The Market for Quantum Technology: Early Revenue-Generating Applications

From EE Times, October 26:

Quantum technology comprises quantum computing, quantum cryptography, quantum networking (the Quantum Internet) and quantum sensors.  All of these sectors of quantum technology are already generating revenues today.  Apart from quantum sensors, all are interrelated in important ways, with the prospect of commercial quantum computing driving much of the investment in the emerging quantum technology market.  Quantum sensors use the sensitivity of quantum devices to increase the effectiveness of medical imagining, global positioning and other applications.  They are real and with us today, but I won’t have much to say about them in this article

Quantum Computing:  State of Play
As recently as two years ago articles were appearing from serious critics saying that quantum computers weren’t buildable in practice.  Today, much of that skepticism has dissipated; tier-one firms are investing in quantum computing.

Quantum computers or their components/access networks have already been developed by Alibaba, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Honeywell, and Intel.  Also playing in this market are well-funded newer companies such as Rigetti, ionQ and D-Wave.

The involvement of household names like IBM, Google or Amazon not only adds credibility to quantum computing but also spreads its fame.  With such firms involved in this market, it is easy to get quantum computers onto the home pages of news outlets that ordinarily don’t cover advanced physics or supercomputing.

How quantum computers work and the applications they can solve:

This seems like a good place to attempt an explanation of how a quantum computer works.  A full explanation is well beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that quantum computers perform calculations based on the probability of an object’s quantum state before it is measured.  This is compared to what a classical computer does — calculated on the basis of deterministic 1s or 0s.

At the practical level, this translates into quantum computers being able to process orders of magnitude more information than classical computers can in the same period of time.  So quantum computers embody a promise that quantum computers can solve problems that classical problems cannot solve in a reasonable time period.

Although quantum computers are already in use, there is some agreement that there are, as yet, no practical problems that can be solved by a quantum computer that cannot be solved by a classical computer.  This is a very controversial issue – but this so-called quantum advantage has supposedly been demonstrated for classes of theoretical problems. The areas where quantum computers have been found to be especially useful to date have been in optimization programs, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, and in simulation.

None of this is intended to imply that progress in quantum computing technology will be easy.  While the capacity of quantum computers is measured in qubits (not bits like classical computers), the quality of the qubits is also important.  It is difficult to maintain the quantum states of qubits as they are prone to quantum decoherence.  Quantum computers require significant error correction since they are more prone to errors than classical computers.

Some of the firms mentioned above are making quantum hardware and selling them to end-users.  Some are selling access to their computers over a dedicated cloud, making the otherwise enormously expensive quantum computers ($10 million -$15 million) accessible to thousands of users.  There is also a slew of companies (including Intel) that are developing processors for future quantum computers.

Banks, Investment and Quanta
Probably the biggest markets for quantum computers in the past few years have been R&D and government (including the military and the intelligence community).  This is typical of new computing products.  But in the view of Inside Quantum Technology, the market where we think quantum computing will first find big commercial success (the “killer app” for quantum computing?) is in the financial services sector (banks, insurance companies, investment firms, etc.)....

....MUCH MORE

"Quantum Computers Will Analyze Every Financial Model at Once"

From Singularity Hub;

In the movie Office Space, Peter Gibbons has a stroke of genius. Confronted with the utter mundanity of a life slaving away at his office park software company, he convinces his friends to make a computer virus to skim a fraction of a cent off transactions into a shared bank account.

This, of course, goes horribly wrong. But the concept is actually pretty solid.

In the real world, where there are literally billions of transactions crisscrossing the globe every day, you can make a big profit buying and selling securities whose prices barely differ.
But here’s the key. You have to be fast. Inhumanly so. Enter physics and computers.

Computerized high-frequency trading was born from a collision of rapidly growing computing power and an influx of math and physics PhDs into finance. These wonks worked out complex quantitative buy-sell strategies, built them into algorithms, and set their software loose.

While the practice is nothing if not controversial—and there are quantitative strategies that work over longer time frames too—its impact on the market is undeniable. In any given year, high-frequency trading is responsible for up to half or more of all trades. And of course, notoriously, such algorithmic trading was also involved in 2010’s infamous “Flash Crash.”

