Category Archives: Quantum Computing

Nov. 15, 2021 Atos and NVIDIA today announced the Excellence AI Lab (EXAIL), which brings together scientists and researchers to help advance European computing technologies, education and research.

The labs first research projects will focus on five key areas enabled by advances in high performance computing and AI: climate research, healthcare and genomics, hybridization with quantum computing, edge AI/computer vision and cybersecurity.

Atos will develop an exascale-class BullSequana X supercomputer with NVIDIAs Arm-based Grace CPU, NVIDIAs next-generation GPU, Atos BXI Exascale Interconnect andNVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking platform.

Predicting and Addressing Climate Change

In an effort to more accurately predict climate change, researchers from Atos and NVIDIA will run new AI and deep learning models on Europes fastest supercomputer at the Jlich Supercomputing Center. Such giant-scale models can be used to predict the evolution of extreme weather events and their changing behavior due to global warming, and they will benefit greatly from exascale-class computing.

The JUWELS Booster system, based on AtosBullSequana XH2000 platform, with nearly 2.5 exaflops of AI and 3,744NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUsand NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand networking, will help provide deeper understanding of climate change and more accurate long-term predictions of events, such as hurricanes, extreme precipitation, and heat and cold waves.

Atos is strongly committed to itsdecarbonization objectives, which are to offset all of our residual emissions by 2028 to reach net zero, and to reach the SBTi target to reduce our global carbon emissions under our control and influence by 50 percent by 2025, said Andy Grant, vice president of global sales for HPC, AI and Quantum at Atos. Many leading climate modeling centers, such asMeteo France,DKRZ, KNMI andAEMet, are using our BullSequana supercomputers to run their large weather and climate models, and the current EXAIL announcement is a clear demonstration of our commitment, one year after the creation of ourCenter of Excellence in Weather and Climate Modellingwith ECMWF.

Climate change intensifies and increases the frequency of extreme weather events that disrupt entire regions, costing governments and economies hundreds of billions each year, said Ian Buck, vice president and general manager of Accelerated Computing at NVIDIA. The goal for EXAIL is to advance vital research to address pressing global challenges surrounding climate change.

Accelerating Medical Research With HPC, Quantum and AI

Supercharging medical breakthroughs with computational genomics is revolutionizing drug discovery and healthcare.Atos Life Sciences Center of Excellencehas partnered with 40 leading institutions to leverage HPC, quantum computing and AI to advance medical imaging, genomics and pharmaceuticals. TheNVIDIA Clara healthcare application frameworkprovides supercomputing performance for genomics, healthcare imaging and computational chemistry applications.

EXAIL will harness Atos advanced computing solutions and NVIDIA Clara to help healthcare researchers and providers accelerate drug discovery and design advanced diagnostic solutions using embedded, edge, data center and cloud platforms.

Advancing Quantum Research

Quantum computing holds the potential to solve complex problems in fields like drug discovery, climate research, machine learning, logistics and finance. But much research remains before quantum computers become viable.

AtosQuantum Learning Machine, a quantum software development and simulation appliance for the coming quantum computer era, enables researchers and engineers to develop and experiment with quantum software. It will use NVIDIA GPUs to help dramatically increase the speed and scale of quantum simulations. This will speed the research in quantum algorithms, quantum information science, new quantum processor architectures and hybrid quantum-GPU system architectures.

Accelerating Computer Vision

Using Atos edge appliances, such as itsBullSequana Edgewhich runs onNVIDIA BlueField DPUs, the research teams at EXAIL will work together to accelerate computer vision and 5G wireless infrastructure. Six Atos labs around the world dedicated to computer vision will be equipped with the latestNVIDIA Fleet Command technologyfor secure deployment and management of AI applications across distributed edge infrastructure.

Advancing Zero-Trust Cybersecurity

Furthermore, the EXAIL research teams will develop a new data-center-to-edge, zero-trust cybersecurity platform leveraging theNVIDIA Morpheus open AI framework, as well as new AI models to instantly detect new cybersecurity threats.

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 107,000 employees and annual revenue of over 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on Euronext Paris and included on the CAC 40 ESG and Next 20 Paris Stock Indexes. Thepurpose of Atosis to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.

About NVIDIA

NVIDIAs invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market and has redefined modern computer graphics, high performance computing and artificial intelligence. The companys pioneering work in accelerated computing and AI is reshaping trillion-dollar industries, such as transportation, healthcare and manufacturing, and fueling the growth of many others. More information at https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.

Source: NVIDIA

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Atos and NVIDIA to Advance Climate and Healthcare Research With Exascale Computing - HPCwire

With G7 officials recently endorsing principles for central bank digital currencies (CBDC), and over 80 countries launching some form of initiative related to CBDC, it seems their widespread deployment is a matter of time. CBDC is a digital form of central bank money that can be accessible to the general public; essentially, it consists of individuals and firms having access to transaction and savings accounts with their home countrys central bank. Those of the Bahamas, China and Nigeria have all implemented early CBDC programmes, with more expected in the future. If successful, CBDC could help policy-makers achieve goals around payment efficiency, financial inclusion, banking and payment competitiveness, access to safe central bank money in the era of digital payments, and more.

Yet like any digital payment system, CBDC is vulnerable to cybersecurity attack, account and data breaches and theft, counterfeiting, and even farther-off challenges related to quantum computing. For citizens to be comfortable adopting CBDC, they will need to be confident in its security. Ultimately, it will not be successful if it does not carefully consider and invest in a robust cybersecurity strategy. Decision-makers should look to cybersecurity best practices such as those published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Microsoft STRIDE model. This article, which summarizes key points from the World Economic Forums new white paper on CBDC Technology Considerations, lays out additional imperative considerations for CBDC cybersecurity.

How can we make sure CBDC is secure for decades to come? We discuss four major dimensions to its cybersecurity below:

CBDC access credentials are needed for accessing and transferring funds. Such credentials could be given in the form of a passphrase that could be easily communicated even on paper, or a hardware token that stores the private keys. Regardless of the form, the threat of theft and credential loss is significant, meaning account funds and data could be compromised.

Theft can be physical or virtual, especially in the case of passphrases. Given the arsenal of modern attackers, techniques such as social engineering, side-channel attacks and malware could be used to extract credentials from a CBDC users device. Moreover, if passphrases or hardware tokens are lost/damaged due to fire/water or natural calamities, CBDC users should not simply lose all their funds and data. Therefore, the system should have built-in credential recovery mechanisms.

If a CBDC is based on blockchain technology, it might use a multi-signature (multi-sig) wallet where at least two other trusted parties hold credentials to the same wallet (this could be the central bank itself and/or family members or other contacts of the end users). The drawback of multi-sig wallets is that they are less user-friendly, since for any transfer one needs to coordinate with at least one other party. Such security-usability trade-offs are common even nowadays with internet banking where 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) is extremely common. If CBDC is based on traditional technology, a privileged authority could simply update a database entry with new credentials.

Over 80 countries are launching some form of initiative related to CBDC

Image: BIS

One concern is that central bank or government insiders, law enforcement and other agents may have roles that allow privileged actions, such as the freezing or withdrawal of funds in CBDC accounts without the users consent. These capabilities are in line with todays compliance procedures in regulated payment systems. Though such roles are likely to be a functional requirement of a CBDC, it is possible for them to enable malicious insiders to abuse the system. As with other types of information security, the central bank and any intermediaries involved should have and execute a cybersecurity risk-management plan covering such privileges. Multi-party mechanisms, such as those employed by multi-signature wallets or other protections, could increase the difficulty of such attacks.

If the CBDC operates on blockchain technology, where nodes include non-central bank entities that have powers to validate or invalidate transactions, malicious validator nodes can pose security threats. They could also undermine the central banks monetary authority and independence by virtue of accepting or rejecting transactions that are contrary to the central banks intention. Thus, it is generally not recommended for non-central bank nodes to have transaction validation powers unless absolutely necessary.

Depending on the consensus protocol used, non-central bank nodes with privileged power could declare transactions as invalid, essentially blocking them from being accepted by the network and creating a denial-of-service attack for CBDC users and censorship of their transactions.

Collusion by non-central bank nodes could also enable double-spending attacks, a form of counterfeiting where the CBDC is spent multiple times illegitimately. The nodes may also decide to fork the distributed ledger, creating a different track and view of the ledger of transactions that disagrees with the central banks. CBDC end users could try to spend funds from their wallets in multiple places, also constituting digital counterfeiting. Risk of double-spend is higher if the CBDC in question has offline capability, depending on the technology with which it operates; in this scenario, double-spend transactions could be sent to offline entities without the high-security validation process that would normally occur online.

By imposing spending limits and transaction frequency when the CBDC user is offline, the impact of such attacks would be reduced. Further, once a device that is conducting transactions comes back online, compliance software could sync with any transactions that have concurred during the offline period.

Quantum computing will ultimately impact all financial services as it compromises major data encryption methodologies and cryptographic primitives used for protecting access, confidentiality and integrity of data stored and transmitted. CBDC is no exception. Therefore, the threat of emerging quantum computers, which can compromise the cryptography employed to secure CBDC accounts, must be taken into account during technology design. For instance, central banks should consider the vulnerability of certain primitives to forthcoming quantum computing. Moreover, quantum computers in the future might be able to break the cryptography in the CBDC system without detection.

The World Economic Forum's Centre for Cybersecurity is leading the global response to address systemic cybersecurity challenges and improve digital trust. We are an independent and impartial global platform committed to fostering international dialogues and collaboration on cybersecurity in the public and private sectors. We bridge the gap between cybersecurity experts and decision makers at the highest levels to reinforce the importance of cybersecurity as a key strategic priority.

Our community has three key priorities:

Strengthening Global Cooperation - to increase global cooperation between public and private stakeholders to foster a collective response to cybercrime and address key security challenges posed by barriers to cooperation.

Understanding Future Networks and Technology - to identify cybersecurity challenges and opportunities posed by new technologies, and accelerate forward-looking solutions.

Building Cyber Resilience - to develop and amplify scalable solutions to accelerate the adoption of best practices and increase cyber resilience.

Initiatives include building a partnership to address the global cyber enforcement gap through improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public-private collaboration in cybercrime investigations; equipping business decision makers and cybersecurity leaders with the tools necessary to govern cyber risks, protect business assets and investments from the impact of cyber-attacks; and enhancing cyber resilience across key industry sectors such as electricity, aviation and oil & gas. We also promote mission aligned initiatives championed by our partner organizations.

The Forum is also a signatory of the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace which aims to ensure digital peace and security which encourages signatories to protect individuals and infrastructure, to protect intellectual property, to cooperate in defense, and refrain from doing harm.

For more information, please contact us.

Cybersecurity, along with technical resilience and sound technical governance, are the most important elements of CBDC technical design. Failure to implement a robust cybersecurity strategy and consider the risks introduced above could compromise citizen data and funds, the success of the CBDC programme, central bank reputational risk and broader opinions of the new currency. Based on past experiences in cybersecurity failures, the bar for security is not only about keeping the bad guys out or minimizing unauthorized account access. It must be comprehensive and consider the full spectrum of risks, ensuring that the system works as it was designed and that its integrity remains intact. Only then will CBDC be successful in achieving its goals.

Written by

Sebastian Banescu, Senior Research Engineer / Security Auditor, Quantstamp

Ben Borodach, Vice-President, Strategy and Operations, Team8

Ashley Lannquist, Project Lead, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology, World Economic Forum

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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4 key threats to the new central bank digital currencies - World Economic Forum

This result is the first experimental challenge against the extended Church-Turing thesis, which states that classical computers can efficiently implement any reasonable model of computation. With the first quantum computation that cannot reasonably be emulated on a classical computer, we have opened up a new realm of computing to be explored.

The Sycamore ProcessorThe quantum supremacy experiment was run on a fully programmable 54-qubit processor named Sycamore. Its comprised of a two-dimensional grid where each qubit is connected to four other qubits. As a consequence, the chip has enough connectivity that the qubit states quickly interact throughout the entire processor, making the overall state impossible to emulate efficiently with a classical computer.

The success of the quantum supremacy experiment was due to our improved two-qubit gates with enhanced parallelism that reliably achieve record performance, even when operating many gates simultaneously. We achieved this performance using a new type of control knob that is able to turn off interactions between neighboring qubits. This greatly reduces the errors in such a multi-connected qubit system. We made further performance gains by optimizing the chip design to lower crosstalk, and by developing new control calibrations that avoid qubit defects.

We designed the circuit in a two-dimensional square grid, with each qubit connected to four other qubits. This architecture is also forward compatible for the implementation of quantum error-correction. We see our 54-qubit Sycamore processor as the first in a series of ever more powerful quantum processors.

ApplicationsThe Sycamore quantum computer is fully programmable and can run general-purpose quantum algorithms. Since achieving quantum supremacy results last spring, our team has already been working on near-term applications, including quantum physics simulation and quantum chemistry, as well as new applications in generative machine learning, among other areas.

We also now have the first widely useful quantum algorithm for computer science applications: certifiable quantum randomness. Randomness is an important resource in computer science, and quantum randomness is the gold standard, especially if the numbers can be self-checked (certified) to come from a quantum computer. Testing of this algorithm is ongoing, and in the coming months we plan to implement it in a prototype that can provide certifiable random numbers.

Whats Next?Our team has two main objectives going forward, both towards finding valuable applications in quantum computing. First, in the future we will make our supremacy-class processors available to collaborators and academic researchers, as well as companies that are interested in developing algorithms and searching for applications for todays NISQ processors. Creative researchers are the most important resource for innovation now that we have a new computational resource, we hope more researchers will enter the field motivated by trying to invent something useful.

Second, were investing in our team and technology to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer as quickly as possible. Such a device promises a number of valuable applications. For example, we can envision quantum computing helping to design new materials lightweight batteries for cars and airplanes, new catalysts that can produce fertilizer more efficiently (a process that today produces over 2% of the worlds carbon emissions), and more effective medicines. Achieving the necessary computational capabilities will still require years of hard engineering and scientific work. But we see a path clearly now, and were eager to move ahead.

AcknowledgementsWed like to thank our collaborators and contributors University of California Santa Barbara, NASA Ames Research Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Forschungszentrum Jlich, and many others who helped along the way.

Today we published the results of this quantum supremacy experiment in the Nature article, Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor. We developed a new 54-qubit processor, named Sycamore, that is comprised of fast, high-fidelity quantum logic gates, in order to perform the benchmark testing. Our machine performed the target computation in 200 seconds, and from measurements in our experiment we determined that it would take the worlds fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to produce a similar output.

