Category Archives: Quantum Computing
Quantum: It’s still not clear what its good for, but Amazon and QCI will help developers find out – ZDNet
When it comes to practical problems, including things such as the traveling salesman problem, a classic in optimization, the value of quantum is still to be decided, say Richard Moulds, left, head of Amazon's Braket quantum computing service, and Robert Liscouski, head of Quantum Computing Inc., which makes Qatalyst software to do optimization on both classical and quantum machines.
It's easy to imagine a problem for which, if one had a computer that magically leapt across steps of the computation, your life would be much better.
Say, for example, a computer that auto-magically searches through a vast space of possible solutions much faster than you can with a CPU or GPU.
That's the premise of quantum computing, and surprisingly, for all the hype, it's not clear if that premise is true.
"I don't think we've seen any evidence yet that a quantum machine can do anything that's commercially interesting faster or cheaper than a classical machine," Richard Moulds, head of Amazon Braket, the cloud giant's quantum computing service, said in an interview with ZDNet. "The industry is waiting for that to arrive."
It is the question of the "quantum advantage," the notion that the entangled quantum states in a quantum computer will perform better on a given workload than an electronic system.
"We haven't seen it yet," Robert Liscouski, CEO of Quantum Computing Inc, said of the quantum advantage, in the same Zoom interview with Moulds.
That aporia, the as-yet-unproven quantum advantage, is in fact the premise for a partnership announced this month, whereby QCI's Qatalyst software program will run as a cloud service on top of Braket.
QCI's corporate tag line is "ready-to-run quantum software," and the Qatalyst program is meant to dramatically simplify sending a computing task to the qubits of a quantum hardware machine, the quantum processing units, or QPUs, multiple instances of which are offered through Bracket, including D::Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti.
The idea is to get more people working with quantum machines precisely to find out what they might be good for.
"Our platform basically allows the democratization of quantum computing to extend to the user community," said Liscouski.
"If you look back on the quantum industry since it started, it's traditionally been very difficult to get access to quantum hardware," said Moulds, including some machines that are "totally unavailable unless you have a personal relationship with the the physicist that built it."
"We're trying to make it easy for everyone to have access to the same machinery; it shouldn't be those that have and those that have not, it should be everyone on the same flywheel," he said.
The spectrum of users who will be working with quantum comprise "two important communities" today, said Moulds, those that want to twiddle qubits at the hardware level, and those that want to spend time on particular problems in order to see if they actually gain any benefit when exposed to the quantum hardware.
"There's a lot of researchers focused on building better hardware, that is the defining force in this industry," said Moulds. "Those types of researchers need to be in the weeds, playing at the qubit level, tweaking the frequencies of the pulses sent to the chip inside the fridge."
On the other hand, "the other class of users is much more geared to Robert's view of the world: they don't really care how it gets done, they just want to understand how to program their problem so that it can be most easily solved."
That second class of users are "all about abstraction, all about getting away from the technology." As quantum evolves, "maybe it slides under so that customers don't even know it's there," mused Moulds.
When it comes to those practical problems, the value of quantum is still to be decided.
There has been academic work showing quantum can speed up tasks, but "that's not been applied to a problem that anybody cares about," said Moulds.
The entire quantum industry is "still finding its way to what applications are really useful," he said. "You tend to see this list of potential applications, a heralded era of quantum computing, but I don't think we really know," he said.
The Qatalyst software from QCI focuses on the kinds of problems that are of perennial interest, generally in the category of optimization, particularly constrained optimization, where a solution to a given loss function or objective function is made more complicated by having to narrow the solution to a bunch of variables that have a constraint of some sort enforced, such as bounded values.
"They are described at a high level as the traveling salesman problem, where you have multi-variate sort of outcomes," said Liscouski. "But it's supply-chain logistics, it's inventory management, it's scheduling, it's things that businesses do today that quantum can really accelerate the outcomes in the very near future."
Such problems are "a very important use case," said Moulds. Quantum computers are "potentially good at narrowing the field in problem spaces, searching through large potential combinations in a wide variety of optimization problems," he said.
However, "classical will probably give you the better result" at this time, said Liscouski.
One of the reasons quantum advantage is not yet certain is because the deep phenomena at the heart of the discipline, things such as entanglement, make the field much more complex than early digital computing.
"A lot of people draw the analogy between where we are and the emergence of the transistor," said Moulds.
"I think that's not true: this is not just a case of making the computers we have today smaller and faster and cheaper, we're not anywhere near that regime, that Moore's Law notion of just scaling these things up."
"There's fundamental scientific discoveries that have to be made to build machines that can tackle these sorts of problems on the grand scale that we've been talking about."
Beyond the machines' evolution, there is an evolution implicit for programmers. Quantum brings a fundamentally different approach to programming. "These are physics-based machines, they're not just computational engines that add ones and zeros together, it's not just a faster slide rule," said Moulds.
That different way of programming may, in fact, point the way to some near-term payoff for the Qatalyst software, and Braket. Both Liscouski and Moulds expressed enthusiasm for taking lessons learned from quantum and back-loading them into classical computers.
"Typically, access to quantum computing is through toolkits and resources that require some pretty sophisticated capabilities to program to ultimately get to some result that involves a quantum computer," observed Liscouski.
"With Braket, the platform provides both access to QPUs and classical computing at the same time, and the quantum techniques that we use in the platform will get results for both," said Liscouski.
"It isn't necessarily a black and white decision between quantum and classical," said Moulds. "There's an emerging area, particularly in the area of optimization, people use the term quantum-inspired approaches are used."
"What that means is, looking at the ways that quantum computers actually work and applying that as a new class of algorithms that run on classical machines," he said.
"So, there's a sort of a morphing going on," he said.
An advantage to working with QCI, said Moulds, is that "they bring domain expertise that we don't have," things such as the optimization expertise.
