Category Archives: Quantum Computer
Getting The Big Banks To Confront The Quantum Challenge – Forbes
The CEOs of Americas biggest banks and financial institutionsBank of America BAC , Citigroup C , J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs GS , Morgan Stanley MS , and Wells Fargo WFC are getting a grilling today up on Capitol Hill.Theyll be asked about why theyve made so much money during COVID; and why they arent loaning out more money to help us recover from COVID; as well as getting the usual questions powerful bankers draw from our politicians, both Republicans and Democrats.
But theres one question they should be asked, but wont be: what are they doing to protect their assets and Americas financial industry against future quantum attack?Because getting the big banks to lead the charge in getting America quantum ready is as much a matter of social responsibility as promoting racial equity; and as fundamental to our national security as it is a matter of their bottom lines.
The Colonial Pipeline debacle has revealed how vulnerable our infrastructure is to cyberattack, including a future quantum computer attack.My last column revealed how important it is to use quantum and post-quantum solutions to protect our cyber vulnerabilities, now and in the future.This is even more true of our financial infrastructure, including our leading financial markets, our global payments system, and the Federal Reserve system itself.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 11: The New York Stock Exchange stands in lower Manhattan after global ... [+] stocks fell as concerns mount that rising inflation will prompt central banks to tighten monetary policy on May 11, 2021 in New York City. By mid afternoon the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had lost 0.6% after falling 2.2% at its session low. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Our preliminary econometric research at the Hudson Institutes Quantum Alliance Initiative indicates that the cost of a quantum computer attack on our financial system would be catastrophicfar more than a successful conventional cyberattack.In February authors Welburn and Strong of the RAND Corporation applied a standard Input-Output (I-O) model to conclude that cyber-attack disrupting JP Morgan Chases business operations for a single day would result in over $3.5 Billion in total losses for the American economy.
Unfortunately, that model ignored the network contagion effects within the financial sector.We estimate that a single quantum attack on one of the five largest financial institutions in the U.S. that disrupts their access to the Fedwire Funds Service payment system would cause a cascading financial failure costing anywhere from $730 Billion to $1.95 Trillion.Indeed, a quantum computer attack could impair nearly 60% of total assets in the banking system due to bank runs and endogenous liquidity traps.
We know from conversations with Treasury Department officials that banks and the Fed work closely with the federal government and Treasury on cybersecurity issues.But despite warnings from the last Office of Financial Research report on the quantum risk to financial stability, theres still a big hole when it comes to confronting the quantum threat.In fact, the big banks interest in quantum computers tends to revolve around how those computers amazing capabilities will be to serve customers and analyze market trends and risks.Thus far only J.P. Morgan and VISA V seem to be thinking about the day when a powerful quantum computer can break the most widespread cryptographic methods currently used in cybersecurity. The fact is, the leadership of all the big banks will be crucial for protecting our economy from a quantum-induced financial meltdown, or worse.
Therefore, its time to propose that the banks join together to create a Quantum Task Force made up of the countrys largest financial institutions, to promote quantum and post-quantum solutions to cyberattacks not just for themselves but throughout the financial system. Recent research from the New York Fed reveals that a cyberattack just one vulnerable mid-sized bank (less than $10 billion in assets, or less than five percent the size of Goldman Sachs) can bring down the whole system. Our preliminary study here at the Hudson Institutes Quantum Alliance Initiative indicates that the result would be catastrophic.
Offsetting a risk of this magnitude should be a national, as well as industry, imperative.Its a problem that wont wait until 2024 when NIST is expected to begin the roll out of its post-quantum cryptography standards. The array of tools currently available, from quantum-resistant algorithms and double encryption to quantum key distribution for the most vital corporate communications, can protect institutions today and tomorrow, against a quantum attack or the conventional threats that are already lurking out there.
It will no longer suffice to claim that the quantum threat is far off out on the horizonten years or morethat we dont have to worry about it before the next shareholders meeting. As my next column will show, the threat may be coming sooner than the experts have predicted.
Fortunately, our biggest financial institutions have the know-how, the resources, and the self-interest to lead us all into the post-quantum era.It is no exaggeration to say that none of us will be truly safe, until they are.