Each run of a random quantum circuit on a quantum computer produces a bitstring, for example 0000101. Owing to quantum interference, some bitstrings are much more likely to occur than others when we repeat the experiment many times. However, finding the most likely bitstrings for a random quantum circuit on a classical computer becomes exponentially more difficult as the number of qubits (width) and number of gate cycles (depth) grow.

The Sycamore ProcessorThe quantum supremacy experiment was run on a fully programmable 54-qubit processor named Sycamore. Its comprised of a two-dimensional grid where each qubit is connected to four other qubits. As a consequence, the chip has enough connectivity that the qubit states quickly interact throughout the entire processor, making the overall state impossible to emulate efficiently with a classical computer.

The success of the quantum supremacy experiment was due to our improved two-qubit gates with enhanced parallelism that reliably achieve record performance, even when operating many gates simultaneously. We achieved this performance using a new type of control knob that is able to turn off interactions between neighboring qubits. This greatly reduces the errors in such a multi-connected qubit system. We made further performance gains by optimizing the chip design to lower crosstalk, and by developing new control calibrations that avoid qubit defects.

We designed the circuit in a two-dimensional square grid, with each qubit connected to four other qubits. This architecture is also forward compatible for the implementation of quantum error-correction. We see our 54-qubit Sycamore processor as the first in a series of ever more powerful quantum processors.

ApplicationsThe Sycamore quantum computer is fully programmable and can run general-purpose quantum algorithms. Since achieving quantum supremacy results last spring, our team has already been working on near-term applications, including quantum physics simulation and quantum chemistry, as well as new applications in generative machine learning, among other areas.

We also now have the first widely useful quantum algorithm for computer science applications: certifiable quantum randomness. Randomness is an important resource in computer science, and quantum randomness is the gold standard, especially if the numbers can be self-checked (certified) to come from a quantum computer. Testing of this algorithm is ongoing, and in the coming months we plan to implement it in a prototype that can provide certifiable random numbers.

Whats Next?Our team has two main objectives going forward, both towards finding valuable applications in quantum computing. First, in the future we will make our supremacy-class processors available to collaborators and academic researchers, as well as companies that are interested in developing algorithms and searching for applications for todays NISQ processors. Creative researchers are the most important resource for innovation now that we have a new computational resource, we hope more researchers will enter the field motivated by trying to invent something useful.

Second, were investing in our team and technology to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer as quickly as possible. Such a device promises a number of valuable applications. For example, we can envision quantum computing helping to design new materials lightweight batteries for cars and airplanes, new catalysts that can produce fertilizer more efficiently (a process that today produces over 2% of the worlds carbon emissions), and more effective medicines. Achieving the necessary computational capabilities will still require years of hard engineering and scientific work. But we see a path clearly now, and were eager to move ahead.

AcknowledgementsWed like to thank our collaborators and contributors University of California Santa Barbara, NASA Ames Research Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Forschungszentrum Jlich, and many others who helped along the way.

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Google AI Blog: Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable ...

Recent news items published in 2021 on quantum computing developments are listed below. Click on the hyperlinked item to go to the press release or news article for more details. For older news items published in 2020 click here, for 2019 click here, for 2018 click here, and for items published in 2015-2017, click here.

November 18, 2021Classiq Introduces a New Version of their Software that Allows Users to Integrate their Own Functional ModelClassiq is an Israeli based quantum software company provides software that automatically transforms high-level functional models into optimized quantum circuits for a wide range of back-end systems. Previously, algorithms designers could only use the built-in functions in the software that were provided by Classiq, but this new release allows a designer to integrate their own new functional block with the rest of the software. This new capability allow users include their own unique intellectual property (IP) and custom functional models. Click here for the full article.

November 18, 2021Bluefors Introduces a New Generation of Cryogenic PlatformBluefors has introduced a new cryogenic platform that they call KIDE (meaning snow crystal in Finnish). This platform provides more cooling capability for larger chips. It also provide more flexibility. As shown in the picture three of the hexagonal shaped units can be connected together for possible use in creating a three-way quantum computing cluster. IBM has announced it will be using this platform for its forthcoming IBM Quantum System Two series of machines. You can view the Bluefors news release announcing this platformhereand a short video that provides additional views of ithere.

November 18, 2021QuEra Announces a 256 Qubit Quantum Simulator and Raises $17 Million in FundingQuEra will be commercializing a neutral atom based 256 qubit quantum simulator originally developed at the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms and will make it publicly available soon. They also announced raising $17 million in venture funding from Rakuten, Day One Ventures, Frontiers Capital and leading tech investors Serguei Beloussov, Paul Maritz, and others. Click here for our full article with additional details.

November 16, 2021IBMs Seven Announcements at the IBM Quantum SummitIBM held their annual IBM Quantum Summit today and made seven significant announcements about the status and plans for their quantum computing activities. Although there was a lot of press hype about the 127 qubit Eagle processor, many of the other announcements were ignored and some may even be more significant than the Eagle itself. Click here to see our report on what they announced.

November 16, 2021 News BriefQuandela Receives 15 Million ($17M USD) in FundingQuandelais a French quantum hardware startup that is planning on offering an online photonic based quantum computer in 2022. They were founded in 2017 as a spinoff of the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology atCNRS. A key product for Quandela is the Prometheus, a photonic qubit generator with broad applications in quantum computing, quantum cryptography and quantum sensors. They also offer quantum photonic components to companies and research centers around the world. Omnes was the lead investor in this round with additional participation from Quantonation and the Defence Innovation Fund managed by Bpifrance. More details about this funding are available in a news release posted on the Quantonation website that you can findhere.

November 16, 2021IonQ Releases Third Quarter Financial ResultsAlthough quarterly results at this stage arent very meaningful for understanding the long term prospects for the company. Now that they are a public company, they do need to go through this. For the quarter, IonQ achieved Q3 revenue of $234 thousand which is a 150% increase over the Q2 revenue of $93 thousand. But expenses went up a lot with Q3 R&D expense at $6.18 million versus $5.47 million in Q2. Sales and Marking costs were at $1.28 million versus $871 thousand in Q2 although General & Administrative costs were $6.7 million including one-time offering costs of $4.2 million versus $2.9 million in Q2. The Net Loss in Q3 was $14.7 million versus a loss in Q2 of $9.9 million in Q3. In addition, they announced expected bookings by year end to total $15.7 million to $15.9 million and ended the quarter with $587 million in cash. Click here to view the full article.

November 15, 2021 News BriefIQM Quantum Computer Selected for Integration as an Accelerator for an HPC System in Germanys Q-Exa ProjectTheIQMsuperconducting quantum computer will be integrated within a high performance computing (HPC) installation at theLeibniz Supercomputing Centre(LRZ) near Munich. Other partners in this activity includeAtos, Europes leading HPC company, andHQS, a quantum software startup company. Q-Exa is a 45.3 million ($51M USD) consortium project with major funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) that will research making quantum acceleration of HPC applications a reality. More about the Q-Exa project and integration of IQMs quantum computing can be found in a news release availablehere.

November 15, 2021 News BriefQED-C Will Start Accepting Memberships from non-U.S. CorporationsTheQuantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), a consortium established in 2018 by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of stakeholders that aims to enable and grow the quantum industry has announced that it will start accepting Tier-2 memberships from non-U.S. corporations located in certain countries approved by the QED-C steering committee. The list of countries currently includes Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the UK with more expected to be approved in the future. More information about membership in QED-C can be found on their Membership webpagehere.

November 14, 2021 News BriefAgnostiq Chooses Xanadus Pennylane as a Base for Software that Addresses Financial ProblemsAgnostiq, a Canadian quantum software startup, will build software that solves various financial problems on top ofXanadus Pennylane. The Pennylane software is a quantum machine learning library that supports a very wide variety of the different hardware platforms that are currently available. By leveraging this software Agnostiq will be able to accelerate the availability of its solutions since it can concentrate its resources more on the end applications rather than the fundamental algorithms that are common with quantum machine learning and variational quantum computing. In addition, it provides more flexibility for Agnostiqs customers in choosing which hardware backend to use due to the wide hardware support built into Pennylane. Additional information about this activity can be found in a press release issued by Xanadu thats availablehere.

November 13, 2021 News BriefAmazon AWS and CINECA Will Collaborate on a Series of Quantum Computing Research InitiativesCINECAis a non-profit consortium based in Bologna, Italy that is made up of 70 Italian universities, eight research institutions and the Italian Ministry of Higher Education. It hosts the the most powerful supercomputing center for scientific research inItaly and its mission is to support the Italian scientific community throughsupercomputingandscientific visualizationtools. Amazon AWS will work with them by supporting CINECA identified projects withAWS Cloud Credits for Researchthat provides credits for free time on the AWS cloud services. They will also jointly host a series of workshops to deepen the quantum expertise of the HPC research community.And Amazon will join a CINECA steering committee along with other quantum computing experts to represent the quantum computing research community in Italy and help identify cutting-edge quantum computing research projects that can leverage Amazons Braket quantum cloud services. More information about this collaboration can be found in ablog that has been posted on the Amazon AWS Braket website.

November 12, 2021 News BriefClassiq Joins the Fraunhofer Led Sequoia Project Which Focuses on Industrial Hybrid Quantum Applications and AlgorithmsClassiq, an Israeli quantum software startup company, has joined theSequoia projectwhich will focus on software engineering of industrial, hybrid quantum applications and algorithms. The project is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO with additional partners including Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF, Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, University of Tbingen, Chair of Embedded Systems, FZI Research Center for Information Technology, University of Stuttgart, High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart, and the University of Stuttgart, Institute of Architecture of Application Systems (IAAS). The project is funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and TourismBaden-Wrttemberg and will last from 2021 to 2023. Classiq will be working on two main problems within this project including solving mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problems with state-of-the art (gate-based) quantum computers and solving coupled partial differential equations with the Harrow Hassidim Lloyd (HHL) quantum algorithm. You can view Classiqs announcement that they have joined this project in a press release availablehere.

November 12, 2021 News BriefIQM Opens a Dedicated Fab Facility in FinlandIQM, a superconducting quantum processor startup headquartered in Espoo, Finland, has opened a dedicated fabrication facility in Espoo, Finland. The facilities size is 560 square meters (about 4000 square feet) and will cost about 20 million ($22.9M USD). The pilot line at this facility will be ramped-up over the coming months, and it is expected to reach maximum production capacity during 2022. The companyhas received 71 million in funding to date and has also receiveda contract from VTT in Finlandto build the countrys first commercial 54 qubit quantum processor. They are also implementing a unique strategy of creating application specific quantum processor that would be optimized for specific types of algorithms with help from their offices in Spain and Germany. Additional information about IQMs announcement of the facility opening can be viewed in a press release availablehereand a video of the opening ceremony which can be seenhere.

November 11, 2021 News BriefThe Advanced Quantum Testbed at the Berkeley Lab Releases an Open Source Control Electronics Design for Superconducting ProcessorsOne of the most critical subsystems in a superconducting quantum computer is the portion of the machine that contains the control electronics. These electronics generate the microwave pulses that are used to control the qubits to implement the various gates needed to run a quantum program. Up until now, an engineer developing a quantum processor would need to chose from purchasing commercial control electronics from one of the companies specializing in these products or designing their own from scratch. Now theAdvanced Quantum Testbed (AQT)at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has designed key low-noise RF mixing modules that can be used by anyone with an open source design that can bedownloaded from GitLab. RF mixers convert the frequency of an incoming signal to either a higher or a lower frequency depending upon the use. By providing an open source option, a team using this for their quantum computer design could potentially save time or money or both. The teams approach was to develop small interactive mixing modules that can be configured in a modular fashion for a specific application. Although this initial design has focused on providing the controls for superconducting qubits, this technology has expansion potential for use in controlling other types of qubits. Additional information about this design can be seen in a news release provided by AQThereas well as the GitLab pages where one can access the designhere.

November 11, 2021 News BriefMultiverse Partners with IonQ to Offer their Financial Software on the IonQ PlatformWe described last August Multiverses Singularity quantum software solution for financial applications. This software can enable financial institutions to model real-life financial problems such as Fair Price calculations, portfolio creation and optimization, ETF replication, risk valuation, and many other simulations with speed and accuracy. One thing that is highly significant about this software is that it can take input in the form of an Excel spreadsheet and then automatically translate that problem statement into a program that can run be on a quantum computer. This makes it significantly easier for a user to start access the power of a quantum computer. IonQ has now announced that it has integrated support for IonQs ion trap computer into Singularity. So Singularity will be able to automatically push your data directly to the IonQs quantum computer and will not require going though a cloud service provider like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google to access the machine. Multiverse indicates that IonQ is now a preferred quantum compute partner for their Singularity platform. Additional information about Multiverses partnership with IonQ is available in a press releasehereand additional information about Singularity is available on a page located on Multiverses websitehere.

November 10, 2021 News BriefQuantum Algorithms Institute and Mitacs Announce a Funded Internship ProgramTheQuantum Algorithms Instituteis a non-profit organization was founded in 2019 with a mission to grow the applied quantum computing ecosystem in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada.Mitacsis a Canadian not-for-profit organization that has designed and delivered research and training programs in Canada for 20 years. Together the two have established a program to provide university students with ten internships that pay up to $40,000 (CAD) per year for a period of eight months for quantum computing research in a variety of application areas or to design new algorithms. The proposals for an internship must include the participation of one QAI industry member such as Microsoft, IBM, AWS, D-Wave, or 1QBit and one B.C. post-secondary institution.A student must be based in British Columbia but they can partner with another student from an approved university anywhere in the world. The interns will be expected to present their research findings after the completion of their internship. The deadline to apply for this program is January 31, 2022. For more information about this program, you can view a news release from the Quantum Algorithms Institutehereand also detailed rules that are available in a Call for Proposal documenthere.

November 10, 2021Your Chance to Help the EdQuantum Project Develop a Curriculum for Training Quantum TechniciansOne of the common themes we are hearing at every quantum conference these days is the criticality of developing a quantum workforce so that we get the most advantage out of quantum technology as soon as we can. Although a number of good training programs have been started, one area that hasnt received as much attention is the development two-year programs for quantum technicians who could potentially perform many of the activities that would have to be otherwise need to be done by individuals with full undergraduate or graduate level degrees. Appropriately utilizing these quantum technicians could significantly expand the availability of human resources that are needed to build, deploy and use quantum technology. Recognizing this, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided a grant to the Indian River State College to create theEdQuantum program for training quantum technicians. The first steps for this program is to take an industry survey from industry of those skills they consider important for a quantum technician role. For more information about this survey and how you can participate and provide you inputs, click here to find out more.

