Category Archives: Quantum Computing
Sumitomo Corporation Quantum Transformation (QX) Project Announces Its Vision and Activities at the IEEE Quantum AI Sustainability Symposium – Yahoo…
- New social paradigm shift "QX" is right around the corner -
TOKYO, August 23, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sumitomo Corporation Quantum Transformation (QX) Project will present at the IEEE Quantum AI Sustainability Symposium on September 1st, 2021. The QX Project was launched in March 2021 by Sumitomo Corporation, a global Fortune 500 trading and investment company, with the intent to provide new value to society by applying quantum computing technology to the wide-ranging industries in which the company operates. This is the worlds first project that defines "Quantum Transformation (QX)" as the next social paradigm shift, beyond "Digital Transformation (DX)".
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210823005255/en/
Sumitomo Corporation Quantum Transformation (QX) Project Announces Its Vision and Activities. (Graphic: Business Wire)
The founder and head of the QX Project, Masayoshi Terabe, will present about the vision and activities of QX at the IEEE Quantum AI Sustainability Symposium. The organizer "IEEE" is the world's largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology. In this talk, he will show how quantum computing can contribute to sustainability. For example, he will introduce the Quantum Sky project, which is a pilot experiment for developing flight routes for numerous air mobility vehicles by quantum computing. Also you can find other concepts like Quantum Smart City and Quantum Energy Management.
The objective of the QX Project is to create new value to the society by combining vast business fields of Sumitomo Corporation throughout its more than 900 consolidated companies, from underground to space, and an extensive number of business partners around the world.
A broad and deep ecosystem is necessary to achieve QX. This is because combining a wide range of technologies, not limited to quantum, and working with a crossover of various industries, is essential. If you are interested in this project, lets take on the challenge of creating a new business, and a new society together!
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View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210823005255/en/
Contacts
Contact info:Luke Hasumura, responsible for Vision & Ecosystem on Quantum Transformation.qx@sumitomocorp.com +81-3-6285-7489
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Sumitomo Corporation Quantum Transformation (QX) Project Announces Its Vision and Activities at the IEEE Quantum AI Sustainability Symposium - Yahoo...
Energy Department Sets $61M of Funding to Advance QIS Research – MeriTalk
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $61 million in funding for infrastructure and research projects to advance quantum information science (QIS).
Specifically, the DOE is supplying $25 million in funding for creating quantum internet testbeds, which will advance foundational building blocks including devices, protocols, technology, and techniques for quantum error correction at the internet scale.
The DOE also is providing $6 million in funding for scientists to study and develop new devices to send and receive quantum network traffic and advance a continental-scale quantum internet.
Lastly, the DOE granted $30 million of funding to five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers to support cutting-edge infrastructure for nanoscience-based research to strengthen the United States competitiveness in QIS and enable the development of nanotechnologies.
Harnessing the quantum world will create new forms of computers and accelerate our ability to process information and tackle complex problems like climate change, said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a statement. DOE and our labs across the country are leading the way on this critical research that will strengthen our global competitiveness and help corner the markets of these growing industries that will deliver the solutions of the future.
The DOE recognized the advantages of QIS back in 2018 when it became an integral partner in theNational Quantum Initiative, which became law in December 2018. Since then, the DOE Office of Science has launched a range of multidisciplinary research programs in QIS, including developing quantum computers as testbeds, designing new algorithms for quantum computing, and using quantum computing to model fundamental physics, chemistry, and materials phenomena.
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Energy Department Sets $61M of Funding to Advance QIS Research - MeriTalk
Quantum Takes the Scenic Route in Automotive – The Next Platform
The automotive industry has shown keen and early in quantum computing over the last several years, beginning most notably with Volkswagen, which rolled out a traffic simulation system with its hardware partner, D-Wave. That was in 2017 and while there have been a few other stories focused on quantums role in everything from traffic to designing better fuel technologies, the automotive momentum for quantum seems stuck in the slow lane.
Think tanks like McKinsey, for instance, see a vibrant role for quantum in everything from pushing the EV arena forward and working optimization magic for auto warehousing, dealers, repair shops, and supply chain management. Still, much of this seems far off in terms of broad commercial integration.
For quantum to jump into the daily express lane for the automotive industry, it might take a piecemeal approach, with certain elements of vehicle design or use finding a fit on quantum systems. But there has to be cause to put forth the software and time investment (better, cheaper, faster, etc.).
One example might be in a specific aspect of vehicle designmodeling drive cycles, an aspect that directly relates to a cars efficiency and operation. This has long-since been the domain of Fourier transform simulations on high performance computing systems. But this problem appears to be well-suited to gate-based quantum systems, as recently demonstrated.