But all this is only the beginning of how physics and computers can flip finance upside down.

At Singularity University’s Exponential Finance Summit this week, Andrew Fursman said quantum computers, which harness nature’s most basic laws, are coming sooner than you think. And while digital computing was an evolution, quantum computing will be a revolution.

Fursman is CEO and cofounder of 1Qbit, a quantum computing software startup focused on making quantum computing applications practical for industry.

Quantum computing, he said, is just in its earliest stages, more akin to the hulking special-purpose computers of the 40s and 50s instead of the sleeker personal digital machines of recent decades. But he thinks it’s about to get practical, and it’ll pay dividends to those paying attention.

“In finance, computing power is really a bit of an arms race,” Fursman said. “And as you all know, in many of these situations, it's winner takes all.”

Harnessing Nature’s Computational Power
The next revolution has been a long time coming. It began with physicist Richard Feynman.

When modern digital computers were just gaining momentum, Feynman looked far down the road—he was a genius theorist after all—and noted the most powerful computers would not be digital, they’d be quantum. That is, they’d harness the laws of nature to compute.

It’s counterintuitive to think of the world as a computer, said Fursman, but it’s an instructive analogy if you want to grasp the speed and simultaneity of quantum computers.

Complexity is nothing to nature. Just imagine how quickly and effortlessly glass breaks, he said.
In far less time than it takes to blink your eye, the laws of nature instruct the atoms in the glass to fracture into a massively complex spider web. Not unlike a computer, the laws of physics are the underlying logic allowing the glass to “compute” its complex demise in an instant.

Quantum computers similarly harness nature’s power to compute. Instead of using 1s and 0s to calculate things, they use the rules of quantum mechanics to compute with 1s, 0s, and both simultaneously. This means they can rapidly solve massively complex problems.
[Go here to learn more about how quantum computers work.]

But today’s machines, like D-Wave’s adiabatic quantum computers, aren’t like your laptop, which is what’s called a universal computer due to its ability to do many tasks. Instead, quantum computers today are specialized, complicated, difficult to program, and expensive.

Fursman thinks we’ll get universal quantum computers in future, but well before then, in something like three to five years, he thinks early quantum computers will get practical. And because they can do things no other computer can, they’ll be powerful.

The Perfectly Optimized Portfolio
In finance, it’s often about optimization. And today’s quantum machines excel at optimization.
Consider building a portfolio out of all the stocks in the S&P 500, Fursman said. Given expected risk and return at various points in time, your choice is to include a stock, or not. The sheer number of possible portfolio combinations over time is mindboggling.

In fact, the possibilities dwarf the number of atoms in the observable universe.

To date, portfolio theory has necessarily cut corners and depended on approximations. But what if you could, in fact, get precise? Quantum computers will be able to solve problems like this in a finite amount of time, whereas traditional computers would take pretty much forever.
The work is already underway to make this possible.

Fursman noted a paper written by Gili Rosenberg, Poya Haghnegahdar, Phil Goddard, Peter Carr, Kesheng Wu, and Marcos López de Prado in which they outline a new way to solve for an optimal portfolio. Instead of finding the best portfolio at discrete times in the future, they outline a way to find the best portfolio overall through time. Such a portfolio would reduce the transaction costs of rebalancing portfolios and potentially save the industry billions....MORE

One More Reason Cryptography May Not Stand Up to Quantum Computers

Twelve weeks ago we were reading "Google Just Revealed How They’ll Build Quantum Computers":

... A quantum computer with a mere 50 qubits would outclass the most powerful supercomputers in the world today. Surpassing the limits set by conventional computing, known as achieving quantum supremacy, has been a difficult road. Now, a team of physicists at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Google have demonstrated a proof-of-principle for a quantum computer that may mean quantum supremacy is only months away....

Two weeks after that piece in Futurism we saw this at New Scientist:

Google’s quantum computing plans threatened by IBM curveball

...IBM has come up with a way to simulate quantum computers that have 56 quantum bits, or qubits, on a non-quantum supercomputer – a task previously thought to be impossible. The feat moves the goalposts in the fight for quantum supremacy, the effort to outstrip classical computers using quantum ones.