"We've coined the phrase, 'Build on Braket'," said Moulds. "We're trying to build a quantum platform, and we look to companies like QCI to bring domain expertise to use that platform and apply it to problems that customers have really got."
Also important is operational stability and reliability, said Moulds. For a first-tier Web service with tons of users, the priority for Amazon is "running a professional service, a platform that is reliable and secure and durable" on which companies can "build businesses and solve problems."
Although there are "experimental" aspects, he said, "this is not intended to be a best-effort showcase."
Although the quantum advantage is not certain, Moulds holds out the possibility someone working with the technology will find it, perhaps even someone working on Braket.
"The only way we can move this industry forward is by pulling the curtains apart and giving folks the chance to actually see what's real," he said.
"And, boy, the day we see a quantum computer doing something that is materially advantageous from a commercial point of view, you will not miss that moment, I guarantee."
Cleveland Clinic and IBM hope their tech partnership could help prevent the next pandemic – WTHITV.com
After a year in which scientists raced to understand Covid-19 and to develop treatments and vaccines to stop its spread, Cleveland Clinic is partnering with IBM to use next-generation technologies to advance healthcare research and potentially prevent the next public health crisis.
The two organizations on Tuesday announced the creation of the "Discovery Accelerator," which will apply technologies such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence to pressing life sciences research questions. As part of the partnership, Cleveland Clinic will become the first private-sector institution to buy and operate an on-site IBM quantum computer, called the Q System One. Currently, such machines only exist in IBM labs and data centers.
Quantum computing is expected to expedite the rate of discovery and help tackle problems with which existing computers struggle.
The accelerator is part of Cleveland Clinic's new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, a facility introduced in January on the heels of a $500 million investment by the clinic, the state of Ohio and economic development nonprofit JobsOhio to spur innovation in the Cleveland area.
The new center is dedicated to researching and developing treatments for viruses and other disease-causing organisms. That will include some research on Covid-19, including why it causes ongoing symptoms (also called "long Covid") for some who have been infected.
"Covid-19 is an example" of how the center and its new technologies will be used, said Dr. Lara Jehi, chief research information officer at the Cleveland Clinic.
"But ... what we want is to prevent the next Covid-19," Jehi told CNN Business. "Or if it happens, to be ready for it so that we don't have to, as a country, put everything on hold and put all of our resources into just treating this emergency. We want to be proactive and not reactive."
Quantum computers process information in a fundamentally different way from regular computers, so they will be able to solve problems that today's computers can't. They can, for example, test multiple solutions to a problem at once, making it possible to come up with an answer in a fraction of the time it would take a different machine.
Applied to healthcare research, that capability is expected to be useful for modeling molecules and how they interact, which could accelerate the development of new pharmaceuticals. Quantum computers could also improve genetic sequencing to help with cancer research, and design more efficient, effective clinical trials for new drugs, Jehi said.
Ultimately, Cleveland Clinic and IBM expect that applying quantum and other advanced technologies to healthcare research will speed up the rate of discovery and product development. Currently, the average time from scientific discovery in a lab to getting a drug to a patient is around 17 years, according to the National Institutes of Health.
"We really need to accelerate," Jehi said. "What we learned with the Covid-19 pandemic is that we cannot afford, as a human race, to just drop everything and focus on one emergency at a time."
Part of the problem: It takes a long time to process and analyze the massive amount of data generated by healthcare, research and trials something that AI, quantum computing and high-performance computing (a more powerful version of traditional computing) can help with. Quantum computers do that by "simulating the world," said Dario Gil, director of IBM Research.
"Instead of conducting physical experiments, you're conducting them virtually, and because you're doing them virtually through computers, it's much faster," Gil said.
For IBM, the partnership represents an important proof point for commercial applications of quantum computing. IBM currently offers access to quantum computers via the cloud to 134 institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Daimler, but building a dedicated machine on-site for one organization is a big step forward.
"What we're seeing is the emergency of quantum as a new industry within the world of information technology and computing," Gil said. "What we're seeing here in the context of Cleveland Clinic is ... a partner that says, 'I want the entire capacity of a full quantum computer to be [dedicated] to my research mission."
The partnership also includes a training element that will help educate people on how to use quantum computing for research which is likely to further grow the ecosystem around the new technology.
Cleveland Clinic and IBM declined to detail the cost of the quantum system being installed on the clinic's campus, but representatives from both organizations called it a "significant investment." Quantum computers are complex machines to build and maintain because they must be stored at extremely cold temperatures (think: 200 times colder than outer space).
The Cleveland Clinic will start by using IBM's quantum computing cloud offering while waiting for its on-premises machine to be built, which is expected to take about a year. IBM plans to later install at the clinic a more advanced version of its quantum computer once it is developed in the coming years.
Jehi, the Cleveland Clinic research lead, acknowledged that quantum computing technology is still nascent, but said the organization wanted to get in on the ground floor.
"It naturally needs nurturing and growing so that we can figure out what are its applications in healthcare," Jehi said. "It was important to us that we design those applications and we learn them ourselves, rather than waiting for others to develop them."
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Cleveland Clinic and IBM hope their tech partnership could help prevent the next pandemic - WTHITV.com
Fine-tuning the color of light | Stanford News – Stanford University News
Among the first lessons any grade school science student learns is that white light is not white at all, but rather a composite of many photons, those little droplets of energy that make up light, from every color of the rainbow red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Shanhui Fan (Image credit: Rod Searcey)
Now, researchers at Stanford University have developed an optical device that allows engineers to change and fine-tune the frequencies of each individual photon in a stream of light to virtually any mixture of colors they want. The result, published April 23 in Nature Communications, is a new photonic architecture that could transform fields ranging from digital communications and artificial intelligence to cutting-edge quantum computing.
This powerful new tool puts a degree of control in the engineers hands not previously possible, said Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford and senior author of the paper.