Using IBM-Q quantum services, a team was able to reach Fourier-driven drive cycle modeling results faster via a 15-qubit run on the IBM-Q16 Melbourne quantum simulator, paving the way for other workloads based on Fourier transform for quantum machines. These possible future uses can include everything from solving PDEs used in various HPC areas as well as in signal processing, compression, acoustics, and other areas.
While their results are promising, this is still a small quantum simulator and the team observed significant noise in the process, which meant they had to create and use error correction mechanisms. This is one of the most important barriers to practical quantum computing.
Current quantum computers are known to have errors, and in the era of NISQ, it is imperative to develop methods that can achieve quantum speedups despite these errors. The study proposed a simple error correction method to estimate the probabilities consistent with QFT, without compromising the computational complexity. The method was able to reasonably well recover the probabilities.
While this quantum simulation work for Fourier transforms is promising, the team behind the results says that in transportation in particular, the scalability of quantum systems is far from ready for large-scale programs that could have real-world implications. For instance, they say, even a modest network of 1000 vehicles and 64 road sections would require 6000 qubits, which would be extremely cost prohibitive.
Despite clear limitations, they add that we are nonetheless embarking on an exciting frontier of quantum computing that has significant implications on vehicle dynamics, transportation planning and traffic management. These could help with identifying issues quickly and rapidly determining optimal responses, which could in turn help reduce congestion, emissions and improve safety.
As for optimistic McKinsey, they see opportunities for automotive every step of the way, from component design to global supply chains. It will just take a whilea long while.
They estimate one-fifth of companies in the QC value chain provide enabling solutions. Their offerings include existing components, such as cooling units, processing tools for making qubits, and the materials that compose qubits. This area could become a potential playing field for some upstream automotive suppliers, including tier-two and tier-three vendors, which produce control units and thermal solutions that are potentially transferrable to quantum computers.
They add, Automotive suppliers will not immediately profit from large-scale-production opportunities, since QC is still in its infancy, but they will over the long term. We expect enablers to become more relevant as the QC industry matures, gains scale, and one hardware approach begins to dominate.
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Quantum Takes the Scenic Route in Automotive - The Next Platform
Quantum computing: How BMW is getting ready for the next technology revolution – ZDNet
BMW has been preparing to be quantum-ready for the past four years.
Quantum computing may still be at an early stage, but BMW has been quietly ramping up plans for the moment when it reaches maturity.
Most recently, the company justlaunched a "quantum computing challenge" a call for talent designed to encourage external organizations to come up with solutions that will help the car manufacturer make the best use of quantum technologies.
"It's a search for hidden gems," Oliver Wick, technology scout at BMW Research and Technology, tells ZDNet.
"It's a clear message to the world that BMW is working on quantum, and if you have innovative algorithms or great hardware, then please come to us and we can check if we could use it for BMW."
SEE: What is quantum computing? Everything you need to know about the strange world of quantum computers
The challenge, which is run in partnership with Amazon's quantum computing division AWS Braket, is targeting corporations as well as startups and academics with a simple pitch: come up with quantum solutions to the problems that BMW has identified.
Specifically, explains Wick, BMW wants to see four challenges addressed. In the pre-production stage, quantum algorithms could help optimize the configuration of features for the limited number of cars that can be assembled for various tests, so that as many tests as possible can be carried out with a minimal amount of resources.
Similarly, optimization algorithms could improve sensor placement on vehicles, to make sure that the final configurations of sensors can reliably detect obstacles in different driving scenarios something that is becoming increasingly important as autonomous driving becomes more common.
Candidates have also been invited to submit ideas for the simulation of material deformation during production, to predict costly problems in advance, as well as for the use of quantum machine learning to classify imperfections, cracks and scratches during automated quality inspection.
Participants are required to submit a concept proposal for any of the four challenges, after which a panel of experts will shortlist the most promising ideas. The successful candidates will then have a few months to build out their solutions on Amazon Braket, before pitching them next December. Winning ideas will earn a contract with BMW to implement their projects in real-life pilots.
"We are using the power of the crowd to solve our own problems inside BMW," says Wick.
The quantum challenge is only the latest development in a strategy that aims to aggressively push the company's quantum readiness.
BMW's high-performance computers are currently handling 2,000 tasks a day, ranging from high-end visualizations to crash simulations; but even today's most sophisticated systems are fast reaching their computing limits.
Quantum computers, however, could one day carry out computations exponentially faster, meaning that they could resolve problems that classical computers find intractable. For example, the amount of compute power required to optimize vehicle sensor placement is proving to be increasingly challenging for classical algorithms to take on; quantum algorithms, on the other hand, could come up with solutions in minutes. At BMW's production scale, this could mean huge business value.