November 10, 2021 News BriefQ-CTRL Introduces Black Opal, an Interactive, Online Quantum Learning Platform for BeginnersBlack Opal uses visualization, interactivity and animation targeted for technology professionals, STEM-enthusiast teenagers, science fans, and self-learners and other beginners who want to learn more about quantum computing without requiring any pre-requisites. Black Opal helps anyone go from zero knowledge to programming real quantum computers without facing the barriers of formal coursework, said Q-CTRL Founder and CEO Professor Michael J. Biercuk. It supports students and professionals seeking careers in the quantum industry, and provides insight to the most curious enthusiasts from real research leaders in the field. Theres no better way to learn quantum computing from actual experts. In order to incentivize users to try it out, Q-CTRL is holding a Black Friday sale (a first for the quantum industry!). They are offering a 12 month subscription plus four months beta access for a special price of $50, a discount from the normal price of $180 for sign-ups entered between November 19-29, 2021. Additional information about Black Opal and the Black Friday sale can be found in a news release provided by Q-CTRL that you can findhere. To get a subscription and to view a short video demonstration of it, you can visit a page on the Q-CTRL websitehere.

November 10, 2021 News BriefORCA Computing will Lead a Team for a 9 Million ($12M USD) Quantum Data Centre of the Future ProjectORCA Computingwill be leading the project to research how quantum computing can integrate with the data centers that currently underpin and drive the digital economy. Other participating organizations in the project includeBP,BT,Digital Catapult,Imperial College London,National Composites Centre,NCC Group Security Services,PQShield,KETS Quantum Security,Riverlane,University College London,University of Bath,University of Bristol, and theUniversity of Southampton. The project will be using quantum-safe communications solutions including Quantum Random Number generation, Quantum Key Distribution and Post-Quantum Cryptography so thatusers can access data and computing resources remotely in a way that is secured against both conventional and quantum computing attacks. This award was part of twelve different quantum projects announced recently as part of the UKs National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP) for a total of 50 million($67M USD). For additional information about the Quantum Data Centre project, you can view a news release posted on the KETS websitehere and for additional information about the other NQTP awards you can see a news release on the UK Research and Innovation website here.

November 9, 2021Classical Computing Strikes Back; Simulation Advances from NVIDIA and ChinaOne thing not fully understood is that significant innovation is still occurring in classical computing and those trying to demonstrate a quantum advantage over a classical solution will find that the competitive bar is continually being raised. Some will say that classical computing is slowing down because Moores Law improvements are becoming harder to come by, but that is too simplistic. There is still much classical computing innovation still occurring in new architectures, new algorithms, and development of quantum-inspired solutions. Two recent announcements from GPU manufacturer NVIDIA and a research group in China show some significant advances in the classical simulation of quantum algorithms that may make these approaches much more attractive for use in real world problems. Click here for more.

November 8, 2021 News BriefThree New Corporate Partners Join the Chicago Quantum ExchangeClassiq,Lake Shore Cryotronics, andOxford Instrumentshave joined theChicago Quantum Exchangeas corporate partners. These companies provide software, processes, tools, and instruments that can be utilized for the quantum research being performed by member organizations of the Chicago Quantum Exchange and to help train future quantum scientists and engineers. Additional information is available in a news release posted on the Chicago Quantum Exchange website that can viewedhere.

November 7, 2021 News BriefDelft Circuits and kiutra Team to Provide Cooling and ConnectionsTwo of the larger mechanical engineering challenges in creating a quantum computer is to provide an efficient way of provide the low temperature cooling needed while routing all the cables down to the chip that contains the qubits. Now Delft Circuits and kiutra have gotten together to provide a fully integrated, turnkey cooling platform in a project named SPROUT. The project is funded by a European program called Eurostars with support from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. For more about this program, you can view a press release posted on the kiutra website that you can seehere.

November 6, 2021Q-CTRL Quantifies the Benefit of Their Qubit Control Software using the QED-C Application BenchmarksQ-CTRL has long claimed that their qubit control software can provide improve gate fidelities and now has supplied data that can show how well it works. They have used the QED-C application benchmarks that wereported on earlier this month, and re-ran some of the tests on a few IBM superconducting quantum computers to show improved results. They used their upcoming Fire Opal toolset which will provide optimized control pulses to implement the gates on the IBM Lagos quantum computer which has seven qubits and a quantum volume of 32. This results in superior implementation of the gates with higher gate fidelities than can be achieved with the unmodified standard gates. They achieved an improved result fidelity of about 1.6X for the Grovers Search algorithm, about 12X for the Quantum Fourier Transform and about 27X for the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm. Click here for the full article.

November 6, 2021 News BriefQuantum Motion Led Consortium Receives 5.7 Million ($7.7M USD) for Cryogenic Chip DevelopmentThe three year program, named Altnaharra, is funded by the UKRIsNational Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP). Additional participants in the project include the UKs National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Oxford Instruments, Oxford Ionics, and the University of Glasgow. The chip being developed will use CMOS technology and provide for integrated control and readout of qubits at low temperatures. The chip will be usable with several different qubit technologies. Additional information about this grant can be found in a news release available on the Quantum Motion websitehere.

November 5, 2021 News BriefOxford Quantum Circuits and the UKs National Quantum Computing Centre Sign an MOU to Work Together and Enable the Pathway to Quantum Readiness in the UKThe companies will work together to utilize Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) recently established Quantum Computing as-a-Service (QCaas) and leverage the National Quantum Computing Centres (NQCC) reach to provide a lead on sector-based engagement. This will help boost access to quantum computing resources for UK-based users in the future and drive adoption of the technology. The organizations will identify potential users and showcase the capabilities of UK technologies and expertise, through access to OQCs quantum computing platforms. It will also help ensure data onshoring for critical applications. For more details about this, you can view a press release provided by NQCC and availablehere.

November 5, 2021SEEQC UK Announces Three New Project Awards by Innovate UKs Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF)The first is a 6.85 million ($9.25M USD) grant from Innovate UK to build a commercially scalable application-specific quantum computer designed to tackle prohibitively high costs within pharmaceutical drug development. The second project is a 6.8 million ($9.1M USD) initiative led by Riverlane, to develop advanced quantum calibration methods that utilize machine learning and support the integration of SEEQCs unique superconducting classical logic platform with cryoCMOS components to support deep memory. And the third project is a 6.5 million ($8.77M USD) initiative led by sureCore, will also support the integration of SEEQCs unique superconducting classical logic platform with cryoCMOS components, combining the optimal features of each component in support of the companys platform development. For more, you can view our full article by clicking here.

November 5, 2021Two Consortiums with Universal Quantum Win Awards for 7.5 Million ($10.1M USD) and 6.5 Million ($8.7M USD) from the U.K. GovernmentIn consecutive days this week, Universal Quantum announced that it is participating in two different consortium projects that have won sizable awards. The first consortium is led by Universal Quantum and includes a 7.5 million grant from from Innovate UKs Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to build an error-corrected quantum computer that can be applied to help solve high-impact problems in the aerospace industry. The second consortium will be led by by sureCore with a goal to develop advanced cryogenic semiconductor IP and be funded with 6.5 Million from Innovate UKs 36M ISCF project. Click here for the full article.

November 5, 2021 News BriefWhos News Denise Ruffner, Justin Ging Join Atom Computing; Jake Taylor Joins RiverlaneDenise Ruffner will serve as the Chief Business Officer for Atom Computing with responsibilities for leading customer, partner and sales strategy. She previously was the Vice-President of Business Development at IonQ and has additional quantum experience gained from her previous roles at Cambridge Quantum and IBM. Justin Ging will be the Chief Product Officer at Atom Computing. Previously, he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Honeywell Quantum Solutions with other experience at Samsung and Aptina Imaging. Riverlane has appointed Dr. Jake Taylor as Chief Science Officer. Dr. Taylor was the assistant director for quantum information science at the White House from 2017 to 2020, and help lead the creation of the US National Quantum Initiative. Part of his responsibilities at Riverlane include helping them establish a larger U.S. presence by assisting in the hiring of engineers and researchers in the Boston area. You can view the news releases announcing these new management appointments at Atom Computinghereand at Riverlanehere.

November 5, 2021 News BriefRigetti, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and University of Southern California Awarded a $3.1 Million Contract for Quantum Simulation of Nuclear FusionThe award was made by the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) for a three year program to simulate plasma dynamics associated with fusion energy on Rigettis cloud-based quantum computers. The project will also help advance Rigettis quantum technology as it involves applying control pulse engineering and dynamic error suppression techniques to enable long duration simulations with high effective gate depth. It will leverage and help extend Rigettis QUIL, Quil-T and other software programming libraries. QUIL is an open-source quantum instruction language for hybrid quantum-classical computing originally developed by Rigetti. Quil-T is its time-domain pulse programming extension. Additional information is available in a news release issued by Rigetti which can be viewedhere.

November 5, 2021 News BriefThe U.S. and U.K. Issue a Joint Statement of Intent to Enhance Cooperation on Quantum Information Science and TechnologyThe purpose of the agreement is toboost collaboration between the two countries and help realize the full potential of quantum technologies and deepen ties between the United States and the United Kingdom. This collaboration will help facilitate increased cooperation between U.S. and U.K. governmental agencies on various projects. This includes joint work performed by the the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.K. National Physical Laboratory (NPL) for quantum technologies including next-generation atomic clocks and quantum sensors. It will also enable an enhanced partnership between the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.K. Research and Innovation (UKRI) for additional collaboration on research in QIS. This statement will make it easier for U.S. government agencies to form addtional partnerships with corresponding organizations in the U.K. Additional information about this statement can be found in a press release posted on the U.S. governments Quantum.gov website that you can viewhere.

November 2, 2021IBM Introduces Another New Quantum Performance called CLOPS to Measure Execution SpeedIBM has come up with a new performance metric called CLOPS (Circuit Layer Operations per Second) that can provide some visibility into speed performance. This metric is based upon the time it takes to run a quantum program that includes multiple shots, varying parameters, overheads associated with the control electronics and other factors. Click here to learn more about this new measure and some of its implications.

October 28, 2021 News BriefWhos News Management Additions at Alice & Bob, Terra tionsQuantum, and QuantropiA few more management additions have been announced this month. Professor Michel Devoret has been appointed as a scientific board member and advisor at Alice & Bob. Professor Devoret is a Professor of Applied Physics at Yale University and has done pioneering work in the areas of superconducting qubits and error correction. Terra Quantum has appointed Dr. Florian Neukart as Chief Product Officer. He was previously the Director of Volkswagens Data Lab. And Marco Pagani has been appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Quantropi. Mr. Pagani is the President and CEO of the Ottawa Community Foundation and is a former President of Nortel. Additional details can be seen in the individual press announcements fromAlice & Bob,Terra QuantumandQuantropi.

October 27, 2021 News BriefQuintessenceLabs Receives a $25 Million AUD ($18.75M USD) Series B RoundQuintessenceLabs, a Canberra, Australia supplier of quantum cybersecurity solutions including quantum random number generators (QRNG) and quantum key distribution devices (QKD), has received $25 Million in a Series B funding round. The round was led by Main Sequence and TELUS Ventures with additional participation from Mizuho Financial Group-backed InterValley Ventures and Terry Snows Capital Property Group.The company is a spin-off from the Australian National University in Canberra and had previously received funding of $3.26 million AUD ($2.45M USD) and followed by an additional funding of $528 thousand ($396K USD) from the Australian Department of Defence. Among other uses, the company will be using these funds to scale up its sales and marketing efforts and will expand its teams in the U.S. and later on the U.K., Japan and India. Additional information about QuintessenceLabs and the funding can be found in a press release provided by them thats availablehere.

October 26, 2021 News BriefAmazon Opens the AWS Center for Quantum Computing in PasadenaAmazon had announced last year that it was building a new center for quantum computer research on the Caltech campus in Pasadena, California and they now have announced that its opening after a year of construction. The two-story 21,000 square foot (1950 square meters) facility will include office space, laboratories and everything needed for Amazon to make, test and operate quantum processors. Although Amazon is currently partnering with D-Wave, Rigetti and IonQ to offer quantum computing cloud services through their AWS platform, they are also busy designing their own superconducting based quantum computer with error correction. Although they have not released any schedule or specification information on what they are working, they have published technical papers that describe their approach which we reported on in a three part series withPart 1,Part 2, andPart 3. Caltech describes this facility as the first first corporate-partnership building on the Caltech campus. Amazon will benefit because it will allow them to tap into the large talent base at Caltech. For additional information about the opening of this building, you can view a blog article posted on the AWS Quantum websitehereand a second news article provided by Caltech available on their websitehere.

October 26, 2021 News BriefQualcomm Ventures Invests in Quantum MachinesWe reported on Quantum Machines raise of $50 million in a Series B round in September.They now have announced thatQualcomm Ventureswill also become an investor inQuantum Machinesas an extension to their Series B round. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. To our knowledge this is Quantum Ventures first investment in a quantum company. Overall they have invested in 150 portfolio companies around the world in companies working in the 5G, artificial intelligence, automotive, IoT, consumer, enterprise cloud areas. You can view Quantum Machines press release announcing this investmenthere.

October 24, 2021 News BriefToshiba Develops a Three Chip Solution for QKDToshiba has developed a photonic integrated circuit solution that shrinks the core QKD functionality into three chips. Although these chips are still prototypes, they are built with standard semiconductor manufacturing process which could pave the way for future high volume production at competitive costs. The three chips are separated into the QTx transmitter chip, QRx receiver chip, and the QRNG quantum random number generator chip. They are capable of exchanging a thousand symmetric QKD codes per second over a 10 km fiber optic link. For more details about these chips, you can read a press release provided by Toshiba and available on their web sitehereand a technical paper published inNature Photonicsthat can be viewedhere.

October 22, 2021 News BriefIonQ Becomes the Third Corporate Member of UMDs Quantum Startup FoundryIonQ joins EY and The Mitre Corporation in supporting this new accelerator managed by the University of Maryland (UMD) for quantum startup companies. Perhaps this is not surprising as IonQ itself was a startup that spun out of quantum research activities at UMD. This activity is just one of many areas where IonQ and the University of Maryland are working together. In September, the two parties announced they will be partnering to create a National Quantum Lab (Q-Lab) with $20 Million in funding from the university. Additional information about IonQs collaborations with the university can be viewed in a news article posted on the UMD websitehere.

