Category Archives: Quantum Computing

Photonics.com Jun 2017 WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., June 9, 2017 Purdue University and Microsoft Corp. have signed a five-year agreement to develop a useable quantum computer.

Purdue is one of four international universities in the collaboration. Michael Manfra, Purdue University's Bill and Dee O'Brien Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor of materials engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, will lead the effort at Purdue to build by producing a "topological qubit."

"Someday, quantum computing will move from the laboratory to actual daily use, and when it does, it will signal another explosion of computing power like that brought about by the silicon chip," said Michael Daniels, president of Purdue. "Its thrilling to imagine Purdue at the center of this next leap forward.

With quantum computers, information is encoded in qubits, which are quantum units of information. With a qubit, however, this physical state isn't just 0 or 1, but can also be a linear combination of 0 and 1. Because of the quantum mechanic phenomenon of "superposition," a qubit can be in both states at the same time. This characteristic is essential to quantum computations potential power, allowing for solutions to problems that are intractable using classical architectures.

The team assembled by Microsoft will work on a type of quantum computer that is expected to be especially robust against interference from its surroundings, a situation known in quantum computing as decoherence. The scalable topological quantum computer is theoretically more stable and less error-prone.

Purdue and Microsoft entered into an agreement in April 2016 that extends their collaboration on quantum computing research, effectively establishing "Station Q Purdue," one of the Station Q experimental research sites that work closely with two Station Q theory sites. This new, multi-year agreement extends that collaboration and includes Microsoft employees being embedded in Manfra's research team at Purdue.

Manfras group at Station Q Purdue will collaborate with Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft team members, as well as a global experimental group established by Microsoft including experimental groups at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, TU Delft in the Netherlands and the University of Sydney, Australia. They are also coupled to the theorists at Microsoft Station Q in Santa Barbara. All groups are working together to solve quantum computings biggest challenges.

"What's exciting is that we're doing the science and engineering hand in hand, at the same time," Manfra says. We are lucky to be part of this truly amazing global team.

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Purdue, Microsoft to Collaborate on Quantum Computer - Photonics.com

In Brief While quantum computers could improve the world by decreasing processing times, they could also be the ideal tool for hackers, which is a true threat to the success of blockchain. Russian scientists, though, may have found the solution. Russias Solution to Quantum Hacking

A serious concern in the computing industry is that when true quantum computers are produced, the principles of encryption will break down due to the dizzyingly superior processing power.

Although blockchain is a far more secure method of transaction than our current financial system, even it will become vulnerable to a brute force attack by a quantum computer. Andersen Cheng, co-founder of U.K. cybersecurity firm Post Quantum, told Newsweek, Bitcoin will expire the very day the first quantum computer appears.

A team lead by Evgeny Kiktenko at the Russian Quantum Center in Moscow, though, may have found a way to protect blockchains by fighting fire with fire using quantum mechanics. They are designing a quantum-secured blockchain where each block, hypothetically, is signed by a quantum key rather than a digital one.

They propose that transmitting and encrypting information using quantum particles such as photons, which cannot be copied or meddled with without the particles being destroyed, ensures the blockchains safety. The principle is based on Zero-knowledge proofs which allow you to validate information without sharing it.

In recent months Russia has become increasingly interested in blockchain. The central bank is composing new laws focused on cryptocurrencies and is interested in developing one of its own. This research marks a step forward in these efforts because it concerns the protection of such systems.

If the quantum-secured blockchain proves successful it would be hugely beneficial to the rest of the world as well. Blockchain has the potential to do a lot of good for the world by streamlining the transaction system, making it more secure, and ensuring transparency like never before. Countries such as Senegal have developed currencies that are entirely digital, Japan is accepting bitcoin (which uses blockchain) as legal tender in 260,000 stores this summer, and Ukraine is considering using it to combat corruption.

If the advent of quantum computing could be the apocalypse for blockchain, it is therefore crucially important that we begin thinking about how to protect these system before entire countries and currencies could be subject to hacks from the abusers of quantum computers.

