Monday markedtwo years since the passage of the National Quantum Initiative, or NQI Actand in that time, federal agencies followed through on its early calls and helped lay the groundwork for new breakthroughs across the U.S. quantum realm.

Now, the sights of those helping implement the law are set on the future.

I would say in five years, something we'd love to see is ... a better idea of, What are the applications for a quantum computer thats buildable in the next fiveto 10 years, that would be beneficial to society? the Office of Science and Technology Policy Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science Dr. Charles Tahan told Nextgov in an interview Friday. He also serves as the director of the National Quantum Coordination Officea cooperation-pushing hub established by the legislation.

Tahan reflected on some foundational moves made over the last 24 months and offered a glimpse into his teams big-ticket priorities for 2021.

Quantum devices and technologies are among an ever-evolving field that hones in on phenomena at the atomic scale. Potential applications are coming to light, and are expected to radically reshape science, engineering, computing, networking, sensing, communication and more. They offer promises like unhackable internet or navigation support in places disconnected from GPS.

Federal agencies have a long history of exploring physical sciences and quantum-related pursuitsbut previous efforts were often siloed. Signed by President Donald Trump in 2018, the NQI Act sought to provide for a coordinated federal program to accelerate quantum research and development for the economic and national security of America. It assigned specific jobs for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Energy Department and National Science Foundation, among others, and mandated new collaborations to boost the nations quantum workforce talent pipeline and strengthen societys grasp of this relatively fresh area of investment. The functions of the National Quantum Coordination Office, or NQCO, were also set forth in the bill, and it was officially instituted in early 2019. Since then, the group has helped connect an array of relevant stakeholders and facilitate new initiatives proposed by the law.

Now, everything that's been called out in the act has been establishedits started up, Tahan explained. He noted the three agencies with weighty responsibilities spent 2019 planning out their courses of action within their communities, and this year, subsequently launched weighty new efforts.

One of the latest was unveiled in August by the Energy Department, which awarded $625 million over five yearssubject to appropriationsto its Argonne, Brookhaven, Fermi, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories to establish QIS Research Centers. In each, top thinkers will link up to push forward collaborative research spanning many disciplines. Academic and private-sector institutions also pledged to provide $340 million in contributions for the work.

These are about $25 million eachthat's a tremendous amount of students, and postdocs, and researchers, Tahan said. And those are spread out across the country, focusing on all different areas of quantum: computing, sensing and networking.

NSF this summer also revealed the formation of new Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes to tackle fundamental research hurdles in quantum information science and engineering over the next half-decade. The University of Colorado, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, and University of California, Berkeley are set to head and house the first three institutes, though Tahan confirmed more could be launched next year. The initiative is backed by $75 million in federal fundingand while it will take advantage of existing infrastructures, non-governmental entities involved are also making their own investments and constructing new facilities.

That's the foundation, you know, Tahan said. The teams have been formed, the research plans have been writtenthat's a tremendous amount of workand now they're off actually working. So now, we start to reap the rewards because all the heavy lifting of getting people organized has been done.

Together with NSF, OSTP also helped set in motion the National Q-12 Education Partnership. It intends to connect public, private and academic sector quantum players and cohesively create and release learning materials to help U.S. educators produce new courses to engage students with quantum fields. The work is ultimately meant to spur K-12 students' interest in the emerging areas earlier into their education, and NSF will award nearly $1 million across QIS education efforts through the work.

And beyond the governments walls and those of academia, the NQI Act also presented new opportunities for industry. Meeting the laws requirements, NIST helped convene a consortium of cross-sector stakeholders to strategically confront existing quantum-related technology, standards and workforce gaps, and needs. This year, that groupthe Quantum Economic Development Consortium, or QED-Cbloomed in size, established a more formal membership structure and announced companies that make up its steering committee.

