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Accustomed to imagining worst-case scenarios, many cryptography experts are more concerned than usual these days: one of the most widely used schemes for safely transmitting data is poised to become obsolete once quantum computing reaches a sufficiently advanced state.

The cryptosystem known as RSA provides the safety structure for a host of privacy and communication protocols, from email to internet retail transactions. Current standards rely on the fact that no one has the computing power to test every possible way to de-scramble your data once encrypted, but a mature quantum computer could try every option within a matter of hours.

It should be stressed that quantum computers havent yet hit that level of maturity and wont for some time but when a large, stable device is built (or if its built, asan increasingly diminishing minority argue), its unprecedented ability to factor large numbers would essentially leave the RSA cryptosystem in tatters. Thankfully, the technology is still a ways away and the experts are on it.

Dont panic. Thats what Mike Brown, CTO and co-founder of quantum-focused cryptography company ISARA Corporation, advises anxious prospective clients. The threat is far from imminent. What we hear from the academic community and from companies like IBM and Microsoft is that a 2026-to-2030 timeframe is what we typically use from a planning perspective in terms of getting systems ready, he said.

Cryptographers from ISARA are among several contingents currently taking part in the Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization project, a contest of quantum-resistant encryption schemes. The aim is to standardize algorithms that can resist attacks levied by large-scale quantum computers. The competition was launched in 2016 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a federal agency that helps establish tech and science guidelines, and is now gearing up for its third round.

Indeed, the level of complexity and stability required of a quantum computer to launch the much-discussed RSA attack is very extreme, according to John Donohue, scientific outreach manager at the University of Waterloos Institute for Quantum Computing. Even granting that timelines in quantum computing particularly in terms of scalability are points of contention, the community is pretty comfortable saying thats not something thats going to happen in the next five to 10 years, he said.

When Google announced that it had achieved quantum supremacy or that it used a quantum computer to run, in minutes, an operation that would take thousands of years to complete on a classical supercomputer that machine operated on 54 qubits, the computational bedrocks of quantum computing. While IBMs Q 53 system operates at a similar level, many current prototypes operate on as few as 20 or even five qubits.

But how many qubits would be needed to crack RSA? Probably on the scale of millions of error-tolerant qubits, Donohue told Built In.

Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, underscored the same last year in his popular blog after presidential candidate Andrew Yang tweeted that no code is uncrackable in the wake of Googles proof-of-concept milestone.

Thats the good news. The bad news is that, while cryptography experts gain more time to keep our data secure from quantum computers, the technologys numerous potential upsides ranging from drug discovery to materials science to financial modeling is also largely forestalled. And that question of error tolerance continues to stand as quantum computings central, Herculean challenge. But before we wrestle with that, lets get a better elemental sense of the technology.

Quantum computers process information in a fundamentally different way than classical computers. Traditional computers operate on binary bits information processed in the form of ones or zeroes. But quantum computers transmit information via quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist either as one or zero or both simultaneously. Thats a simplification, and well explore some nuances below, but that capacity known as superposition lies at the heart of quantums potential for exponentially greater computational power.

Such fundamental complexity both cries out for and resists succinct laymanization. When the New York Times asked 10 experts to explain quantum computing in the length of a tweet, some responses raised more questions than they answered:

Microsoft researcher David Reilly:

A quantum machine is a kind of analog calculator that computes by encoding information in the ephemeral waves that comprise light and matter at the nanoscale.

D-Wave Systems executive vice president Alan Baratz:

If were honest, everything we currently know about quantum mechanics cant fully describe how a quantum computer works.

Quantum computing also cries out for a digestible metaphor. Quantum physicist Shohini Ghose, of Wilfrid Laurier University, has likened the difference between quantum and classical computing to light bulbs and candles: The light bulb isnt just a better candle; its something completely different.

Rebecca Krauthamer, CEO of quantum computing consultancy Quantum Thought, compares quantum computing to a crossroads that allows a traveler to take both paths. If youre trying to solve a maze, youd come to your first gate, and you can go either right or left, she said. We have to choose one, but a quantum computer doesnt have to choose one. It can go right and left at the same time.

It can, in a sense, look at these different options simultaneously and then instantly find the most optimal path, she said. That's really powerful.

The most commonly used example of quantum superposition is Schrdingers cat:

Despite its ubiquity, many in the QC field arent so taken with Schrodingers cat. The more interesting fact about superposition rather than the two-things-at-once point of focus is the ability to look at quantum states in multiple ways, and ask it different questions, said Donohue. That is, rather than having to perform tasks sequentially, like a traditional computer, quantum computers can run vast numbers of parallel computations.