It used to be widely accepted that a classical computer cannot simulate more than 49 qubits because of memory limitations. The memory required for simulations increases exponentially with each additional qubit.

The closest anyone had come to putting the 49-qubit limit to a test was a 45-qubit simulation at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which needed 500 terabytes of memory. IBM’s new simulation upends the assumption by simulating 56 qubits with only 4.5 terabytes....

Well, at ten weeks old that's ancient history.

From Next Big Future, December 30:

Progress to turning silicon transistors into qubits which could enable billion qubit quantum computers

Japanese RIKEN researchers are trying to adapt existing the silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) to integrate qubits with current electronics, offering the potential for scaling up quantum devices and bringing quantum computing closer to becoming a reality.

Keiji Ono and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and the Toshiba Corporation in Japan, in collaboration with researchers from the United States, are investigating the properties of qubits produced by imperfections or defects in silicon MOSFETs. In particular, they are exploring their potential for developing quantum computing devices that are compatible with current manufacturing technologies.

“Companies like IBM and Google are developing quantum computers that use superconductors,” explains Ono. “In contrast, we are attempting to develop a quantum computer based on the silicon manufacturing techniques currently used to make computers and smart phones. The advantage of this approach is that it can leverage existing industrial knowledge and technology.”

After cooling a silicon MOSFET to 1.6 kelvin (−271.6 degrees Celsius), the researchers measured its electrical properties while applying a magnetic field and a microwave field. They found that when the silicon MOSFET was neither fully turned on nor off, a pair of defects in the silicon MOSFET formed two quantum dots in close vicinity to each other. This ‘double quantum dot’ generated qubits from the spin of electrons in the dots. It also produced quantum effects that can be used to control these qubits....MORE 

Of course, with that "having been reported over x days ago"..... which partly explains our lead-in to Saturday's "Cryptography and Quantum Computers":

The author seems optimistic - note headline - but I'm not so sure....

From Nautil.us:
How Classical Cryptography Will Survive Quantum Computers

Some of last year's more popular Quantum computing posts:
Nov. 5
Questions America Wants Answered: "Is Quantum Computing an Existential Threat to Blockchain Technology?"

July 26
Yeah, I Got Your Bitcoin Right Here: "‘Quantum Checks’ to Replace Cryptocurrencies in the Future?"

July 11
Computing: Will Quantum Devices Outperform Classical Computers by Year-end 2017? (thus achieving 'quantum supremecy')

April 6
The route to high-speed quantum computing is paved with error

March 8
"Google's Quantum AI Laboratory set out investment opportunities on the road to the ultimate quantum machines" (GOOG).

"A new era of computing could bring about a 'quantum apocalypse'"

"'Our modern systems of finance, commerce, communication, transportation, manufacturing, energy, 

government, and healthcare will for all intents and purposes cease to function,' cyber security expert warns"

Huh.
From The Independent:

‘Quantum apocalypse’: How ultra-powerful computers could cripple governments and effectively break the internet

A new era of unfathomably fast computers is just a few years away, with quantum computers set to transform the way we communicate, cure disease, and even solve problems previously thought impossible.

But some computing experts fear functional quantum computers could also effectively break the internet as we know it.

Recent progress made by Google means their arrival could be sooner than expected. A leaked research paper suggests the company has achieved what is known as quantum supremacy, whereby a quantum computer performed a calculation that was far beyond the reach of today’s most powerful supercomputers.

First theorised by the physicist Richard Feynman in 1982, quantum computers combine the peculiar properties of quantum physics with computer science to achieve processing power that is exponentially more powerful than traditional computers.

Instead of using traditional bits – the ‘1’s’ and ‘0’s’ used to store and transfer data – quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits. These exist in a state of superposition, meaning they can act as both a ‘1’ and a ‘0’ at the same time.

By not being restricted by a single binary state, each new qubit added to a quantum computing system makes it exponentially more powerful than its traditional counterpart.
In order to function, qubits need to be kept in extremely cold temperatures – close to Absolute Zero (-273C). This makes them both impractical and extremely costly to develop, but the potential advances that could be made mean the likes of Google, Nasa and the CIA are all attempting to build one.