It took a year or more to get all these companies together and then write partnership agreements. So, that partnership agreement was completed towards the beginning of summer, and the steering committee signed it over the summer, and now there are I think 100 companies or so who have signed it, Tahan said. So, it's up and running. It's a real economic development consortiumthats a technical thingand that's a big deal. And how big it is, and how fast it's growing is really, really remarkable.

This fall also brought the launch of quantum.gov, a one-stop website streamlining federal work and policies. The quantum coordination office simultaneously released a comprehensive roadmap pinpointing crucial areas of needed research, deemed the Quantum Frontiers Report.

That assessment incorporates data collected from many workshops, and prior efforts OSTP held to promote the national initiative and establishes eight frontiers that contain core problems with fundamental questions confronting QIS today and must be addressed to push forward research and development breakthroughs in the space. They include expanding opportunities for quantum technologies to benefit society, characterizing and mitigating quantum errors, and more.

It tries to cut through the hype a little bit, Tahan explained. It's a field that requires deep technical expertise. So, it's easy to be led in the wrong direction if you don't have all the data. So we try to narrow it down into here are the important problems, here's what we really don't know, heres what we do know, and go this way, and that will, hopefully benefit the whole enterprise.

Quantum-focused strides have also been made by the U.S. on the international front. Tahan pointed to the first quantum cooperation agreement signed between America and Japan late last year, which laid out basic core values guiding their working together.

We've been using that as a model to engage with other countries. We've had high-level meetings with Australia, industry collaborations with the U.K., and we're engaging with other countries. So, that's progressing, Tahan said. Many countries are interested in quantum as you can guesstheres a lot of investments around the worldand many want to work with us on going faster together.

China had also made its own notable quantum investments (some predating the NQI Act), and touted new claims of quantum supremacy, following Google, on the global stage this year.

I wouldn't frame it as a competition ... We are still very much in the research phase here, and we'll see how those things pan out, Tahan said. I think we're taking the right steps, collectively. The U.S. ecosystem of companies, nonprofits and governments arebased on our strategy, both technical and policiesgoing in the right direction and making the right investments.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris previously put forthlegislationto broadly advance quantum research, but at this point, the Biden administration hasnt publicly shared any intentions to prioritize government-steered ongoing or future quantum efforts.

[One of] the big things we're looking towards in the next year, is workforce development. We have a critical shortage or need for talent in this space. Its a very diverse set of skills. With these new centers, just do the math. How many students and postdocs are you going to need to fill up those, to do all that research? It's a very large number, Tahan said. And so we're working on something to create that pipeline.

In that light, the team will work to continue to develop NSFs ongoing, Q-12 partnership. Theyll also reflect on whats been built so far through the national initiative to identify any crucial needs that may have been looked over.

As you stand something up thats really big, you're always going to make some mistakes. What have you missed? Tahan noted.

And going forward, the group plans to hone deeper in on balancing the economic and security implications of the burgeoning fields.

As the technology gets more and more advanced, how do we be first to realize everything but also protect our investments? Tahan said. And getting that balance right is going to require careful policy thinking about how to update the way the United States does things.

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Two Years into the Government's National Quantum Initiative - Nextgov

The Boston giant is renting a special corner of Amazon's cloud to remake Monte Carlo and do hyper-quant investing like an AI Peter Lynch, with no experience as a golf caddy.

Brooke's Note: Passive indexing is done by computers that mostly make sure that theybet on nothing but the diversity implicit in any given index of securities. It's an approach where wisdom of knowing how little you know -- and executing it with mechanical precision -- mostly beats market timing done byyounger, smarter computers, never mind smarter, or dumber, people. The passive approach now attracts the most dollars because it is cheaper andbetter, or better because it's cheaper. But it's easy to see why smart people with smart computers wouldn't want to accept this new odd reality lying down, and Fidelity's people, it seems areamong them. The logic to its FCAT quantum project with Amazonis that a tipping point back to active managers beating passive onesis bound to come alongif computers keep getting smarter. Of course, active managers eventually outsmart each other, which blunts any advantages, so it's key to be first. Fidelity Investments is trying to do just that by playing the quantum revolution.