The structure consists of a low-loss wire for light (the black line below) carrying a stream of photons that pass by like so many cars on a busy throughway. The photons then enter a series of rings (orange), like the off-ramps in a highway cloverleaf. Each ring has a modulator (EOM in green) that transforms the frequency of the passing photons frequencies which our eyes see as color. There can be as many rings as necessary, and engineers can finely control the modulators to dial in the desired frequency transformation.
Schematic of the new photonic device showing the external waveguide (black), the light-altering rings (orange) and frequency modulators (green). The spectrum on the top left represents the ratio of frequencies of incoming light. The spectrum at the right is the result of the frequency transformation implemented by the system. (Image credit: Courtesy of the Fan Lab)
Among the applications that the researchers envision include optical neural networks for artificial intelligence that perform neural computations using light instead of electrons. Existing methods that accomplish optical neural networks do not actually change the frequencies of the photons, but simply reroute photons of a single frequency. Performing such neural computations through frequency manipulation could lead to much more compact devices, say the researchers.
Our device is a significant departure from existing methods with a small footprint and yet offering tremendous new engineering flexibility, said Avik Dutt, a post-doctoral scholar in Fans lab and second author of the paper.
The color of a photon is determined by the frequency at which the photon resonates, which, in turn, is a factor of its wavelength. A red photon has a relatively slow frequency and a wavelength of about 650 nanometers. At the other end of the spectrum, blue light has a much faster frequency with a wavelength of about 450 nanometers.
A simple transformation might involve shifting a photon from a frequency of 500 nanometers to, say, 510 nanometers or, as the human eye would register it, a change from cyan to green. The power of the Stanford teams architecture is that it can perform these simple transformations, but also much more sophisticated ones with fine control.
To further explain, Fan offers an example of an incoming light stream comprised of 20 percent photons in the 500-nanometer range and 80 percent at 510 nanometers. Using this new device, an engineer could fine-tune that ratio to 73 percent at 500 nanometers and 27 percent at 510 nanometers, if so desired, all while preserving the total number of photons. Or the ratio could 37 and 63 percent, for that matter. This ability to set the ratio is what makes this device new and promising. Moreover, in the quantum world, a single photon can have multiple colors. In that circumstance, the new device actually allows changing of the ratio of different colors for a single photon.
We say this device allows for arbitrary transformation but that does not mean random, said Siddharth Buddhiraju, who was a graduate student in Fans lab during the research and is first author of the paper and who now works at Facebook Reality Labs. Instead, we mean that we can achieve any linear transformation that the engineer requires. There is a great amount of engineering control here.
Its very versatile. The engineer can control the frequencies and proportions very accurately and a wide variety of transformations are possible, Fan added. It puts new power in the engineers hands. How they will use it is up to them.
Additional authors include postdoctoral scholars Momchil Minkov, now at Flexcompute, and Ian A. D. Williamson, now at Google X.
This research was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
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Quantum Computing Market Share Current and Future Industry Trends, 2020 to 2027 The Courier – The Courier
Quantum Computing Market is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. This analysis provides an examination of various market segments that are relied upon to observe the fastest development amid the estimated forecast frame. The report encompasses market definition, currency and pricing, market segmentation, market overview, premium insights, key insights and company profile of the key market players. The persuasive Quantum Computing market report also helps to know about the types of consumers, their response and views about particular products, and their thoughts for the step up of a product.
Quantum computing is an advanced developing computer technology which is based on the quantum mechanics and quantum theory. The quantum computer has been used for the quantum computing which follows the concepts of quantum physics. The quantum computing is different from the classical computing in terms of speed, bits and the data. The classical computing uses two bits only named as 0 and 1, whereas the quantum computing uses all the states in between the 0 and 1, which helps in better results and high speed. Quantum computing has been used mostly in the research for comparing the numerous solutions and to find an optimum solution for a complex problem and it has been used in the sectors like chemicals, utilities, defence, healthcare & pharmaceuticals and various other sectors. Quantum computing is used for the applications like cryptography, machine learning, algorithms, quantum simulation, quantum parallelism and others on the basis of the technologies of qubits like super conducting qubits, trapped ion qubits and semiconductor qubits. Since the technology is still in its growing phase, there are many research operations conducted by various organizations and universities including study on quantum computing for providing advanced and modified solutions for different applications. For instance, Mercedes Benz has been conducting research over the quantum computing and how it can be used for discovering the new battery materials for advanced batteries which can be used in electric cars. Mercedes Benz has been working in collaboration with the IBM on IBM Q network program, which allows the companies in accessing the IBMs Q network and early stage computing systems over the cloud. Global quantum computing market is projected to register a healthy CAGR of 29.5% in the forecast period of 2019 to 2026.
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Quantum Computing Market Scope and Segmentation:
Global quantum computing market is segmented into seven notable segments which are system, qubits, deployment model, component, application, logic gates and vertical.
Quantum Computing Market Country Level Analysis
For detailed insights on Global Quantum Computing Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue Share Analysis (Million USD) by Players, Revenue Market Share (%) by Players and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product differentiation, new entrants are also considered in heat map concentration.
New Business Strategies, Challenges & Policies are mentioned in Table of Content, Request TOC at @https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-quantum-computing-market&Somesh
Leading Key Players Operating in the Quantum Computing Market Includes:
Some of the major players operating in this market are Honeywell International, Inc., Accenture, Fujitsu, Rigetti & Co, Inc., 1QB Information Technologies, Inc., IonQ, Atom Computing, ID Quantique, QuintessenceLabs, Toshiba Research Europe Ltd, Google,Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Xanadu, Magiq Technologies, Inc., QX branch, NEC Corporation, Anyon System,Inc. Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited, QC Ware Corp, Intel Corporation and others.