Wick explains that the potential of quantum computers was identified by the company as early as 2017. A tech report promptly followed to acquire some knowledge about the technology and its key providers, before work started on proofs of concept.
At this stage, says Wick, the biggest challenge was to find out the business case for quantum computing. "We initiated proofs of concept in optimization or scheduling, but those were activities in which no business case was included," says Wick. "Initially, everybody came to me asking why we even needed quantum computing."
But now proof of concepts are slowly starting to emerge as business projects. One of the company's first research proposals, for instance, looked at the use of quantum computers to calculate the optimum circuit to be followed by a robot sealing welding seams on a vehicle. More recently, BMWunveiled that it has been making progress in designing quantum algorithmsfor supply-chain management, which have been successfully tested on Honeywell's 10-qubit system.
SEE: Supercomputers are becoming another cloud service. Here's what it means
BMW says it has now identified over 50 challenges at various stages of the value chain where quantum computing could provide significant benefits four of which have now been delegated to the crowd thanks to the quantum challenge.
In other words, from a blue-sky type of endeavor, quantum computing is now solidly implanted in BMW's strategy. "We've now built two teams, one in the development department and one in the IT department," says Wick. "From this perspective, we have integrated quantum computer in our strategy."
Partnerships are central to this approach. Last June, BMW co-founded the Quantum Technology and Application Consortium (QUTAC), together with firms ranging from Bosch to Volkswagen. The objective, says Wick, is to come up with a set of problems shared across different industries, to join forces in finding solutions that can then be applied to each specific use case.
BMW is also providing a 5.1 million ($6 million) to the University of Munich to support a professorship, who will be expected to conduct research into applying quantum technologies to industry problems such as those faced by BMW.
But just because quantum computing has become part of BMW's business strategy doesn't mean that the technology is already generating value. Quantum computers are still small-scale experimental devices that are utterly incapable of running programs large enough to be useful. They are known as Noisy, Intermediate-Scale Quantum Computers (NISQ), a term of reflective of how emergent the technology remains.
"We are in the NISQ era and we will need better quantum computers," says Wick. "Personally, I think we could start having business benefits in five years. But that doesn't mean we should wait for five years, lay back, and let other companies do the work instead."
SEE:Bigger quantum computers, faster: This new idea could be the quickest route to real world apps
Preparing for large-scale quantum computers means developing partnerships with the best talent, filing patents to secure IP, but also understanding company processes very well to know how to reform them.
"You need imagination to re-think your own processes," says Wick. "I can imagine that in the next 20 years, BMW customers will sit in front of a screen and configure their own BMW in real time, for example. This is what quantum computing is for to re-think processes and setups."
The biggest challenge for now, according to Wick, is tofully understand the ever-expanding quantum ecosystem, to make sure that the right quantum algorithms are fitted with the right quantum hardware to solve the right company problem.
This is easier said than done in a field that is buzzing with activity, and where noise and reality can be hard to distinguish. Quantum computing is rapidly joining blockchain, AR, VR and others on the list of popular buzzwords, and Wick can only count on his experience as a technology scout to make sure that the company doesn't fall to the quantum hype.
In the automotive industry, BMW's competitors are getting ready for quantum computing to change business processes, too. Volkswagen, for one,was early in joining the bandwagon, and has been expanding its capabilities ever since. The pressure is on to not fall behind in the race for quantum technologies, or so it would seem and BMW is making it clear that it wants to be in the lead.
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Quantum computing: How BMW is getting ready for the next technology revolution - ZDNet
Quantum Computing Tech is Amazing. But What Does Business Think? – DesignNews
Recent scientific and technological breakthroughs in quantum computing hardware and software demonstrate the commercial viability of quantum computers. Specifically, Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum just announced three scientific and technical milestones that significantly move large-scale quantum computing into the commercial world
These milestones include demonstrated real-time quantum error correction (QEC), doubling the quantum volume of Honeywells System H1 to 1,024, and developing a new quantum algorithm that uses fewer qubits to solve optimization problems. Lets break each of these topical areas down into understandable bits of information.
Related: What Will it Take to Make a Successful Quantum Computing Platform? Two Things
Optical signal conditioning used on quantum computers.
Real-time quantum error correction (QEC) is used in quantum computing to protect the information from errors due to decoherence and other quantum noise. Quantum decoherence is the loss of coherence. Decoherence can be viewed as the loss of information from a system into the environment. Quantum coherence is needed to perform computing on quantum information encoded in quantum states.
Related: 4 Experts Let The Cat Out Of The Box On Quantum Computing And Electronic Design
In contrast, classical error correction employs redundancy. The simplest way to achieve redundancy is to store the information multiple times in memory and then constantly compare the information to determine if corruption has occurred.