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Scientists May Have Found a Way to Combat Quantum Computer Blockchain Hacking - Futurism

June 08, 2017 08:00 ET | Source: ISARA Corporation

WATERLOO, Ontario, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Many technology-driven sectors will be affected by the advent of universal quantum computing which experts say will happen by 2026, or sooner, but the financial industry has particular reason for concern. ISARAs CEO, Scott Totzke, is among the featured speakers at the upcoming FinDEVr show, the premier international event for FinTech developers taking place in London on June 1213. Totzke will discuss the impact of the quantum threat on the financial industry, and provide recommendations for mitigation.

A quantum computer could be used to stage an attack on the cryptography behind the encryption and authentication used today across banking institutions and in FinTech development. Without the appropriate quantum-safe protections, traditional cybersecurity standards will become vulnerable.

Any technology that relies on public-key cryptography, including blockchain, is at risk in the quantum age. Businesses and financial institutions cannot afford to ignore the threat of quantum computers to the cryptography those solutions rely on, said Totzke.

Details:

What: Why (And How) You Should Make Your FinTech Security Quantum Safe Today

When: Monday, June 12th, 14:10 pm

Where: Tobacco Dock, The Dock, Tobacco Quay, Wapping Lane, London, UK

Who: Scott Totzke, Co-Founder and CEO, ISARA

Totzke will also lead the roundtable discussion topic, We're all in it together: Making global FinTech crypto-agile, on Tuesday, June 13th, at 12:30 pm. For more information please visit, http://london2017.findevr.com/.

About ISARA:

ISARA Corp. is the largest organization in the world focused on developing quantum safe cryptographic solutions for easy integration into commercial products to protect against emerging security threats. For more information, visit https://www.isara.com/.

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FinDEVr London: Preparing for the Dark Side of Quantum Computing - GlobeNewswire (press release)

Potential use cases in risk management and secure communications too, says CIO David Whiteing

Commonwealth Bank of Australia hopes to one day use quantum computers to drive insights for its customers.

Speaking at a Vivid event in Sydney last week, CIO David Whiteing said the technology could also be used within the bank for risk management and secure communications.

Appearing alongside Telstra chief scientist Hugh Bradlow, who said the telco aimed to offer customers quantum computing-as-a-service, Whiteing said: "We also think...less about providing a service for customers but more about using it to drive insights for customers."

Providing customers with analytics has become a priority for the bank, which in Aprillaunched a new analytics platform Daily IQ 2.0 which draws on data including the CBAs 1.2 billion monthly transaction records, industry data, and a customers account and point-of-sale information for its small and medium business customers.

"Our customers are becoming more and more integrated into the global network and there are a variety of problems that they face that if we start to automate and drive machine learning and cognitive across it, it frees them up to be more creative and solve other problems," Whiteing explained.

Risk path

In 2014 CBA committed $5 million to the UNSWs Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) in Sydney, where scientists are racing to build the worlds first scalable silicon-based quantum computer. CBA topped up that investment witha further $10 millionin December 2015.

The CQC2T which hasalso received funding from the federal government and Telstra is part ofa global race to build a quantum computer, and is pursuing a silicon-based approach.

While the computers we use today represent information in binary bits on/off, 0/1 while a quantum computer's qubit can, in simple terms,be both on and off the same time. That means many computations can be performed in parallel; a quality that, when fully realised, will give quantum computers a huge speed advantage over classical computers in solving certain problems.

The simple problems we have just to run our business, the end of financial year planning and budgeting cycle, we wont use a quantum computer for that, Whiteing said. But, we deal essentially in our business with risk, and risk is a multivariant problem where if you are able to get bigger data sets, if youre able to run more computations, you have an advantage. So thats a very obvious path for us.

Security concerns

Another potential uses for quantum computing CBA is considering concern secure communications, which Whiteing described as a here and now problem.