Part of Donohues professional charge is clarifying quantums nuances, so its worth quoting him here at length:

In superposition I can have state A and state B. I can ask my quantum state, are you A or B? And it will tell me, I'm a or I'm B. But I might have a superposition of A + B in which case, when I ask it, Are you A or B? Itll tell me A or B randomly.

But the key of superposition is that I can also ask the question, Are you in the superposition state of A + B? And then in that case, they'll tell me, Yes, I am the superposition state A + B.

But theres always going to be an opposite superposition. So if its A + B, the opposite superposition is A - B.

Thats about as simplified as we can get before trotting out equations. But the top-line takeaway is that that superposition is what lets a quantum computer try all paths at once.

Thats not to say that such unprecedented computational heft will displace or render moot classical computers. One thing that we can really agree on in the community is that it wont solve every type of problem that we run into, said Krauthamer.

But quantum computing is particularly well suited for certain kinds of challenges. Those include probability problems, optimization (what is, say, the best possible travel route?) and the incredible challenge of molecular simulation for use cases like drug development and materials discovery.

The cocktail of hype and complexity has a way of fuzzing outsiders conception of quantum computing which makes this point worth underlining: quantum computers exist, and they are being used right now.

They are not, however, presently solving climate change, turbocharging financial forecasting probabilities or performing other similarly lofty tasks that get bandied about in reference to quantum computings potential. QC may have commercial applications related to those challenges, which well explore further below, but thats well down the road.

Today, were still in whats known as the NISQ era Noisy, Intermediate-Scale Quantum. In a nutshell, quantum noise makes such computers incredibly difficult to stabilize. As such, NISQ computers cant be trusted to make decisions of major commercial consequence, which means theyre currently used primarily for research and education.

The technology just isnt quite there yet to provide a computational advantage over what could be done with other methods of computation at the moment, said Dohonue. Most [commercial] interest is from a long-term perspective. [Companies] are getting used to the technology so that when it does catch up and that timeline is a subject of fierce debate theyre ready for it.

Also, its fun to sit next to the cool kids. Lets be frank. Its good PR for them, too, said Donohue.

But NISQ computers R&D practicality is demonstrable, if decidedly small-scale. Donohue cites the molecular modeling of lithium hydrogen. Thats a small enough molecule that it can also be simulated using a supercomputer, but the quantum simulation provides an important opportunity to check our answers after a classical-computer simulation. NISQs have also delivered some results for problems in high-energy particle physics, Donohue noted.

One breakthrough came in 2017, when researchers at IBM modeled beryllium hydride, the largest molecule simulated on a quantum computer to date. Another key step arrived in 2019, when IonQ researchers used quantum computing to go bigger still, by simulating a water molecule.

These are generally still small problems that can be checked using classical simulation methods. But its building toward things that will be difficult to check without actually building a large particle physics experiment, which can get very expensive, Donohue said.

And curious minds can get their hands dirty right now. Users can operate small-scale quantum processors via the cloud through IBMs online Q Experience and its open-source software Quiskit. Late last year, Microsoft and Amazon both announced similar platforms, dubbed Azure Quantum and Braket. Thats one of the cool things about quantum computing today, said Krauthamer. We can all get on and play with it.

RelatedQuantum Computing and the Gaming Industry

Quantum computing may still be in its fussy, uncooperative stage, but that hasnt stopped commercial interests from diving in.

IBM announced at the recent Consumer Electronics Show that its so-called Q Network had expanded to more than 100 companies and organizations. Partners now range from Delta Air Lines to Anthem health to Daimler AG, which owns Mercedes-Benz.

Some of those partnerships hinge on quantum computings aforementioned promise in terms of molecular simulation. Daimler, for instance, is hoping the technology will one day yield a way to produce better batteries for electric vehicles.

Elsewhere, partnerships between quantum computing startups and leading companies in the pharmaceutical industry like those established between 1QBit and Biogen, and ProteinQure and AstraZeneca point to quantum molecular modelings drug-discovery promise, distant though it remains. (Today, drug development is done through expensive, relatively low-yield trial-and-error.)

Researchers would need millions of qubits to compute the chemical properties of a novel substance, noted theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder in the Guardian last year. But the conceptual underpinning, at least, is there. A quantum computer knows quantum mechanics already, so I can essentially program in how another quantum system would work and use that to echo the other one, explained Donohue.

Theres also hope that large-scale quantum computers will help accelerate AI, and vice versa although experts disagree on this point. The reason theres controversy is, things have to be redesigned in a quantum world, said Krauthamer, who considers herself an AI-quantum optimist. We cant just translate algorithms from regular computers to quantum computers because the rules are completely different, at the most elemental level.