Another difference between classical and quantum error correction is one of continuity. In classic error correction, the bit is either a 1 or a 0, i.e., it is either flipped on or off. However, errors are continuous in the quantum state. Continuous errors can occur on a qubit, in which a qubit is partially flipped, or the phase is partially changed.
Honeywell researchers have addressed quantum error correction by creating a single logical qubit from seven of the ten physical qubits available on the H1 Model and then applying multiple rounds of QEC. Protected from the main types of errors that occur in a quantum computer, the logical qubit combats errors that accumulate during computations.
Quantum Volume (QV) is the other key metric used to gauge quantum computing performance. QV is a single number meant to encapsulate the performance of quantum computers, like a classical computer's transistor count in Moores Law.
QV is a hardware-agnostic metric that IBM initially used to measure the performance of its quantum computers. This metric was needed since a classical computers transistor count and a quantum computers quantum bit count isnt the same. Qubits decohere, forgetting their assigned quantum information in less than a millisecond. For quantum computers to be commercially viable and useful, they must have a few low-error, highly connected, and scalable qubits to ensure a fault-tolerant and reliable system. That is why QV now serves as a benchmark for the progress being made by quantum computers to solve real-world problems.
According to Honeywells recent release, the System Model H1 has become the first to achieve a demonstrated quantum volume of 1024. This QV represents a doubling of its record from justfour months ago.
The third milestone comes from Cambridge Quantum Computing recently merged with Honeywell - also has developed a new quantum algorithm that uses fewer qubits to solve optimization problems.
Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) have met three key quantum milestones with the Model H1 systems.
John Blyler is a Design News senior editor, covering the electronics and advanced manufacturing spaces. With a BS in Engineering Physics and an MS in Electrical Engineering, he has years of hardware-software-network systems experience as an editor and engineer within the advanced manufacturing, IoT and semiconductor industries. John has co-authored books related to system engineering and electronics for IEEE, Wiley, and Elsevier.
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Quantum Computing Tech is Amazing. But What Does Business Think? - DesignNews
AWS leverages Singapore scientists to overcome the hurdles facing quantum computing The Register – Illinoisnewstoday.com
Amazon Web Services has partnered with the National University of Singapore (NUS) in hopes of improving quantum technology and its applications. The duo announced this week that it has signed a memorandum of understanding.
The collaboration is a quantum engineering program hosted by NUS (QEP), Five-year SG $ 25m ($ 18.5m, 13.3m, 15.6m) initiative launched in 2018 by Singapores National Research Foundation to become a technology that can commercialize the abstract science of quantum physics. Focus on converting.
So far, QEP has eight major research projects that could ultimately outperform todays supercomputers, such as hardware and software, to simulate chemicals and help design drugs. I have supported it. reality.
QEP is currently working with companies to identify the problems they are facing that quantum technology may or may not be able to address soon or soon. QEP director Alexander Lynn said. Register..
For example, we help quantum computing software researchers explore algorithms and simulation techniques that can be applied to real-world data. They aim to address supply chain management, finance, trade, chemistry, and materials challenges. The proposal is currently being considered for financing.
Quantum computing may require a leap of science and engineering to create a working system, but one day it will be able to provide powerful computing tools that go beyond the boundaries of traditional computers. maybe. And if the quantum computer takes off (if it is still in the scientific experiment stage), the communication needs to be quantum protected. These computers may be able to computeally decipher unquantum-protected data.
Some forms of encryption used today can be broken by large quantum computers in the future, which also facilitates the search for alternatives, says Ling.
and Canned statement, NUS said AWS will be able to access the universitys National Quantum-Safe Network. It is a vendor-neutral platform for developing technology and integrating some of it into local fiber networks.
The understanding that we are using quantum communication technology to support experiments with existing fibers is correct, said Tan Lee Chew, managing director of AWS ASEAN. Register.
According to Tan, AWS has the opportunity to support Singapores SmartNation initiatives such as traffic optimization, financial planning, shipping and port operations, and material design applications within commercial organizations.
The goal is to train Singaporean scholars, students, and commercial organizations to develop quantum computing skills.
Quantum technology could help Singapore accelerate the smart nation agenda, Tan added. own products.
Inevitably, there are also some joint public relations activities.
Last August, AWS debuted a cloud-based quantum computing-like service. bracket.. Products that pay only what they need provide access to quantum annealers. A gate-based system built on superconducting cubits and trapped ions. Hybrid quantum and classical algorithm tools. Users work in a Jupyter notebook environment.
The quantum cloud initiative is nothing new. IBM and Microsoft are already doing that.In fact, IBM is already 3 years collaboration Big Blue uses QEP to provide NUS researchers with cloud access to 15 of IBMs current generation quantum computing systems.