Everyone today, when youre transferring money around the world its based on encryption which is really prime number calculations, very large keys. Quantum computers will be able to break those in seconds how do you communicate in a quantum state so only the people that receive it are able to decode it?

CBA is not the only bank pursuing quantum solutions to security problems. In January, Westpac upped its stake in Canberra-based quantum cyber security company QuintessenceLabs.

QuintessenceLabs, founded a decade ago, offers an encryption key and policy management system backed byquantum generated true random numbers. Its product's highly secure data encryption capabilities are being used extensively by Westpac to reduce the risk of identity theft and customer data breaches.

CIO Dave Curransaid at the time the investment showed the importance of quantum technologies to the banks data security capabilities.

As a major financial institution, data security and protecting our customers is of paramount importance, Curran said.

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Tags cqc2tCBAfinanceDavid WhiteingCommonwealth Bank of Australiaencryptionquantum computingMichelle SimmonsTelstraanalyticssecuritybankinginsights

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Quantum computers to drive customer insights, says CBA CIO - CIO - CIO Australia

It was a busy week for IoT technologies, with Russia preparing its networks for quantum computer hacks through blockchain.

Earlier this week, Irish forestry organisation Coillte revealed its latest effort to get into the internet of trees space following a 1.2m deal with the European Space Agency to roll out a tree growth analytics system, including a unique tree sensor device.

When operational, the sensors will create a kind of mesh network that maps out a digital forest. The resulting data will be transmitted via satellite to provide real-time analytics for forest managers.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, Android co-founder Andy Rubin was discussingthe prevalence of smart home assistants on the market, and how they are creating a disjointed ecosystem.

Rubin wasspeakingas part of thelaunch of Androids new Essential Home device and a new open source, smart assistant operating system called Ambient OS.

All of these [companies] have ecosystem envy and want to create their own ecosystem, Rubin said.

But consumers dont want just Samsung stuff in their house. They want diversity.

The fields of blockchain and quantum computing are fascinating and complex in their own regard, but new research from Russia claims that a merger between the two could be very interesting.

According to the International Business Times, a team from the Russian Quantum Center in Moscow has developed quantum blockchain technology that would prevent any hacker from accessing connections, despite thecomputing technology still being experimental.

As has been explained before, blockchain is the technology that makes a transaction of currency or information traceable and transparent to both parties and, by its nature, is supposed to be incredibly secure.

However, when quantum computers enter the mainstream, this might not be the case as their incredible processing power would be able to crack any encryption.

Parties that communicate via a quantum channel can be completely sure that they are talking to each other, not anybody else, said Alexander Lvovsky, group lead ofthe research.

This is the main idea. Then we had to reinvent the entire blockchain architecture to fit our new authentication technology, thereby making this architecture immune to quantum computer attacks.

Earlier this week (29 May), Enterprise Ireland held a trade mission in Canada with a focus on IoT, led by Minister Sean Canney, TD.

The biggest success at the event was with Clare-based Tekelek, whichsigned a $1.4m deal with PayGo, a company that provides sensors for businesses to monitor fuel consumption remotely and make changes where necessary.

As part of the deal, Tekelek will begin developing an intrinsically safe sensor to facilitate the expansion of PayGos service offering in the US and Canadian markets.

Oliver McCarthy, general manager of Tekelek, said: Were very excited to apply this thinking and our technology to the industrial fuels marketplace, and were similarly pleased to partner with an organisation of PayGos calibre to bring our technologies to the North America market.

Dublin City Councils (DCC) Smart Dublin initiative has announced a partnership with the Connect Centre and Intel to deploy low-cost sensors across the capital to monitor rainfall, weather conditions and river levels.

The new sensors will communicate data wirelessly to DCCs operations team, which will analyse water levels and use Connects Pervasive Nation IoT network to provide city authorities with an early warning of potential flooding.

Jamie Cudden, DCCs Smart City programme manager, said: Dublin is emerging as a leading location for smart city and IoT innovations.

Intels Dublin Living Lab programme has already carried out some initial flood monitoring activity across the city, which has led to the prototyping of a set of river and rainfall sensors.