Some believe quantum computers can help combat climate change by improving carbon capture. Jeremy OBrien, CEO of Palo Alto-based PsiQuantum, wrote last year that quantum simulation of larger molecules if achieved could help build a catalyst for scrubbing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

Long-term applications tend to dominate headlines, but they also lead us back to quantum computings defining hurdle and the reason coverage remains littered with terms like potential and promise: error correction.

Qubits, it turns out, are higher maintenance than even the most meltdown-prone rock star. Any number of simple actions or variables can send error-prone qubits falling into decoherence, or the loss of a quantum state (mainly that all-important superposition). Things that can cause a quantum computer to crash include measuring qubits and running operations in other words: using it. Even small vibrations and temperature shifts will cause qubits to decohere, too.

Thats why quantum computers are kept isolated, and the ones that run on superconducting circuits the most prominent method, favored by Google and IBM have to be kept at near-absolute zero (a cool -460 degrees Fahrenheit).

Thechallenge is two-fold, according to Jonathan Carter, a scientist at Berkeley Quantum. First, individual physical qubits need to have better fidelity. That would conceivably happen either through better engineering, discovering optimal circuit layout, and finding the optimal combination of components. Second, we have to arrange them to form logical qubits.

Estimates range from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of physical qubits required to form one fault-tolerant qubit. I think its safe to say that none of the technology we have at the moment could scale out to those levels, Carter said.

From there, researchers would also have to build ever-more complex systems to handle the increase in qubit fidelity and numbers. So how long will it take until hardware-makers actually achieve the necessary error correction to make quantum computers commercially viable?

Some of these other barriers make it hard to say yes to a five- or 10-year timeline, Carter said.

Donohue invokes and rejects the same figure. Even the optimist wouldnt say its going to happen in the next five to 10 years, he said. At the same time, some small optimization problems, specifically in terms of random number generation could happen very soon.

Weve already seen some useful things in that regard, he said.

For people like Michael Biercuk, founder of quantum-engineering software company Q-CTRL, the only technical commercial milestone that matters now is quantum advantage or, as he uses the term, when a quantum computer provides some time or cost advantage over a classical computer. Count him among the optimists: he foresees a five-to-eight year time scale to achieve such a goal.

Another open question: Which method of quantum computing will become standard? While superconducting has borne the most fruit so far, researchers are exploring alternative methods that involve trapped ions, quantum annealing or so-called topological qubits. In Donohues view, its not necessarily a question of which technology is better so much as one of finding the best approach for different applications. For instance, superconducting chips naturally dovetail with the magnetic field technology that underpins neuroimaging.

The challenges that quantum computing faces, however, arent strictly hardware-related. The magic of quantum computing resides in algorithmic advances, not speed, Greg Kuperberg, a mathematician at the University of California at Davis, is quick to underscore.

If you come up with a new algorithm, for a question that it fits, things can be exponentially faster, he said, using exponential literally, not metaphorically. (There are currently 63 algorithms listed and 420 papers cited at Quantum Algorithm Zoo, an online catalog of quantum algorithms compiled by Microsoft quantum researcher Scott Jordan.)

Another roadblock, according to Krauthamer, is general lack of expertise. Theres just not enough people working at the software level or at the algorithmic level in the field, she said. Tech entrepreneur Jack Hidaritys team set out to count the number of people working in quantum computing and found only about 800 to 850 people, according to Krauthamer. Thats a bigger problem to focus on, even more than the hardware, she said. Because the people will bring that innovation.

While the community underscores the importance of outreach, the term quantum supremacy has itself come under fire. In our view, supremacy has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with white supremacy, 13 researchers wrote in Nature late last year. The letter has kickstarted an ongoing conversation among researchers and academics.

But the fields attempt to attract and expand also comes at a time of uncertainty in terms of broader information-sharing.

Quantum computing research is sometimes framed in the same adversarial terms as conversations about trade and other emerging tech that is, U.S. versus China. An oft-cited statistic from patent analytics consultancy Patinformatics states that, in 2018, China filed 492 patents related to quantum technology, compared to just 248 in the United States. That same year, the think tank Center for a New American Security published a paper that warned, China is positioning itself as a powerhouse in quantum science. By the end of 2018, the U.S. passed and signed into law the National Quantum Initiative Act. Many in the field believe legislators were compelled due to Chinas perceived growing advantage.