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Getting The Big Banks To Confront The Quantum Challenge - Forbes
Quantum internet: The race is on to build an unhackable online world – New Scientist
Great leaps are already being made in creating a super secure quantum internet. It could overturn the role of information in our lives and give us a globe-spanning quantum supercomputer
By Stephen Battersby
Ollie Hirst
MANY of us have uploaded our lives to the internet. Banking, work emails, social media, dating profiles, medical records all that vital, sensitive information. So it is a little disconcerting that the internet has a fatal security flaw. Dont panic; our private information is safe for now. But before very long the encryption algorithms that protect us online are going to crack.
That is the urgent driving force behind a new, more secure kind of internet that harnesses the power of the quantum realm. Once up and running, the system will be able to do a lot more than protect our data. It could bring us unforeseen quantum apps, and maybe become the scaffold for a world-spanning quantum computer of incredible power.
Building the quantum internet is a huge and multi-faceted engineering challenge, but the foundations are already being laid. Networks of fibres are spreading. Scientists are chatting in secret on local networks. There are even plans to use tiny satellites to enable long-distance quantum connections. Sooner or later, we could all be joining the quantum information superhighway.
Human culture and industry have long been based on information. If you could get the right kind of information, understand it and share it, you could gain power and profit. The rise of the internet as we know it cemented the role of information and we are only beginning to feel its profound effects. Now we are at the threshold of a new information age, which could change things all over again.
Conventional, classical computers deal in digital units called bits. This is the amount of information in the outcome
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Quantum internet: The race is on to build an unhackable online world - New Scientist
Want to study Quantum Science? Check out the research and job opportunities, salary, job roles in this field – India Today
Our universe is a strange world of particles and energies, made even more exciting by their entanglement and confused identities. In this world, light sometimes behaves like a particle and other times like a wave and, when stripped to the smallest of entities in the universe down to the constituents of matter itself electrons, protons and other particles appear fuzzy instead of solid.
Quantum science is the study of this peculiar world, of the fascinating behaviour of the smallest particles in nature atoms and subatomic particles - and how to apply this knowledge to our immediate surroundings.
Today, it is also one of the most exciting fields of study, and many people believe that it will revolutionise the world as we know it. In fact, examples of the application of quantum science are all around us, from semiconductors, to MRI and lasers.
First developed as a discipline during the 20th century, quantum science has helped us understand the smallest particles around us, to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Yet, it itself still remains largely unknown and mysterious.
The field of quantum science is undergoing its second revolution. The first revolution was concerned with developing our understanding of quantum physics.
In those nascent days, scientists were splitting the atom to understand the properties of elements. Later they developed quantum effects such as quantised energy and Q-tunneling.
Today we are in the midst of Quantum Science 2.0 which is more concerned with manipulating quantum mechanics and finding new applications, particularly in the areas of communications and computing.
This phase is also characterised by increased industry participation.
Last year, quantum science received a huge fillip in India as the finance minister launched a National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications, with an outlay of INR 8,000 crore to be spent over the following five years.
The mission, first announced during Union Budget 2020, intends to put India on the global quantum science map and to counter the aggressive efforts in the field by USA China, and nations in the European Union.
For students, this is an opportune time to enter the field. Most of the developments in the domain are either in mathematics or in computer science connected with extremely-low-temperature physics.
Depending on ones inclination, one can take an experimental route in a physics laboratory that specialises in quantum computing, or in schools that work on the mathematics of computer algorithms.
In India, we are still at a very nascent stage in quantum science, however, with research accelerating recently, there lies much potential in a quantum mechanics career in academic research with leading institutes.
Where can you work? Scientists can also opt to work in countries like the USA, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and France, where most of the research in the field is being conducted today.
Alternatively, they can avail employment opportunities in corporate R&D, with organisations such as Google, Microsoft, and IBM.
Educational eligibility: Whether one works in academic or corporate research, a doctorate is usually the minimum requirement. A quick glance through job listing websites shows that candidates are usually expected to possess a PhD in areas like physics, computation, astronomy, and information science.
Expected salary: Leading companies, such as IBM, can offer annual salaries ranging from INR 1,44,000 to INR 5,57,000. These salaries are expected to rise further as the field continues to develop.
Job roles: Career roles can range from quantum researcher, quantum analyst, to quantum computing principal.
