for all employers and be part of company culture and organisational values. But perhaps we could do more in an industry that is faced with growing cyberthreats, longer working hours and individuals often having to make up gaps left by under-resourced teams. Its clear from what we are hearing from our community of chief information security officers that infosecurity professionals are under more pressure than ever before.

But with challenges come opportunities. The industry is undergoing a huge transformation as it embraces new and emerging technologies, such as quantum computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence tools, which can play a key role in enhancing the capabilities of security systems to identify and mitigate risks, and ease the pressure on security teams.

As an information and cybersecurity community, we can help to keep our world safe and unlock more of the good things that technology promises and delivers. There is no time like the future and, ultimately, it is in our hands. But this goes beyond just the information security industry and out to a wider group of individuals and organisations.

By working together, companies, governments, industry bodies, academia, suppliers and other stakeholders can share their knowledge and intelligence, learn from each other and get ahead of cybercriminals. This need to collaborate and share knowledge has never been more important as new kinds of threats emerge from new breeds of attackers, and we need to stay one step ahead.

Resilience is our conference theme this year, addressing the most relevant and decisive factors in information and cybersecurity in the next five years.

By building resilience across the industry, we can move towards a more secure world and a more secure future.

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Why resilience is the key to future security - Raconteur

UC Riverside (UCR) is set to lead a project focused on enabling scalable quantum computing after winning a $3.75 million Multicampus-National Lab Collaborative Research and Training Award.

The collaborative effort will see contributions from UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara, with UCR acting as project coordinator.

Scalable quantum computing

Quantum computing is currently in its infancy but it is expected to stretch far beyond the capabilities of conventional computing in the coming years. Intensive tasks such as modeling complex processes, finding large prime numbers, and designing new chemical compounds for medical use are what quantum computers are expected to excel at.

Quantum information is stored on quantum computers in the form of quantum bits, or qubits. This means that quantum systems can exist in two different states simultaneously as opposed to conventional computing systems which only exist in one state at a time. Current quantum computers are limited in their qubits, however, so for quantum computing to realize its true potential, new systems are going to have to be scalable and include many more qubits.

The goal of this collaborative project is to establish a novel platform for quantum computing that is truly scalable up to many qubits, said Boerge Hemmerling, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside and the lead principal investigator of the three-year project. Current quantum computing technology is far away from experimentally controlling the large number of qubits required for fault-tolerant computing. This stands in large contrast to what has been achieved in conventional computer chips in classical computing.

3D printed ion trap microstructures

The research team will use advanced 3D printing technology, available at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to fabricate microstructure ion traps for the new quantum computers. Ions are used to store qubits and quantum information is transferred when these ions move in their traps. According to UCR, trapped ions have the best potential for realizing scalable quantum computing.

Alongside UCR, UC Berkeley will enable high-fidelity quantum gates with the ion traps. UCLA will integrate fiber optics with the ion traps, UC Santa Barbara will put the traps through trials in cryogenic environments and demonstrate shuttling of ion strings while the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will be used to characterize and develop new materials. The project coordinator, UCR, will develop simplified cooling schemes and research the possibility of trapping electrons with the traps.

We have a unique opportunity here to join various groups within the UC system and combine their expertise to make something bigger than a single group could achieve, Hemmerling stated. We anticipate that the microstructure 3D printed ion traps will outperform ion traps that have been used to date in terms of the storage time of the ions and ability to maintain and manipulate quantum information.

He adds, Most importantly, our envisioned structures will be scalable in that we plan to build arrays of interconnected traps, similar to the very successful conventional computer chip design. We hope to establish these novel 3D-printed traps as a standard laboratory tool for quantum computing with major improvements over currently used technology.

Hemmerlings concluding remarks explain that many quantum computing approaches, while very promising, have fallen short of providing a scalable platform that is useful for processing complex tasks. If an applicable machine is to be built, new routes must be considered, starting with UCRs scalable computing project.

Early quantum technology work involving 3D printing has paved the way for UCRs future project. When cooled to near 0K, the quantum characteristics of atomic particles start to become apparent. Just last year, additive manufacturing R&D company Added Scientific 3D printed the first vacuum chamber capable of trapping clouds of cold atoms. Elsewhere, two-photon AM system manufacturer Nanoscribe introduced a new machine, the Quantum X, with micro-optic capabilities. The company expects its system to be useful in advancing quantum technology to the industrial level.

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Featured image showsUniversity of California, Riverside campus. Photo via UCR.

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UC Riverside to lead scalable quantum computing project using 3D printed ion traps - 3D Printing Industry

Quantum computing is expected to be the new technology, fully integrated with the financial sector within five to ten years. This form of computer, also known as supercomputers, are capable of highly advanced processing power that takes in massive amounts of data to solve a problem in a fraction of the time it would for the best traditional computer on the market to resolve.