The initiative has spurred domestic research the Department of Energy recently announced up to $625 million in funding to establish up to five quantum information research centers but the geopolitical tensions give some in the quantum computing community pause, namely for fear of collaboration-chilling regulation. As quantum technology has become prominent in the media, among other places, there has been a desire suddenly among governments to clamp down, said Biercuk, who has warned of poorly crafted and nationalistic export controls in the past.

What they dont understand often is that quantum technology and quantum information in particular really are deep research activities where open transfer of scientific knowledge is essential, he added.

The National Science Foundation one of the government departments given additional funding and directives under the act generally has a positive track record in terms of avoiding draconian security controls, Kuperberg said. Even still, the antagonistic framing tends to obscure the on-the-ground facts. The truth behind the scenes is that, yes, China would like to be doing good research and quantum computing, but a lot of what theyre doing is just scrambling for any kind of output, he said.

Indeed, the majority of the aforementioned Chinese patents are quantum tech, but not quantum computing tech which is where the real promise lies.

The Department of Energy has an internal list of sensitive technologies that it could potentially restrict DOE researchers from sharing with counterparts in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. It has not yet implemented that curtailment, however, DOE Office of Science director Chris Fall told the House committee on science, space and technology and clarified to Science, in January.

Along with such multi-agency-focused government spending, theres been a tsunami of venture capital directed toward commercial quantum-computing interests in recent years. A Nature analysis found that, in 2017 and 2018, private funding in the industry hit at least $450 million.

Still, funding concerns linger in some corners. Even as Googles quantum supremacy proof of concept has helped heighten excitement among enterprise investors, Biercuk has also flagged the beginnings of a contraction in investment in the sector.

Even as exceptional cases dominate headlines he points to PsiQuantums recent $230 million venture windfall there are lesser-reported signs of struggle. I know of probably four or five smaller shops that started and closed within about 24 months; others were absorbed by larger organizations because they struggled to raise, he said.

At the same time, signs of at least moderate investor agitation and internal turmoil have emerged. The Wall Street Journal reported in January that much-buzzed quantum computing startup Rigetti Computing saw its CTO and COO, among other staff, depart amid concerns that the companys tech wouldnt be commercially viable in a reasonable time frame.

Investor expectations had become inflated in some instances, according to experts. Some very good teams have faced more investor skepticism than I think has been justified This is not six months to mobile application development, Biercuk said.

In Kuperbergs view, part of the problem is that venture capital and quantum computing operate on completely different timelines. Putting venture capital into this in the hope that some profitable thing would arise quickly, that doesnt seem very natural to me in the first place, he said, adding the caveat that he considers the majority of QC money prestige investment rather than strictly ROI-focused.

But some startups themselves may have had some hand in driving financiers over-optimism. I wont name names, but there definitely were some people giving investors outsize expectations, especially when people started coming up with some pieces of hardware, saying that advantages were right around the corner, said Donohe. That very much rubbed the academic community the wrong way.

Scott Aaronson recently called out two prominent startups for what he described as a sort of calculated equivocation. He wrote of a pattern in which a party will speak of a quantum algorithms promise, without asking whether there are any indications that your approach will ever be able to exploit interference of amplitudes to outperform the best classical algorithm.

And, mea culpa, some blame for the hype surely lies with tech media. Trying to crack an area for a lay audience means you inevitably sacrifice some scientific precision, said Biercuk. (Thanks for understanding.)

Its all led to a willingness to serve up a glass of cold water now and again. As Juani Bermejo-Vega, a physicist and researcher at University of Granada in Spain, recently told Wired, the machine on which Google ran its milestone proof of concept is mostly still a useless quantum computer for practical purposes.

Bermejo-Vegas quote came in a story about the emergence of a Twitter account called Quantum Bullshit Detector, which decrees, @artdecider-like, a bullshit or not bullshit quote tweet of various quantum claims. The fact that leading quantum researchers are among the accounts 9,000-plus base of followers would seem to indicate that some weariness exists among the ranks.

But even with the various challenges, cautious optimism seems to characterize much of the industry. For good and ill, Im vocal about maintaining scientific and technical integrity while also being a true optimist about the field and sharing the excitement that I have and to excite others about whats coming, Biercuk said.

This year could prove to be formative in the quest to use quantum computers to solve real-world problems, said Krauthamer. Whenever I talk to people about quantum computing, without fail, they come away really excited. Even the biggest skeptics who say, Oh no, theyre not real. Its not going to happen for a long time.

Related20 Quantum Computing Companies to Know

Read more here:
What Is Quantum Computing and How Does it Work? - Built In

As of 2019, the UK is half-way througha ten-year national programme designed to boost quantum technologies, which has so far benefited from a combined 1 billion investment from government and industry. The verdict? Quantum has a lot of potential but we're not sure what for.