Quantum science is undoubtedly one of the most exciting fields of research. It can be seen as the science of tomorrow, the field where our next big inventions will likely come from.
For students in the field, it is the excitement of working in a revolutionary field that is often the biggest motivator.
They have the chance to understand the smallest of particles, explain the mysteries of the universe, and even change our world as we know it.
- Article by Dr. Mayank Vahia, Dean, School of Mathematical Sciences, SVKMs NMIMS and Dr. Priyabrata Bag, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, SVKMs NMIMS
Read: Is it a good idea to pursue research in India?
Read: Can quantum physics be helpful to lead a better life?
Read: India is gearing up to join the quantum computing race
Top 10 Trends Influencing Digital Transformation in 2021 – Analytics Insight
The pandemic had hit the world hard and many businesses collapsed. However, the crisis enabled rapid technology adoption and accelerated digital transformation across the industries. Companies started leveraging disruptive technologies to deliver value to customers and enhance business growth and productivity. With consumers largely shifting to online platforms and due to the pandemic-induced restrictions, businesses started building a digital presence to cater to their audience. With technology being integrated everywhere and considering the changing business landscape, digital transformation has a lot to offer this year. Let us look at the top 10 trends that will shape the digital transformation journey of businesses in 2021.
In the current scenario, digital is normal and businesses are striving to manage operations from homes and remote spaces. 5G had already been hailed much during last year and from this year onwards this technology will gain more prominence. 5G network can provide unprecedented speed and connectivity that can cater to the growing demand for increased bandwidth and reliable connectivity. 5G going mainstream will enable better IoT connectivity, enhance user experience and digital collaboration, and accelerate digital transformation.
With rapid technology adoption last year, blockchain has been brought to the limelight. Although it earlier resonated with cryptocurrency, blockchain is now adopted in different industries, especially in financial institutions. Blockchains capabilities are being explored and recently India appointed a panel that is said to focus on the exploration and expansion of blockchain technology in different industries. In the coming years, blockchain will play a crucial role in cybersecurity and will mature with increased adoption in industries.
The pandemic that surfaced last year made cybersecurity more relevant as there were many and continuous attacks on several companies in a short time. Since most of the companies switched to remote working, there arose a need for better and vigilant security measures. Robust cybersecurity practices are one of the top priorities of businesses going through digital transformation and planning to adopt it. The speed of digital transformation must be on par with a companys security strategies and infrastructure.
The finance and banking sector were some of the most impacted industries with rapid digitalization. Most of these services went online and initiated digital payments, digital credit application processes, online loan applications, etc. They are on a move to enhance the digital user experience through efficient digital transformation. Coming years will see a rise in digital banking and open banking initiatives. Digital payments services and digital banking will reshape the transformation in the financial sector.
Data is the fuel in todays customer-centric business models. However, gathering and managing data can be quite difficult without good infrastructure. Customer Data Platforms or CDPs step in here. CDPs collect data from all sources, organize, tag, and make them usable. There is an abundance of data available today and businesses often end up not utilizing them to maximum benefit. Data analytics has also become a potential ingredient to enhance growth and efficiency. Considering these factors, CDPs will empower and revolutionize digital transformation.
While businesses are actively migrating to the cloud, it is imperative to note the growth of a multi-cloud system. It will remove common barriers providers face and also eliminate vendor lock-ins. Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud systems will flourish this year and beyond and will shape the transformation of businesses. Multi-cloud enables the user to distribute cloud computing assets, software, and applications across different cloud platforms. They can also use several public and private cloud infrastructures.
Recently, Google announced that it will develop a commercial-grade error-free quantum computer within a decade. Although quantum computing has not been commercialized fully yet, it has become a vital research subject. Many industries will explore quantum computing in the coming years to enhance digital transformation.
Everything as a Service or XaaS has already gained importance in the business ecosystem. It is a generalized term for cloud service delivery models and it recognizes all the different products and services across the internet. It can simplify technology deployments and as the services will have quick access, it can be widely employed by companies. The XaaS model can enhance agility and help businesses in streamlining digital transformation.
Since the pandemic, offices have been working from home and in remote conditions. Several surveys and studies suggest that this remote work strategy is to stay here for long. Companies have identified the potential benefit of working remotely and this has also led to accelerating digital transformation. There will be more innovations and smart technologies to cater to the needs of the work from home population.