Autonomous cars are gradually heading onto our open roads, albeit with a driver behind the wheel to make sure everything goes OKduring the trials.

Now, anew method of testing these cars developed by the University of Michigan may have found a way to drastically cut the amount of time it could take to make them road-legal.

Developed using data from more than 40m km of driving in the real world, a team of researchers believes that they can save 99.9pc of the testing time and costs with their system.

The evaluation process breaks down typical driving situations into components that can be tested or simulated over and over again, exposing autonomous vehicles to a condensed set of the most challenging driving situations.

This, the researchers argue, means that 1,600km of testing would equate to 1.6m km in real-world testing, but, in order to make the public feel safe being in these vehicles, as much as 20bn km of testing will need to be done.

The teams white paper is published here.

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Team develops first blockchain that can't be hacked by quantum computer - Siliconrepublic.com

May 31, 2017 by Steve Tally Purdue University and Microsoft Corp. have signed a five-year agreement to develop a useable quantum computer. Purdue is one of four international universities in the collaboration.Michael Manfra, Purdue University's Bill and Dee O'Brien Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor of materials engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, will lead the effort at Purdue to build a robust and scalable quantum computer by producing what scientists call a "topological qubit." Credit: Purdue University photo/Rebecca Wilcox

"If this project is successful it will cause a revolution in computing."

That's the forecast of Michael Manfra, Purdue University's Bill and Dee O'Brien Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Professor of Materials Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on a new long-term enhanced collaboration between Purdue and Microsoft Corp. to build a robust and scalable quantum computer by producing what scientists call a "topological qubit."

Purdue President Mitch Daniels noted that Purdue was home to the first computer science department in the United States, and says this partnership and Manfra's work places the university at the forefront of quantum computing.

"Someday quantum computing will move from the laboratory to actual daily use, and when it does, it will signal another explosion of computing power like that brought about by the silicon chip," Daniels says. "It's thrilling to imagine Purdue at the center of this next leap forward."

In the computers that we currently use every day, information is encoded in an either/or binary system of bits, what are commonly thought of as 1s and 0s. These computers are based on silicon transistors, which, like a light switch, can only be in either an on or off position.

With quantum computers, information is encoded in qubits, which are quantum units of information. With a qubit, however, this physical state isn't just 0 or 1, but can also be a linear combination of 0 and 1. Because of a strange phenomenon of quantum mechanics called "superposition," a qubit can be in both states at the same time.

This characteristic is essential to quantum computation's potential power, allowing for solutions to problems that are intractable using classical architectures.

Advocates of quantum computing believe this never-before-seen technology will create a new global "quantum economy."

The team assembled by Microsoft will work on a type of quantum computer that is expected to be especially robust against interference from its surroundings, a situation known in quantum computing as "decoherence." The "scalable topological quantum computer" is theoretically more stable and less error-prone.

"One of the challenges in quantum computing is that the qubits interact with their environment and lose their quantum information before computations can be completed," Manfra says. "Topological quantum computing utilizes qubits that store information "non-locally" and the outside noise sources have less effect on the qubit, so we expect it to be more robust."

Manfra says that the most exciting challenge associated with building a topological quantum computer is that the Microsoft team must simultaneously solve problems of materials science, condensed matter physics, electrical engineering and computer architecture.

"This is why Microsoft has assembled such a diverse set of talented people to tackle this large-scale problem," Manfra says. "No one person or group can be expert in all aspects."

Purdue and Microsoft entered into an agreement in April 2016 that extends their collaboration on quantum computing research, effectively establishing "Station Q Purdue," one of the "Station Q" experimental research sites that work closely with two "Station Q" theory sites.

The new, multi-year agreement extends that collaboration, and includes Microsoft employees being embedded in Manfra's research team at Purdue.