If Google’s leaked paper is to be believed, the technology giant may be leading the race to build this revolutionary new form of computer. A calculation that would take a traditional supercomputer approximately 10,000 years to perform, took Google’s 72-qubit computer just 200 seconds.
The paper stated: “This dramatic speed-up relative to all known classical algorithms provides an experimental realisation of quantum supremacy on a computational task and heralds the advent of a much-anticipated computing paradigm.”

But such power may come at a huge price. Tim Callan, a senior fellow at cybersecurity firm Sectigo, warns that the advent of these era-defining machines could result in what he refers to as a “quantum apocalypse”.

At threat are the current encryption technologies used in everything from popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, to online banking transactions. These RSA and ECC encryption systems are what prevent all of our data from being exposed to cyber criminals, hackers and spy agencies....

....MUCH MORE

Previously:
October 2019 
"Quantum gold rush: the private funding pouring into quantum start-ups"
September 2019 
"Ghost post! Google creates world’s most powerful computer, NASA ‘accidentally reveals’ ...and then publication vanishes"
March 2018
TASS: A multi-qubit quantum computer could be created in Russia within a year
February 2018
"The Argument Against Quantum Computers"
January 2018
Breaking Bitcoin With a Quantum Computer

And the 2017 series:
Questions America Wants Answered: "Is Quantum Computing an Existential Threat to Blockchain Technology?"
Yeah, I Got Your Bitcoin Right Here: "‘Quantum Checks’ to Replace Cryptocurrencies in the Future?"
Computing: Will Quantum Devices Outperform Classical Computers by Year-end 2017? (thus achieving 'quantum supremecy')
The route to high-speed quantum computing is paved with error
"Google's Quantum AI Laboratory set out investment opportunities on the road to the ultimate quantum machines" (GOOG).

And many, many more. 

Weapon of Mass Disruption: Quantum Computers Are “Tools of Destruction, Not Creation"

From Futurism:

World’s Leading Physicist Says Quantum Computers Are “Tools of Destruction, Not Creation”

Weapon of Mass Disruption
Quantum Computers are heralded as the next step in the evolution of data processing. The future of this technology promises us a tool that can outperform any conventional system, handling more data and at faster speeds than even the most powerful of today’s supercomputers.

However, at the present juncture, much of the science dedicated to this field is still focused on the technology’s ultimate utilization. We know that quantum computers could manage data at a rate that is remarkable, but exactly what kind of data processing will they be good for?
This uncertainty raises some interesting questions about the potential impact of such a theoretically powerful tool.

No encryption existing today would be able to hide from the processing power of a functioning quantum computer.

Last month, some of the leading names in quantum technologies gathered at the semi-annual International Conference on Quantum Technologies in Moscow. Futurism was in attendance and was able to sit and talk with some of these scientists about how their work is moving us closer to practical quantum computers, and what impact such developments will have on society.

One of the most interesting topics of discussion was initiated by Alexander Lvovsky, Quantum Optics group leader at the Russian Quantum Center and Professor of Physics at the University of Calgary in Canada. Speaking at a dinner engagement, Lvovsky stated that quantum computers are a tool of destruction, not creation.

What is it about quantum computers that would incite such a claim? In the end, it comes down to one thing, which happens to be one of the most talked about potential applications for the technology: Breaking modern cryptography.

With Great Power…
Today, all sensitive digital information sent over the internet is encrypted in order to protect the privacy of the parties involved. Already, we have seen instances where hackers were able to seize this information by breaking the encryption. According to Lvovsky, the advent of the quantum computer will only make that process easier and faster.

In fact, he asserts that no encryption existing today would be able to hide from the processing power of a functioning quantum computer. Medical records, financial information, even the secrets of governments and military organizations would be free for the taking—meaning that the entire world order could be threatened by this technology.

The consensus between other experts is, essentially, that Lvovsky isn’t wrong. “In a sense, he’s right,” Wenjamin Rosenfeld, a physics professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, stated in an interview. He continued, “taking a quantum computer as a computer, there’s basically not much you can do with this at the moment;” however, he went on to explain that this may soon be changing.