How about A huge machine that is AWS, Ling said, an existing relationship already exists. Singapore researchers already had connections with companies working with AWS to provide cloud access to quantum hardware.
AWS leverages Singapore scientists to overcome the hurdles facing quantum computing The Register
Source link AWS leverages Singapore scientists to overcome the hurdles facing quantum computing The Register
Quantum Computing Market 2021 with Top Countries Data Analysis by Industry Trends, Size, Share and Company Overview – Digital Journal
Global Quantum Computing Market Size, Status And Forecast 2021-2025
MarketInsightsReports, a leading global market research firm, is pleased to announce its new report on Quantum Computing market, forecast for 2021-2025, covering all aspects of the market and providing up-to-date data on current trends.
The report covers comprehensive data on emerging trends, market drivers, growth opportunities, and restraints that can change the market dynamics of the industry. It provides an in-depth analysis of the market segments which include products, applications, and competitor analysis. The report also includes a detailed study of key companies to provide insights into business strategies adopted by various players in order to sustain competition in this highly competitive environment.
With our Quantum Computing market research reports, we offer a comprehensive overview of this sector such as sales analysis, impact of domestic and global market players, value chain optimization, trade regulations, recent developments, opportunities analysis, strategic market growth analysis, product launches, area marketplace explaining, and technological innovations
Top Companies in the Global Quantum Computing Market: The Quantum Computing market was dominated by International Business Machines (US), D-Wave Systems (Canada), Microsoft (US), Amazon (US), Rigetti Computing (US), Google (US), Intel (US), Honeywell International (US), Quantum Circuits (US),and QC Ware (US).
Recent Developments
In January 2020, IBM partnered with Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, to enhance the capacity and increase the charging speed of batteries of electric vehicles. These companies used a quantum computer to model the dipole moment of three lithium-containing molecules that paves the way for the development of the next-generation lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries that will be more powerful, long-lasting, and cost-effective than lithium-ion batteries. The Quantum Computing market is expected to grow from USD 472 million in 2021 to USD 1,765 million by 2026, at a CAGR of 30.2%.
In November 2019, IBM partnered with the Unitary Fund to provide grants and priority access to certain IBM Q systems. Similar to the quantum computing mission of IBM, the Unitary Fund aims to create a quantum technology industry that benefits most of the people.
For comprehensive understanding of market dynamics, the global Quantum Computing market is analyzed across key geographies namely: United States, China, Europe, Japan, South-east Asia, India and others. Each of these regions is analyzed on basis of market findings across major countries in these regions for a macro-level understanding of the market.
Key Takeaways from Quantum Computing Report
Evaluate the supply-demand gaps, import-export statistics and regulatory landscape for more than top 20countries globally for the Quantum Computing market.
Browse the report description and TOC: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/05202915819/global-quantum-computing-market-analysis-by-solution-type-hardware-software-full-stack-application-optimization-simulation-sampling-machine-learning-end-user-by-region-by-country-2020-edition-market-insight-competition-and-forecast-2020-2025?mode=54
-Key Strategic Developments: The study also includes the key strategic developments of the market, comprising R&D, new product launch, M&A, agreements, collaborations, partnerships, joint ventures, and regional growth of the leading competitors operating in the market on a global and regional scale.
-Key Market Features: The report evaluates key market features, including revenue, price, capacity, capacity utilization rate, gross, production, production rate, consumption, import/export, supply/demand, cost, market share, CAGR, and gross margin. In addition, the study offers a comprehensive study of the key market dynamics and their latest trends, along with pertinent market segments and sub-segments.
-Analytical Tools: The Global Quantum Computing Market report includes the accurately studied and assessed data of the key industry players and their scope in the market by means of a number of analytical tools. The analytical tools such as Porters five forces analysis, SWOT analysis, feasibility study, and investment return analysis have been used to analyze the growth of the key players operating in the market.
Customization of the Report: This report can be customized as per your needs for additional data up to 3 companies or countries or 40 analyst hours.
MarketInsightsReports provides syndicated market research on industry verticals including Healthcare, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Technology and Media, Chemicals, Materials, Energy, Heavy Industry, etc.MarketInsightsReports provides global and regional market intelligence coverage, a 360-degree market view which includes statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.
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Quantum Computing Market 2021 with Top Countries Data Analysis by Industry Trends, Size, Share and Company Overview - Digital Journal
‘Magic Angle’ Graphene and How it Could be a Magnet-Proof Superconducter – AZoM
New research has demonstrated that a triple stack of graphene sheets twisted at a very specific angle could demonstrate superconductivity that survives exposure to intense magneticfields. The study was published in the journal Nature.