Speaking at a conference in London, Claire Cramer, from the US Department of Energy, said: "There is a lot of promise in quantum, but we don't have a transformative solution yet. In reality, we don't know what impact the technology will have."

That is not to say, of course, that the past five years have been a failure. Quite the opposite: researchers around the world can now effectively trial and test quantum technology, because the hardware has been developed. In other words, quantum computers are no longer a feat of the imagination. The devices exist, and that in itself is a milestone.

SEE: Sensor'd enterprise: IoT, ML, and big data (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)

Earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show, in fact, IBM went to great lengths to remind the public that the IBM Q System One a 20-qubit quantum computer that the company says is capable of performing reliable quantum computations is gaining more momentum among researchers.

The Q System One has been deployed to 15 companies and laboratories so far, as a prototype that research teams can run to work out how quantum computers may be used to solve problems in the future.

Finding out what those problems might be is quantum's next challenge. Liam Blackwell, deputy director at the engineering and physical sciences research council, said: "A lot of money has been invested, and we need to start seeing actual outcomes that will benefit the UK. The challenge now, really, is that we have to deliver."

Research teams are not leaping into the unknown: there are already a few potential applications of quantum technology that have been put forward, ranging from enhancing security with quantum cryptography to improving the accuracy of GPS.

Pharmaceuticals and drug discovery have been identified as fields that could hugely benefit from the new technology as well. Last year, for example, neuroscience firm Biogen partnered with quantum computing research firm 1QBit to better tackle diseases like Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis.

For Cramer, though, this is only scratching the surface. "Look at laser technology, for example," she said. "Seventy years ago, people didn't think lasers could even exist, and now you wouldn't think twice about holding a laser pointer in your hand.

"It's the same thing with quantum. We can't imagine what the transformative applications will be yet; so we need to maintain a culture of discovery."

There is only one secret to achieve a successful "culture of discovery", she continued: research, research, and more research. In the US, for example, the Department of Commerce recently created the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QEDC). Its objectives? To "identify technology solutions" and "highlight use cases and grand challenges to accelerate development efforts".

It is not enough, however, to pump money into labs. Once blue-sky researchers have come up with an unexplored application of quantum, they still have to be able to commercialise their idea and bridging between labs and industry might be easier said than done.

In the UK, the issue is not confined to quantum technology. A recent report by VC company Octopus Ventures showed that trillions of pounds are lost every year because of the difficulty of bringing new ideas from university labs to the stock exchange.

In contrast, in the US, over 26,000 companies started in research teams from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Combined, these businesses have an annual turnaround of over $2 trillion (1.5 trillion).

"The UK has a very strong lead on research in quantum, but we have lessons to learn from the US," said Elham Kashefi, professor of computer science at the University of Edinburgh. "We need to push research to the next level, to connect it to industry."

SEE: The dark side of IoT, AI and quantum computing: Hacking, data breaches and existential threat

UKRI, an organisation that directs innovation funding through the budget of the department for business, energy and industrial strategy, recently stressed that commercialising quantum technology would be a priority.

The UK organisation invested 20 million in "pioneer funding" for start-ups leveraging quantum technology to develop "products of the future". Four projects benefited from the award to develop prototypes ranging from quantum sensors that can detect objects underground, to encryption tools that keep data safe.

UKRI is now investing another 153 million in new projects, alongside a 205 million investment from industry. Presenting the organisation's plans for the future, UKRI's director for quantum technologies, Roger McKinlay, said: "I don't know what's coming next, but I hope that we can continue to support what I believe is by far the most interesting emerging technology at the moment."

It doesn't seem, therefore, that quantum uncertainty will be resolved anytime soon but it certainly is worth watching this spot.

See the rest here:
Quantum computing has arrived, but we still don't really know what to do with it - ZDNet

On Oct. 23, 2019, Google published a paper in the journal Nature entitled Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor. The tech giant announced its achievement of a much vaunted goal: quantum supremacy.

This perhaps ill-chosen term (coined by physicist John Preskill) is meant to convey the huge speedup that processors based on quantum-mechanical systems are predicted to exhibit, relative to even the fastest classical computers.

Googles benchmark was achieved on a new type of quantum processor, code-named Sycamore, consisting of 54 independently addressable superconducting junction devices (of which only 53 were working for the demonstration).

Each of these devices allows the storage of one bit of quantum information. In contrast to the bits in a classical computer, which can only store one of two states (0 or 1 in the digital language of binary code), a quantum bit qbit can store information in a coherent superposition state which can be considered to contain fractional amounts of both 0 and 1.