Traditional Computer vs. Quantum Computing

A typical computer today stores information in the form of bits. These are represented in the binary language (0s and 1s). In quantum computing, the bits are known as Qubits and will take on the processing of similar input but rather than break it down to 0s and 1s will break the data down significantly greater where the possibilities of computational speed can be almost immeasurable.

Quantum Computing in Banking

Lets examine personal encryption in banking for example. Using a security format called RSA-2048, traditional computers would be able to decrypt the security algorithm in about 1,034 steps. With our best computers on the market, even with a processor capable of performing a trillion calculations per second, these steps translate to 317 billion years to break the secure code. While it is possible, it is not practical for a cyber-criminal to make it worthwhile.

A quantum computer, on the other hand, would be able to resolve this problem in about 107 steps. With a basic quantum computer running at one million calculations per second, this translates to ten seconds to resolve the problem.

While this example centered on breaking complex security, many other use cases can emerge from the use of quantum computing.

Trade Transaction Settlements

Barclays bank researchers have been working on a proof of concept regarding the transaction settlement process. As settlements can only be worked on a transaction-by-transaction basis, they can easily queue up only to be released in batches. When a processing window opens, as many trades as possible are settled.

Complex by their very nature, Traders can end up tapping into funds prior to the transaction being cleared. They will only be settled if the funds are available or if a collateral credit facility was arranged.

As you could probably handle a small number of trades in your head, you would need to rely on a computer after about 10-20 transactions. The same can be described for our current computational power in that it is now nearing the point where it will need more and more time to resolve hundreds of trades at a time.

With quantum computing using a seven-qubit system, it would be able to run a greater amount of complex trades in the same time it would for a traditional system to complete the trades. It would take the equivalent of about two hundred traditional computers to match the speed.

Simulating a Future Product Valuation

Researchers at JP Morgan were working on a concept that simulates the future value of a financial product. The team is testing quantum computers to perform complex intensive pricing calculations that normally take traditional computer hours to complete. This is a problem as each year greater complexity is added via newer algorithms, getting to the point where it is nearing an impossibility to calculate in a practical sense.

The research team has discovered that using quantum computing resulted in finding a resolution to the problem in mere seconds.

Final Thoughts

Banks are working on successful tests today with quantum computing to resolve extreme resource-intensive calculations for financial problem scenarios. Everything from trading, fraud, AML, etc. this is a technology not to be overlooked.

According toDeltec Bank, Bahamas - Quantum Computing will have positive impacts on portfolio optimization, risk analysis, asset pricing, and trading strategies is just the tip of the iceberg of what this technology could provide.

Disclaimer: The author of this text, Robin Trehan, has an Undergraduate degree in economics, Masters in international business and finance and MBA in electronic business. Trehan is Senior VP at Deltec International http://www.deltecbank.com. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this text are solely the views of the author, and not necessarily reflecting the views of Deltec International Group, its subsidiaries and/or employees.

About Deltec Bank

Headquartered in The Bahamas, Deltec is an independent financial services group that delivers bespoke solutions to meet clients unique needs. The Deltec group of companies includes Deltec Bank & Trust Limited, Deltec Fund Services Limited, and Deltec Investment Advisers Limited, Deltec Securities Ltd. and Long Cay Captive Management.

Media ContactCompany Name: Deltec International GroupContact Person: Media ManagerEmail: Send EmailPhone: 242 302 4100Country: BahamasWebsite: https://www.deltecbank.com/

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Deltec Bank, Bahamas Quantum Computing Will have Positive Impacts on Portfolio Optimization, Risk Analysis, Asset Pricing, and Trading Strategies -...

AI is one of the most happening domains in the world right now. It would take a lifetime to skim through all the machine learning research papers released till date. As the AI keeps itself in the news through new releases of frameworks, regulations and breakthroughs, we can only hope to get the best of the lot.

So, here we have a compiled a list of top exciting AI announcements released over the past one week:

Late last year, Google locked horns with IBM in their race for quantum supremacy. Though the news has been around how good their quantum computers are, not much has been said about the implementation. Today, Google brings two of their most powerful frameworks Tensorflow and CIRQ together and releases TensorFlow Quantum, an open-source library for the rapid prototyping of quantum ML models.

Google AI team has joined hands with the University of Waterloo, X, and Volkswagen, announced the release of TensorFlow Quantum (TFQ).

TFQ is designed to provide the developers with the tools necessary for assisting the quantum computing and machine learning research communities to control and model quantum systems.

The team at Google have also released a TFQ white paper with a review of quantum applications. And, each example can be run in-browser via Colab from this research repository.

A key feature of TensorFlow Quantum is the ability to simultaneously train and execute many quantum circuits. This is achieved by TensorFlows ability to parallelise computation across a cluster of computers, and the ability to simulate relatively large quantum circuits on multi-core computers.