Image Credit:ktsdesign/Shutterstock.com
Superconductors - substances capable of conducting electricity without resistance - are poised to form the foundation of future technological and electronic advances, particularly in quantum computing.
While traditional conductors gradually lose resistance as they get colder-allowing progressively more electrons to flow- superconductors have a critical temperature at which resistance is lost completely, allowing the free flow of electrons.
The fact that most materials capable of becoming superconductors only do so at very low temperatures has made close-to-room temperature superconductors the holy grail of the materials science field.
This near room-temperature superconducting behavior is something that can be seen in graphenesingle layers of carbon atoms in a hexagonal arrangement. When these atom thin sheets of graphene are double stacked, and a little twist is applied, they begin to act as a superconductoreven at close to room temperatures.
High temperatures are not the only thing that turn-off superconductivity in a material. Exposure to a high magnetic field can also knock a superconductor into a regular conductive state. This has posed a challenge to developers of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices, machines that rely on both superconductivity and intense magnetic fields.
Physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that not only is bilayer graphene a superconductor with a higher critical temperature, adding a third layer and applying a very specific angle54.7356 also known as the magic angleseems to allow superconductivity to be retained even in strong magnetic fields.
The team, led by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, a Physics professor at MIT, discovered that when a trilayer of graphene is twisted in this way it seems to exhibit superconductivity in magnetic fields with a magnetic flux density as high as 10 Tesla. This is three times greater than the material could endure if it were a standard superconductor.
What the researchers believe they are seeing is a rare form of superconductivity called spin-triplet superconductivity.
The value of this experiment is what it teaches us about fundamental superconductivity, about how materials can behave, says Jarillo-Herrero. So with those lessons learned, we can try to design principles for other materials which would be easier to manufacture, that could perhaps give you better superconductivity.
One of the most striking demonstrations of how superconductors work can be seen by placing an ordinary magnet over the top of such a material while it is cooled with liquid nitrogen. The magnet levitates in place above the superconductor during this experiment. Whereas a normal conductor produces currents in a magnet moving past it via electromagnetic induction, superconductors push the magnetic fields out by inducing surface currents. Instead of allowing the magnetic field to pass through itwith this passage measured by magnetic fluxthe superconductor acts as a faux-magnet with the opposite polarity, repelling the real magneta phenomenon called the Meissner effect.
The key to explaining superconductivity lies in understanding how electrons behave in materials at extremely low temperatures. Thermal energy randomly vibrates atoms in a material, and the higher the temperature, the faster the atoms vibrate.
At high temperatures, electronswhich all have the same negative chargerepel each other and act as free particles. Yet, there is still a tiny attraction between electrons in solids and liquids, and at low temperatures, electrons group together into what is known as Cooper pairs.
In Cooper pairsnamed after American physicist Leon Cooper who first described this pairing up phenomenon in the mid-1950sthe electrons have an opposite spin. This is a quantum mechanical quantity that describes how a particle will behave when exposed to a magnetic field. One electron possesses spin up and the other has spin down. This state is described as a spin-singlet.
Cooper pairs travel unimpeded through a superconductor until they are exposed to a strong magnetic field. The electrons are then pulled in opposite directions, ripping the Cooper pairing apart.
Magnetic fields, therefore, destroy superconductivity. This is at least the case for spin-singlet superconductors. For exotic superconductors such as spin-triplet superconductors, the situation can be quite different.
In some exotic superconductors, electrons pair up with the same spin rather than opposite spinsor so-called spin-triplet pairs.
Spin describes how a particle behaves in a magnetic field. Particles of opposite spin move in opposite directions. However, if these electrons have the same spin, the Cooper pairing is not destroyed.Superconductivity is then preserved, even in extremely strong magnetic fields.
What Jarillo-Herrero and his teamalready known for their pioneering work with the electronic properties of twisted graphenewanted to discover was whether magic-angle trilayer graphene may display signs of spin-triplet superconductivity.
The researchers previously observed signs of this phenomenon in magic-angle bilayer graphene, but their new study showed that the effect is much stronger when an extra layer is added, with superconductivity retained at higher temperatures.
Surprisingly, trilayer graphene retained superconductivity in strong magnetic fields that would have wiped it out in its bilayer counterpart.To test this, the researchers exposed the magic-angle trilayer graphene to magnetic fields of increasing strengths. They found that superconductivity disappeared at a specific strength, but the graphene regained superconductivity at high field strengths.
This behavior is not seen in conventional spin-singlet superconductors.
The reintroduced superconductivity lasted in the magic-angle trilayer graphene up to a magnetic flux of 10 Tesla, but this was the maximum flux the teams magnet could achieve. This means that this resurrected superconductivity could actually persist in even stronger fields.