Automation can increase the pace of digital transformation and businesses will largely focus on automating the processes and ERP in years ahead. During the pandemic, several companies had to adopt automation to remain in the market. Thus, automation has become the core of digital transformation. With AI, machine learning, and robotics being integrated into businesses, it will be possible to automate the Enterprise Resource Planning model to enable better growth and agility.
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Top 10 Trends Influencing Digital Transformation in 2021 - Analytics Insight
RSA conference highlights ‘scourge’ of ransomware and takes aim at quantum computing – Verdict
A former White House cybersecurity coordinator told last weeks RSA Security conference that ransomware has gone from being an economic nuisance to becoming a scourge that must be fought by governments worldwide.
The conference took place against the backdrop of a cybersecurity industry increasingly challenged by attacks, many of them driven by ransomware.
Michael Daniel, chief executive of the Cyber Threat Alliance, told a panel that ransomware has evolved from economic nuisance eight years ago to a national security and public health and safety threat today.
He argued that it would require significant action to reduce the value that criminals got out of ransomware.
According to a March 2021 ransomware threat report by Palo Alto Networks, the average amount demanded by ransomware gangs doubled in 2020. The average ransom paid tripled in the last year to over $300,000.
The panel was recorded before details of the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack emerged, so it could not discuss the lessons learned. As the conference was taking place, it emerged that Colonials chief executive Joseph Blount had transferred 75 bitcoin around $4.4m to the attackers because he was unsure of the attacks extent or Colonials prospects for recovery.
Alongside concerns about ransomware, the future impact of quantum computing and the lessons from the SolarWinds attack were also among the critical issues discussed during the RSA conference.
The ongoing development of quantum computing has been described as threatening the encryption algorithms that currently protect data, from online banking records to personal documents on hard drives.
Prominent members of a cryptographers panel at the conference played down quantum computings potential impact. Ron Rivest, one of the inventors of the RSA algorithm, described it as astonishing to me how much energy is going into the commercialization of technology that doesnt yet exist.
Rivest added that the number of start-ups involved in quantum computing meant that the amount of money being invested in the technology is incredible.
I think the two major questions are, Can you build a quantum computer at scale that will last long enough to do it a useful computation? and Are there useful applications for this technology, even if you could build it? And I think the answers so far are not clear and maybe.
In a separate session, SolarWinds chief executive Sudhakar Ramakrishna said the companys ongoing investigation into last years cyber breach found that the nation-state group behind it began probing SolarWinds network as early as January 2019.
Previously, it was widely believed that attackers first gained access to SolarWinds systems in October 2019. The breach, which impacted 100 companies and nine government agencies, remained undetected until December 2020, nearly two full years after the initial malicious activity.
What the RSA conference confirmed is that hackers remain several steps ahead of the cybersecurity industry. Ransomware attacks are increasing precisely because attacked companies like Colonial Pipeline will pay to keep their operations running. In the absence of effective government and industry action to thwart the attackers, theyll probably keep on paying.Related Report Download the full report from GlobalData's Report StoreGet the Report
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RSA conference highlights 'scourge' of ransomware and takes aim at quantum computing - Verdict
Quantum Computing: The Chronicle of its Origin and Beyond – Analytics Insight
The spark about quantum computing is considered to have set out from a three-day discussion at the MIT Conference Center out of Boston, in 1981. The meeting, The Physics of Computation, was collaboratively sponsored by IBM and MITs Laboratory of computer science. The discussion aimed to formulate new processes for efficient ways of computing and bring the area of study into the mainstream. Quantum computing was not a popularly discussed field of science till then. The historic conference was presided over by many talented brains including Richard Feynman, Paul Benioff, Edward Fredkin, Leonid Levin, Freeman Dyson, and Arthur Burks, who were computer scientists and physicists.
Richard Feynman was a renowned theoretical physicist who received a Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1965 with other two physicists, for his contributions towards the development of quantum electrodynamics. The conference was a seminal moment in the development of quantum computing and Richard Feynman announced that to simulate quantum computation, there is a need for quantum computers. Later, he went on to publish a paper in 1982, titled Simulating Physics with Computers.The area of study soon got attention from computer scientists and physicists. Hence, the work on quantum computing began.