As the devastating news of COVID-19 keeps rising at an alarming rate, the AI researchers have given something to smile about. DeepMind, one of the premier AI research labs in the world, announced last week, that they are releasing structure predictions of several proteins that can promote research into the ongoing research around COVID-19. They have used the latest version of AlphaFold system to find these structures. AlphaFold is one of the biggest innovations to have come from the labs of DeepMind, and after a couple of years, it is exhilarating to see its application in something very critical.

As the pursuit to achieve human-level intelligence in machines fortifies, language modeling will keep on surfacing till the very end. One, human language is innately sophisticated, and two, training language models from scratch is exhaustive.

The last couple of years has witnessed a flurry of mega releases from the likes of NVIDIA, Microsoft and especially Google. As BERT topped the charts through many of its variants, Google now announces ELECTRA.

ELECTRA has the benefits of BERT but more efficient learning. They also claim that this novel pre-training method outperforms existing techniques given the same compute budget.

The gains are particularly strong for small models; for example, a model trained on one GPU for four days outperformed GPT (trained using 30x more compute) on the GLUE natural language understanding benchmark.

China has been the worst-hit nation of all the COVID-19 victims. However, two of the biggest AI breakthroughs have come from the Chinese soil. Last month, Baidu announced how its toolkit brings down the prediction time. Last week, another Chinese giant, Alibaba announced that its new AI system has an accuracy of 96% in detecting the coronavirus from the CT scan of the patients. Alibabas founder Jack Ma has fueled the vaccine development efforts of his team with a $2.15 M donation.

Facebook AI has released its in-house feature of converting a two-dimensional photo into a video byte that gives the feel of having a more realistic view of the object in the picture. This system infers the 3D structure of any image, whether it is a new shot just taken on an Android or iOS device with a standard single camera, or a decades-old image recently uploaded to a phone or laptop.

The feature has been only available on high-end phones through the dual-lens portrait mode. But, now it will be available on every mobile device even with a single, rear-facing camera. To bring this new visual format to more people, the researchers at Facebook used state-of-the-art ML techniques to produce 3D photos from virtually any standard 2D picture.

One significant implication of this feature can be an improved understanding of 3D scenes that can help robots navigate and interact with the physical world.

As the whole world focused on the race to quantum supremacy between Google and IBM, Honeywell silently has been building, as it claims, the most powerful quantum computer yet. And, it plans to release this by the middle of 2020.

Thanks to a breakthrough in technology, were on track to release a quantum computer with a quantum volume of at least 64, twice that of the next alternative in the industry. There are a number of industries that will be profoundly impacted by the advancement and ultimate application of at-scale quantum computing, said Tony Uttley, President of Honeywell Quantum Solutions in the official press release.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a panic globally and rightfully so. Many flagship conferences have been either cancelled or have been moved to a virtual environment.

Nvidias flagship GPU Technology Conference (GTC), which was supposed to take place in San Francisco in the last week of March was cancelled due to fears of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Whereas, Google Cloud also has cancelled its upcoming event, Google Cloud Next 20, which was slated to take place on April 6-8 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Due to the growing concern around the coronavirus (COVID-19), and in alignment with the best practices laid out by the CDC, WHO and other relevant entities, Google Cloud has decided to reimagine Google Cloud Next 20, the company stated on its website.

One of the popular conferences for ML researchers, ICLR2020 too, has announced that they are cancelling its physical conference this year due to growing concerns about COVID-19. They are shifting this event to a fully virtual conference.

ICLR authorities also issued a statement saying that all accepted papers at the virtual conference will be presented using a pre-recorded video.

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Top AI Announcements Of The Week: TensorFlow Quantum And More - Analytics India Magazine

The presidents budget request for fiscal 2021 proposed $738 million to fund the National Institutes of Science and Technology, a dramatic reduction from the more than $1 billion in enacted funds allocated for the agency this fiscal year.

The House Science, Space and Technology Committees Research and Technology Subcommittee on Wednesday held a hearing to hone in on NISTs reauthorizationbut instead of focusing on relevant budget considerations, lawmakers had other plans.

We're disappointed by the president's destructive budget request, which proposes over a 30% cut to NIST programs, Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., said at the top of the hearing. But today, I don't want to dwell on a proposal that we know Congress is going to reject ... today I would like this committee to focus on improving NIST and getting the agency the tools it needs to do better, to do its job.

Per Stevens suggestion, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Walter Copan reflected on some of the agencys dire needs and offered updates and his view on a range of its ongoing programs and efforts.

NISTs Facilities Are in Bad Shape

President Trumps budget proposal for fiscal 2021 requests only $60 million in funds for facility construction, which is down from the $118 million enacted for fiscal 2020 and comes at a time when the agencys workspaces need upgrades.

Indeed the condition of NIST facilities are challenging, Copan explained. Over 55% of NIST's facilities are considered in poor to critical condition per [Commerce Department] standards, and so it does provide some significant challenges for us.