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The Quantum Computing Market research covers a comprehensive analysis of the following facts:
Table of Content:
PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT
PART 03: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
PART 04: INTRODUCTION
PART 05: MARKET LANDSCAPE
PART 06: MARKET SIZING
PART 07: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS
PART 08: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY PRODUCT
PART 09: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL
PART 10: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE
PART 11: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY END-USER
PART 12: REGIONAL LANDSCAPE
PART 13: DECISION FRAMEWORK
PART 14: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES
PART 15: MARKET TRENDS
PART 16: COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
PART 17: COMPANY PROFILES
PART 18: APPENDIX
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Atos unveils global R&D Lab to drive innovation in Cybersecurity, High Performance Computing and Quantum – Yahoo Finance UK
Les Clayes-sous-Bois (Yvelines), France - April 22, 2021 Atos today officially inaugurates its new global Research & Development Lab in Les Clayes-sous-Bois, in the greater Paris metropolitan area (Yvelines), France. The new 8,000 m2 lab, which hosts around 350 of Atos highly qualified engineers, provides a modern space dedicated to research in quantum computing, high-performance computing, edge, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
Supported by the Ile-de-France Region and built on Atos existing site at Les Clayes-sous-Bois, which employs almost 1,000 people, this lab is another milestone in Atos strategy to develop and globally position the historical site of Clayes-sous-Bois and the Ile-de-France Region as a strong center of technical expertise. Atos Quantum, Atos quantum computing research program and the first major quantum industry program in Europe, benefits from an investment of 5 million from the Ile-de-France Region as part of its Smart Industry strategy, adopted in July 2017.
Innovation to support the fight against global warming
Decarbonization is a key priority for Atos. The company is committed to reducing the global carbon emissions under its control and influence by 50% by 2025 and to achieve "zero net emissions", by 2028. The research developed in this new laboratory, meeting the highest environmental standards, will focus on innovation to support the fight against global warming, such as using quantum calculation or the energy efficiency of supercomputers to accelerate society's journey to carbon neutrality. Another example is the development of a supercomputer brain that will be able to predict and optimize energy consumption based on the workload and the energy available in the electricity providers grids.
Inauguration Ceremony
The inauguration ceremony saw Valrie Pcresse, President of the Ile-de-France Regional Council say: I am proud to be part of this development of the industry of the future in the Ile-de-France Region. This new building and investment show that we are preparing the future right here, right now. We are committed to making the Ile-de-France Region a territory of innovation, a digital leader at the heart of the economic fabric. This new R&D lab is in line with our plans to promote the implementation and development of strategic technologies, in particular quantum computing, in the Ile-de-France Region.
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In partnership with the Ile-de-France Region, I am thrilled to officially open our new R&D Lab today which illustrates more than 50 years of research work carried out at our historical site of Clayes-sous-Bois. From this symbolic site we will drive forward our ambitious quantum computing program and develop strategic technologies, products and solutions that will be sold worldwide, and that will help shape a safe, decarbonized future said Elie Girard, CEO Atos.
Atos Quantum: a global program
The R&D lab will accommodate the research work conducted as part of the Atos Quantum program, launched in 2016, which aims to accelerate the development of scientific and industry-relevant quantum computing use-cases. Atos researchers developed the Atos Quantum Learning Machine (Atos QLM), the world's highest-performing commercially available quantum simulator, which is already being used in numerous countries worldwide including Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UK and the United States, empowering major research programs in various sectors like industry or energy. Atos also recently launched Q-score, the first universal quantum metrics, applicable to all programmable quantum processors, measures a quantum systems effectiveness at handling real-life problems, rather than simply measuring its theoretical performance.
Watch the video presentation of the new Atos R&D laboratory at the following link: https://youtu.be/-TOyFZuf-LQ (in French). Elie Girard and Valrie Pcresse, President of the le-de-France Regional Council, discuss the new lab, followed by a virtual visit of the new site with Philippe Guiguen, Mayor of Clayes-sous-Bois and the entire Atos team: Sophie Proust, CTO; Pierre Barnab Head of Big Data and Cybersecurity; Arnaud Bertrand, Director of Strategy and Innovation Big Data and Cybersecurity; Agnes Boudot, Director of HPC, AI & Quantum activities and Cyril Allouche, R&D Director, Quantum Computing.
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About Atos
Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 105,000 employees and annual revenue of over 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos operates under the brands Atos and Atos|Syntel. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.
The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space. http://www.atos.net
About the le-de-France Region
The le-de-France region plays a driving role for employment and French growth, both in terms of its economic weight and its influence. Leading economic region in Europe and third in the world, behind Tokyo and New York, the le-de-France is a territory of innovation, which concentrates 40% of Frances R&D activities, and which benefits from an international attractiveness. The le-de-France region acts in most of the areas that concern the daily life of the 12 million Franciliens: transport, but also high schools, economic development, the environment etc. In a space that covers 2% of the French territory but brings together 18% of its population and nearly 30% of the national GDP, the Region leads a development policy that places innovation and environment at its heart.
Press contacts:
Atos: Lucie Duchateau lucie.duchateau@atos.net - +33(0) 7 62 85 35 10
le-de-France Rgion: Elonore Flaceliere - eleonore.flaceliere@iledefrance.fr
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Atos unveils global R&D Lab to drive innovation in Cybersecurity, High Performance Computing and Quantum - Yahoo Finance UK
The first 100 days: What does President Bidens approach to the world look like so far? – Brookings Institution
As we reach the end of this early chapterthese first 100 daysof the new Biden administration, much can be said about the dramatically different world view of this president when compared to President Trump and his America First mantra. In many ways, the early actions of the Biden-Harris White House resemble the forward-leaning, solution-focused optimism of the early Obama administration, but with a far greater emphasis on the connectivity between U.S. foreign affairs and American domestic politics. Indeed, President Bidens central Foreign Policy for the Middle Class argument, which places domestic economic renewal as the top priority of Americas actions abroad, speaks to this viewpoint directly. It also highlights the manner in which domestic political considerations and opinions drive policy objectives for President Bidenanother key theme thus far.