Fidelity Investments is exploring a path out of the drab world of passive investing backto the greener pastures of active management, using a technology that, until recently, was more science fiction than fact.

That path is being charted deep within the bowels of the Boston giant at its Center for Applied Technology (FCAT). It'son a never-ending mission to find "breakthrough achievements in research and tech,"according to its website.

And, it thinks it's found one in the latest advances in quantum computing.Itpromises to revitalize active management, where the fees are fat and the returns are -- hopefully -- fatter.

Fidelity's latest research project runs FCAT-developed quantum algorithms through Amazon's Braket, arecently launchedcloudservicethatruns on three super-computers, D-Wave, IonQand Rigetti.

Quantum computers areable to solve certaincomputational problems, infinitely faster than classical computers. They havefour major potential benefits for financial firms.

It speeds up market forecasting, cryptographyand data gathering,and makes it more precise, says Fidelity head of emerging technologyAdam Schouela.

It is a quest for the proverbial quantum leap.

"We're looking for those technologies that truly have that potential to displace technologies we're using today," he says."That's where quantum computing fits in."

In August, Fidelity completed a quantum computing proof-of-concept in conjunction with Amazon that promises faster and more accurate asset pricing, investment analytics, tradingand Monte Carlo analyses.

"Active investing is in Fidelitys DNA,"says Will Trout, director of wealth management at Pleasanton, Calif.-based consultancy, Javelin Strategy & Research, via email.

"Whether supported by the boffins or cutting-edge technology ... avenues where it's still possible to outperform and get paid ... will remain on the Fidelity road map," he explains.

FCATs latest project created a security not unlike an index ETF that tracked a synthesized index in close to real time with a lower rate of error than currently possible. By further crunchingthe data, it yieldednear real-time asset pricing, inclusive of options trades.

That said, Schouelais careful to temper expectations.

"I wouldn't necessarily call it a gamble but I wouldn't call it a 'will'... as in will potentially."

Fidelity is also one of the few firms withdeep enough pockets to pull off a project like this in such a nascent technology, says Lex Sokolin, global fintech co-head at New York City blockchain software company, ConsenSys, via email.

"With mutual fund AUM over [$3.5] trillion, Fidelity is able to partner and have a meaningful conversation with [firms like] Amazon ... these are big fixed-cost projects, and technology firms need to find a use case that works for millions." See:Fidelity Investments takes another leap into the future, enlisting Amazon to turn advisors into virtual reality avatars, but some say it's pie-in-the-sky.

Although quantum computing has potential long-term benefits for the financial industry, the field itself remains closer to the whiteboard than the shop floor.

Between 1977 and 1990, when Peter Lynch managed Fidelity's Magellan Fund, he averaged a 29.2% annual return, increasing assets from $18 million to$14 billion.

The legendary investor got recruited by a Fidelity exec who saw promise in his caddy -- an approach to capturing lucrative decision-making capabilities regarded by most HR departments as too hit-or-miss in 2020.

Indeed, many of FCATs own staff have yet to come to terms with quantum computing.

The firm uses a mix of workshops and virtual reality to get its employees thinking about the "mental shift" quantum-design requires.

"Quantum computing is in the very early stages of considering commercialization," Sokolin explains.

"This hardware is important, as are its uses, but I expect the discussion to stay in innovation labs for another few years. Much of what is happening today is finding the problems that fit the types of solutions that quantum computation can provide."

But a developmental leap is in the offing, similar to the shift from hexadecimal machine code to programming in English-like script, and Fidelity intends to capitalize, says Schouela.

"There are these layers of abstraction [that have] started to form for quantum computing [and] as soon as the technology is viable, we have the ability to leverage it to the benefit of Fidelity."

Typically, the now 20 year-old FCAT spends between three- to seven-years working on a project before it gets tucked into Fidelity or spun-off.

Fidelity's ability to succeed depends on its ability to make a portfolio of bets where failure or cold storageis an option.