Some of the agencys decades-old facilities and infrastructures are deteriorating and Copan added that hed recently heard NISTs deferred maintenance backlog has hit more than $775 million. If the lawmakers or public venture out to visit some of the agencys facilities, you'll see the good, the bad, and the embarrassingly bad, he said. Those conditions are a testament to the resilience and the commitment of NISTs people, that they can work in sometimes challenging, outdated environments, Copan said.

The director noted that there have already been some creative solutions proposed to address the issue, including the development of a federal capital revolving fund. The agency is also looking creatively at the combination of maintenance with lease options for some of its facilities, in hopes that it can then move more rapidly by having its officials cycle out of laboratories to launch rebuilding and renovation processes.

It's one of my top priorities as the NIST director to have our NIST people work in 21st-century facilities that we can be proud of and that enable the important work of NIST for the nation, Copan said.

Advancing Efforts in Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing

The presidents budget request placed a sharp focus on industries of the future, which will be powered by many emerging technologies, and particularly quantum computing and AI.

During the hearing and in his written testimony, Copan highlighted some of NISTs work in both areas. The agency has helped shape an entire generation of quantum science, over the last century, and a significant portion of quantum scientists from around the globe have trained at the agencys facilities. Some of NISTs more recent quantum achievements include supporting the development of a quantum logic clock and helping steer advancements in quantum simulation. Following a recent mandate from the Trump administration, the agency is also in the midst of instituting the Quantum Economic Development Consortium, or QEDC, which aims to advance industry collaboration to expand the nations leadership in quantum research and development.

Looking forward, over the coming years NIST will focus a portion of its quantum research portfolio on the grand challenge of quantum networking, Copans written testimony said. Serving as the basis for secure and highly efficient quantum information transmission that links together multiple quantum devices and sensors, quantum networks will be a key element in the long-term evolution of quantum technologies.

Though there were cuts across many areas, the presidents budget request also proposed a doubling of NISTs funding in artificial intelligence and Copan said the technology is already broadly applied across all of the agencys laboratories to help improve productivity.

Going forward and with increased funding, he laid out some of the agencys top priorities, noting that there's much work to be done in developing tools to provide insights into artificial intelligence programs, and there is also important work to be done in standardization, so that the United States can lead the world in the application of [AI] in a trustworthy and ethical manner.

Standardization to Help the U.S. Lead in 5G

Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., asked Copan to weigh in on the moves China is making across the fifth-generation wireless technology landscape, and the moves the U.S. needs to make to leadnot just competein that specific area.

We have entered in the United States, as we know, a hyper-competitive environment with China as a lead in activities related to standardization, Copan responded.

The director said that officials see, in some ways, that the standardization process has been weaponized, where the free market economy that is represented by the United States, now needs to lead in more effective coordination internally and incentivize industry to participate in the standards process. Though U.S. officials have already seen those rules of fair play bent or indeed broken by other players, NIST and others need to help improve information sharing across American standards-focused stakeholders, which could, in turn, accelerate adoption around the emerging technology.

We want the best technologies in the world to win and we want the United States to continue to be the leader in not only delivering those technologies, but securing the intellectual properties behind them and translating those into market value, he said.

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NIST Works on the Industries of the Future in Buildings from the Past - Nextgov

Wednesday night, in no particular order in the space of an hour: The N.B.A. suspended its season. Tom Hanks announced that he and his wife have the coronavirus. President Trump, who had spent time hate-tweeting Vanity Fair magazine earlier in the day, banned travel from Europe. And, of course, the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, wearing a pink, fluffy bear outfit, sang Sir Mix-A-Lots Baby Got Back on The Masked Singer. Correction: Badly sang it.

In perhaps the most accurate assessment of the night, Josh Jordan tweeted: We are living in a simulation and it has collapsed on itself.

I do not believe in the simulation hypothesis, which he is joking about here. For those not familiar, it posits that what we think of as reality is not actually real. Instead, we are living in a complex simulation that was probably created by a supercomputer, invented by an obviously superior being.

Everythings fake news, if you will, or really just designed as a giant video game to amuse what would have to be the brainiest teenagers who ever lived.

Crazy, right?

But while most people think they actually do exist, wouldnt it be nice to have a blame-free explanation to cope with the freak show that has become our country and the world? (I vote yes, even if some quantum computer just made me type that.)

It would be, which is why the idea of the simulation hypothesis has been a long-running, sort-of joke among some of Silicon Valleys top players, some of whom take it more seriously than you might imagine.

Some background: While the basic idea around the simulation hypothesis really goes back to philosophers like Descartes, we got a look-see at this tech-heavy idea in the 1999 movie The Matrix.