October 20, 2021 News BriefMultiverse Computing Lands a 10 Million ($11.5M USD) Seed Funding RoundMultiverse Computingis a quantum software company with headquarters in San Sebastian, Spain that specializes in providing quantum software solutions for the financial industry. Their flagship product is calledSingularity that allows users to input their problems parameters for applications such as portfolio optimization or fraud detection into a spreadsheet and then submit the spreadsheet for solution on a quantum computer. This funding round wasled by JME Ventures with additional participation from Quantonation, EASO Ventures, Inveready, CLAVE Capital (Mondragn Fondo de Promocin), Ikerlan, LKS, Penja Strategy, Seed Gipuzkoa and Ezten Venture Capital Fund. This followsan earlier pre-seed round of 1.5 Million Euro ($1.78M USD) that Multiverse received in November 2020. The company will use the funds to expand their technology and marketing efforts. In addition, they will continue their globalization strategy with increased support including offices in Toronto, Paris and Munich. The company has set a goal of reaching annual revenue close to 100 million ($116M USD) by 2027 and grow the staffing levels from the current count of 30 to about 100 people. For more information about their funding, you can view a press release they provided which is available here.

October 19, 2021ColdQuanta Forms Quantum Research as a Service (QRaaS) as a New DivisionAlthough the division is new, it actually has been ColdQuantas core business since they started and well before they decided to enter the quantum computing market.ColdQuanta has always offered a broad portfolio of quantum devices and machines for use in quantum systems and applications. These include such items as UHV glass cells, magneto-optical traps, cryogenic apparatus, high performance quantum based clocks, and other such items. Click here for more.

October 19, 2021 News BriefApplications Due October 22nd for a Jumpstart Workshop to Learn How to Test the Market Potential of Your Quantum InnovationTheMidwest I-Corps Node,in partnership with thePolsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago, theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, andDuality, is offering a Jumpstart workshop that will help teams explore the commercial viability of quantum technologies, including hardware and software solutions as well as quantum-enabling technologies. The workshop will consist of four two hour session from November 2 to December 14 that will provide guidance to teams on how they can learn customer pain points, build connections to a commercial ecosystem, assess the size of their potential market and develop a commercialization roadmap. Participants will be eligible to receive up to $950 in funding for customer discovery-related expenses. Additionally, qualifying teams may also be eligible for a $50,000 grant from the NSF I-Corps National Teams program, SBIR/STTR, and other commercialization grants. The deadline to apply to this Jumpstart workshop is Friday, October 22nd. An information session that further explains the Jumpstart Quantum Technology Commercialization Workshop will be held on October 21 and you can register to attend here. Other information is available in a blog post available hereand a webpage description of the programhere.

October 19, 2021 News BriefBerlin Quantum Alliance Launched with 25 Million ($29M USD) in FundingThe Berlin Senate is funding this effort with 25 million over a five year period. The funds will be split with 15 million to be used for basic research and 10 million to be used for applied research. The activities will focus on both quantum software including basic research and industry related applications as well as quantum hardware, in particular photonic quantum enabling technologies. The Berlin Quantum Alliance (BQA) is based upon a concept developed by the Free University ofBerlin,Humboldt University of Berlin, Technical University ofBerlin, Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications (HHI). Additional information about the Berlin Quantum Alliance is available in a press release (in German) posted on the City of Berlins website that you can be seenhereand also another press release (in English) provided by the Berlin Business Office that can be foundhere.

October 18, 2021 News BriefaQuantum Announces Subscription Plans for Its QuantumPath Software Development PlatformQuantumPath is an ecosystem of tools, services and processes that simplify the development of quantum algorithms into hybrid information systems that support gate-based, quantum annealing and simulator backends. It consists of two component types. The first areQPath Core Moduleswhich manage agnostic quantum algorithms & solutions (gate-based, quantum annealing) assisted by general purpose tools. CORE Modules enable this hybrid (classical/quantum) computing platform to support the quantum software life cycle and engineering. The second type of components areQPath Platform Appsthat support software engineering and programming best practices adoption for developing high-quality quantum software. The software currently provides support for backends from IBM, D-Wave, Fujitsu, QuTech, AWS, and Microsoft. aQuantum is now providing four different levels of subscription plans for using this software that depend upon the size of the team and the amount of usage needed. These levels are QPath Free Developer, QPath Developer, QPath Business and QPath Enterprise. For more about aQuantums announcement of its subscription plans, you can read a news release posted on their websitehereand a webpage that provides an overview of the QuantumPath softwarehere.

October 17, 2021 News BriefU.S. Government Report on International Talent in Quantum Information ScienceThe Economic and Security Implications of Quantum Science (ESIX) subcommittee of the U.S. National Science & Technology Council (NSTC) has issued a report with recommendations on how the U.S. can work with foreign talent to help advance the quantum industry. It is important to provide a balance between supporting an open innovation ecosystem with protecting national security. The report asserts that there is a continuing shortage of quantum trained individuals worldwide and it is important to grow this workforce in order for the U.S. to retain leadership in this technology. Key recommendations from the report including the following: 1) The United States should continue welcoming talented international researchers while implementation protections to ensure that research security concerns are mitigated; 2) U.S. federal organizations should continue close collaboration with allies and partners to ensure a vibrant and secure international QIST ecosystem; 3) The NSTC Subcommittee on Quantum Information Science (SCQIS) should develop a five-year strategic plan for QIST workforce development and 4) Federal organizations that fund research, development, and acquisition of QIST should develop coordinated, comprehensive technology protection plans to safeguard intellectual capital and property, while accounting for specific mission needs. The full report is available on the Quantum.gov website and can be found here.

October 15, 2021 News BriefQuICS Receives Renewed Funding of $12.2 Million from NISTTheJoint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science(QuICS) is a partnership between the University of Maryland and NIST set up to advance research and education in quantum computer science and quantum information theory. It was originally created in 2014 and now has received renewed funding of $12.2 million from NIST to cover the next five years. In addition to the $12.2 million, the University of Maryland (UMD) will also provide another $2 million over the next five years. The center will use these funds to grow its staff, research agenda and educational activities. QuICS has recently doubled its space on the UMD campus and now has additional room for the expanded activities. A news release announcing this funding can be found on the QuICS websitehere.

October 15, 2021NIST Soliciting Collaborators for their Migrating to Post-Quantum Cryptography ProjectThe National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) within the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is invitinginterested parties to collaborate in theirMigration to Post-Quantum Cryptography project. The purpose of this project is to develop practices to ease the migration from the current set of public-key cryptographic algorithms to post quantum cryptography (PQC) replacement algorithms that are resistant to quantum computer-based attacks. For the full article, click here.

October 15, 2021 News BriefD-Wave Joins the Center for Quantum Technologies Research Program as an Industry MemberTheCenter for Quantum Technologies (CQT)is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded program aimed at developing novel quantum technologies to address significant industry challenges. Its founding partners include Purdue University, Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Notre Dame, and Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI).D-Wavewill provide access to its hardware, software and developer tools for CQT students as well as serve on the industry advisory board. They will be joining other CQT industry members including Accenture, Cummins, Entanglement, Inc., General Atomics, IBM Quantum and Quantum Computing Inc. An announcement from D-Wave about their joining the CQT program with additional information can be foundhere.

October 14, 2021Cambridge Quantum Releases lambeq, a Quantum Natural Language Processing Toolkit and Librarylambeq (named after mathematician Joachim Lambek) is the result of research that has gone on for 10 years by Cambridge Quantums (CQ) Chief Scientist Bob Coecke. The concept is that a sentence consisting of a group of words can be represented as a network and the network can be converted to a quantum circuit in an application called Quantum Natural Language Processing (QNLP). This approach can enable real-world QNLP applications, such as automated dialogue, text mining, language translation, text-to-speech, language generation and bioinformatics. It can also be used for a more general analysis of symbol sequences that can be found in genomics and proteomics. Click here for more.

October 14, 2021 News BriefQuantum Dice Receives 2 Million ($2.7M USD) in Pre-seed FundingQuantum Diceis an Oxford University spinout developing a compact and continuously self-certifying quantum random number generator (QRNG) based upon a technology they call DISCTMthat employs advanced silicon photonics technology to produce high-quality, certified randomness from an on-chip laser source. This technology is very high speed and was originally developed in Oxfords world-leading Quantum Optics research group. The pre-seed fundraising consists of a 1 million venture capital investment led by Elaia Partners with additional participation from IP Group plc, and the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) managed by Midven. An additional 1 million of non-dilutive grant funding came from the Quantum Investment Accelerator run by IP Group plc in partnership with Innovate UK, the United Kingdoms innovation agency. Generating high quality, fully random numbers to use as encryption keys is very important for secure communication. Using a quantum based process can help guarantee this is the case due to the non-deterministic nature inherent in the laws of quantum mechanics. Additional information about this funding can be found in a news release availablehere.

October 13, 2021New Corporate Sponsors Announced at Chicagos Duality Quantum Accelerator and Marylands Quantum Startup FoundryTwo quantum startup foundries in the United States have added corporate sponsors that will provide the quantum startup cohort members with equipment, training, mentorship, financial support and other services and resources. Click here to view the full article and see which corporate entities are getting involved.

October 9, 2021Advanced Quantum Testbed Announces Open Call for New User Project ProposalsThe Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has issued an open call for new user project proposals. These proposals should be for research of non-proprietary work that will be published in the scientific literature. Non-U.S. citizens are allowed to submit proposals and there is no cost to groups with accepted proposals. AQT users will have access to AQTs scientists and engineers for close collaboration and guidance on how to best use the hardware and software capabilities at AQT. To have a proposal considered, a prospective user should start by submitting a Letter of Intent (LOI) by November 5, 2021. Click here for more information about this open call for proposals.

October 8, 2021 News BriefBT and Toshiba to Create One of Worlds First Commercial Quantum Secured Communications Network Across Metro LondonThis network would be one of the worlds first commercially availablequantum-secured metro network in the world. It will be operated by BT and utilizequantum key distribution (QKD) hardware and key management software fromToshiba, manufactured at Toshibas Cambridge, UK site. The companies will offer this service to enterprise customers, such as financial and legal organizations, who require the utmost security for sensitive data such as database backups. While the companies had previously installed a point-to-point network between Bristol-based NCC (National Composites Centre) and Centre for Modelling and Simulation (CFMS), the new network will be a multi-point network across a large metropolitan area. Additional details about this announcement can be viewed in a news release located on the BT websitehere.

October 8, 2021 News BriefZapata Partners with the University of Hull to Evaluate Orquestra to Help Evaluate Biological Signatures of Life in Deep SpaceAlthough the project will not use quantum computing directly to search for life in deep space, it can potentially help the effort by creating a data base of detectable signatures of molecules that could suggest biological activity. MIT researchers in 2016 created a list of 14,000 molecules that could indicate signs of life in extraterrestrial planets. TheE.A. Milne Centre for Astrophysicsat the University of Hull will evaluate usingZapatas Orquestraand quantum computing to create a database of detectable signatures using new computational models of molecular rotations and vibrations that will show how these molecules respond to infrared radiation from nearby stars. This evaluation will be a short one, scheduled to only last for eight weeks, but there are expected to be several follow-on projects between Zapata and the University of Hull for additional quantum astrophysics related applications. Additional information about this project can be found in a news release provided by Zapata availablehere.

October 8, 2021 News BriefStrangeworks Announces a Backstage Pass Program for Early Access to the Newest TechnologyMembers of the Backstage Pass program will gain access to the newest technology available from Strangeworks own internal development team and theirQuantum Syndicatemembers. Oftentimes, when a quantum hardware provider develops a new machine, they wont make it fully available to the general public immediately because there may be limits on how many users it can initially support. Rather, they may make it available only to a select group of beta customers so they can better control the usage while the provider gains initial experience and makes optimizations in operating the machine. Members of the Strangeworks program can have a better chance of being included in this select group of early users with the assistance from Strangeworks. An additional benefit of the Backstage Pass Program is that members can apply for the StrangeworksQuantum Hardware Credit Programwhich will provide up to $5,000 in credit on the Strangeworks platform to use on hardware systems available via Amazon Braket from D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti. For additional information about this new program and to apply to become a member, you can view announcement of the program on their websitehereand also an FAQ page that provides additional details about ithere. The program will officially start in January 2022, but users can apply to join the program right now an a webpage locatedhere.

October 7, 2021 News BriefMicrosoft Azure Adds Compatibility with Qiskit and Cirq SDKsPreviously, anyone wishing to use the Microsoft Azure quantum cloud service to access the Honeywell and IonQ quantum computers needed to use Microsofts Q# quantum programming language for writing their programs. Now Microsoft has written an API so that users existing Qiskit or Cirq programs can add a few lines of code and run their programs on the Honeywell or IonQ systems using the Azure cloud service. This will expand the potential user community for Microsoft and provide users with a greater choice of hardware providers for developing and testing their programs. You can view Microsofts announcement about this development in a blog article on their websitehere.

October 6, 2021Rigetti to Go Public with SPAC Supernova II with Equity Value of $1.5 BillionRigetti Computing announced today that they will merge with SPAC Supernova Partners Acquisition Company II to become a public company. The transaction will include a cash infusion to Rigetti of $345 million in funds held in the trust account of Supernova II along with an additional $100 million in PIPE (Private investment in public equity) funding from investors including funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Bessemer Venture Partner, Franklin Templeton, and In-Q-Tel. Other strategic investors will include Keysight Technologies, Palantir Technologies and Ampere Computing. These funds should be sufficient to support Rigettis operating expenses and capital investment needs until they reach breakeven. Click here to view our full article that provides more information about this transaction.

October 5, 2021 News BriefEqual1 Receives Multimillion Euro Funding Round Bringing Total Funding to 10 million ($11.6M USD)Equal1, a startup developing silicon based quantum processors based in Dublin, Ireland and Fremont, California, has received a multimillion Euro funding round from venture firm btov Industrial Technologies and previous investors Atlantic Bridge, 808 Ventures and Enterprise Ireland.. This brings the total amount of funding to the company to date of over 10 million ($11.6M USD). Dr. Christian Reitberger, partner at btov, has joined Equal1s Board of Directors and Declan OMahoney has been appointed as Equals Non-Executive Chairman of its Board of Directors. Equal1 has been developing a quantum processor based upon spin qubit technology that operates at a relatively warm temperature of 3.7 Kelvin. The advantage of this approach is that it would eliminate the need for a large and costly dilution refrigerator and potentially allow providing the quantum computing in a desktop computer form factor. They have already create a demonstrator system called Alice and are working on a next generation system codenamed Aquarius that is expected to be completed within the next 24 months.More information about their technology is available in an article that we posted in May.Additional information about this funding can be found in a news release posted by Equal1 and availablehere.