A Biden Doctrine?
An emerging Biden doctrine can be found in the release of its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (iNSS)a precursor document to the official National Security Strategy (NSS)only two months after taking office. No document to date better encapsulates President Bidens world view and the likely trajectory of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, the document seeks to foretell the administrations strategic vision, but two quotes stand out: 1) In advancing Americas interests globally, we will make smart and disciplined choices regarding our national defense and the responsible use of our military, while elevating diplomacy as our tool of first resort, and 2) At a time of multiple, intersecting crises, we must recognize that our strength abroad requires the United States to build back better at home.
In so many ways, these comments define the still-nascent Biden doctrine. The document also speaks at length about the Biden administrations desire to reinvigorate American leadership within international institutions, to join with fellow allies and partners in strengthening our shared values all around the world, and to confront the revolution in technology that poses both peril and promise.
On this latter point about emerging technology, which includes artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, advanced robotics, and more, the strategic need for American leadership is truly pressing. New technologies are in many ways both the key to and the vital intersection of healing our society and building back better, ensuring Americas role as a geopolitical leader, and the coalescing of democratic nations around a common purpose. Especially given Chinas surging technology sector, the long-term strategic viability of the United States and our allies may lie in our leadership around the creation and deployment, but also the character, of these technologies. New and emerging technologies are likely to be the driving force of the 21st century at multiple levels, and the inclusion of this issue in the iNSS is essential.
Though still early, the Biden administration has moved decisively on several fronts promised during the campaign and spelled out in the interim guidance: resuming negotiations with Iran, rejoining of the Paris Climate Agreement, and expressing the Presidents outspoken support of NATO. Associated with these moves, the Biden administration has rightly said that it desires a review of many existing U.S. policies at home and abroad. Friend and foe alike are eagerly awaiting the outcomes of these reviews, which for some seem to be taking an eternity.
Implementing policy
In his first 100 days Biden has not only begun to sketch out a coherent doctrine but he has appointed leaders who are aligned with his perspectives and have significant foreign policy experience both in Washington and abroad, and across multiple prior administrations. From Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns, United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and likely USAID Administrator Samantha Power, theirs is a perspective tempered by decades of lived experience, public service in support of the American people, and exposure to prior presidential leadership and policy perspectives. And importantly, the department and agency teams these individuals have begun to bring on board have thus far showcased a similar level of expertise. This latter point is essential, as these are the individuals placed in charge of actually implementing major U.S. policy decisions.
The character of American leadership
In addition to these important early observations, one additional question is central to the Biden administrations world view, which has been voiced by a number of foreign officials in recent months: Is President Biden a return to the traditional rule for American leadership, or are he and his administration now the exception to the new rule following four years of America First foreign policy, ultra-nationalism, and an overall doctrine of transactional U.S. engagement? The definitive answer to that question will of course be found in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Until that time however, the Biden administration will almost certainly do everything in its power to strengthen multilateral relationships and international institutions, and to, at minimum, reassure our allies that America leadership is back on the world stage. This same logic applies to their urgency to prove President Bidens legitimacy at home, too, via a foreign policy focused on domestic American prosperity. This White House has a truly pressing need to prove wrong the naysayers at home and abroad; Americas ability to operate as a credible global actor depends on it.
Only time will tell if the palpable uncertainty, trending to genuine concern, amongst U.S. allies is well-placed. This dynamic is a pall hanging over the Biden administration. Such efforts will also be central to President Bidens overall approach to the world as well as his policy calculations when engaging abroad. Here, winning hearts and minds is as important internationally as it is at home (i.e., the previously mentioned Foreign Policy for the Middle Class concept). The desire to bring together the worlds democracies for a Summit for Democracy is grounded in this priority, too. Only together can democratic states strengthen their shared commitments and values and push back against the global rise of authoritarianism and radicalism.
The global race to develop new and emerging technologies is also crucial to this point. Over the mid- to long-term, no one nation will be able to compete against China in the creation and deployment of technology. Beyond the literal strategic implications of such a reality, it also risks the slow evolution of a world bifurcated not only by both the technologies we use, but also the values that informed their creation and ultimately their employment. From advanced surveillance networks to autonomous weapons systems, there are lines that global democracies will likely never cross, but which our adversaries will assuredly ignore.
So, what then of the days ahead?
From the continuing, though lessening, devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic; a teetering economy characterized by staggering income inequality; the looming threat of climate change; pervasive scourge of systemic racism; and the steady rise of authoritarian leaders inimical to our values, few if any other administrations have inherited more challenges on its first day in office. President Biden has shown a desire to frame U.S. foreign policy objectives around fair competition and collaboration, especially around issues like climate change, COVID-19, or even the U.S.-China relationship. The aforementioned democracy summit, which is aligned with this latter approach, would bring together a global, values-based community of democracies united by system of government, the interrelationships of their economies and commitment to free and fair trade, the aggregation of their technologies dedicated to the public good, and more
Though none can truly know the full measure of tomorrows challenges, we can safely assume this solution-focused, multilateral world view will persist across the trying months and years ahead.
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The first 100 days: What does President Bidens approach to the world look like so far? - Brookings Institution
Cleveland Clinic and IBM Partner on HPC, AI and Quantum Computing – insideHPC
ARMONK, N.Y.andCLEVELAND Cleveland Clinicand IBM (NYSE:IBM) have announced a planned 10-year partnership to establish the Discovery Accelerator, a joint effort to advance the pace of discovery in healthcare and life sciences through the use of high performance computing on the hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing technologies.
The collaboration is anticipated to build a robust research and clinical infrastructure to empower big data medical research in ethical, privacy preserving ways, discoveries for patient care and novel approaches to public health threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the Discovery Accelerator,the researchers plan to use advanced computational technology to generate and analyze data to help enhance research in the newGlobal Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health,in areas such as: genomics, single cell transcriptomics, population health, clinical applications, and chemical and drug discovery.