The conclusion reached by the team; magic-angle trilayer graphene is not a run-of-the-mill superconductor.
In spin-singlet superconductors, if you kill superconductivity, it never comes backits gone for good, says MIT postdoctoral researcher Yuan Cao. Here, it reappeared again. So this definitely says this material is not spin-singlet.
The question is: what exactly is the spin-state demonstrated by the material? This is something the team will now attempt to further investigate. Even with this question yet unanswered, we can still predict the kinds of applications that would benefit from this boosted resistance to magnetic fields.
The fact that this type of superconductor can resist high magnetic fields makes it incredibly useful across a range of applications; in particular, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which uses superconducting wires under intense magnetic fields to image biological tissues.
The functioning MRI devices are currently limited to their ability to resist a magnetic flux of no more than 3 Tesla, so if magic-angle graphene trilayer does display spin-triplet superconductivity, it could be used in such machines to boost their resistance to magnetic flux. The net result of this should be MRIs that can produce sharper and deeper images of human tissues.
Magic-angle trilayer graphene could be used in quantum computers to provide more resistant superconductors and much more powerful machines.
Regular quantum computing is super fragile. You look at it and, poof, it disappears, says Jarillo-Herrero. About 20 years ago, theorists proposed a type of topological superconductivity that, if realized in any material, could enable a quantum computer where states responsible for computation are very robust.
This results in a quantum computer with computing power that far exceeds anything currently available. However, the team does not yet know if the exotic superconductivity they have found in the magic-angle trilayer graphene is the right type to facilitate this computing boost.
The key ingredient to realizing that would be spin-triplet superconductors, of a certain type. We have no idea if our type is of that type, concludes Jarillo-Herrero. But even if its not, this could make it easier to put trilayer graphene with other materials to engineer that kind of superconductivity.
That could be a major breakthrough. But its still super early.
Jarillo-Herrero. P., Cao. Y., Park. J. M., et al, [2021] Pauli-limit violation and re-entrant superconductivity in moir graphene. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03685-y
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Healthcare technology development is being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic – Healthcare Finance News
Photo: Al David Sacks/Getty Images
Lost revenue, slim margins and a need for greater efficiency: These are some of the fallouts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare industry. It has created challenges, but also opportunity, especially in the use of technology to drive efficiencies and allow clinicians to deliver better care.
Ryan Hodgin, chief technology officer for IBM Global Healthcare, and Kate Huey, partner at IBM Healthcare, spoke about some of these technological innovations in their digital HIMSS21 session, "Innovation Driven Resiliency: Redefining What's Possible."
The technology in question can encompass telehealth, artificial intelligence, automation, blockchain, chatbots, apps and other elements that have become mainstays of healthcare during the course of the pandemic.
"The COVID pandemic really brought us to the brink, and we were trying to get to digital transformation very quickly," said Huey. "It exposed gaps and holes in the system, as well as inequalities in our system, and it really did spark innovation."
In a way, she said, science fiction is becoming science fact: Technologies that were once in the experimental phase are now coming to life and driving innovation, particularly quantum computing. The power of quantum computing has the potential to transform healthcare just by sheer force of its impressive computational power.
One of the big factors accelerating technological innovation is the healthcare workforce, which has been placed under enormous stress over the past 18 months, with many doctors and clinicians reporting burnout or feelings of being overwhelmed. These technologies promise to reduce the burden being felt by providers.
Importantly, they also promise to more actively engage healthcare consumers, who increasingly expect healthcare to be as user-friendly and experience driven as their favorite apps or online shopping portals.
"Sixty percent of healthcare projects fail due to lack of user acceptance," said Huey. "We're in the era of experience and digital, because to drive digitalit has to be about the experience delivering meaningful, engaging experiences that really help the consumers. And by that I mean patients, caregivers, the clinicians; everyone. We need to make sure the experience they get is seamless and easy to use, because the technology has to fuel these experiences."
Early in the pandemic, technology's goal was to foster resiliency. According to Hodgin, the focus turned to delivering more features more quickly, and truly innovating building things like dashboards, COVID-19 trackers and risk indicators, and getting those things out to consumers much more quickly than before.
"This took the form of telehealth, chatbots, call agents, apps, and with that shift to digital we saw a shift in usage patterns and the familiarity and comfort," said Hodgin.
Ultimately, the goal is to achieve a hybrid model of care, in which patients can access both virtual and in-person channels based on what's appropriate for their situation.
Challenges remain, however, especially with budget shortfalls plaguing many hospitals and health systems.