Before this, in 1980, Paul Benioff had described a first quantum mechanical model of a computer in one of his papers, which had already acted as a foundation for the study. After Feynmans statement in the conference, Paul Benioff went on to develop his model of quantum mechanical Turing machine.
However, almost a decade later, came Shors algorithm, developed by Peter Shor, which is considered a milestone in the history of quantum computing. This algorithm allowed quantum computers to factor large integers at a higher speed and could also break numerous cryptosystems. The discovery garnered a lot of interest in the study of quantum computing as it replaced the years taken by the classic, traditional computing algorithms to perform factoring by just some hours. Later, in 1996, Lov Grover invented the quantum database search algorithm, which exhibited a quadratic speedup that could solve any problem that had to be solved by random brute-force search and could also be applied to a wider base of problems.
The year 1998 witnessed the first experimental demonstration of a quantum algorithm that worked on a 2-qubit NMR quantum computer. Later in the year, a working 3-qubit NMR computer was developed and Grovers algorithm got executed for the first time in an NMR quantum computer. Several experimental progress took place between 1999 and 2009.
In 2009, the first universal programmable quantum computer was unveiled by a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Colorado. The computer was capable of processing 2 quantum bits.
After almost a decade, IBM unveiled the first commercially usable integrated quantum computing system, and later in the year, IBM added 4 more quantum computing systems, along with a newly developed 53-qubit quantum computer. Google also gave a huge contribution to the field in late 2019, when a paper published by the Google research team claimed to have reached quantum supremacy. The 54-qubit Sycamore processor, made of tiny qubits and superconducting materials is claimed to have sampled a computation in just 200 seconds. Last year, IonQ launched its trapped ion quantum computers and made them commercially available through the cloud. There have been several experiments and research that are being carried on today. Each day becomes a new step for quantum computing technology since its proclamation back in the 80s.
According to a report by Fast Company, IBM plans to complete the 127-qubit IBM Quantum Eagle this year and expects to develop a 1000-qubit computing machine called the IBM Quantum Condor by 2023. IBM has been keeping up in the path of developing the best quantum computing solutions since it hosted the conference in 1981. Charlie Bennet, a renowned physicist who was part of the conference as IBMs research contingent, has a huge contribution to these innovations put forward by the company.
The emerging era of quantum computing will invite many breakthroughs. The quantum computing revolution will increase processing efficiency and solve intrinsic quantum problems. Quantum computer works with quantum bits or qubits that can be in the superposition of states that will cater to massive calculations at an extremely faster pace.
Quantum computing will have a greater impact on almost all industries and business operations. It is capable of molecular modeling, cryptography, weather forecasting, drug discovery, and more. Quantum computing is also said to be a significant component of artificial intelligence, which is fuelling several businesses and real-life functions today. We might soon reach the state of quantum supremacy and businesses need to become quantum-ready by then.
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Quantum Computing: The Chronicle of its Origin and Beyond - Analytics Insight
Google I/O 2021: Everything Google is announcing at this year’s virtual keynote right now – TechRepublic
At the first-ever virtual Google I/O, Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai talked about news on Workspace, quantum computing and privacy needs.
Google announced new video collaboration features as part of Smart Canvas, a new set of capabilities that is part of Workspace.
The keynote for Google I/O was live streamed from Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California on Tuesday, and Google executives touched on everything from new collaboration features in Workspace, to quantum computing, to improved privacy controls. The speakers were on round stages in the outdoor spaces at Google's headquarters, and the audience sat in socially distanced chairs grouped around the stage in the surrounding green space. The video introduction at the event showed a montage of crowds of people at past events, including a cameo of a young Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, which is Google's parent company.
Pichai kicked off the keynote with an announcement about the new collaboration tool for Workspace: Smart Canvas.
Javier Soltero, general manager and vice president of Google Workspace, announced the Workspace news at the event. Soltero said the changes will transform a Google doc from a digital piece of paper to a collaboration platform that is always up to date and has built-in tools for keeping distributed teams connected.
SEE:Android 12: A cheat sheet(TechRepublic)
Pichai also discussed Google's work with quantum computing, describing the technology as the best chance to understand the natural world. He said that the company's current focus is to build an error-corrected qubit.