"We shelve stuff all the time," Schouela says. " [and] sometimes the markets not ready for something yet it's an exploration."

'Incidental' pairing

The Fidelity-Amazon quantum partnership is also the fourth time the two firms have worked together since anearly attemptat joint distribution in 2006.

In May 2018, Fidelity developed a chatbot Cora built on AWS Sumerian, a VR design tool; and later Fidelity strengthened its VR partnership with Amazon as it pursued VR advice and training systems, the latter of which are now in use.

Then, in late 2019, Amazon chose Fidelity as its new 401(k) vendor. See:Fidelity wrests high-profile Amazon 401(k) business from Vanguard.

But the two firms continued partnering is merely "incidental", rather than strategic, says Schouela, who worked on Fidelity's VR projects.

"Its completely different folks [at Amazon this time] so it is a little bit more on the incidental side were [also] actively working with lots of different people in this space."

Fidelity's ownership of the algorithm-basedshort-selling asset manager Geode -- a 2003 Fidelity spin-off -- and its stake in ESG investment manager Ethic are examples of the firm's continued interest in active-management. See:Fidelity Investments inks deal with $180-million startup.

"Fidelity, led by [CEO] Abby Johnson in this context has unlimited thirst for advantage," saysSteve Gresham, managing principal of NYC consultancy, The Execution Project, via email.

Johnson has, for example, pushed the family firm toward crypto-currency.Fidelity Investments applies its proven Peter Jubber to its unproven bitcoin unit and its launch of Fidelity Digital Funds signals it's all in on blockchain currency

Yet Amazon will win downstream, says Sokolin.

"If it can help financial firms, whether Fidelity, hedge funds, or market makers more efficiently price financial instruments at scale [for] the entire market in real time, then it can become the de facto analytics engine for financial services."

"This would again mean that technology firms become more powerful relative to the existingfinancial ecosystem," he adds.

Amazon uses neutral language.

"Our goal for Braket is to be a catalyst,"says AWS vice president for technology, Bill Vass,in a release.

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Fidelity Investments leaps back to the future in an experiment to restore active management to its lofty perch, using technology that is still more...

In this year-end article, we look at the broad array of changes witnessed in 2020, transformative forces, and future trends for 2021 and beyond.

Some of the obvious developments for the year 2020 were offline or in-person meetings being replaced by virtual meetings, and travel and tourism being replaced by OTT and online binging. Office space was replaced by work from home.

Polluted air was replaced by cleaner air. Budget allocations for defence were reduced and budget allocations to stimulate the economy were increased. Going to schools and colleges was replaced by online classes or your teachers were replaced by teachers from anywhere. The swanky stores and fancy malls were replaced by online sales.

The most important change was that the GDP or the type of governance or the climate that a country had did not matter this is what I call a level playing field for the world.

All the above changes were across all countries, across all continents, across all levels of the society. It did not matter if you were developed or not, it did not matter if you had a medical infrastructure better than the others, it did not matter if you were in the tropics or not, it did not matter if you were rich or poor, and so on so forth.

The underlying impact of all of this will be short term and long term, is great or will be greater. For example, corporates are questioning the need to travel or to have office space in swanky zip codes. Parents are questioning the high school or college fees that they have to pay.

Governments are realising the importance of the impact of sporadic growth on the environment. They are questioning if chemical warfare is the future or not, especially when one country cant stay in isolation from the other.

The country that rules the tech space will rule the world, will be the future economic power.

Whilst all of the above developments were happening on the ground, there were huge enhancements in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, facial recognition software, quantum computing, data storage, wearable devices and adoption of 5G.

All of this combined will pave the future of the world that we live in. Based upon the above context, this is what I feel the coming year or two will be for all of us, or for the world at large.

The misuse of advancement in science and tech has also always had the negative impact on our future, form minor misuses on audio and video content distortion to the hacking of websites and passwords, to targeted warfare, I fear that the use of AI and ML by countries into social media or other digital means of communication can change the mindset of the society, a country or a generation gradually without them even realising it.