Manfra's group at Station Q Purdue will collaborate with Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft team members, as well as a global experimental group established by Microsoft including experimental groups at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, TU Delft in the Netherlands, and the University of Sydney, Australia. They are also coupled to the theorists at Microsoft Station Q in Santa Barbara. All groups are working together to solve quantum computing's biggest challenges.

"What's exciting is that we're doing the science and engineering hand-in-hand, at the same time," Manfra says. "We are lucky to be part of this truly amazing global team."

Mathematician and Fields Medal recipient Michael Freedman leads Microsoft's Station Q in Santa Barbara working on quantum computing.

"There is another computing planet out there, and we, collectively, are going to land on it. It really is like the old days of physical exploration and much more interesting than locking oneself in a bottle and traveling through space. We will find an amazing unseen world once we have general purpose programmable quantum computers," Freedman says. "Michael Manfra and Purdue University will be a key collaborator on this journey. I'm not interested in factoring numbers, but solving chemistry and materials science problems, and most ambitiously machine intelligence. Curiously, we need great materials science and transport physics Mike Manfra's work to build the systems we will use to do quantum computing and, thus, to usher in the next era of materials science."

Purdue's role in the project will be to grow and study ultra-pure semiconductors and hybrid systems of semiconductors and superconductors that may form the physical platform upon which a quantum computer is built. Manfra's group has expertise in a technique called molecular beam epitaxy, and this technique will be used to build low-dimensional electron systems that form the basis for quantum bits, or qubits.

The work at Purdue will be done in the Birck Nanotechnology Center in the university's Discovery Park, as well as in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The Birck facility houses the multi-chamber molecular beam epitaxy system, in which three fabrication chambers are connected under ultra-high vacuum. It also contains clean-room fabrication and necessary materials characterization tools. Laboratories for low-temperature measurement of the materials electronic properties will be conducted in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Suresh Garimella, executive vice president for research and partnerships, and Purdue's Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, says the tools and laboratories found in Discovery Park have enabled Purdue to become a world leader in several areas.

"Combining these world-leading facilities with our incredibly talented and knowledgeable faculty, such as Professor Manfra, has placed Purdue at the forefront of research and development of nanotechnology, nanoelectronics, next-generation silicon transistor-based electronics, and quantum computing. To have Purdue contribute to the construction of the world's first quantum computer is be a dream come true for us," he says.

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Research collaborative pursues advanced quantum computing - Phys.Org

In BriefResearchers have found a way to make the creation of qubitssimpler and more precise. The team hopes that this new techniquecould, one day, allow for the mass production of quantum computers. Commercial Quantum Computing Quantum computing is, if you are not already familiar, simply put, a type of computation that uses qubits to encode data instead of the traditional bit (1s and 0s). In short, itallows for the superposition of states, which is where data can be in more than one state at a given time.

So, while traditional computing is limited to information belonging to only one or another state, quantum computing widens those limitations. As a result,more information can be encoded into a much smaller type of bit, allowing for much larger computing capacity. And, while it is still in relatively early development, many believe that quantum computing will be the basis of future technologies, advancing our computational speed beyond what we can currently imagine.

It was extremely exciting then whenresearchers from MIT, Harvard University, and Sandia National Laboratories unveileda simpler way of using atomic-scale defects in diamond materials to build quantum computers in a way that could possibly allow them to be mass produced.

For this process, defects are they key. They are precisely and perfectly placed to function as qubits and hold information. Previous processes weredifficult, complex, and not precise enough. This new methodcreates targeted defects in a much simpler manner. Experimentally, defects created were, on average, at or under 50 nanometers of the ideal locations.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. The dream scenario in quantum information processing is to make an optical circuit to shuttle photonic qubits and then position a quantum memory wherever you need it, says Dirk Englund, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, in an interview with MIT. Were almost there with this. These emitters are almost perfect.

Image Credit: carmule / Pixabay

While the reality of quantum computers, let alone mass produced quantum computers, is still a bit of a ways off, this research is promising. One of the main remaining hurdles is how these computers will read the qubits. But these diamond defects aim to solve that problem because they naturally emit light, and since the light particles emitted can retain superposition, they could help to transmit information.