October 5, 2021D-Wave Announces Their Future Roadmap Including a New Gate Based Machine that is Under DevelopmentAt its Qubits 2021 conference today, D-Wave announced its product roadmap including several new items on both the hardware and the software fronts. These include an update to their current 5000 qubit Advantage quantum annealer, a future 7000 qubit quantum annealer they are calling Advantage 2, a future gate based, error corrected machine, and various software improvement including a new Constrained Hybrid Solver. Click here for more about this product roadmap announcement.

October 4, 2021 News BriefArcher Materials Receives A$15 Million ($10.9M USD) Funds in an Institutional Placement for New SharesIn addition to the new funding of A$15 million the company is seeking to raise an additional A$5 million ($3.6 million) from existing eligible shareholders who are residents of Australia or New Zealand. The funds will be used to continue development of Archers 12CQ quantum computing chip and lab-on-a-chip biochip technologies, infrastructure and facilities, protecting Archers intellectual property, establishing and strengthening commercial partnerships and general working capital. Additional information about this new share placement can be found in a news release posted on the Archer websitehere.

October 3, 2021Quantum Product Placements in Europe; Qblox and AtosA pair of product placement announcements have been recently announced. First Qblox announced that Chalmers University in Sweden has ordered their scalable and readout hardware for use with a new 20 qubit superconducting processor that Chalmers is developing. Also, Atos announced that it has delivered its Quantum Learning Machine (QLM) to the Galician Supercomputing Center (CESGA) in Spain. Click here for the full article.

October 1, 2021 News BriefMunich Quantum Valley Project to Receive 83.3 Million Euros ($96M USD) from the Bavarian State GovernmentWe had reported in January about plans of the German state of Bavaria to create a Munich Quantum Valley program and have just announced this first release of funding from the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art. These funds will extend through 2024 with additional funds release anticipated in the future. Participants in the program include the Bavarian Academy of Sciences BAdW), the Fraunhofer Society, the Max Planck Society, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Goals of the project include developing an ecosystem for quantum technologies in the Munich region, set up a quantum technology park, set up a center for quantum computing and quantum technologies, and promote scientific qualification and training of a new generation of engineers and scientists. More information about this funding can be found in a news release (in German) provided by the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art that can be foundhereand also the website for the Munich Quantum Valley locatedhere.

September 29, 2021 News BriefQC Ware Closes a $25 Million Series B Round to Fund ExpansionThe round was led by corporate investors Koch Disruptive Technologies and Covestro who along with Samsung Ventures and Citi all represent strategic corporate investors. D.E. Shaw and Pegasus Tech Ventures also participated in the round. This new round brings the total investment that has been made inQC Wareto almost $40 million. The new funds will be used to expand the QC Ware team and support the accelerated development ofForge, QC Wares software development platform. Navin Maharaj from Koch Disruptive Technologiesand Sandeep Arora from CitiSandeepwill join QC Wares board of directors. QC Ware has been able to secure a growing number of customers including Aisin Group, Airbus, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), BMW Group, Equinor, Goldman Sachs, Total and potentially additional ones that have not yet been publicly announced. The companys differentiator is their ability to create fine-tuned highly efficient algorithms for practical industry problems that require fewer hardware resource and allow implementation on smaller and nearer term generations of hardware. For more about this new funding, you can view an announcement provided by QC Ware that can be viewedhere.

September 29, 2021 News BriefCambridge Quantum Makes Their TKET SDK Fully Open SourcedWe reported in February that Cambridge Quantumhad removed all license restrictions for the TKET Software Development Kit (SDK) so that the software was free for anyone to use. But removing licensing restrictions is not quite the same as open source because a user could find it difficult to examine the code, report issues, make their own contributions or develop extensions to the codebase. Now, with version 0.15, Cambridge Quantum has made TKET fully open sourced so users will now be able to accomplish these previous difficult or impossible tasks. TKET offers support for a large number of quantum processors while offering high-level hardware-agnostic optimization for quantum circuits with target specific compilation passes for the chosen quantum device. The company has indicated that over 100,000 people have already downloaded the TKET software development kit. More about this open-sourced announcement for TKET can be found in a news release available on the Cambridge Quantum websitehere.

September 29, 2021 News BriefFrance Has Added 150 Million Euros ($174M USD) to Its Quantum Research ProgramThenew program is called the Priority Research Programme and Equipment (PEPR). The research will focus on four topics including robust solid state qubits solid state, cold atoms, quantum algorithms error correction and PQC, and fundamental non-conventional quantum based approaches to computing and cryptography. The research will be driven by French organizationsCNRS Centre national de la recherche scientifique,CEAandInria,The funding will add to a previously announced research program of 300 million to bring total funding to 450 million ($522M USD). Additional information can be found in a LinkedIn posting from Neil Abroug, head of the French National Quantum Strategy, that you can readhereas well as the web page for the French National Quantum Technology Strategy locatedhere.

September 29, 2021 News BriefIonQ Will Start Publicly Trading on the NYSE on October 1The shareholders of dMY Technology Group III (the Company or dMY III) have approved the business combination with IonQ with the transaction formally closing on September 30, 2021. The merged company will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on October 1, 2021 under the ticker symbols under the symbols IONQ for the common stock and IONQ.WS for the warrants. As part of the deal IonQ will have $634 million in cash that will provide them with substantial funding for R&D and capital investments. For additional information about this transaction, you can view our earlier articleswhen the merger was first announcedas well as asummary of the IonQs recent release on their financial results for the first half of 2021. The companys have also issued a press release announcing that the stockholders have approved the business combination which you can findhere.

September 28, 2021QED-C Releases Assessment of Quantum Industry Hiring NeedsIt is generally considered that the quantum industry will need to hire thousands of qualified scientists, engineers, technicians and other employees and the topic of workforce development has been identified as one of the key challenges that will need to be faced in order to support the projected growth. In order to provide students, university educators and administrators, policy makers, funding agencies, and quantum companies with an idea of what types of roles, skills, and educational background would be need to develop a workforce for the quantum industry, theQuantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) undertook a survey of its members to ask these questions. The group has just published a report that shows the results of this survey with some interesting conclusions. Click here for more.

September 27, 2021 News BriefDell Takes First Leap Into Quantum Utilizing an IBM Qiskit Runtime Emulator PlatformDell Technologies has utilized IBMs open-sourced Qiskit platform to develop a containerized hybrid emulation platform that leverages Dells EMC PowerEdge R740xd to execute classical-quantum code on both local and on-premise environments. The base software uses the Qiskit AER as the simulation engine, but since the code is open source other backends can be integrated with this software. Clearly, this is just an initial first step for Dell and its customers as they explore further utilization of quantum technology. We do expect additional quantum offerings in the coming years as Dell gains more experience with the technology. For additional information about this new software, you can view a blog post from John Roese, Global Chief Technology Officer for Dell Technologies, locatedhereand the GitHub repository for the software code availablehere.

September 25, 2021UK Consortium Releases Specification for a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for Quantum ComputersOne of the things that helped accelerate the usage of classical computers was the standardization of the classical computer languages Fortran (1966) and Cobol (1968). This allowed a programmer to develop a program and then run it on different machines with minimal changes. We are starting to see similar things happen in the quantum world. The latest is the release from a UK consortium led byRiverlaneand the UKsNational Physical Laboratory (NPL) of a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) that is designed to be portable across four leading qubit technologies including superconducting qubits, trapped-ion qubit, photonic systems and silicon-based qubits. Click here for the full article.

September 25, 2021 News BriefIonQ to Partner with GE Research to Study Quantum Computing Use in Risk ManagementRisk is a concept that pervades todays world in such areas as financial markets, supply chains, daily business operations, climate, and even geopolitics. Often these systems can be characterized using a large number of interacting mathematical parameters that can form extraordinarily complex relationships. By understanding the relationships between these parameters one can be able to understand the level of risks and potentially take various actions to minimize it. This is where quantum computing comes in. By using a mathematical technique called copula one can describe and model the dependence between random variables. This is an area where a quantum based approach can potentially significantly outperform classical computing and the two companies will explore how it can be implemented on IonQs ion trap quantum computers. A news release issued by the companies that provides additional information about this research effort can be foundhere.

September 25, 2021 News BriefWhos News at Quantum Computing Inc., Quantum Brilliance, Rigetti, and QED-CQuantum Computing Inc. has named William J. McGann to serve on its Board of Directors.McGann has been the Chief Technology Office since 2019 at Leidos Inc.,a defense, aviation, information technology, and biomedical research company headquartered in Reston, Virginia.Quantum Brilliance, a company developing synthetic diamond based quantum accelerators, that operate at room temperature has appointed Mark Mattingley-Scott as Managing Director of Europe. Mattingley-Scott was a 31 year veteran of IBM and most recently served as IBM Quantum Ambassador for the EMEA and Asia-Pacific teams.Rigetti Computing has announcedthat Dr. David Pappas has joined them as Senior Principal Scientist from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he most recently led the Quantum Processing Group. Earlier this year, Rigetti had added Dr. Josh Mutus to its hardware development team as Director, Quantum Materials. Mutus was a former quantum research scientist at Google. And Dr. Jonathan Felbinger has joined the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) as Deputy Director. He previously had been with the US Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Department of Defense, and two leading microelectronics research laboratories in Europe.

September 24, 2021 News BriefNSF Awards QuSteam Team $5 Million to Develop Quantum Education ProgramsThe U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a consortium $5 million over a 2 years period to fund an initiative calledQuSTEAM: Convergence Undergraduate Education in Quantum Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. QuSteam will be led by Ohio State University and include key partners atthe University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The initiative will also have industrial and national laboratory collaborators including GE Research, Honda and several JPMorgan Chase, Quantum Opus, Quantum Design Inc., Toptica, qBraid and Argonne National Laboratory. In total, the initiative will be comprised of 66 faculty members who will be part of the QuSteam team. The program will start by gathering information that will help identify critical scientific and engineering practices that will be needed in a quantum-ready workforce. It will then develop single concept modules that can provide for an array of educational paths including bachelors degrees, associates degrees, certificates and minors. Additional information about this award can be found in a news release issued by Ohio State University which can be seenhereand another news release issued by the Chicago Quantum Exchange availablehere.

September 23, 2021 News BriefInfosys Will Collaborate with Amazon and Use the Braket Quantum Cloud ServiceInfosys Limitedis a large Indianmultinationalinformation technologycompany that providesbusiness consulting,information technologyandoutsourcingservices. In their fiscal 2021 year, they had revenues of over $14 billion with over 250,000 employees. Their client base exceeds 1600 organizations with a worldwide presence in presence in India, United States, China, Australia, Japan, Middle East and Europe. They will be using Amazon Braket to explore and build use cases for quantum computing in segments including logistics, finance, energy, and telecom sectors. Some specific use cases they mentioned include vehicle route optimization and fraud detection. Infosys intends to provide their quantum offerings as part ofInfosys Cobaltcloud offerings. For more about this new tie-up between Infosys and Amazon Braket, you can view the news release provided by Infosys availablehere.

September 22, 2021IonQ Releases Financial Results for First Six Months of 2021In one of the very first releases of financial results in the quantum industry, IonQ has released their results for the three month period ending in June and for the first half of 2021. While these types of releases are very common in the classical computing industry, they have been very rare in the quantum industry because almost all the quantum efforts are either privately held companies or a small division in a larger corporation that doesnt break out the specific quantum results. IonQ is doing this now because they are slated to become a public corporation in the next few weeks due to their upcoming merger with dMY Technology Group Inc. III (NYSE: DMYI). Click here for the full article.

September 21, 2021 News BriefUK Breaks Ground on a 93 million ($127M USD) National Quantum Computing CentreThe new facility will be a three story, 4035 square meter (43K square feet) building specifically designed to support quantum research in the UK. and is scheduled for completion in 2023. It will have special construction used to shield the ground floor from extraneous magnetic and vibration interferences which can cause issues with the fragile qubits. The facility will have enough space to hold over 120 residents and researchers from academia, industry, government, quantum partner organizations and quantum start-ups and will be located in Oxfordshire at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. The NQCC is part of UKs National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP) which will provide funding of 1 billion ($1.36 billion USD) for quantum technologies over a ten year period from 2014 to 2024. For more, you can view a news release issued by NQCC about the groundbreaking on their web pagehere. Additional details about the facility itself can be found on a web page devoted to the facility availablehere.

September 20, 2021 News BriefIonQ Accepting Applications for Second Cohort of their Research Credit ProgramLast May we wrote about a new Research Credit Program at IonQ that would provide up to $10,000 in computer time credits for approved projects at accredited academic institutions. Apparently, IonQ was so pleased with the result, that they have just announced they are now accepting applications for a second cohort for this program. The credits can be used to access the IonQ quantum computer directly at IonQ or through one of their cloud partners (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform). The credits can be used for such things as proof(s) of concepts, algorithms and applications research, evaluation or comparison between hardware platforms, workshops, or teaching, developing or maintaining open source software or other interesting applications such as games, art or other things. The deadline for submitting a proposal is November 16, 2021. Additional information is available in a news release located on the IonQ website here, a Call for Proposals pagehere, an FAQ document availablehere, and the application formhere.

September 18, 2021 News BriefWits University Receives 8 Million Rand ($543K USD) in Seed Funding for a Quantum InitiativeWits University, also known asUniversity of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has received this initial grant from South Africas Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) to start the implementation of Phase 1 of the South African Quantum Technology Initiative (SA QuTI). Additional phases are expected to follow in the future. The SA QuTI is a consortium of five universities in South Africa including Wits University, Stellenbosch University, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Cape Peninsula University of Technology and University of Zululand to support quantum technology development initiatives and provide student and researchers access to IBMs Q Network of quantum machines.Wits University is IBMs first African partner for the IBM Q Network.For more about this grant, you can view a news release availablehereon the Wits University website.

September 18, 2021 News BriefQDevil Introduces a Very Fast, Ultra Stable Voltage Source for Control of Quantum DevicesQDevilsnew product, called QDAC-II, is a 24 channel DAC (Digital to Analog Converters) that operates with ultra-low noise at a sample rate of 1 million samples per second, a thousand times faster than its predecessor. A key benefit of this device is that it enables much faster tuning of the qubits than previously possible. It can be used to provide DC and intermediate frequency control of quantum devices including gate electrodes, flux bias coils and other purposes. Each channel is also equipped with a DC current sensor with a resolution down to a few tens of picoamps with sampling rates up to 3 kHz. for uses such as gate leakage detection. Additional information about this product is available in a news release from QDevil here, a web page for the producthereand a short videohere.