The predictive behaviour online of an individual or a group of individuals can be further directed into a more regimented/chaotic society by implanting the algorithms that one wants to, whether a political party or a country or a group of countries.

So, while we have to be careful on the use of or influence of online behaviour, especially social media, we also need to be careful of the fact that the countries will not trust other countries.

Land records and legal documents will be more authentic and safer. Tokenisation of investment in shares or equity, in land and property, and other assets will also revolutionise the world. Tokenisation will democratise investments across all sectors of investments. And many such things will be much more secure and easy to transact.

But will this lead to a new currency, an e-currency for every country and a new world order which will cashless and corrupt free? Would the countries or individuals that lose because of all this, let that happen? Not in 2021 or 2022, but we shall soon know of this too.

While life becomes smaller and easier, our memories would fade, as we will be more dependent on devices, our abilities to be human will gradually diminish, more knowledge will be imparted to us than we need or can digest. The speed of growth of the human race will be enhanced multifold, meaning thereby what has changed in the last decades will take years to change. Good or bad is for all of us to see and live.

Furthermore, in my opinion, here are a few things that hopefully will not change or will make a strong comeback.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

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Rewind 2020: Business, politics, social and professional impact, and what lies ahead - YourStory

This week in future tech, a Chinese quantum computer can reportedly solve a problem in 200 seconds, compared to the 2.5bn years a supercomputer needs.

A quantum computer developed at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, China, has caught the worlds attention due to what appears to be a performance vastly exceeding others that exist today.

According to findings in published in Scienceand reported by Nature, researchers claim they demonstrated a quantum advantage, using laser beams to perform a computation that is not mathematically possible using traditional binary computers.

We have shown that we can use photons, the fundamental unit of light, to demonstrate quantum computational power well beyond the classical counterpart, said researcher Jian-Wei Pan.

Tasked with solving the so-called boson sampling problem, the researchers found solutions in as little as 200 seconds. By comparison, it could take Chinas TaihuLight supercomputer about 2.5bn years to do the same.

However, Christian Weedbrook, chief executive of quantum-computing start-up Xanadu, said that unlike Googles Sycamore quantum computer announced last year, the Chinese quantum computer is not programmable. This means that, so far, it cannot be used for solving practical problems.

Scientists from the University of Washington have unveiled a drone that smells, using the power of a moth. Writing in IOP Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, they revealed their Smellicopter design.

The autonomous drone uses a live antenna from a moth to navigate toward smells, while also having the ability to sense and avoid obstacles. A moth uses its antennae to sense chemicals in its environment and navigate toward sources of food or potential mates.

In this case, the researchers used antennae from the Manduca sexta hawkmoth for Smellicopter. The moths were placed in a fridge to anaesthetise them before removing their antennae. Once separated, the live moth antennae could stay chemically active for four hours.

By adding tiny wires into either end of the antenna, the researchers were able to connect it to an electrical circuit and measure the average signal from all of the cells in the antenna. They said Smellicopter could be used to detect things such as gas leaks, explosives and disaster survivors.

From a robotics perspective, this is genius, said Sawyer Fuller of the University of Washington. The classic approach in robotics is to add more sensors, and maybe build a fancy algorithm or use machine learning to estimate wind direction. It turns out, all you need is to add a fin.

German air taxi firm Volocopter said it plans to make regular services a reality in Singapore within the next three years. In October 2019, Volocopter completed the its first air taxi demonstration flight over the Marina Bay area of Singapore and the company is now looking to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals for regular service, including those from Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and the European Union Aviation Safety.

The first route is expected to be a touristic route over the southern waters, offering views of the Marina Bay skyline, and future routes may include cross-border flights. The company is expected to hire over 200 full-time employees in Singapore to manage a network of routes by 2026.

The citys research institutes conducting R&D play an integral part in this, said Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter. Topics like route validation for autonomous operations, material science and research regarding battery technology are very important for our long-term business success.

The Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) has reported that the number of announced 5G devices has surpassed 500 for the first time. By the end of November this year, there were 519 announced 5G devices, of which 303 were commercially available.

In the last three months, the number of announced 5G devices has grown by 29.4pc, while there has been a 59.5pc increase in the number of commercially available 5G devices over the same period.

This year weve seen more and more symbolically important milestones being passed over 500 announced 5G devices, more than 100 vendors, over 250 different phones, and 100 fixed wireless access CPE devices, said Joe Barrett, president of the GSA.

And it doesnt stop there; we expect more 5G devices to become commercially available, surpassing the 330 mark before the year is out. The device vendor community has stepped up and delivered in the face of unprecedented challenges. As an industry, we can be excited about the opportunities 2021 will bring.

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Chinese quantum computer may be the most powerful ever seen - Siliconrepublic.com

BURNABY, British Columbia, Dec. 9, 2020 D-Wave Systems Inc., a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services, has launched a first-of-its-kind cross-system software tool providing interoperability between quantum annealing and gate model quantum computers. The open-source plugin allows developers to easily map quadratic optimization inputs in IBMs Qiskit format onto D-Waves quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) format and solve the same input on any quantum system supported in Qiskit. The code is available for free as a stand-alone packagein GitHub and marks a major industry milestone: the ability to use, test, solve and compare real applications with both gate-model and annealing quantum computers. For the first time, developers and forward-thinking businesses can have a real assessment of the benefits of different systems on their applications.

Interoperability is a critical step in the maturation of transformative technologies. Until now, there hasnt been a convenient way to send the same problems to solvers on both gate and D-Wave systems, or to obtain head-to-head comparisons of results from the two different quantum computing systems. Before today,using a different quantum computing vendors hardware and software required significant investment to familiarize developers with code, solvers, and SDKs.

D-Waves industry-first open-source package removes those barriers.Qiskit users can nowsubmit Ising Hamiltoniansto the D-Wave quantum computer, in addition to any gate model system Qiskit supports.Now, cross-paradigm transparency and comparison will give quantum developers the flexibility to try different systems, while providing businesses with key insights into performance so they can identify, build, and scale quantum applications.

The company also called for users to publish their work.

In order for the quantum computing ecosystem to fully mature, the developer and business communities alike need access to diverse quantum systems and the ability to compare cross-architectural performance, said Alan Baratz, CEO, D-Wave. The next few years will bring a proliferation of quantum applications, and companies must be able to make informed decisions about their quantum computing investment and initiatives to stay competitive. Weve moved beyond measures that explore does the system work? Instead, enterprises want to benchmark which systems add the most value to their businesses. Were opening the door to this and we encourage users of the tool to share their work and publish their results.

The news is in line with D-Waves ongoing mission to provide practical quantum computing via access to the most powerful quantum hardware, software, and tools. In 2018, D-Wave brought theLeap quantum cloud service and open-source Ocean SDK to market. In February 2020, Leap expanded to include new hybrid solver services to solve real-world, business-sized problems. At the end of September, D-Wave made available the Advantage quantum system, with more than 5000 qubits, 15-way qubit connectivity, and expanded hybrid solver services that can run problems with up to one million variables. The combination of the computing power of Advantage and the scale to address real-world problems with the hybrid solver services in Leap enables businesses to run performant, real-time, hybrid quantum applications for the first time. And with the new cross-system software tool, now users can benchmark their applications across annealing and gate model systems, to further understand and benefit from performance comparisons.

To download and install the cross-paradigm integration plugin for free, clickhere.

As part of its commitment to enabling businesses to build in-production quantum applications, the company also introducedD-Wave Launch, a jump-start program for businesses who want to get started building hybrid quantum applications today but may need additional support.

About D-Wave Systems Inc.

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

Source: D-Wave Systems Inc.

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Show Your Work: D-Wave Opens the Door to Performance Comparisons Between Quantum Computing Architectures - HPCwire