Sycamore uses technology developed by the superconductivity research group of physicist John Martinis at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The entire Sycamore system must be kept cold at cryogenic temperatures using special helium dilution refrigeration technology. Because of the immense challenge involved in keeping such a large system near the absolute zero of temperature, it is a technological tour de force.

Contentious findings

The Google researchers demonstrated that the performance of their quantum processor in sampling the output of a pseudo-random quantum circuit was vastly better than a classical computer chip like the kind in our laptops could achieve. Just how vastly became a point of contention, and the story was not without intrigue.

An inadvertent leak of the Google groups paper on the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) occurred a month prior to publication, during the blackout period when Nature prohibits discussion by the authors regarding as-yet-unpublished papers. The lapse was momentary, but long enough that The Financial Times, The Verge and other outlets picked up the story.

A well-known quantum computing blog by computer scientist Scott Aaronson contained some oblique references to the leak. The reason for this obliqueness became clear when the paper was finally published online and Aaronson could at last reveal himself to be one of the reviewers.

Challenges to Googles story

The story had a further controversial twist when the Google groups claims were immediately countered by IBMs quantum computing group. IBM shared a preprint posted on the ArXiv (an online repository for academic papers that have yet to go through peer review) and a blog post dated Oct. 21, 2019 (note the date!).

While the Google group had claimed that a classical (super)computer would require 10,000 years to simulate the same 53-qbit random quantum circuit sampling task that their Sycamore processor could do in 200 seconds, the IBM researchers showed a method that could reduce the classical computation time to a mere matter of days.

However, the IBM classical computation would have to be carried out on the worlds fastest supercomputer the IBM-developed Summit OLCF-4 at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee with clever use of secondary storage to achieve this benchmark.

While of great interest to researchers like myself working on hardware technologies related to quantum information, and important in terms of establishing academic bragging rights, the IBM-versus-Google aspect of the story is probably less relevant to the general public interested in all things quantum.

For the average citizen, the mere fact that a 53-qbit device could beat the worlds fastest supercomputer (containing more than 10,000 multi-core processors) is undoubtedly impressive. Now we must try to imagine what may come next.

Quantum futures

The reality of quantum computing today is that very impressive strides have been made on the hardware front. A wide array of credible quantum computing hardware platforms now exist, including ion traps, superconducting device arrays similar to those in Googles Sycamore system and isolated electrons trapped in NV-centres in diamond.

These and other systems are all now in play, each with benefits and drawbacks. So far researchers and engineers have been making steady technological progress in developing these different hardware platforms for quantum computing.

What has lagged quite a bit behind are custom-designed algorithms (computer programs) designed to run on quantum computers and able to take full advantage of possible quantum speed-ups. While several notable quantum algorithms exist Shors algorithm for factorization, for example, which has applications in cryptography, and Grovers algorithm, which might prove useful in database search applications the total set of quantum algorithms remains rather small.

Much of the early interest (and funding) in quantum computing was spurred by the possibility of quantum-enabled advances in cryptography and code-breaking. A huge number of online interactions ranging from confidential communications to financial transactions require secure and encrypted messages, and modern cryptography relies on the difficulty of factoring large numbers to achieve this encryption.

Quantum computing could be very disruptive in this space, as Shors algorithm could make code-breaking much faster, while quantum-based encryption methods would allow detection of any eavesdroppers.

The interest various agencies have in unbreakable codes for secure military and financial communications has been a major driver of research in quantum computing. It is worth noting that all these code-making and code-breaking applications of quantum computing ignore to some extent the fact that no system is perfectly secure; there will always be a backdoor, because there will always be a non-quantum human element that can be compromised.

Quantum applications

More appealing for the non-espionage and non-hacker communities in other words, the rest of us are the possible applications of quantum computation to solve very difficult problems that are effectively unsolvable using classical computers.

Ironically, many of these problems emerge when we try to use classical computers to solve quantum-mechanical problems, such as quantum chemistry problems that could be relevant for drug design and various challenges in condensed matter physics including a number related to high-temperature superconductivity.

So where are we in the wonderful and wild world of quantum computation?

In recent years, we have had many convincing demonstrations that qbits can be created, stored, manipulated and read using a number of futuristic-sounding quantum hardware platforms. But the algorithms lag. So while the prospect of quantum computing is fascinating, it will likely be a long time before we have quantum equivalents of the silicon chips that power our versatile modern computing devices.

Michael Bradley, Professor of Physics & Engineering Physics, University of Saskatchewan.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Media: Reuters

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IBM Just Called Out Google Over Their "Quantum Computer" - The National Interest Online

Heres a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial.