"The reality is, we already had very slim operating margins in health systems, and now a lot of providers are dealing with budget shortfalls," said Huey. "We need to be looking at the experiences we want to deliver, and see how we're going to drive efficiencies. We can't ask them to do more without empowering them with the tools. The solutions we put in place have to enable a better experience for them and allow them to treat patients better."
Hodgin said that to address inequities in care, IBM will apply what it's working on across all population groups, helping disadvantaged groups manage their care more proactively than before.
"We want to see the culture of innovation really take root and not go back to the status quo," he said.
Twitter:@JELagasseEmail the writer:jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com
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Healthcare technology development is being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic - Healthcare Finance News
From theory to reality: Google claims to created physics-defying ‘time crystal’ inside its quantum computer – Silicon Canals
Image credits: Google Quantum AI
As the Quantum computing race is heating up, many companies across countries are spending billions on different qubit technologies to stabilise and commercialise the technology. While it is too early to declare a winner in quantum computing, Googles quantum computing lab may have created something truly remarkable.
In the latest development, researchers at Google, in collaboration with physicists at Princeton, Stanford, and other universities, have created the worlds first Time Crystal inside a quantum computer.
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Time crystals developed by Google could be the biggest scientific accomplishment for fundamental physics and quantum physics. Dreamt up by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek in 2012, the notion of time crystals is now moving from theory to reality.
In a recently published study, Observation of Time-Crystalline Eigenstate Order on a Quantum Processor, the researchers claim that Time Crystal is a new phase of matter that violates Newtons law of Thermodynamics.
Well, a time crystal sounds like a complicated component of a time machine, but it is not. So, what exactly are Time Crystals? As per researchers, a time crystal is a new phase of matter that alternates between two shapes, never losing any energy during the process.
To make it simple, regular crystals are an arrangement of molecules or atoms that form a regular repeated pattern in space. A time crystal, on the other hand, is an arrangement of molecules or atoms that form a regular, repeated pattern but in time. Meaning, theyll sit in one pattern for a while, then flip to another, and repeat back and forth.
Explaining about Time Crystal in layman terms to Silicon Canals, Loc Henriet, head of Applications and Quantum Software, Pasqal, explains, Some phases of matter are known to spontaneously break symmetries. A crystal breaks spatial translation: one finds atoms only at well-defined positions. Magnets break discrete spin symmetry: the magnetisation points to a well-defined direction. However, no known physical system was known to break one of the simplest symmetries: translation in time. Googles DTC result is the most convincing experimental evidence of the existence of non-equilibrium states of matter that break time-translation symmetry.
Further, Time crystals can withstand energy processes without entropy and transform endlessly within an isolated system without expending any fuel or energy.
Our work employs a time-reversal protocol that discriminates external decoherence from intrinsic thermalisation, and leverages quantum typicality to circumvent the exponential cost of densely sampling the eigenspectrum, says researchers. In addition, we locate the phase transition out of the DTC with experimental finite-size analysis. These results establish a scalable approach to study non-equilibrium phases of matter on current quantum processors.
For the demonstration, the researchers used a chip with 20 qubits to serve as the time crystal. Its worth mentioning that researchers performed the experiments on Googles Sycamore device, which solved a task in 200 seconds that would take a conventional computer 10,000 years.
According to the researchers, their experiment offers preliminary evidence that their system could create time crystals. This discovery could have profound implications in the world of quantum computing if its proven.
Henriet shares, This result is most interesting from a fundamental physics standpoint, as an identification of a novel quantum phase of matter. In itself, it will not directly impact our day-to-day life but it illustrates the richness of many-body quantum physics out-of-equilibrium. It also proves that quantum processors are now powerful enough to discover new interesting regimes for quantum matter with disruptive properties.
The consequence is amazing: You evade the second law of thermodynamics, says Roderich Moessner, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, Germany, and a co-author on the Google paper.
This is just this completely new and exciting space that were working in now, says Vedika Khemani, a condensed matter physicist now at Stanford who co-discovered the novel phase, while she was a graduate student and co-authored the new paper with the Google team.
In 2012, Frank Wilczek came up with the idea of time crystals while teaching a class about ordinary (spatial) crystals.
If you think about crystals in space, its very natural also to think about the classification of crystalline behaviour in time, he told Quanta.
Googles quantum computer has certainly achieved what many thought was impossible. Having said that, the experiment is in the preliminary stage and requires a lot of work. Moreover, the pre-print version of the research awaits validation from the scientists community and has to be reviewed by peers as well.
There are good reasons to think that none of those experiments completely succeeded, and a quantum computer like [Googles] would be particularly well placed to do much better than those earlier experiments, University of Oxford physicist John Chalker, who wasnt involved in the research, told Quanta.
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From theory to reality: Google claims to created physics-defying 'time crystal' inside its quantum computer - Silicon Canals