The research goes on to detail how the completion of these diamond materials better allowed for the amplification of the qubit information. By the end, the researchers found that the light emitted was approximately 80-90 percent as bright as possible.

If this work eventuallyleads to the full creation of a quantum computer, life as we know it would change irrevocably. From completely upendingmodern encryption methods to allowing us to solve previously unsolvable problems, our technology and infrastructure would never be the same. Moreover, the limitations that currently exist in how we store and transmit information would shatter, opening new opportunities foras yetunimaginable exploration.

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MIT Just Unveiled A Technique to Mass Produce Quantum Computers - Futurism

Still waiting patiently for quantum computing to bring about the next revolution in digital processing power? We might now be a little closer, with a discovery that could help us build quantum computers at mass scale.

Scientists have refined a technique using diamond defects to store information, adding silicon to make the readouts more accurate and suitable for use in the quantum computers of the future.

To understand how the new process works, you need to go back to the basics of the quantum computing vision: small particles kept in a state of superposition, where they can represent both 1, 0, and a combination of the two at the same time.

These quantum bits, or qubits, can process calculations on a much grander scale than the bits in today's computer chips, which are stuck representing either 1 or 0 at any one time.

Getting particles in a state of superposition long enough for us to actually make use of them has proved to be a real challenge for scientists, but one potential solution is through the use of diamond as a base material.

The idea is to use tiny atomic defects inside diamonds to store qubits, and then pass around data at high speeds using light optical circuits rather than electrical circuits.

Diamond-defect qubits rely on a missing carbon atom inside the diamond lattice which is then replaced by an atom of some other element, like nitrogen. The free electrons created by this defect have a magnetic orientation that can be used as a qubit.

So far so good, but our best efforts so far haven't been accurate enough to be useful, because of the broad spectrum of frequencies in the light emitted and that's where the new research comes in.

Scientists added silicon to the qubit creation process, which emits a much narrower band of light, and supplies the precision that quantum computing requires.

At the moment, these silicon qubits don't keep their superposition as well, but the researchers are hopeful this can be overcome by reducing their temperature to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

"The dream scenario in quantum information processing is to make an optical circuit to shuttle photonic qubits and then position a quantum memory wherever you need it," says one of the team, Dirk Englund from MIT. "We're almost there with this. These emitters are almost perfect."

In fact, the researchers produced defects within 50 nanometres of their ideal locations on average, which is about one thousandth the size of a human hair.

Being able to etch defects with this kind of precision means the process of building optical circuits for quantum computers then becomes more straightforward and feasible.

If the team can improve on the promising results so far, diamonds could be the answer to our quantum computing needs: they also naturally emit light in a way that means qubits can be read without having to alter their states.

You still won't be powering up a quantum laptop anytime soon, but we're seeing real progress in the study of the materials and techniques that might one day bring this next-generation processing power to the masses.

The research has been published in Nature Communications.

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Here's how we can achieve mass-produced quantum computers ... - ScienceAlert

Not even the greatest geniuses in the world could explain quantum computing.

In the early 1930s Einstein, in fact, called quantum mechanics the basis for quantum computing spooky action at a distance.

Then theres a famous phrase from the late Nobel Laureate in physics, Richard Feynman: If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you dont understand quantum mechanics.

That may be so, but the mystery behind quantum has not stopped D-Wave Systems Inc. from making its mark in the field. In the 1980s it was thought maybe quantum mechanics could be used to build a computer. So people starting coming up with ideas on how to build one, says Bo Ewald, president of D-Wave in Burnaby, B.C.

Two of those people were UBC PhD physics grads Eric Ladizinsky and Geordie Rose, who had happened to take an entrepreneur course before founding D-Wave in 1999. Since there werent a lot of businesses in the field, they created and collected patents around quantum, Ewald says.

What we have with D-Wave is the mother of all ships: that is the hardware capability to unlock the future of AI

While most who were exploring the concept were looking in the direction of what is called the universal gate model, D-Wave decided to work on a different architecture, called annealing. The two do not necessarily compete, but perform different functions.