Actor Michael Pena toured Google's quantum campus with Google's lead quantum engineer Eric Lucero. Lucero showed off the "qubit fridge" and other parts of the lab which included a painting that he described as an homage to mother nature because quantum is the language of nature. Pena's job was to explain quantum computing to the average viewer, describing qubits as smart but picky about work environments and Google's research as wrapping qubits in a Bob Ross blanket of love and keeping them there until they can teach us to think like the Earth.
Lucero said now that the company has moved beyond classical computing and described the next milestone as building an error-corrected logical qubit and then building an error-corrected quantum computer.
In addition to highlighting the company's lofty research goals, executives also talked about work that affects the daily lives of users as well: changes to privacy controls. Jen Fitzpatrick, senior vice president for Google Maps, said the company is working toward a password-free future by improving phone-based authentication.
"We want to free everyone from password pain," she said.
Fitzpatrick said Google has made these improvements to the company's password manager:
Fitzgerald also announced other privacy changes:
Sameer Samat, vice president of product management for Google, said the Android 12 updates represent the biggest design change in Android for years. He said the three big themes for the update are:
He showed off one example of the phone customizing itself to the user when he selected a personal photo for the home screen. The system created a custom palette for the home screen based on the photo.
"We use a clustering algorithm to determine which colors are dominant and which are compliments," he said.
The update also includes new uses of light that differ depending on the action a user takes such as unlocking the phone via the touch screen or a button.
The update includes privacy changes as well. Suzanne Frey, the company's vice president of engineering and product, said that a new privacy dashboard makes it easier to understand which apps are using what data. The OS update also makes it easier to revoke an app's permission directly from the dashboard. Two new toggles allow users to turn off microphone and camera access from the dashboard as well.
Frey said that Google is the first phone maker to enable technically enforced privacy with its open source Private Compute Core.
Pichai closed the keynote with two new pieces of technology. The first was Project Starline, which uses custom built hardware and high resolution cameras to capture a person's shape from multiple angles. Pichai said that the real-time 3D model generates many gigabytes of data per second and required the company to build novel compression and streaming algorithms to reduce the data by a factor of 100 so the video could be sent through existing networks.
He also announced that the company is working on a carbon intelligence load shifting capability that will let data center operators to shift power sources across time and place. This allows operators to take advantage of currently available sources of green energy.
He said that the company is installing Dragon solar panels and a geothermal pile system at the Mountain View headquarters to create an on-demand supply of solar energy.
Google I/O began on Tuesday, and it is a three-day event that will run through May 20. It includes a series of workshops, meetups and keynotes.It's free to attend for anyone who wants to register. All that's needed is a gmail account.
From the hottest programming languages to the jobs with the highest salaries, get the developer news and tips you need to know. Weekly
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Google I/O 2021: Everything Google is announcing at this year's virtual keynote right now - TechRepublic
6 ‘crackpot’ technologies that might transform IT – CIO
Famous mock musician David St. Hubbins once said, Theres a fine line between stupid and clever. On one side of the line is an endless celebration of genius. On the other: failure and ignominy.
The tech industry has no choice but to embrace innovation and risk taking. As such, some innovations start out looking crazy but end up being brilliant. Others start out looking just as crazy and implode under the weight of their own insanity.
In that light, here are seven next-horizon ideas that ride that fine line between amazing and amazingly stupid. The developers of these innovations might prove to be crackpots or they could turn out be insanely great. The technology could end up being a blackhole for venture cash or a savvy play for business value emerging along the fringe. It all depends on your perspective.
Of all the out-there technologies, nothing gets more press than quantum computers and nothing is spookier. The work is done by a mixture of physicists and computer scientists fiddling with strange devices at super-cold temperatures. If it requires liquid nitrogen and lab coats, well, its got to be innovation.
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6 'crackpot' technologies that might transform IT - CIO
IBM just solved this quantum computing problem 120 times faster than previously possible – ZDNet
Using a combination of tweaked algorithms, improved control systems and a new quantum service called Qiskit Runtime, IBM researchers have managed to resolve a quantum problem 120 times faster than the previous time they gave it a go.
Back in 2017, Big Blue announced that, equipped with a seven-qubit quantum processor,its researchers had successfully simulated the behavior of a small moleculecalled lithium hydride (LiH). At the time, the operation took 45 days. Now, four years later, the IBM Quantum team has announced that the same problem was solved in only nine hours.