From a new project to preserve safe havens for salmon, to Imperial researchers analysing the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, here is some quick-read news from across the College.

The population of Wild North Atlantic Salmon is now at its lowest level ever recorded, inspiring the new Six Rivers Project, led by the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute (MFRI) Iceland and Imperial College London, and funded by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos.

The project, which had its inaugural conference this month, is focused on preserving both the land and river ecosystems across six rivers in northeast Iceland, supporting one of the last safe havens where salmon populations still thrive.

Imperials Professor Guy Woodward said: The North Atlantic Salmon is a keystone species in the ecosystem. Icelands rivers have simple ecosystems providing ideal research conditions. Their latitude also brings with it a potential sensitivity to the effects of climate change, more so than in other parts of the world.

Read more about the inaugural conference of the Six Rivers Project.

Provost Ian Walmsley discussed the future of quantum computing at the Digital-Life-Design (DLD) conference in Munich.

He made the case for globalcollaboration in the race to develop a viable quantum computer, and spoke to German media, including BR24.

Other participants in DLD, one of the worlds most important technology events, included Nick Clegg, Ursula von der Leyen and Garry Kasparov.

The first Photonics Online Meetup a free, online-only global conference for photonics researchers went ahead with great success this month.

The five-hour-long conference on 13 January 2020 brought together 1,100 researchers in 37 countries across six continents in real time. More than 635 of these researchers gathered at 66 local hubs in 27 countries to join in together.

There was also a Twitter-based poster session, with 59 virtual posters averaging 3,000 views each. Videos of the event are now available online, with around 150 people downloading the videos in the first 24 hours.

Read more at the Photonics Online Meetup.

The Early Years Centre (EYC) has reopened after an extensive refurbishment. Staff, parents and children attended the opening event on Thursday 16 January.

Tracy Halsey, Early Years Centre Manager, thanked staff for their efforts, and Professor Emma McCoy, Early Years Committee chair, declared the new centre open with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

This 8m investment has expand the EYCs capacity, creating an additional 56 places and refurbishing the existing indoor and outdoor space. The extra places are being introduced in response to the growing demand for affordable childcare onsite. The EYC can offer places to over 200 children and will reduce the average waiting time for a place. The EYC will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary this year.

Read more about the project on our news site.

Pembridge Hall has become one of the top halls in the UK to complete the Student Switch Off campaigns climate change quiz. Over 1,000 Imperial students took the quiz with over 500 pledging to save energy, water and recycle. Pembridge Hall will receive 50 tubs of Ben & Jerrys ice cream as their reward.

The Student Switch Off campaign, aimed at encouraging sustainability, also includes a microgrant scheme which gives students funding to organise their own pro-environmental activities. Imperial undergraduate, Lauren Wheeler, has become the first student in the UK to receive a microgrant to run an event she will raise funds to help those affected by the recent wildfires in Australia.

The hall that gets the most student engagement over the year will receive 250 for their hall committee. The campaign will continue this term.

Imperial researchers are helping with the global response to the spread of coronavirus. They are also leading voices on the matter in the media worldwide, appearing in over a thousand media articles and broadcast news packages about the outbreak.

An ongoing series of reports from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and J-IDEA at Imperial is looking at the number of cases and understanding the transmissibility of the disease. Other researchers at the College are working on areas including vaccine development and helping the UK to respond.

Commentary from eleven Imperial experts has featured in global outlets including the BBC World Service, CNN, andNew York Times.

For further updates, visit the Centres website.

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Saving salmon and coronavirus outbreak: News from the College | Imperial News - Imperial College London

This is the first in a series of explainers on quantum technology. The other two are on quantum communication and post-quantum cryptography.

A quantum computer harnesses some of the almost-mystical phenomena of quantum mechanics to deliver huge leaps forward in processing power. Quantum machines promise to outstrip even the most capable of todaysand tomorrowssupercomputers.

They wont wipe out conventional computers, though. Using a classical machine will still be the easiest and most economical solution for tackling most problems. But quantum computers promise to power exciting advances in various fields, from materials science to pharmaceuticals research. Companies are already experimenting with them to develop things like lighter and more powerful batteries for electric cars, and to help create novel drugs.

The secret to a quantum computers power lies in its ability to generate and manipulate quantum bits, or qubits.

What is a qubit?

Today's computers use bitsa stream of electrical or optical pulses representing1s or0s. Everything from your tweets and e-mails to your iTunes songs and YouTube videos are essentially long strings of these binary digits.