September 16, 2021 News BriefChinese Research Group Makes Further Improvements in their Quantum Supremacy Experiment; Now at 60 Qubits with 24 LevelsWe reported in Junethat a Chinese quantum research group had developed a superconducting based quantum computer named Zuchongzhi 2.0 and had replicated and surpassed Googles Quantum Supremacy experiment with a circuit thatused 56 qubits to calculate random circuits to a depth of 20 levels. This surpassed Googles initial result which used a 53 qubit circuit to a depth of 20 levels. The total number of raw qubits in the Zuchongzhi system is 66, but did not use all of them in their initial experiement. After additional improvements the group has created a Zuchongzhi 2.1 machine and reran the experiment to demonstrate successful operation with 60 qubits to a depth of 24. The group claims that this larger sampling tasks is three orders of magnitude more difficult than what they previous achieved on the Zuchongzhi 2.0 and six orders of magnitude more difficult that Googles original demonstration with their Sycamore processor. It appears that the main improvement in Zuchongzhi 2.1 is in the readout circuitry with the average readout fidelity going from 95.48% to 97.74%. A paper has been posted on arXiv with more details about this experiment and is availablehere.

September 15, 2021 News BriefIBM, AWS, Microsoft, and the University of Innsbruck Set Up a Technical Steering Committee for the OpenQASM LanguageOver the past year we have reported (hereandhere) about IBMs development of an enhanced quantum assembly language called OpenQASM3. Versions of OpenQASM has been used with IBMs Qiskit from the very beginning and the new version was created for several reasons including to support the dynamic circuit feature that IBM is introducing in its latest quantum processors. In order to encourage adoption of future versions of OpenQASM, IBM is now working with representatives from AWS, Microsoft, and the University of Innsbruck and will form a Technical Steering Committee to guide the evolution of the language. Mechanisms will be created for other people to issue pull requests and join working groups to propose changes to the language to provide greater functionality and a wider of the language. More information about this new steering committee can be found in a blog post available onMediumand locatedhere. A technical paper that describes OpenQASM3 and how it has evolved from earlier versions of OpenQASM is available on arXiv and availablehere.

September 14, 2021 News BriefIonQ and Accenture Agree to Collaborate on Quantum ComputingThe companies have agreed to collaborate to help accelerate the usage of quantum computing to the business community globally. Accenture is a professional services company with over 569,000 employees and clients in over 120 countries. They provide services in strategy and consulting, interactive, technology and operations services. In particular, they may be able to help clients wishing to get involved with quantum technology by helping them formulate strategies, identify appropriate problems, develop solutions, and deploy the solutions within the clients company. And with their large base of existing clients, they should be able to leverage these contacts and bring additional new business for IonQs ion trapped based quantum computers. More information on this collaboration is available in a news release issued by the companies and availablehere.

September 11, 2021 News BriefAmazon Introduces Verbatim Compilation for Quantum CircuitsWhen a user submits a quantum program to run on a quantum computer, the software will typically run it through an optimizing compiler that will convert the program to an execution that will achieve the same results but in a more efficient manner. The optimizing compiler may reduce the number of circuit levels, reorder the operations, reallocate which qubits are used or change the specific gates used. Normally, this is a good thing but it can result in more accurate results from the program with fewer errors. But for users who are trying to benchmark a quantum processor or develop error mitigation protocols this optimization process can get in the way. In order to help users who are trying to do this, Amazon has introduces a Verbatim Compilation capability in their Braket software that will turn off some of the optimization functions and provide users with direct control over what is executed on the hardware. This feature is currently available for use with the Rigetti superconducting quantum processor available on the Braket service. Additional information about this new capability can be found in a blog post on the Amazon websitehere.

September 10, 2021 News BriefArqit Starts Trading on the NASDAQArqit, a UK-based quantum encryption company, has started trading on the NASDAQ this week as part of their business combination with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Centricus Acquisition Corporation which closed on September 3, 2021. The company now has outstanding shares of 140.3 million with a market cap currently exceeding $2 billion. Although the company has had minimal revenue to date, it recently released itsQuantumCloudRelease 1.0 and is now shipping it to twenty enterprise and governmental customers for integration and testing which will provide revenues starting in December 2021. The company indicates they already have signed contracts totaling $130 million which will provide revenue in the coming years. The companys technology involves the secure distribution of symmetric encryption keys without using the public key infrastructure (PKI) in use today that will become vulnerable when large quantum computers are available. Their current product uses terrestrial distribution, but they plan on extending that to use satellites starting in 2023. For more about Arqit, you can view previous articles we have written about the companyhere,here, andhere. And for more about the merger between Arqit and Centricus, you can read the press release announcing the closing of the transactionhere.

September 9, 2021 News BriefUniversity of Maryland and IonQ Partner to Create a National Quantum Lab (Q-Lab) with $20 Million in FundingThe Q-Lab will be located in College Park, Maryland next to IonQs headquarters and will be funded with $20 million from the university. It will be user facility that will provide researchers with access to IonQs quantum hardware. The University of Marylands students, faculty, staff and partners will be able to gain experience and training in quantum technology and also have the opportunity to collaborate with IonQs scientists and engineers. For more about this new lab, you can read a news release posted on the University of Marylands web sitehere.

September 9, 2021 News BriefIonQ Forecasts 2021 Contract Bookings to be $15 MillionIonQ stated that this amount triples their initial target for 2021 bookings which was originally $5 million. These bookings are expected are for deliverables that would be provided over the next 36 months. It certainly an optimistic sign that the bookings levels are increasing but IonQ still has a long way to go in order to hit its financial forecast. In an investor presentation made by the IonQ and dMY management in February 2021, they forecasted billings revenue to be about $5 million in 2021, $15 million in 2022 and $34 million in 2023. So not only will they need more bookings to continue, but also they need to make sure that the $15 million bookings turns into revenue.The merger between IonQ and dMY is expected to be completed very soon. In the meantime, IonQ has busy announcing several significant developments this year including a newreconfigurable multicore architecture, support from theProject Q,Qiskit,Pennylane, andCirqsoftware development platforms,availability on the Google cloud, afree research credit program for academic institutions, andan investment and partnership with Softbank. For more about this latest bookings announcement, you can see a news release provided by IonQ availablehere.

September 6, 2021Quantum Machines Raises $50 Million in Series B FundingThis is the largest funding that has occurred so far for non-full stack companies (i.e. companies that dont build a full quantum computer) in the quantum space. Along with previous seed and Series A rounds this brings total funding for Quantum Machines to about $73 million. This round was led by Red Dot Capital Partners with the participation of Exor, Claridge Israel, Samsung NEXT, Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management LP, and joined by TLV Partners, Battery Ventures, Altshuler Shaham as well as other existing investors. Yaniv Stern, Managing Partner at Red Dot Capital Partners, will join Quantum Machines board of directors. Click here for the full article.

September 4, 2021 News BriefE.On is Working with IBM to Find Quantum Solutions for Energy Grid OptimizationAs weve seen recently with hurricane Ida in Louisiana, it is becoming increasingly important to optimize the performance and reliability of our energy grids. And with the increasing use of solar panels and electric cars, the energy grid is becoming more decentralized making it more of a challenge to find the best strategy to control the flow of energy in the grids. For example, energy can flow from the grid to an electric car for charging batteries, but when the car is not in use, it is also possible to flow energy from the cars battery back to the grid to help out in periods of high electrical demand. Figuring out the best way to control all this is a computationally complex problem which is getting beyond the capabilities of traditional classical computing solutions, but can be very suitable for optimization using quantum computing. E.On is one of the worldslargestinvestor-ownedelectric utilityservice providers serving over 33 million customers in 30 different countries and employing over 78,000 people. They will be working with IBMs Quantum Technical Services team and utilize the IBM quantum cloud, Qiskit, and other resources to study this problem and work to develop quantum enabled solutions for this important problem. For more about this work, you can view a press release provided by E.On and located on their websitehere.

September 4, 2021New Software Releases: TensorFlow Quantum v2, Quantify-Core 0.5, and Cirq 1.0 RoadmapA few new software announcements have been made recently. A new version of TensorFlow Quantum has been released for use in quantum machine learning applications, a new version of Quantum-Core has been released for controlling data acquisition and measurement in quantum computing and various physics experiments, and Google has published a roadmap that describes what features they are working on for release 1.0 of their Cirq quantum development platform. Click here for the full article.

September 3, 2021Quantum Strategic Industry Alliance for Revolution (Q-STAR) Formed in JapanWe reported in June that several companies in Japan were in the process of establishing a new council to encourage the development of quantum technology in Japan and strengthen international competitiveness. They have now formally established a council with the name Quantum Strategic Industry Alliance for Revolution (Q-STAR). The current membership consists of 24 companies with an inaugural steering committee consisting of executives from Toshiba, Toyota, NEC, NTT, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and Mitsubishi Chemical. The group held their first general meeting on September 1, 2021. Click here for additional details and the full article.

September 3, 2021NSF Announces Two Additional Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes with Funding of $25 Million for EachThe U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is adding two additional Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes to jointhe three institutes previously announced last year. The first is the Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation led by the University of Maryland with collaborators from historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) Morgan State University and North Carolina Central University. This institute will develop theoretical concepts, design innovative hardware, and provide education and training for a suite of novel simulation devices that can predict and understand quantum phenomena. The second institute is the Quantum Leap Challenge Institute in Biophysics and Bioengineering led by the University of Chicago and will partner with researchers from Chicago State University, University of Illinois at Chicago and Harvard University. This institute will have a dual mission. The first will be to identify novel biological quantum sensing systems and develop next-generation tools for observation and discovery. The second will be to partner with Chicago Public Schools to establish a Quantum Academy (for K-12) and Quantum Institute (post-secondary workforce training) programs that provide students the opportunities to learn the foundations of quantum science from the institutes lead researchers. For additional information about this NSF announcement, click here to read the full article.

September 3, 2021 News BriefWhos News Management Changes at ColdQuanta and D-WaveColdQuanta has announced Scott Faris as the new CEO and will also be restructuring the company into three division. Faris takes over from Dan Caruso who served as Executive Chairman and Interim CEO. Previously, Faris was the Chief Business Office at Luminar Technologies, Inc. In addition, ColdQuanta announced it is restructuring the company into three division with Paul Lipman leading the Quantum Computing division, Max Perez leading the Quantum Research as a Service (QRaaS) division, and Sandi Mays serving as acting general manager of the ColdAtom Technologies division. D-Wave has named John Markovich as the Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining D-Wave, Markovich was the CFO of Xant, Inc., and previously held CFO positions at OmniGuide Holdings, Veritone, NanoH2O, EMCORE Corporation, Optical Coating Laboratories., and Tickets.com. Additional information about these new management appointments can be found in press releases published by ColdQuantahere and by D-Wavehere.

September 2, 2021sureCore is Developing Cryo-CMOS IP for Quantum Control ChipssureCore is a company in Sheffield, UK that specializes in providing very low power CMOS IP and design services for SoC developers requiring these capabilities. They have decided to enter the quantum computing market by developing low power cryo-CMOS IP that runs at a temperature of 4 degrees Kelvin (-269C) for use inside a dilution refrigerator. They will work with foundry partners to characterize the transistors and industry partners to develop control chips that operate at this low temperature. Click here for the full story.

August 31, 2021 News BriefFrance and The Netherlands are Joining Forces for Development of Quantum TechnologyAs part of an overall declaration between the governments of France and The Netherlands to deepen and strengthen their bilateral relationship in a number of areas, the two countries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen bilateral cooperation in quantum technologies. Both countries already have significant efforts ongoing in quantum research, but by joining forces they can make the efforts have an even large impact. The governments had previously budgeted 1.8 billion in France and 615 million in the Netherlands for quantum research. The partnership will also make their European efforts more competitive against the large investments in quantum development being made in both China and the U.S. The agreement was signed in Paris by Cdric O, the French Secretary of State for Digital and Electronic Communications and Mona Keijzer, the Dutch Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. In addition, In addition four commercial organizations working on quantum technology were present at the signing ceremony including Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML, Dutch quantum start-up Qu & Co, French venture capital company Quantonation and the French IT company Atos. Additional information about the collaborations between the two countries can be found in a press release that you can view hereand a news article (in Dutch) printed in the Dutch newspaper Fd that you can seehere.

August 30, 2021U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) Releases FAQ Document Discouraging the Use of QKDThe NSA has released anFAQ document that answers questions related to quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography. In particular it contains advice for users of National Security Systems (NSS) that communicate classified or otherwise sensitive military or intelligence information which use public key cryptography as a critical component to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of national security information. The FAQ document contains their recommendations for the Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite (CNSA) for which algorithms these users should use in different applications. They indicated that the CNSA suite will be updated to include appropriate Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms after NIST completes their selections in Round 3 of the PQC effort. The document also covers Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology and includes a recommendation thatNSS owners should not be using or researching QKD technology without direct consultation with the NSA. Click here for more.

August 25, 2021 News BriefU.S. Department of Energy Awards $61 Million for Quantum ResearchThe awards were made pursuant to three funding opportunity announcements released earlier this year. These include Quantum Information Science and Research Infrastructure,Entanglement Management and Control in Transparent Optical Quantum NetworksandQuantum Internet to Accelerate Scientific Discovery. Awards totaling $30 million were made to five DOENanoscale Science Research Centers(NSRC) to enable new discoveries and development of nanotechnologies and advance QIS, chemistry, materials, and clean energy. Awards of $6 million were made to create new devices which could form the building blocks of a quantum internet. And another $25 million in awards were made to support theresearch,design, development,and demonstration of regional-scale quantum network testbeds. Additional information about these awards can be viewed in a news release from the Department of Energy availablehere.

August 25, 2021IonQ Reveals a New Reconfigurable Multicore Quantum Architecture (RMQA)The Reconfigurable Multicore Quantum Architecture (RMQA)will allow IonQ to expand the number of qubits to hundreds per chip without any degradation in the qubit stability and performance as the number of qubits expands. The first demonstration of this consists of a configuration thatIonQ calls 416 which consists of four chains of qubits with each chain containing 16 ions. The chains are built using an Evaporated Glass Trap (EGT) platform. The chains can be dynamically moved around and neighboring chains combined to create reconfigurable 32 ion chains. Click here for more.