In the film, Keanu Reevess character, Neo, is jarred out of his anodyne existence to find that he has been living, unaware, in a virtual world in which the energy from his body, and everyone elses, is used as fuel for the giant computer. Neos body is literally jacked with all kinds of scary-looking plugs, and he finally becomes powerful enough to wave his hands around real fast and break the bad guys into itty-bitty bytes.

The idea that were all living in a simulation took off big time among tech folks in 2003 when Oxford Universitys big thinker of the future, Nick Bostrom, wrote a paper on the subject. He focused on the likely amazing computing abilities of advanced civilizations and the fact that it is not too crazy to imagine that the devices they make could simulate human consciousness.

So why not do that to run what Mr. Bostrom called the ancestor simulation game? The ancestors, by the way, are us.

My mind was blown again a few years later on the topic. During an interview that Walt Mossberg and I did in 2016 with the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, an audience member asked Mr. Musk what he thought of the idea. As it turned out, he had thought a lot about it, saying that he had had so many simulation discussions its crazy.

Which was not to say the discussions were crazy. In fact, Mr. Musk quickly made the case that video game development had become so sophisticated that it was indistinguishable from reality.

And, as to that base reality we think we are living in? Not so much, said Mr. Musk. In fact, he insisted this was a good thing, arguing that either were going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options.

Oh my.

I would like to tell you that was not the last time I heard that formulation, or one like it, from the tech moguls I have covered. The Zappos founder Tony Hsieh once told me we were in one after we did an interview, as we were exiting the stage. I think he was kidding, but he also went over why it might be so and why it was important to bend your mind to consider the possibility.

After hearing the simulation idea so many times, I started to figure out that it was less about the idea that none of this is real. Instead, these tech inventors used it more to explain, inspire and even to force innovation, rather than to negate reality and its inherently hopeless messiness. In fact, it was freeing.

At least that is my take, giving me something that I could like about them, since there was so much not to like.

To my mind, tech leaders do not use the simulation hypothesis as an excuse to do whatever they want. Theyre not positing that nothing matters because none of this is happening. Instead, it allows them to hold out the possibility that this game could also change for the better rather than the worse. And, perhaps, we as pawns have some influence on that outcome too and could turn our story into a better one.

Perhaps this optimism was manifesting in the hopeful news that the Cleveland Clinic may have come up with a faster test for the coronavirus. Or that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the coronavirus task force, exists as a scientific superhero to counter all the bad information that is spewed out to vulnerable citizens like my own mother by outlets like Fox News.

In fact, it felt like a minor miracle when the tireless Dr. Fauci popped up on Sean Hannitys show this week to kindly school him on his irresponsible downplaying and deep-state conspiracy mongering of the health crisis. Pushing back on the specious claim that the coronavirus is just like the flu a notion also promoted by Mr. Trump Dr. Fauci said, Its 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu, to a temporarily speechless Mr. Hannity. You got to make sure that people understand that!

I sure have Dr. Fauci to thank for saying that, which he repeated in congressional testimony too. In all this mess, it felt like a positive turn in the game. But just in case a game it is, Ill also raise a simulated glass to those teenagers somewhere out there pushing all the buttons to make it so. Not so much for Sarah Palins singing, but Ill take that too.

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We May Be Living in a Simulation, but the Truth Still Matters - The New York Times

A previous version of this video incorrectly stated how many people the 1918 Spanish influenza killed. USA TODAY

Quantum computing isnt yet far enough along that it could have helped curbthe spread of this coronavirus outbreak. But this emerging field of computing will almost certainly help scientists and researchers confront future crises.

Can we compress the rate at which we discover, for example, a treatment or an approach to this? asks Dario Gil, the director of IBM Research. The goal is to do everything that we are doing today in terms of discovery of materials, chemistry, things like that, (in) factors of 10 times better, 100 times better,

And that, he says, could be game-changing.

Quantum computing is thenext big thing in computing, and it promises exponential advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning through the next decade and beyond, leading to potential breakthroughs in healthcare and pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, battery power, and financial services.

For a consumer with a retirement fund, quantum computers over the next 10 to 15 years may help you make better personal financial decisions through the calculations that your broker is doing, says Bob Sutor, an IBM Research vice presidenttasked with driving the quantum computing ecosystem.

IBM, with 15 deployed quantum systems, is at the forefront of quantum computing. USA TODAYrecently got to tour a quantum lab in Yorktown Heights, New York.

But Google, Amazon, Intel, Microsoft and Honeywell are among other tech stalwarts working in the field, as are several venture-backed global startups.

IBM quantum computers system in the company's Yorktown Heights, N.Y., research lab.(Photo: Robert Deutsch)

The U.S. government, which is in a quantum race against China, has also lent support. In late 2018, President Trump signed the National Quantum Initiative Act into law to fund quantum research to the tune of $1.2 billion over a five-year period.

Here is a guide to help demystify quantum computing, which you will almost certainly hear a lot more about in the years ahead.