In quantum annealing, algorithms quickly search over a space to find a minimum (or solution). The technology is best suited for speeding research, modelling or traffic optimization for example.

Universal gate quantum computing can put basic quantum circuit operations together to create any sequence to run increasingly complex algorithms. (Theres a third model, called topological quantum computing, but it could be decades before it can be commercialized.)

When D-Wave sold its first commercial product to Lockheed Martin about six years ago, it marked the first commercial sale of a quantum computer, Ewald says. Google was the second to partner with D-Wave for a system that is also being run by NASA Ames Research Center. Each gets half of the machine, Ewald says. They believed quantum computing had an important future in machine learning.

Most recently D-Wave has been working with Volkswagen to study traffic congestion in Beijing. They wanted to see if quantum computing would have applicability to their business, where there are lots of optimization problems. Another recent coup is a deal with the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Theres no question that any quantum computing investment is a long-term prospect, but that has not hindered their funding efforts. To date, the company has acquired more than 10 rounds of funding from the likes of PSP, Goldman Sachs, Bezos Expeditions, DFJ, In-Q-Tel, BDC Capital, GrowthWorks, Harris & Harris Group, International Investment and Underwriting, and Kensington Partners Ltd.

What we have with D-Wave is the mother of all ships: that is the hardware capability to unlock the future of AI, says Jrme Nycz, executive vice-president, BDC Capital. We believe D-Waves quantum capabilities have put Canada on the map.

Now, Ewing says, the key for the company moving forward is getting more smart people working on apps and on software tools in the areas of AI, machine earning and deep learning.

To that end, D-Wave recently not only open-sourced its Qbsolv software tool, it launched an initiative with Creative Destruction Lab at the University of Torontos Rotman School of Management to create a new track focused on quantum machine learning. The intensive one-year program will go through an introductory boot camp led by Dr. Peter Wittek, author of Quantum Machine Learning: What Quantum Computing means to Data Mining, with instruction and technical support from D-Wave experts, and access to a D-Wave technology.

While it is still early days in terms of deployment for quantum computing, Ewald believes D-Waves early start gives them a leg up if and when quantum hits the mainstream. So far customers tend to be government and/or research related. Google is the notable exception. But once apps come along that are applicable for other industries, it will all make sense.

The early start has given D-Wave the experience to be able to adopt other architectures as they evolve. It may be a decade before a universal gate model machine becomes a marketable product. If that turns out to be true, we will have a 10-year lead in getting actual machines into the field and having customers working on and developing apps.

Ewald is the first to admit that as an early entrant, D-Wave faces criticism around its architecture. There are a lot of spears and things that we tend to get in the chest. But we see them coming and can deal with it. If we can survive all that, we will have a better view of the market, real customers and relationships with accelerators like Creative Destruction Lab. At the end of day we will have the ability to adapt when we need to.

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D-Wave partners with U of T to move quantum computing along - Financial Post

When a company calls and says they have the best widget ever, you have to be skeptical. However, you also cant help but be curious. When they talked about how it would advance the state of the art in radar, electronic warfare, and quantum-computing test, and make an engineers workspace tidier, I was smitten.

I met up with theTektronix team, led by Product Market Manager Kip Pettigrew, and wasnt disappointed: The new AWG5200 arbitrary waveform generator is a work of art and function. Physically, its both commanding and imposing. It measures 18.13 6.05 from the front, but its 23.76 inches deepso, while itll sit nicely within a test stack and help reduce clutter, the stack had better have a deep shelf (Figs. 1 and 2).

Its whats within those dimensions, and what you have to pay to get it, though, that give the AWG5200 a certain level of gravitas. For sure, its hard to ignore a price point of $82,000, but its not surprising when you understand what youre getting in return.