August 25, 2021 News BriefQuantum Brilliance Receives $9.7 Million USD in Seed FundingThe funding round was led by Main Sequence Ventures and a consortium of former QxBranch founders. (QxBranch was sold to Rigetti Computing in 2019). Additional funding participation came from from CP Ventures, Investible, Jelix Ventures, MA Financial (formerly Moelis Australia) Growth Ventures Fund, R3I Ventures, and Ultratech Capital Partners.Quantum Brillianceis developing a quantum computing platform based on atomic-scale defects in diamond (nitrogen-vacancy centers) that will run at room temperature. Their goal is to provide a quantum accelerator with about 50 qubits in a device the size of a lunchbox by 2025. Quantum Brilliance is a spinout of the diamond quantum program at Australian National University and are located in Canberra, Australia. Earlier this year, they announced collaborations with thePawsey Supercomputing Centreand alsoQuantum South to test out their technology. More information is available in a news release provided by Quantum Brilliance available here.

August 17, 2021 News BriefXanadu Partners with Imec for Fabrication of Xanadus Photonic Quantum ChipsXanadu, a full-stack quantum startup developing photonics-based quantum hardware, will use imec to build their chips.Imec (Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre), located in Leuven, Belgium, is a non-profit research and development organization active in nanoelectronics and digital technologies with significant semiconductor processing capabilities. The processing will occur on one of imecs 200mm or 300mm fabrication lines and will use an ultra-low loss silicon nitride (SiN) waveguide technology to generate squeezed states for synthesizing qubits. Xanadu is the second photonics based quantum company announcing a partnerships with a semiconductor foundry to build its chips.Earlier this year, PsiQuantum announced it will be using GlobalFoundries to manufacture its chips. Like PsiQuantum, Xanadu believes their technology will have the potential to scale to 1 million qubits through the use of optical networking. Photonics technology also has the capability to run at room temperatures and not require expensive dilution refrigerators like those required with superconducting based systems. Additional information can be found in a press release provided by Xanadu which can be found here.

August 17, 2021 News BriefUniversity of California Riverside Receives a $2 Million Research Grant from the National Science FoundationUC Riverside will research combining organic molecules with silicon quantum dots to create qubits that can operate at room temperature. They will partner with researchers from the University of Utah, University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Colorado Boulder. Currently quantum dot technology needs to run at low temperatures using cryogenic cooling so developing something that can run at room temperatures would be a big advantage. Additional information about this project can be seen in a news release from UC Riverside located here.

August 17, 2021 News BriefWhos News Additions at Quantum Machines, Q-CTRL and RigettiQuantum Machines has named Per Nyberg as Vice President of Strategic Markets and Alliances, Avi Gabay as Vice President of Finance and Dotan Sokolov as Vice President of R&D. Q-CTRL has formed a Technical Advisory Board consisting of Pieter Abbeel, Professor at UC Berkeley, Jason Cong, Professor at UCLA, Richard Murray, Professor at Caltech, Daniela Rus, Professor at MIT, and Birgitta Whaley, Professor at UC Berkeley. Rigetti Computing has named Brian Sereda as Chief Financial Officer and Jackie Kaweck as Senior Vice President, Human Resources. You can view the announcements from Quantum Machineshere, from Q-CTRLhere, and from Rigetti Computinghere.

August 16, 2021 News BriefSuper.Tech Announces SuperstaQ, a Hardware Agnostic Software PlatformThe SuperstaQ platform is what we would call a translator and optimizer. It takes as input quantum programs written in either the Cirq or Qiskit or OpenApi formats and outputs optimized code targeted for quantum backends from IBM, IonQ, Rigetti, or Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratorys Advanced Quantum Testbed. As part of this process, SuperstaQ implements a large array of full-stack optimization techniques including dynamical decoupling, excited state promotion, zero noise extrapolation and others to be used with the targeted backends pulse-level native gates. The goal would be to arrive at an optimized program that has a minimized gate depth and best possible gate fidelity to achieve the best results for the given program.Super.Techalready has beta users working with the program including theEPiQCcollaboration led by the University of Chicago,Berkeleys Advanced Quantum Testbedand theMorningstarfinancial services firm. Additional information about SuperstaQ can be found in a news announcementhereand also the web page for the producthere.

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News Briefs on quantum computing research and developments ...

Atom Computing

Atom Computing describes itself as a company obsessed with building the worlds most scalable quantum computers out of optically trapped neutral atoms. The companyrecently revealed it had spent the past two years secretly building a quantum computer using Strontium atoms as its units of computation.

Headquartered in Berkeley, California, Benjamin Bloom and Jonathan King founded the company in 2018 with $5M in seed funds. Bloom received his PhD in physics from the University of Colorado, while King received a PhD in chemical engineering from California Berkeley.

Atom Computing received $15M in Series A funding from investorsVenrock, Innovation Endeavors, and Prelude Ventures earlier this year. The company also received three grants from the National Science Foundation.

Atom Staff

Rob Hays, a former Intel, and Lenovo executive was recently named CEO of the company. Atom Computingsstaff of quantum physicists and design engineers fully complements quantum-related disciplines and applications.This month Atom Computing signaled its continued momentum by adding twoquantum veterans to key positions within the company:

Qubit technologies

While traditional computers use magnetic bits to represent a one or a zero for computation, quantum computers usequantum bits or qubits to represent a one or a zero or simultaneously any number in between.

Todays quantum computers use several different technologies for qubits. But regardless of the technology, a common requirement for all quantum computing qubits is that it must be scalable, high quality, and capable of fast quantum interaction with each other.

IBM uses superconducting qubits on its huge fleet of about twenty quantum computers. Although Amazon doesnt yet have a quantum computer, it plans to build one using superconducting hardware. Honeywell and IonQ both use trapped-ion qubits made from a rare earth metal called ytterbium. In contrast, Psi Quantum and Xanadu use photons of light.

Atom computing chose to use different technology -nuclear-spin qubits made from neutral atoms.Phoenix, the name of Atoms first-generation, gate-based quantum computer platform, uses 100 optically trapped qubits.

Atom Computings quantum platform

First-Generation Quantum Computer, Phoenix, Berkeley,

The Phoenix platform uses a specific type of nuclear-spin qubits created from an isotope of Strontium, a naturally occurring element. Strontium is a neutral atom. At the atomic level, neutral atoms have equal numbers of protons and electrons. However, isotopes of Strontium have varying numbers of neutrons. These differences in neutrons produce different energy levels in the atom. Atom Computing uses the isotope Strontium-87 and takes advantage of its unique energy levels to create spin qubits.

Qubits need to remain in a quantum state long enough to complete computations. The length of time that a qubit can retain its quantum state is its coherence time. Since Atom Computings neutral atom qubits are natural rather than manufactured, no adjustments are needed to compensate for differences between qubits. That contributes to its stability and relatively long coherence time in a range greater than 40 seconds compared to a millisecond for superconducting or a few seconds for ion-trapping systems. Moreover, a neutral atom has little affinity for other atoms, making the qubits less susceptible to noise.

Neutral atom qubits offer many advantages that make them suitable for quantum computing. Here are just a few:

How neutral atom quantum processors work

Atom Computing

The Phoenix quantum platform uses lasers as proxies for high-precision, wireless control of the Strontium-87 qubits. Atoms are trapped in a vacuum chamber using optical tweezers controlledby lasers at very specific wavelengths, creatingan array of highly stable qubits captured in free space.

First, a beam of hot strontium moves the atoms into the vacuum chamber. Next, multiple lasers bombard each atom with photons to slow their momentum to a near motionless state, causing its temperature to fall to near absolute zero. This process is called laser cooling and it eliminates the requirement for cryogenics and makes it easier to scale qubits.

Then, optical tweezers are formed in a glass vacuum chamber, where qubits are assembled and optically trapped in an array. One advantage of neutral atoms is that the processors array is not limited to any specific shape, and it can be either 2D or 3D. Additional lasers create a quantum interaction between the atoms (called entanglement) in preparation for the actual computation. After initial quantum states are set and circuits are established, then the computation is performed.

The heart of Phoenix, showing where the Atom Computings qubits entangle. (First-Generation Quantum ... [+] Computer, Phoenix - Berkeley, California)

Going forward

Atom Computing is working with several technology partners. It is also running tests with a small number of undisclosed customers. The Series A funding has allowed it to expand its research and begin working on the second generation of its quantum platform. Its a good sign that Rob Hays, CEO, believes Atom Computing will begin generating revenue in mid-2023.

Atom Computing is a young and aggressive company with promising technology. I spoke with Denise Ruffner shortly after she joined Atom. Her remarks seem to reflect the optimism of the entire company:

"I am joining the dream team - a dynamic CEO with experience in computer development and sales, including an incredible Chief Product Officer, as well as a great scientific team. I am amazed at how many corporations have already reached out to us to try our hardware. This is a team to bet on."

Analyst notes

Note: Moor Insights & Strategy writers and editors may have contributed to this article.

Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and tech industry analyst firms, provides or has provided paid services to technology companies. These services include research, analysis, advising, consulting, benchmarking, acquisition matchmaking, or speaking sponsorships. The company has had or currently has paid business relationships with 88,A10 Networks,Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon,Ambient Scientific,AnutaNetworks,Applied Micro,Apstra,Arm, Aruba Networks (now HPE), AT&T, AWS, A-10 Strategies,Bitfusion, Blaize, Box, Broadcom, Calix, Cisco Systems, Clear Software, Cloudera,Clumio, Cognitive Systems, CompuCom,CyberArk,Dell, Dell EMC, Dell Technologies, Diablo Technologies,Dialogue Group,Digital Optics,DreamiumLabs, Echelon, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Flex, Foxconn, Frame (now VMware), Fujitsu, Gen Z Consortium, Glue Networks, GlobalFoundries, Revolve (now Google), Google Cloud,Graphcore,Groq,Hiregenics,HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Honeywell, Huawei Technologies, IBM,IonVR,Inseego, Infosys,Infiot,Intel, Interdigital, Jabil Circuit, Konica Minolta, Lattice Semiconductor, Lenovo,Linux Foundation,Luminar,MapBox, Marvell Technology,Mavenir, Marseille Inc, Mayfair Equity, Meraki (Cisco),Mesophere, Microsoft, Mojo Networks, National Instruments, NetApp, Nightwatch, NOKIA (Alcatel-Lucent), Nortek,Novumind, NVIDIA,Nutanix,Nuvia (now Qualcomm), ON Semiconductor, ONUG, OpenStack Foundation, Oracle, Panasas,Peraso, Pexip, Pixelworks, Plume Design, Poly (formerly Plantronics),Portworx, Pure Storage, Qualcomm, Rackspace, Rambus,RayvoltE-Bikes, Red Hat,Residio, Samsung Electronics, SAP, SAS, Scale Computing, Schneider Electric, Silver Peak (now Aruba-HPE), SONY Optical Storage,Springpath(now Cisco), Spirent, Splunk, Sprint (now T-Mobile), Stratus Technologies, Symantec, Synaptics, Syniverse, Synopsys, Tanium, TE Connectivity,TensTorrent,TobiiTechnology, T-Mobile, Twitter, Unity Technologies, UiPath, Verizon Communications,Vidyo, VMware, Wave Computing,Wellsmith, Xilinx,Zayo,Zebra,Zededa, Zoho, andZscaler.Moor Insights & Strategy founder, CEO, and Chief Analyst Patrick Moorhead is a personal investor in technology companiesdMYTechnology Group Inc. VI andDreamiumLabs.

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Atom Computing: A Quantum Computing Startup That Believes It Can Ultimately Win The Qubit Race - forbes.com

Nov. 15, 2021 During a press conference on Nov. 15, 2021, German Federal Minister for Education and Research Anja Karliczek announced the beginning of the Q-Exa consortium, an ambitious project aimed at accelerating European quantum computing technologies with the assistance of traditional high-performance computing (HPC).

Q-Exa brings together experts from academia and industry to deploy a 20-qbit quantum demonstrator at the end of 2023 and integrate it into the Leibniz Supercomputing Centres (LRZs) HPC ecosystem. LRZ, one of the 3 centers comprising the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing, is partnering with quantum computer hardware company IQM, software developer HQS, and supercomputer manufacturer Atos. The project is funded with 40 million and will run for 3 years.

LRZ Director Prof. Dr. Dieter Kranzlmller indicated that in addition to developing applications for quantum computing, Q-Exa also serves as an important milestone on the path to exascale computingthe next major milestone is traditional HPC, representing a 40-fold increase in supercomputing power from LRZs current flagship computer, SuperMUC-NG.

At LRZ, we are focused on more than just faster computerswe are looking at new ways of computing, and have been developing and implementing our integrated supercomputing architecture, he said. The Q-Exa project fits in perfectly with our goals in that regard, and also serves as a foundational piece to our Quantum Integration Centre and the Munich Quantum Valley. With Q-Exa, we are able to enhance our current large-scale computing resources with this quantum demonstrator.

Kranzlmller also emphasized that by participating in a co-design project with IQM and HQS, LRZ would be able to bring its decades of experience in bringing new computing technologies to science and industry to a new disruptive computing technology, ensuring that these systems are designed with users from academia and industry in mind and that applications can be ported and scaledto take advantage of the promise of quantum computers.

For more information on the Q-Exa project, read the BMBFpress release(in German) or watch thelivestreamof the event.

Source: Gauss Centre for Supercomputing

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On the Path to Exascale, Q-Exa Consortium Tightens the Bonds Between Quantum Computers and Traditional Supercomputing - HPCwire

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Quantum computing investments up 80 percent since 2018, and there's new motivation in the space - Oakland News Now

Companies cite increasing revenue, enhancing business processes, driving innovation, and achieving competitive advantage as top business priorities for quantum computing

BURNABY, British Columbia, Nov. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- D-Wave Systems Inc., the leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services, and the only company developing both annealing and gate-model quantum computers commissioned Hyperion Research, the high performance computing analyst group, to explore enterprise attitude and appetite with regard to quantum computing. The survey garnered over 400 responses from key decision makers integral to their companys strategic technology planning and procurement processes in North America, Europe, South Korea, and Japan. The unique data and insights not only illuminate that nearly 70% surveyed have some form of an in-house quantum computing program, but also how enterprises are engaging with quantum computing today and how they intend to utilize the powerful technology in the near future.

Key takeaways include:

Increasing Revenue Is a Must-Have

Businesses are looking to quantum computing to offer a range of corporate-level benefits, with increasing revenue high on the list. In fact, 21% of enterprises surveyed cited boosting revenue as the greatest opportunity quantum computing can offer their organization. Additional areas of opportunity and benefit include improving research capabilities (21%), driving innovation (17%), achieving competitive advantage (16%), and enhancing business process efficiencies (12%).