Through this innovative collaboration, we have a unique opportunity to bring the future to life, saidTom Mihaljevic, M.D., CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic. These new computing technologies can help revolutionize discovery in the life sciences.The Discovery Accelerator will enable our renowned teams to build a forward-looking digital infrastructure and help transform medicine, while training the workforce of the future and potentially growing our economy.
The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned one of the greatest races in the history of scientific discovery one that demands unprecedented agility and speed, saidArvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM. At the same time, science is experiencing a change of its own with high performance computing, hybrid cloud, data, AI, and quantum computing, being used in new ways to break through long-standing bottlenecks in scientific discovery. Our new collaboration with Cleveland Clinic will combine their world-renowned expertise in healthcare and life sciences with IBMs next-generation technologies to make scientific discovery faster, and the scope of that discovery larger than ever.
Quantum will make the impossible possible, and whenthe Governor and I announced the Cleveland Innovation District earlier this year, this was the kind of innovative investment I hoped it would advance, said Ohio Lt. GovernorJon Husted, Director of InnovateOhio. A partnership between these two great institutions will putCleveland, andOhio, on the map for advanced medical and scientific research, providing a unique opportunity to improve treatment options for patients and solve some of our greatest healthcare challenges.
The Discovery Accelerator will serve as the technology foundation for Cleveland Clinics newGlobal Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health,announced last month as part of theCleveland Innovation District. The center, supported by a$500 millioninvestment from theState of Ohio, Jobs Ohio and Cleveland Clinic, brings together a research team focused on broadening understanding of viral pathogens, virus-induced cancers, genomics, immunology and immunotherapies. It will build upon Cleveland Clinics existing programs and expertise, with newly recruited world leaders in immunology, cancer biology, immune-oncology and infectious disease research as well as technology development and education. Researchers will expand critical work on studying, preparing and protecting against emerging pathogens and virus-related diseases.
The pace of progress in science historically has been limited by bottlenecks. Researchers are increasingly working to overcome these bottlenecks with the application of AI, quantum computing and hybrid cloud technologies. New technologies are enabling accelerated methods of discovery that include deep search, AI and quantum-enriched simulation, generative models, and cloud-based AI-driven autonomous labs. Leveraging these combined innovations will supercharge new generations of information technology,fuel important advances in science, and IBM will provide access to a variety of research and commercial technologies, education and tools to assist Cleveland Clinic in accelerating discovery in healthcare and life science, includingRoboRXN, a cloud-based platform that combines AI models and robots to help scientists design and synthesize new molecules remotely; theIBM Functional Genomics Platform, a cloud-based repository and research tool, which uses novel approaches to reveal the molecular features in viral and bacterial genomes to help accelerate discovery of molecular targets required for drug design, test development and treatment;Deep Search,which helps researchers access structured and unstructured data quickly; andHigh-Performance Hybrid Cloud Computingtechnologies that can enable researchers to burst their workloads into the cloud and access the resources they need at scale.
Quantum computing has the potential to have an immense impact on key healthcare challenges, such as the discovery of new molecules that can serve as the basis of new pharmaceutical breakthroughs and spur the development of new medicines and could help enhance the ability to derive deep insight from complex data that is at the heart of some of the largest challenges in healthcare.
The Discovery Accelerator will leverage IBMs multi-year roadmap for advancing quantum computing, bringing its revolutionary capabilities into the hands of scientists and practitioners in healthcare and life sciences. In addition to an on-premises quantum system, Cleveland Clinic will also have access to IBMs fleet of currently more than 20 quantum systems, accessible via the cloud. IBM is targeting to unveil its first next generation 1,000+ qubit quantum system in 2023, and Cleveland Clinic is planned to be the site of the first private-sector on-premises system.
A significant pillar of the program plans to focus on educating the workforce of the future and creating jobs to grow the economy. The 10-year collaboration plans to include education and workforce development opportunities related to quantum computing.
The innovative educational curriculum will be designed for participants from high school to professional level and offer training and certification programs in data science and quantum computing, building the skilled workforce needed for cutting-edge data science research of the future. Cleveland Clinic and IBM plan to hold research symposia and workshops with joint sessions by IBM and academic researchersfor academia, industry, government and the general public.
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Cleveland Clinic and IBM Partner on HPC, AI and Quantum Computing - insideHPC
OneConnect Financial Technology and Singapore Management University announce key findings from joint research on potential for quantum computing to…
SINGAPORE, April 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OneConnect Financial Technology Co., Ltd. (OneConnect) the leading technology-as-a-service platform provider and an associate of Ping An Insurance Group, and Singapore Management University (SMU) today announced the key findings from a jointly conducted research on the potential of quantum computing to augment blockchain technology for businesses. The research report has been vetted by the Blockchain Association Singapore (BAS) and the findings were shared at the BAS webinar titled "Enterprise Blockchain in the New Decade" earlier today, moderated by Ms Tan Bin Ru, Co-Chairwoman of BAS, who is also CEO (SEA) of OneConnect Financial Technology.
The findings from this research follow an earlier Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between OneConnect and SMU in 2019 to develop a Proof of Concept (POC) to investigate the characteristics of quantum computing for distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). Co-led by Associate Professor Paul Griffin from SMU School of Computing and Information Systems, the report focused on studying quantum algorithms that could augment blockchain technology in the area of robust large-scale consensus.
While reviewing various types of consensus mechanisms and the suitability of quantum computing in business, the research has shown that the inherent constraints faced by classical DLTs known as the "blockchain trilemma", or the notion of improving all three fundamental attributes of blockchain speed, security and size at once could be broken by quantum technologies, thus increasing potential business usage. For current blockchains, a longer time is required to reach a consensus for highly secure DLTs, and increasing the speed of consensus leads to lower security.