1. The AWG5200 measures 18.13 6.05 and comes with a 6.5-inch touchscreen, a removable hard drive (upper right), and two, four, or eight channels (bottom right). (Source: Tektronix)

Aimed squarely at military/government and advanced research applications, the system emphasizes signal fidelity, scalability, and flexibility. It can accurately reproduce complex, real-world signals across an ever-expanding array of applications without having to physically expand a test area. Its also supported by Tektronixs SourceXpress software, which lets you create waveforms and control the AWGs remotely, and has a growing library of waveform-creation plugins.

2. The AWG5200 is designed to be compact so that it can stack easily with other equipment to reduce overall space requirements, though it is 23.76 inches deep. A synchronization feature allows it to scale up beyond eight channels by adding more AWG5200s. (Source: Tektronix)

Let the Specs Tell the Story

Digging into the specs uncovers what the AWG5200 is all about. Words like powerful, precision, and solid engineering come to mind. The system can sample at 5 Gsamples/s (10-Gsamples/s with interpolation) with 16-bit vertical resolution across two, four, or eight channels per unit. Channel-to-channel skew (typical) is <25 ps with a range of 2 ns and a resolution of 0.5 ps. The analog bandwidth is 2 GHz at 3 dB) or 4 GHz at 6 dB, and the amplitude range is 100 to 0.75 V p-p, with an accuracy of 2% of setting.

The AWG5200s multi-unit synchronization feature helps scale up beyond eight channels. Note that each channel is independent, so the classic tradeoff of sample memory for bandwidth doesnt apply here. Each channel gets 2 Gsamples of waveform memory.

The precision is embodied within its ability to generate RF signals with a spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 70 dBc. Combined with a software suite and support, this is critical as new waveforms and digital-modulation techniques are explored in a time of rapid wireless evolution in military and government applications, as well as 5G and even quantum-computer test. Signal fidelity isnt something you want to worry about, and the expanding library and customizable features help kickstart and then fine-tune your research and development waveforms.

Howd They Do That?

Achieving higher or improved specifications is almost always a labor of love: The test companys engineers constant urge to make things better combines with customer feedback and an analysis of where to focus energy and development to have the most impact. However, at a fundamental level, the AWG5200s advances go back to the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) technology at the heart of the system.

Advances in DAC technologies, particularly with respect to signal processing and functional integration, allow them to directly generate detailed and complex RF and electronic-warfare (EW) signals. This is an area worth digging into in more detail, so Christopher Skach and Sahandi Noorizadeh developed a feature specially for Electronic Design on DAC technology advances and how its changing signal generation for test. Its worth a look.

Rapidly Evolving Applications

Pettigrew also provided a quick run through of the newer and more interesting applications, as well as the key market trends that the system is solving for. In general electronic test, go wide technologies like MIMO need test systems that can scale as they need multiple, independent, wide-bandwidth RF streams (Fig. 3).

3. Rapid expansion in the use of techniques such as MIMO requires more advanced and flexible waveform generators to generate multiple high-fidelity, RF signals with complex modulation schemes. (Source: Tektronix)

This translates over to mil/gov, too, where systems must be tested for their ability to detect and respond to adaptive threats. The signals of interest are able to be generated on two channels, while the others can be used to generate expected noise, Wi-Fi interferers, and other MIMO channels.

However, just being able to reproduce the signals isnt enough: The AWG must be capable of enabling stress and margin testing, as well as verification and characterization.1

On the research front, it turns out that quantum computing needs advanced AWGs, too, said Pettigrew, as they lack the fidelity, latency, and scalability. In quantum computers, the qubits are often controlled using precision-pulsed microwave signals, each requiring multiple independent RF channels. This is only going to get more interesting and challenging as companies like IBM and Google, along with many independent physicists and engineers, work to scale up quantum-computing technology and applications.

For all three of these applications, cost remains a factor. So, instead of developing multiple custom solutions, the AWG5200 may be a good commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) option.

References:

1. How New DAC Technologies are Changing Signal Generation for Test

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Tektronix AWG Pulls Test into Era of Quantum Computing - Electronic Design