It isnt easy to get a grip around quantum computing or the field of physics it harnesses, quantum mechanics. But such machines they cost millions are designed to model nature.

In the simplest terms, they are exponentially more powerful than what we consider classical computers, whose basic fundamental units are expressed in1s or 0s or bits. Quantum computing takes a quantum leap with whatare known as quantum bits or "qubits for short.

Think about it this way: If you flip a coin, it will land as either heads or tails, or in those classical computer terms, 1s and 0s. But whats the state of that coin when it is still spinning? Thats kind of where qubits are, not necessarily as a 1 or a 0, but as all the possibilities in between.

Now lets take the analogy further. If you flip two coins in the physical world, the heads or tails of one coin has no bearing on the other. Qubits, though, can be entangled in multiple states at the same time.

This is one of those the 'Earth is not flat kind of moments, Gil says. There is actually a revolution going on.

A quantum computer chip is kept at a temperature thats colder than outer space in a cylinder that's part of an elaboraterefrigerated apparatus. The system has more than 2,000 components, including pulse tube coolers, superconducting coaxial lines, a mixing chamber and various circuits. It resembles a fancy chandelier.

The "chandelier" inside an IBM quantum computer.(Photo: Robert Deutsch)

In May 2016, IBM became the first company to put a quantum computer on the cloud, where anyone with the computing know-how could run experiments.

Currently, more than 150 billion programs and executions have been run on IBMs quantum machines, by more than 200,000 registered users in over 140 countries. There are over 12,000 monthly active users, and, on a typical day, the machines on the cloud run over 400 million quantum circuits.

IBM says it has signed contracts around quantum with more than 100 universities, national laboratories and companies.

For example, quantum researchers at IBM are teaming up with counterparts at Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler to develop next-generation batteries for electric vehicles. IBM is also partnering with Delta Air Lines to explore quantum opportunities in the travel business.

Coronavirus and working out: People working out at home to avoid contact at the gym

This past October, Google said it achieved what's been described as quantum supremacy. It was able to perform a calculation in 200 seconds that supposedly would take a classic state-of-the-art supercomputer about 10,000 years to handle.

IBM pushed back. The company argued at the time that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2 days and with far greater fidelity, which at that it said was a conservative, worst-case estimate.

Gil told USA TODAY thatpeople are not making a distinction of whats a lab experiment, versus what is a real system.

The claims around quantum computing keep coming.

Just this week, Honeywell announced what it said is the most powerful quantum computer yet, set for a mid-2020 release. Honeywell has formed a strategic partnership with JPMorgan Chase around financial solutions that exploit quantum. JPMorgan is also part of the IBM quantum ecosystem.

But these are still early days.Gilsays quantum computing today is in roughly the same spot where artificial intelligence was in 2010.

His IBM colleague Sutor says,Just to be clear, nobody on the planet has a quantum computer that can today do better that our classical computers.

ButIBM says it can double the power of a quantum computer every year, and at some point cross a threshold at which the quantum machines might leap past classical computers, at least to address certain types of problems.

There could be. Large future fault-tolerant quantum computers and such computers are not yet around the corner have the potential to crack current encryption systems. IBM is working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on changing encryption standards that promise to keepquantum systems efficient while at the same time keeping them secure.

Though security threats might be years away, Gil stresses the urgency to prepare now.You cannot just sit and ignore the problem, Gilsays.

Even years from now, you shouldn'texpectto have a quantum computer sitting on your desk.

But the technology made possible by quantum computers will start to insert itself into supporting and making consumer apps more powerful. And society would benefit if quantum computers can stop a potential pandemic before it ever really gets started.

Nature itself is one great big computer," Sutor says,in the way atoms and molecules and light interact.Can we learn enough about how it really does it and harness it for our own computing needs with the toughest sort of problems we have?

Email:ebaig@usatoday.com.Follow @edbaig on Twitter

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Could quantum computing help beat the next coronavirus? - USA TODAY

Science is at the heart of all Alex Garlands work, but the writer-director is less interested in erudite theories than he is in what those theories reveal about humanity itself. After Garlands directorial debut, Ex Machina, came out in 2014, he started circling the idea of quantum mechanics, reading about the subject in science journals and watching online lectures by physicists like David Deutsch and David Wallace. That growing obsession has resulted, years later, in Devs, a self-contained, eight-episode series for FX on Hulu, which Garland pursued after making Annihilation in 2018.

What tends to happen with me is that I get interested in a particular subject and then at some point a story just overlays itself over that subject, says Garland, sitting on the set of Devs last year in London. The point of being interested in a subject often goes on for years, and the story arrives later. Quite often when the story arrives, it comes fully formed its like a whole narrative just drops down onto it. Thats exactly what happened with this one.