The result findings from the research project include:
Ms Tan Bin Ru shared, "We are excited to be announcing the results and insights gathered from this joint research over the last one year it has indeed been a remarkable journey and a significant milestone that we are sharing with SMU today. Collaborations like these will allow us to better understand and lay the groundwork for the potentialof blockchain technology that can be applied to businesses in the future, such asimproving financing and the under-banked woes. We look forward to continuing long-term partnerships with educational institutes like SMU to potentially expand its usefulness in industry applications."
Associate Professor Paul Griffin, a speaker at the BAS webinar, shared, "It has been a wonderful journey with OneConnect to work on this exciting future-oriented research. The potential for quantum computing is just beginning to be explored and this project has helped to move this forward in a relevant area for the industry. SMU would like to thank all the people involved and look forward to continuing this and other research with OneConnect in the future."
Following the joint research, OneConnect and SMU will continue to forge partnerships in the areas of innovation and building talents for the digital economy.
About OneConnect Financial Technology
OneConnect Financial Technology Co., Ltd. (NYSE: OCFT) is a leading technology-as-a-service platform for financial institutions. The Company's platform provides cloud-native technology solutions that integrate extensive financial services industry expertise with market-leading technology. The Company's solutions provide technology applications and technology-enabled business services to financial institutions. Together they enable the Company's customers' digital transformations, which help them increase revenue, manage risks, improve efficiency, enhance service quality and reduce costs.
The Company's 13 technology solutions strategically cover multiple verticals in the financial services industry, including banking, insurance and asset management, across the full scope of their businesses from sales and marketing and risk management to customer services, as well as technology infrastructures such as data management, program development, and cloud services.
About Singapore Management University
A premier university in Asia, the Singapore Management University (SMU) is internationally recognised for its world-class research and distinguished teaching. Established in 2000, SMU's mission is to generate leading-edge research with global impact and to produce broad-based, creative and entrepreneurial leaders for the knowledge-based economy. SMU's education is known for its highly interactive, collaborative and project-based approach to learning.
Home to over 11,000 students across undergraduate, postgraduate professional and postgraduate research programmes, SMU comprises six schools: School of Accountancy, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, School of Economics, School of Computing and Information Systems, School of Law, and School of Social Sciences. SMU offers a wide range of bachelors', masters', and PhD degree programmes in the disciplinary areas associated with the six schools, as well as in multidisciplinary combinations of these areas.
SMU emphasises rigorous, high-impact, multi- and interdisciplinary research that addresses Asian issues of global relevance. SMU faculty members collaborate with leading international researchers and universities around the world, as well as with partners in the business community and public sector. SMU's city campus is a modern facility located in the heart of downtown Singapore, fostering strategic linkages with business, government and the wider community. http://www.smu.edu.sg
About Blockchain Association Singapore
The Blockchain Association Singapore (BAS) seeks to empower its members and the community to leverage blockchain and scalable technologies for business growth and transformation. The Association is designed to be an effective platform for members to engage with multiple stakeholders - both regional and international - to discover solutions and promote best practices in a collaborative, open, and transparent manner.
It aims to promote blockchain literacy and build a strong talent pipeline for the digital economy in Singapore. BAS also aims to accelerate the development of blockchain companies operating in or entering into Singapore, and their subsequent integration and acceleration into the Singapore blockchain ecosystem.
For more information, please visithttps://singaporeblockchain.org/.
SOURCE OneConnect
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OneConnect Financial Technology and Singapore Management University announce key findings from joint research on potential for quantum computing to...
Cleveland Clinic, IBM launch 10-year quantum computing partnership – Healthcare IT News
On Tuesday Cleveland Clinic announced a decade-long partnership with IBM, designed to harness the power of quantum computing for next-generation medical research.
WHY IT MATTERSWith the joint launch of their new Discovery Accelerator, Cleveland Clinic and IBM aim to expand the speed and scope of healthcare and life science research, they say, and hope to uncover innovative approaches to public health emergencies such as COVID-19.
Key to the new collaboration is installation of the first private-sector, on-premise IBM Quantum System One in the U.S. In addition to that on-campus deployment, Big Blue will also, in the years ahead install another next-generation 1,000-plus qubit quantum system at a client facility in Cleveland hopefully by 2023. The clinic will also have cloud access to more than 20 other IBM quantum systems.
Such computing power could enable big advances in data-intensive research areas such as genomics, single cell transcriptomics, population health and drug discovery, while also facilitating faster development of an array of new clinical applications.
Cleveland Clinic says the Discovery Accelerator will also provide a technology foundation for its new Global Center for Pathogen Research andHuman Health, first announced in January.
Together the health system and its partners at IBM hope that harnessing quantum computing, hybrid cloud technologies and artificial intelligence will enable faster gains from leading-edge innovationssuch as deep search, quantum-enriched simulation, generative models and cloud-based AI-driven autonomous labs.
Among the other IBM technologies made available to Cleveland Clinic areRoboRXN, a cloud platform to help scientists synthesize new molecules remotely with robots and AI algorithms, and the cloud-based IBM Functional Genomics Platform, designed to speed discovery of molecular targets required for drug design.
THE LARGER TRENDQuantum computing has shown big potential for many years that's only just starting to be tapped. Its enormous processing power could enable new breakthroughs in drug design and the development of new therapeutics.
Back in 2013, we offered an early look at what quantum computers could do for healthcare, and tried to explain in layman's terms just how they work.
Rather than binary 1/0 digital technology, quantum machines operate using quantum bits or qubits that can exist in what's referred to as "superposition." They can be ones or zeroes, or they can be in multiple states at once.
That means that powerful quantum computers can make multiple computations at once enabling speed and horsepower beyond even advanced conventional supercomputers.