The simulation was run entirely on the cloud, through IBM's Qiskit platform an open-source library of tools that lets developers around the world create quantum programs and run them on prototype quantum devices that IBM makes available over the cloud.
SEE: Building the bionic brain (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
The speed-up that was observed was largely made possible thanks to a new quantum service, Qiskit Runtime, which was key to reducing latencies during the simulation.
IBMteased Qiskit Runtime earlier this yearas part of the company's software roadmap for quantum computing, and at the time estimated that the new service would lead to a 100-time speed-up in workloads. With a reported 120-time speed-up, therefore, it seems that Big Blue has exceeded its own objectives.
Classical computing remains a fundamental part of Qiskit, and of any quantum operation carried out over the cloud. A quantum program can effectively be broken down into two parts: using classical hardware, like a laptop, developers send queries over the cloud to the quantum hardware in this case, to IBM's quantum computation center in Poughkeepsie, New York.
"The quantum method isn't just a quantum circuit that you execute," Blake Johnson, quantum platform lead at IBM Quantum, tells ZDNet. "There is an interaction between a classical computing resource that makes queries to the quantum hardware, then interprets those results to make new queries. That conversation is not a one-off thing it's happening over and over again, and you need it to be fast."
With every request that is sent, a few tens of thousands of quantum circuits are executed. To simulate the small LiH molecule, for example, 4.1 billion circuits were executed, which corresponds to millions of queries going back and forth between the classical resource and the quantum one.
When this conversation happens in the cloud, over an internet connection, between a user's laptop and IBM's US-based quantum processors, latency can quickly become a significant hurdle.
Case in point: while solving a problem as complex as molecular simulation in 45 days is a start, it isn't enough to achieve the quantum strides that scientists are getting excited about.
"We currently have a system that isn't architected intrinsically around the fact that real workloads have these quantum-classical loops," says Johnson.
Based on this observation, IBM's quantum team set out to build Qiskit Runtime a system that is built to natively accelerate the execution of a quantum program by removing some of the friction associated with the back-and-forth that is on-going between the quantum and the classical world.
Qiskit Runtime creates a containerized execution environment located beside the quantum hardware. Rather than sending many queries from their device to the cloud-based quantum computer, developers can therefore send entire programs to the Runtime environment, where the IBM hybrid cloud uploads and executes the work for them.
In other words, the loops that happen between the classical and the quantum environment are contained within Runtime which itself is near to the quantum processor. This effectively slashes the latencies that emerge from communicating between a user's computer and the quantum processor.
"The classical part, which generates queries to the quantum hardware, can now be run in a container platform that is co-located with the quantum hardware," explains Johnson. "The program executing there can ask a question to the quantum hardware and get a response back very quickly. It is a very low-cost interaction, so those loops are now suddenly much faster."
Improving the accuracy and scale of quantum calculations is no easy task.
Until now, explains Johnson, much of the research effort has focused on improving the quality of the quantum circuit. In practice, this has meant developing software that helps correct errors and add fault tolerance to the quantum hardware.
Qiskit Runtime, in this sense, marks a change in thinking: instead of working on the quality of quantum hardware, says Johnson, the system increases the overall program's capacity.
It remains true that the 120-times speed-up would not have been possible without additional tweaks to the hardware performance.
Algorithmic improvements, for example, reduced the number of iterations of the model that were required to receive a final answer by two to 10 times; while better processor performance meant that each iteration of the algorithm required less circuit runs.
At the same time, upgrades to the system software and control systems reduced the amount of time per circuit execution for each iteration.
"The quality is a critical ingredient that also makes the whole system run faster," says Johnson. "It is the harmonious improvement of quality and capacity working together that makes the system faster."
Now that the speed-up has been demonstrated in simulating the LiH molecule, Johnson is hoping to see developers use the improved technology to experiment with quantum applications in a variety of different fields beyond chemistry.
In another demonstration, for example, IBM's quantum team used Qiskit Runtime to run a machine-learning program for a classification task. The new system was able to execute the workload and find the optimal model to label a set of data in a timescale that Johnson described as "meaningful".
Qiskit Runtime will initially be released in beta, for a select number of users from IBM's Q Network, and will come with a fixed set-up of programs that are configurable. IBM expects that the system will be available to every user of the company's quantum services in the third quarter of 2021.