Quantum Optimization Forever

Hyperions research analysis shows that optimization problems are the leading category of tasks solvable with quantum computing resources. Those surveyed consider the strongest candidates for improved operational capabilities to be solving financial optimization problems (52%), manufacturing and factory process problems (49%), logistics/supply chain problems (47%), and staffing/scheduling problems (36%).

Story continues

Across all industries, logistics and supply chain problems specifically many of which tend to be optimization problems were the most selected business problems addressable by quantum computing. The data showcases that tackling large-scale optimization problems with quantum computing is a priority across industries. In fact, solving for optimization problems such as logistics, supply chain, and scheduling can positively impact a companys bottom line and help to be more efficient with resources.

Its Only a Matter of Time-to-Solution

Time-to-solution was cited as an obstacle that interferes with a business ability to successfully tackle computationally-intensive business problems. Of those surveyed, 43% believe that it currently takes too much time to implement a solution using classical resources, and 36% are concerned with the amount of time it takes to compute once a solution has been implemented. Additional obstacles include the complexity of problems given the incredible number of variables and constraints for many business problems (28%) and high cost of existing resources (15%).

The research showcases the maturation of the industry and signals increased importance of quantum computing in enterprises. With the ability to manipulate enormous combinations of physical states at once, its proven speed, and new onboarding programs, quantum computing can be a powerful tool to speed computation.

About the Respondents:The survey targeted hundreds of global enterprise decision-makers who are deeply involved in their companys strategic technology planning across numerous industry verticals, including pharmaceuticals, financial services, advanced manufacturing, and more. Over half of those surveyed reported that they serve as a CTO, CIO, or IT Director, and 60% describe themselves as procurement process decision-makers with the power to select enterprise technology for their business.

The survey results are in-line with industry trends that D-Wave is seeing from its global customer base: customers and users across financial services, manufacturing, life sciences, energy, and telecommunications are experiencing business value using D-Waves products.

Specifically, quantum annealing is demonstrating customer benefit on real-world optimization problems, such as maximizing the return on financial portfolios, increasing the efficiency of waste collection routes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and advancing logistics processes and workflow at manufacturing facilities.

"The combination of broad commercial interest in quantum computing technology as a driver of technological, business, and competitive advantage coupled with near-term applicability of quantum computing technology bodes well for the future of the quantum computing sector writ large," said Bob Sorensen, Chief Analyst for Quantum Computing at Hyperion Research.

As business leaders and decision-makers across the world rethink business processes and technologies to become more innovative and nimble, its clear that quantum computing is emerging as a powerful tool that can have a tangible impact on a business bottom line, said Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. Quantum computing is already fundamentally transforming the way businesses solve critical problems, from fraud detection to supply chain issues. D-Wave is committed to working with our enterprise customers and unlocking new quantum hybrid applications together for business value across diverse industries.

In line with the increased demand for practical quantum computing, D-Wave recently announced details around its product expansion and cross-platform roadmap, Clarity. The Clarity roadmap broadens D-Waves scope and positions the company as the industrys only provider focused on delivering both annealing and gate-model quantum computers via an integrated, full stack quantum platform.

More information on the roadmap can be found here, and the full survey results and insights from Hyperion Research can be downloaded here. Additionally, D-Wave is hosting a webinar today with Hyperion to go in-depth on these findings. Interested attendees can register for the webinar here and can find a recorded version of the webinar on D-Waves YouTube channel here.

About D-Wave Systems Inc.D-Wave is the leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software and services and is the worlds first commercial supplier of quantum computers and the only company developing both annealing quantum computers and gate-model quantum computers. Our mission is to unlock the power of quantum computing today to benefit business and society. We do this by delivering customer value with practical quantum applications for problems as diverse as logistics, artificial intelligence, materials sciences, drug discovery, scheduling, cybersecurity, fault detection, and financial modeling. D-Waves systems are being used by some of the worlds most advanced organizations, including NEC, Volkswagen, DENSO, Lockheed Martin, USC, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. With headquarters near Vancouver, Canada, D-Waves US operations are based in Palo Alto, CA. D-Wave has a blue-chip investor base including PSP Investments, Goldman Sachs, BDC Capital, NEC Corp., Aegis Group Partners, and In-Q-Tel. For more information, visit: http://www.dwavesys.com.

ContactD-Wave Systems Inc.dwave@launchsquad.com

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Quantum Rising: New Study Reveals 69% of Companies Surveyed Already Have an In-House Quantum Computing Program - Yahoo Finance

By Pugalarasan P, Practice Director, IT Cloud & Infrastructure Service at Happiest Minds Technologies

Imagine a computer that is a hundred million times quicker in computing than present-day computers! That will be the power of a quantum computer. It will be able to solve todays computation challenges with ease and speed. The development of a practical quantum computer will make fool-proof data encryption with complete security, the ability to accurately predict climatic changes, etc., a reality.

Today, computers can encrypt data or information in bits with values of either 1 or 0. However, their ability is highly restricted when compared to quantum computers. Quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits, and a qubit can denote a 1 and a 0 simultaneously a distinctive quantum physics phenomenon known as superposition. It means that quantum computers let subatomic particles exist in more than one state at the same time. Due to this unique ability, qubits can conduct large numbers of highly complex calculations at once, significantly increasing the speed and capacity of computing.

Quantum computing a myth or a reality?Quantum computing is a reality. Quantum computers have already been developed. They have successfully demonstrated their potential. However, they have been built on a small scale, and for now, are laboratory instruments. Currently, their capabilities are highly restricted. They are huge in comparison with modern-day computers and will be super expensive and complex for practical use.

A quantum computer with sufficient capacity of a few thousand qubits to execute useful tasks way more efficiently than classical computers is still a few years away. Several universities, organizations, and government agencies across the globe are investing time, effort, and money into experimental techniques and applications related to quantum computing.

Various studies point out that quantum technology is quite complex and could take a decade to find its way into solving everyday problems.

Is it the ideal time to take the leap?Absolutely! Technology leaders are making huge investments in quantum computing. A market analysis report predicts the global market for quantum computing to grow from $89.6 million in 2019 to $1,866.8 million by 2030.Machine learning (ML), big data, and deep learning researchers are looking for economical ways to coach and check models using huge data sets. Quantum computing will enable the development of a faster coaching and testing method. Chemistry and materials science are restricted by calculations concerning complicated atomic structure interactions. Quantum solutions offer the promise of a quicker way to model these interactions.

Quantum computing is for everyone!Quantum computing can offer real and meaningful business value to enterprises across industries. It can solve specific, sophisticated challenges that are out of scope for present-day computers. Accelerated development in the area could help various industries realize the benefits of quantum computers faster and here are a few use cases.The insurance business has been using artificial intelligence (AI) to rationalize multiple back- and front-office activities. However, it is still limited by binary computing limitations. Quantum computing can transform the way insurance companies perform complex calculations. Insurtech firms are already working on the development and testing of solutions based on this strategy. Hopefully, the industry will soon be able to derive benefits from these solutions.

Retail companies process large volumes of customer data to study demographics, buyer behavior, and preferences. With the introduction of quantum computing, such data can be processed and analyzed a lot faster and more easily when compared with todays computing devices. This will allow retailers to deliver highly personalized experiences to their customers.

Today, the gaming industry develops decisively solvable games. Quantum computing can change this and take the game development experience to a whole new level. In the future, it will be possible to leverage quantum computing in game development in fascinating ways such as procedural generation and random content generation to automatically produce huge volumes of content.

Quantum computing has the potential to deliver unparalleled processing power and speed, as well as unique and fundamentally distinct algorithms for data consistency and search. It has the potential to lead to dramatic improvements in speed and performance in healthcare. When incremental computing becomes accessible, clinicians will be able to easily review CT scans and quickly discover changes and problems. It can also help with precision medicine. It will be possible for medical practitioners to quickly find targeted chemotherapy procedures with more personalization due to quantum computings increased data processing capabilities.

Through an invasive weed optimization algorithm, a quantum computer in agriculture could aid in the detection of weed. This can facilitate the development of effective fertilizers. As ammonia is found in almost all fertilizers, efficient manufacture of ammonia or its alternative can result in fertilizer production that is less expensive and energy-intensive. However, because the number of possible catalyst combinations is unlimited, there hasnt been much development in the area. A quantum computer will be able to examine and come up with a suitable catalytic combination within a fraction of the time.

With quantum computing, large corporations looking forward to the output of ML and deep learning will be able to perform analyses that are not possible with todays classical computing systems.

Several other quantum computing use cases can benefit businesses:

Pharmaceutical companies can accelerate the invention of new drugs. Materials companies can discover new molecular structures. Finance companies can develop new commercialism strategies. Transportation companies can optimize logistics operations.

3 key barriers in quantum computing adoptionCurrent encryption algorithms are vulnerable to quantum superpowers, and quantum computing poses a threat to them. Hence, it is important to begin applying quantum-safe algorithms immediately. Quantum computing will drastically alter the IT security landscape, rendering many traditional encryptions and digital signature technologies obsolete.

However, there are a few barriers that are delaying the development of a practical quantum computing device.

1. Availability of qubits: Traditional computers are susceptible to errors and faults. However, most of these errors can be fixed with some additional storage and logic. This is a little difficult to achieve in quantum computing. While error correction systems do exist in quantum computing, they use so many qubits that only a handful are left for practical processing and actual computation activities. This significantly reduces the computing tasks size to a fraction of what could be achieved with perfect hardware.

2. Result verification required: Understanding the difficulties of quantum computing is only one side of the equation, as quantum is a world apart from what most businesses are used to. Unlike classical computers, quantum computers only deliver a probabilistic answer. They arent designed to deliver decisive results. Instead, they suggest the most likely answer, which may require verification by a traditional computer. For example, a quantum computer may determine the most likely answer for breaking an encryption method, but the classical computer will need to evaluate and confirm the response.

3. Cybersecurity threat: Quantum computers are a potential threat due to their high computing power. Though the current version of quantum computers does not possess enough processing power to infringe cryptographic systems, future versions might be able to do that. The possibility of cyberattacks makes it imperative to develop innovative encryption algorithms capable of resisting the computing power of quantum computers. Designing strategies to address cybersecurity risks and staying prepared can help.

The way forwardLike any other technological advancement, quantum computing will have to be used with a certain degree of integrity and higher responsibility. Technology companies such as Google, and Intel are investing heavily in quantum computing.

When practical quantum computers are developed a few years from now, it will be interesting to see how organizations in the pharmaceutical, chemical, banking and finance, and other sectors take full advantage of their processing capacity to solve currently unfathomable problems.

If you have an interesting article / experience / case study to share, please get in touch with us at [emailprotected]

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Is it the ideal time to take the quantum leap to quantum computing? - Express Computer

The French ambition to become a world leader in deeptech is one of Europes worst-kept secrets.

Not only does the country have one of the biggest deeptech funds in Europe, Bpifrance,but more importantly it has the people and the pipeline of talent through a best-in-breed university system, which is helping the country become a hotbed for innovation.

Quantum is one segment of deeptech where the French are leaving the rest of Europe, and in fact most other nations, far behind. The ambition to set up a quantum hub in the Paris region, linking large corporations and startups, is truly impressive and far-reaching.

Not only is the region focusing on nurturing homegrown talents, but they are also actively scouting for overseas companies to set up European headquarters in the cluster. How would we know? Well, we were one of the very few UK companies targeted.

France has always been at the forefront of cryptography and has one of the richest ecosystems for quantum pioneers. That history includes individuals ranging from the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Albert Fert and Serge Haroche, to French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) Gold Medallist Alain Aspects pioneering research on quantum entanglement and quantum simulators.

To build on this, earlier this year the French government announced a 1.8bn strategy to boost research in quantum technologies over five years. This will see public investment in the field increase from 60m to 200m a year.

Not only is investment increasing, but the often overlooked part is that funding is being funnelled into various fields of quantum computing.France recognises that quantum computing is not a homogenous industry and that various aspects require attention outside the development of actual quantum computers.

France is building a frameworkto make the country a key player across the entire quantum ecosystem

For example, one such area is security. Once a functioning quantum computer emerges, the cryptography that is used to secure all data and communications will become obsolete overnight.

Compounding this risk is the harvest now, decrypt later threat. Nefarious hackers might intercept data today and then hold onto it until quantum computers are advanced enough to decrypt it. To tackle this, new encryption methods are being developed that can stand against these new powerful computers, also known as post-quantum cryptography (PQC).

Its clear France recognises this threat, with plans to put 150 million directly to R&D in the field of PQC. This is in addition to the 780 million that is being devoted to developing computing alone, and the 870 million that is being set aside for sensor research, quantum communications and other related technologies.

Taken together, France is building a framework for industrial and research forces to make the country a key player across the entire quantum ecosystem, from computing development to post-quantum security.

So how does the rest of Europe compare? The short answer is that its lagging far behind.

Frances closest competitor is Germany, with its government recently pledging to invest 2bn in quantum computing and related technologies over five years. Thats a larger number than Frances commitment but it appears the scope is to only build a competitive quantum computer in five years while growing a network of companies to develop applications.

France is well on its way to protecting itself against the very real security threats quantum computers will pose

Investments by other individual governments across the rest of Europe are minimal, with many relying on the EUs Quantum Technologies Flagship programme to lead the way. However, with $1.1bn earmarked to cover 27 countries, little attention is being placed beyond computing R&D into adjacent fields like quantum security and communications.

Even if we focus on the security side of the coin, France is well on its way to protecting itself against the very real security threats quantum computers will pose, with the rest of Europe leaving themselves vulnerable.

It is also the case that France, in my opinion, is keeping pace with the traditional leaders the US, China and Canada and even pushing ahead in some areas.

While the US, Canadian and Chinese governments have committed impressive amounts to quantum, much of the focus in these countries is on developing a functioning computer, without recognising that a successful quantum strategy needs to be much broader. For example, although it has now developed a broad security roadmap, the US Department of Homeland Securitys budget for next year makes scant reference to quantum computing and the technology that is going to underpin post-quantum security.

If we measure success in quantum by not only how quickly we can develop such computers, but also how effectively they can be applied and how robust our protection is against the darker side of the technology, then Id argue that France has the worlds most balanced and systemic approach.

France is firmly Europes trailblazing nation; the rest of the continent ought to take note.

Andersen Cheng is CEO of Post-Quantum and Nomidio

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What Europe can learn from France when it comes to quantum computing - Sifted