This idea stemmed from whether we live in a deterministic universe or a nondeterministic universe a deterministic universe meaning a universe where everything is a result of a prior cause. And the philosophical implication for that is that it removes free will. If thats true, thats quite a big deal. It makes you re-think behavior, which means you re-think relationships and actions, things that one has done right or wrong.

Garland wrote and directed all eight episodes, which follow a coder named Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno, who also appeared in Ex Machina) who works for a Silicon Valley tech company called Amaya. A series of events leads Lily deeper and deeper into the secretive lab housed on the Amaya campus, known as Devs short for development. To say too much about the plot would ruin the unfolding narrative, but its enough to know that Devs houses a powerful quantum computer that has the potential to change our understanding of the universe. Nick Offerman plays Amayas chief executive, a man with dubious intentions, and Alison Pill embodies his severe right-hand woman, Katie.

Although the show is set in the present day, the technology depicted therein reflects some supposition, pushing past whats currently possible.

Karl Glusman, left, and Nick Offerman on the secluded Silicon Valley campus at the center of Devs.

(Miya Mizuno/FX)

Its got something in common with Ex Machina in that its sort of 10 years into the future, Garland notes. It allows for a big breakthrough, specifically in terms of computing, which is a thing that is currently being worked on It could really happen in the same way Ex Machina could really happen. Which is to say it probably couldnt happen, but something like it could happen. So maybe not that exact thing, but something very substantially important could easily flow from quantum computers.

The director, along with Mizuno, visited Googles quantum computer lab in Goleta, Calif., ahead of shooting and did extensive research while writing. He found the YouTube series PBS Space Time With Dr. Matt ODowd helpful in breaking down the subject. Garland spoke with people in Silicon Valley, including coders in the quantum labs. Which means that the series is in some ways accurate to contemporary American tech companies. But in terms of quantum computers, of which there are an undetermined number in existence, Devs hovers in a fictional space.

The people who are doing what quantum computers are doing are not remotely interested in trying to do the things talked about in Devs, nor would they be able to, Garland says. This is a speculation, a bit like the way Ex Machina speculates on a level of artificial intelligence that were not even close to achieving. Its more that there are underlying principles [in effect].

Garland was also interested in the state of private tech companies, modeling Offermans character, Forest, after an aging NoCal hippie, beard and all. The director is skeptical of anyone who is put on a pedestal like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, because tapping into the tech bubble doesnt necessarily make you a scientific genius. It might just mean you were in the right place with the right thing at the right time.

Devs creator Alex Garland

Theres a line in the show where Forest is described as a genius and then someone says, Hes not a genius, hes an entrepreneur, Garland says. I was interested in the idea that we ascribe genius-like qualities to the people who run tech companies. I was thinking, Im not sure thats true. Im inherently skeptical of anything that gets deified, but also because it seemed reasonably apparent to me that some of these people are not geniuses. They are entrepreneurs. I was riffing off that. I got quite hung up on an idea that Silicon Valley was much more capitalist than we tend to see it as.

For Offerman, who jumped at the chance to work with Garland, Forest represents the nebulous sort of character who is vastly more interesting than one who is simply a villain.

As the eight episodes unfold, your idea of Who are the protagonists and who are the antagonists? becomes really murky, Offerman says. Which is really interesting, because I think thats true of real life. Especially in this crazy political climate we want everything to be really polarized. Is it right or is it wrong? Are you an [expletive] or are you a Democrat? You eventually come to learn why [Forest] does what he does and its pretty understandable. While you may or may not agree with his methods, you can have some empathy.

Mizuno felt similarly about her character. Lily is surprising, she says. Shes an outsider. She doesnt do everything everyone else does. She doesnt participate in groupthink the way most people do.

Devs actor Alison Pill once aspired to study quantum computing.

(Miya Mizuno/FX)

Pill, who wanted to study quantum mechanics after high school thanks to reading Gary Zukavs The Dancing Wu Li Masters, found Devs compelling because it allowed for deeper thoughts than the average TV series. She read extensively ahead of production, including A Briefer History of Time and David Foster Wallaces Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, and has continued to consider the philosophical ramifications of quantum computing ever since.

Having been unpracticed in thinking about these things, it was such a gift to be given a project that asks these questions, she says. Because I think people like thinking about this stuff. We forget sometimes we have so much magic around us regularly The challenge Alex poses to his viewers is one thats not Youre going to be overwhelmed by the science. Its Youre going to be overwhelmed by existence.

Alex has a predilection for examining our amazing ability to create technology and further explore the vast reaches of physics, Offerman adds. And then, naturally, the trouble that gets us into. The great dichotomy of bipedal primates being handed a smartphone: On one hand, you can do amazing things with it. And on the other hand, you can send pictures of your genitals to your intern and get in a lot of trouble.

Ultimately, Devs asks a lot of questions, but it does so in the context of a story about a group of individuals who are personally affected by the science and technology. Garland keeps it personal, because he feels that these sorts of lofty issues are inherently personal, affecting each of us as technology advances and private tech companies grow. For him, science is an entry point for a discussion of what it means to be alive. The series cant offer any real answers, but it can allow viewers to consider what those might be.