Combined with the 127-qubit quantum processor, called the IBM Quantum Eagle, which is slated for later this year, Big Blue hopes that the speed-up enabled by Runtime will mean that a lot of tasks that were once thought impractical on quantum computers will now be achievable.
The system certainly sets IBM on track to meet the objectives laid out in the company's quantum software roadmap, which projects that there will be frictionless quantum computing in a number of applications by 2025.
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IBM just solved this quantum computing problem 120 times faster than previously possible - ZDNet
Quantum computings imminent arrival in Cleveland could be a back-to-the-future moment: Thomas Bier – cleveland.com
CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland Clinics partnership with IBM to use quantum computing for medical research brings to mind the most unfortunate instance of bad timing in the history of Cleveland: the 1967 merger of Case Institute of Technology with Western Reserve University just when the computer age was coming to life.
The merger squelched Cases opportunity to be among the leaders in the most revolutionary technology ever (and to benefit Cleveland with computer-related jobs). Might the arrival of quantum computing mean fresh opportunity?
At the time of the merger, Cases Department of Computer Engineering and Science had a good chance to be at the forefront. But capitalizing on that required support from senior administrators of the new Case Western Reserve University administrators who could not be focused on technology to the degree that Case, on its own, had been. In the new world of CWRU, technology was one of many fields.
A vision for the merged institutions prepared by a prominent commission gave only a brief mention of computing either as a current or potential strength of the new institution or as a challenge or opportunity to be addressed, according to Richard E. Baznik in Beyond the Fence: A Social History of Case Western Reserve University. The goose with golden innards wasnt even recognized, let alone encouraged to lay eggs.
Further, the merger created the worst possible institutional environment for computer advocates. Not only did administrators have to contend with issues of who might lose their job because of consolidation and who would have which power (particularly over budget), they also had to manage the challenge that all universities were facing as the post-World War II surge in enrollment and federal funding was ebbing.
Inescapably, the units that formed CWRU were locked in competition for shrinking resources, if not survival. And in that mix, dominated by heavyweights such as the School of Medicine and the main sciences, computers was a flyweight.
All of that was topped off by intense feelings among Case people of being severely violated by the Institutes loss of independence, which feelings were heightened by the substantial upgrading that had occurred under the longtime leadership of former Case president T. Keith Glennan (president from 1947 to 1966).
Thomas Bier is an associate of the university at Cleveland State University.
The combination of those potent forces upset CWRU institutional stability, which was not fully reestablished until the presidency of Barbara Snyder 40 years later.
Although in 1971, CWRUs computer engineering program would be the first of its type to be accredited in the nation, momentum sagged and the opportunity to be among the vanguard was lost. Today, the universitys programs in computer engineering and science are well-regarded but not top-tier.
But the arrival of quantum computing poses the challenge to identify new opportunity and exploit it.
Quantum computing, as IBM puts it, is tomorrows computing today. Its enormous processing power enables multiple computations to be performed simultaneously with unprecedented speed. And the Clinics installation will be first private-sector, on-premises system in the United States.
Clinic CEO and President Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic said, These new computing technologies can help revolutionize discovery in the life sciences and help transform medicine, while training the workforce of the future and potentially growing our economy.
In terms of jobs, the economy of Northeast Ohio has been tepid for decades, reflecting, in part, its scant role in computer innovation. While our job growth has been nil, computer hot spots such as Seattle and Austin have been gaining an average of 25,000 jobs annually.
Cleveland cannot become a Seattle or an Austin. Various factors dictate that. But, hopefully, the arrival of quantum computing a short distance down Euclid Avenue from CWRU will trigger creative, promising initiatives. Maybe, as young technologists and researchers become involved in the Clinic-IBM venture, an innovative entrepreneur will emerge and lead the growth of a whole new industry. Maybe, the timing couldnt be better.
Quantum computing bring, it, on!
Thomas Bier is an associate of the university at Cleveland State University where, until he retired in 2003, he was director of the Housing Policy Research Program in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs. Bier received both his masters in science degree, in 1963, and Ph.D., in 1968, from from Case/CWRU. Both degrees are in organizational behavior.
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Quantum computings imminent arrival in Cleveland could be a back-to-the-future moment: Thomas Bier - cleveland.com