Quantum computers, on the other hand, usequbits, whichare typically subatomic particles such as electrons or photons. Generating and managing qubits is a scientific and engineering challenge. Some companies, such as IBM, Google, and Rigetti Computing, use superconducting circuits cooled to temperatures colder than deep space. Others, like IonQ, trap individual atoms in electromagnetic fields on a silicon chip in ultra-high-vacuum chambers. In both cases, the goal is to isolate the qubits in a controlled quantum state.

Qubits have some quirky quantum properties that mean a connected group of them can provide way more processing power than the same number of binary bits. One of those properties is known as superposition and another is called entanglement.

Qubits can represent numerous possible combinations of 1and 0 at the same time. This ability to simultaneously be in multiple states is called superposition. To put qubits into superposition, researchers manipulate them using precision lasers or microwave beams.

Thanks to this counterintuitive phenomenon, a quantum computer with several qubits in superposition can crunch through a vast number of potential outcomes simultaneously. The final result of a calculation emerges only once the qubits are measured, which immediately causes their quantum state to collapse to either 1or 0.

Researchers can generate pairs of qubits that are entangled, which means the two members of a pair exist in a single quantum state. Changing the state of one of the qubits will instantaneously change the state of the other one in a predictable way. This happens even if they are separated by very long distances.

Nobody really knows quite how or why entanglement works. It even baffled Einstein, who famously described it as spooky action at a distance. But its key to the power of quantum computers. In a conventional computer, doubling the number of bits doubles its processing power. But thanks to entanglement, adding extra qubits to a quantum machine produces an exponential increase in its number-crunching ability.

Quantum computers harness entangled qubits in a kind of quantum daisy chain to work their magic. The machines ability to speed up calculations using specially designed quantum algorithms is why theres so much buzz about their potential.

Thats the good news. The bad news is that quantum machines are way more error-prone than classical computers because of decoherence.

The interaction of qubits with their environment in ways that cause their quantum behavior to decay and ultimately disappear is called decoherence. Their quantum state is extremely fragile. The slightest vibration or change in temperaturedisturbances known as noise in quantum-speakcan cause them to tumble out of superposition before their job has been properly done. Thats why researchers do their best to protect qubits from the outside world in those supercooled fridges and vacuum chambers.

But despite their efforts, noise still causes lots of errors to creep into calculations. Smart quantum algorithmscan compensate for some of these, and adding more qubits also helps. However, it will likely take thousands of standard qubits to create a single, highly reliable one, known as a logical qubit. This will sap a lot of a quantum computers computational capacity.

And theres the rub: so far, researchers havent been able to generate more than 128 standard qubits (see our qubit counter here). So were still many years away from getting quantum computers that will be broadly useful.

That hasnt dented pioneers hopes of being the first to demonstrate quantum supremacy.

What is quantum supremacy?

Its the point at which a quantum computer can complete a mathematical calculation that is demonstrably beyond the reach of even the most powerful supercomputer.

Its still unclear exactly how many qubits will be needed to achieve this because researchers keep finding new algorithms to boost the performance of classical machines, and supercomputing hardware keeps getting better. But researchers and companies are working hard to claim the title, running testsagainst some of the worlds most powerful supercomputers.

Theres plenty of debate in the research world about just how significant achieving this milestone will be. Rather than wait for supremacy to be declared, companies are already starting to experiment with quantum computers made by companies like IBM, Rigetti, and D-Wave, a Canadian firm. Chinese firms like Alibaba are also offering access to quantum machines. Some businesses are buying quantum computers, while others are using ones made available through cloud computing services.

Where is a quantum computer likely to be most useful first?

One of the most promising applications of quantum computers is for simulating the behavior of matterdown to the molecular level. Auto manufacturers like Volkswagen and Daimler are using quantum computers to simulate the chemical composition of electrical-vehicle batteries to help find new ways to improve their performance. And pharmaceutical companies are leveraging them to analyze and compare compounds that could lead to the creation of new drugs.

The machines are also great for optimization problems because they can crunch through vast numbers of potential solutions extremely fast. Airbus, for instance, is using them to help calculate the most fuel-efficient ascent and descent paths for aircraft. And Volkswagen has unveiled a service that calculates the optimal routes for buses and taxis in cities in order to minimize congestion. Some researchers also think the machines could be used to accelerate artificial intelligence.

It could take quite a few years for quantum computers to achieve their full potential. Universities and businesses working on them are facing a shortage of skilled researchersin the fieldand a lack of suppliersof some key components. But if these exotic new computing machines live up to their promise, they could transform entire industries and turbocharge global innovation.

See the article here:
Explainer: What is a quantum computer? - MIT Technology Review