Two years ago, as Google claimed it had achieved "quantum supremacy,"and IBM pushed back on that claim,we noted that, despite the enormous promise, real-world applications were still a bit further in the future.
"No one should be putting a down payment on a quantum computer today," said one developer we spoke with. "The methods used today in AI/ML are well understood and run reasonably fast on conventional computers."
Clearly, Cleveland Clinic thinks differently, and is investing now to position itself for big research breakthroughs in the near future.
Its 10-year partnership with IBM puts a focus on education, training and workforce development from high school to the professional level related to quantum computing, with the goal of creating new jobs in the Cleveland area.
"Quantum will make the impossible possible," said Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted, Director of InnovateOhio. "A partnership between these two great institutions will put Cleveland, and Ohio, on the map for advanced medical and scientific research, providing a unique opportunity to improve treatment options for patients and solve some of our greatest healthcare challenges."
ON THE RECORD"Through this innovative collaboration, we have a unique opportunity to bring the future to life," said Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Tom Mihaljevic, in a statement. "These new computing technologies can help revolutionize discovery in the life sciences. The Discovery Accelerator will enable our renowned teams to build a forward-looking digital infrastructure and help transform medicine, while training the workforce of the future and potentially growing our economy."
"The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned one of the greatest races in the history of scientific discovery one that demands unprecedented agility and speed," added IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. "At the same time, science is experiencing a change of its own with high performance computing, hybrid cloud, data, AI, and quantum computing, being used in new ways to break through long-standing bottlenecks in scientific discovery."
Twitter:@MikeMiliardHITNEmail the writer:mike.miliard@himssmedia.comHealthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.
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Cleveland Clinic, IBM launch 10-year quantum computing partnership - Healthcare IT News
Quantum computing: How basic broadband fiber could pave the way to the next breakthrough – ZDNet
Google's Sycamore quantum processor.
The usefulness of most quantum computers is still significantly limited by the low number of qubits that hardware can support. But simple fiber optic cables just like the ones used for broadband connections could be the answer.
A team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that, with just a few tweaks,optical fiber can be used to communicate with the qubits sitting inside superconducting quantum computers, with the same level of accuracy as existing methods.
Unlike the metal wires currently used, it is easy to multiply the number of fiber optic cables in a single device, which means it is possible to communicate with more qubits. According to NIST, the findings pave the way to packing a million qubits into a quantum computer. Most devices currently support less than a hundred.
SEE: Hiring Kit: Computer Hardware Engineer (TechRepublic Premium)
Superconducting quantum computers, such as the ones that IBM and Google are building, require qubits to sit on a quantum processor that is cooled to a temperature of 15 milikelvin colder than outer space to protect the particles' extremely fragile quantum state.
But whether to control the qubits or measure them, researchers first need to communicate with the processor. This means a connection line must be established between room-temperature electronics and the cryogenic environment of the quantum circuit.
Typically, scientists use microwave pulses to communicate with qubits. With different frequencies and durations, the pulses can influence the state of the qubit; or researchers can look at the amplitude of the reflected microwave signal to "read" qubit-based information.
Microwave pulses are normally sent down to the ultra-cold qubits through coaxial metal cables. This comes with a practical problem: sets of metal cables can be used to connect with to up to 1,000 qubits, after which it becomes physically unworkable to build more wiring in a single system.
Yet companies have ambitious goals when it comes to scaling up quantum computers. IBM, for example, is expected to surpass the 1,000 qubit mark by 2023 with a processor called IBM Quantum Condor, and iseyeing a long-term goal of a million-qubit quantum system.
John Teufel, a researcher at NIST who worked on the institute's latest research, explains that coaxial metal cables won't cut it for much longer. "The focus of most real-life quantum computing efforts has been to push forward using conventional wiring methods," Teufel tells ZDNet.
"While this has not yet been the bottleneck for state-of-the-art systems, it will become important in the very near future...All the companies that are pursuing quantum-computing efforts are well aware that new breakthroughs will be required to reach their ultimate goal."
The researchers opted to replace metal cables with familiar optical fiber technology.
To address this issue, Teufel and his team at NIST opted to replace metal cables with familiar optical fiber technology, which, based on a glass or plastic core, was anticipated to carry a high volume of signals to the qubits without conducting heat.
Using conventional technology, the researchers converted microwave pulses into light signals that can be transported by the optical cables. Once the light particles reach the quantum processor, they are converted back into microwaves by cryogenic photodetectors, and then delivered to the qubit.
Optical fiber was used to both control and measure qubits, with promising results: the new set-up resulted in accurate rendering of the qubit's state 98% of the time, which is the same accuracy as obtained using regular coaxial lines.
Teufel and his team now envision a quantum processor in which light in optical fibers transmits a signal to and from the qubit, with each qubit talking to a wire. "Unlike conventional metal coaxial cables, the fiber itself is not the bottleneck for how many qubits you could talk to," says Teufel. "You could simply give each qubit a dedicated fiber through which to send signals, even for a million-qubit system. A million fibers seems feasible, while a million coaxial lines does not."
Another advantage of optical cable, notes Teufel, is the information carrying capacity of a single fiber, which is much greater than that of a metal cable. Many more signals up to several thousand can be sent through one optical wire, and the scientist envisions separating and re-routing those signals to different qubits in the processor. This would effectively enable a single fiber optic cable to talk to several qubits at once.
The experiment is yet to be carried out. In the meantime, Teufel is confident that all eyes will be on NIST's latest findings. "Novel wiring methods, like the one we have shown here, will eventually be required to maintain the incredible growth trajectory of quantum computing efforts," says Teufel.
"We do not suggest that our new method is the only long-term solution, but we are excited to see that this new idea looks incredibly promising. I expect that companies will be looking closely at this work to see if these new methods can be incorporated into their future strategies."
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Quantum computing: How basic broadband fiber could pave the way to the next breakthrough - ZDNet