[Science is] seen as something which is dry and boring and hard to understand and thinks it has all the answers and all of those things are the opposite of what is actually the case, he says. Most scientists will talk more about what they dont know than about what they do know. Science contains not just philosophy but also poetry.

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'Devs': How the FX on Hulu show's tech compares with reality - Los Angeles Times

Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) is looking to explore and advance the application of quantum technologies to particle physics as part of the QUATERNION project in the CERN openlab.

Quantum computers and their potential is being researched by CERN through the openlab. The team is collaborating with major hardware vendors and users of quantum computing, launching a number of projects in this realm.

According to CERN, the enhanced computational capabilities of quantum computers could help to improve the analysis and classification of their vast data sets, thus helping to push back the boundaries of particle physics.

More recently, the CERN openlab team have stated they will leverage the power of t|ket, CQC's proprietary quantum development platform for the QUATERNION project.

CQC's t|ket converts machine-independent quantum circuits into executable circuits, reducing the number of required operations whilst optimising physical qubit arrangements.

The architecture-agnostic nature of t|ket will help the members of the CERN openlab project team to work across multiple platforms to achieve optimal results even on today's noisy quantum hardware, CERN states.

The QUATERNION project will also investigate the application of CQC's four qubit quantum technology device named Ironbridge to CERN's Monte Carlo methods for data analysis.

Such methods are not only a vital component of particle physics research, but are also applicable to many other areas, such as financial and climate modelling, CERN states.

Monte Carlo methods use high-quality entropy sources to simulate and analyse complex data. Using CQC's IronBridge platform, the world's first commercially available device-independent and quantum-certifiable cryptographic device, the teams will investigate for the first time the effects of certified entropy on Monte Carlo simulations.

CQC founder and CEO Ilyas Khan says, We are excited to collaborate with CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, on this innovative quantum computing based research project.

CQC is focussed on using the world's best science to develop technologies for the coming quantum age. Joining CERN openlab is a special development for any organisation and we look forward to developing advances together.

CERN openlab head Alberto Di Meglio says, Our unique public-private partnership works to accelerate the development of cutting-edge computing technologies for our research community.

Quantum computing research is one of the most exciting areas of study today; we are pleased to welcome CQC and their world-class scientists into collaboration with us.

CQC is a quantum computing software company that builds tools for the commercialisation of quantum technologies that will have a global impact.

CQC combines expertise in quantum software, specifically a quantum development platform (t|ket), enterprise applications in the areas of quantum chemistry (EUMEN), quantum machine learning (QML), and quantum augmented cybersecurity (IronBridge).

The company states it has a deep commitment to the cultivation of scientific research.

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Cambridge Quantum Computing teams up with CERN to advance quantum technologies - FutureFive New Zealand

The report involves insightful data on the main sectors of the Global Quantum Computing Market. The report has segmented market, by its types and applications. Each segment has analyzed completely on the basis of its production, consumption as well as revenue. Further, it is classified on the basis of geographical areas which include: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa.

The market research report on the Quantum Computing Market estimates its global standing in the forecast period from 2020 to 2026. The study undertakes primary and secondary research techniques to provide an analysis of the market in the different regions by examining the trends in the industry, along with the factors expected to fuel the market growth in the forecast years. The study assesses and interprets the market based on different segments and inspects factors affecting the total revenue of the global sector.

The report also evaluates the size, share, and growth rate of the businesses by conducting detailed scrutiny of the contribution of leading market players to the global industry. The report investigates companies based on their standing in the geographical regions as segmented in the report, to study their performance and the factors aiding their progress.

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The study also provides a detailed statistical analysis of the critical aspects of the market like the drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges, to give the reader vital information that can influence the market in the forecast years.

Some of the leading market Players:

Segmentation by Type:

Segmentation by application:

Key highlights of the global Quantum Computing market for the forecast years 2020-2026:

Table of Content:

Chapter One: Quantum Computing Market Overview

Chapter Two: Manufacturers Profiles

Chapter Three: Market Competition, by Players (2020-2026)

Chapter Four: Market Size by Regions

Chapter Five: North America Revenue by Countries

Chapter Six: Europe Revenue by Countries

Chapter Seven: Asia-Pacific Revenue by Countries

Chapter Eight: South America Revenue by Countries

Chapter Nine: Middle East and Africa Revenue by Countries

Chapter Ten: Quantum Computing Market Segmentation by Type

Chapter Eleven: Global Quantum Computing Market Segmentation by Application

Chapter Twelve: Global Quantum Computing Market Size Forecast (2020-2026)

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Quantum Computing Market: Qualitative Analysis of the Leading Players and Competitive Industry Scenario, 2025 - Express Journal