To break this down, there are only two quantum algorithms at the moment, one to allow a quantum computer to search a database, and the other, Shor’s algorithm, which can be used by a quantum computer to break encryption.

Notably, during the conference, Mikhail Lukin, a co-founder of the Russian Quantum Center and head of the Lukin Group of the Quantum Optics Laboratory at Harvard University, announced that he had successfully built and tested a 51-qubit quantum computer…and he’s going to use that computer to launch Shor’s algorithm.

Vladimir Shalaev, who sits on the International Advisory Board of the Russian Quantum Center and is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, takes a more nuanced approach to this question, saying it is neither a tool of destruction nor creation—it is both: “I would disagree with him. I think I would say that any new breakthrough breeds both evil and good things.”

Quantum computers may not be capable of the physical destruction of a nuclear bomb, but their potential application is the digital equivalent.

...MORE 

"Quantum gold rush: the private funding pouring into quantum start-ups"

Following up on Sept. 23's "Ghost post! Google creates world’s most powerful computer, NASA ‘accidentally reveals’ ...and then publication vanishes" 
—and a hundred other posts, some links after the jump.

From the journal Nature, October 2:

A Nature analysis explores the investors betting on quantum technology. 

Robert Schoelkopf spent more than 15 years studying the building blocks of quantum computers until, in 2015, he decided it was time to start constructing one. The physicist and his colleagues at Yale University began pitching their start-up firm Quantum Circuits, Inc. to investors, hoping to persuade venture capitalists that the time was ripe to pour cash into a quantum-computing company. Within two years, the team had secured US$18 million. That was enough to build a specialist laboratory — which opened this January — in a science park near the university in New Haven, Connecticut, and to employ around 20 scientists and engineers.

For Schoelkopf, venture capital (VC) investing was unfamiliar territory. But he’s not the only quantum physicist to make a successful sales pitch. Governments and large technology firms have long nurtured quantum research, and in the past few years have announced billions of dollars for the field. As their support has ramped up, outside investors have looked to get in early on a fledgling industry.

By the start of this year, according to an analysis by Nature, private investors had funded at least 52 quantum-technology companies globally since 2012 — many of them spin-outs from university departments. (Academics have founded many more start-ups that have yet to close deals.) Although the value of some of the cash infusions remains secret, Nature’s analysis captures the scale of recent activity. It finds that, in 2017 and 2018, companies received at least $450 million in private funding — more than four times the $104 million disclosed over the previous two years (see ‘Cash for qubits’). VC makes up the bulk of this cash. Many firms in the VC hub of California’s Silicon Valley have already plunged in, and among the rest, “most are keeping a close eye on quantum”, says Christopher Monroe, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park who co-founded the quantum-computing firm IonQ in 2015. 

Source: Nature analysis, including data from Quantum Computing Report, Boston Consulting Group, PitchBook and Crunchbase

Few doubt that quantum technologies will eventually yield useful and potentially revolutionary products. Alongside government investments, hundreds of firms are rushing to invest in the field, with big names such as IBM, Google, Alibaba, Hewlett Packard, Tencent, Baidu and Huawei all doing their own research. Google has reportedly now created a quantum computer that can solve specialized problems that would stump even the best classical computer — a landmark known as ‘quantum supremacy’. Secure encryption using quantum technology is already a commercial product, as are some quantum-enabled technologies that sense, image or measure at exquisitely precise scales. One firm, D-Wave Systems in Burnaby, Canada, even sells computers that exploit quantum effects, although these machines specialize in particular tasks known as optimization problems.

But venture capitalists tend to invest in what they hope will be game-changers, such as a multipurpose quantum computer that could handle many kinds of otherwise-unfeasible calculations. From the perspective of investors, the cash pumped into the field annually represents a small outlay so far — on a par with VC investments in artificial-intelligence (AI) firms before 2010, for instance. (By 2018, US VC investments in AI had boomed to $9.3 billion.) Still, these numbers are substantial for an immature field that doesn’t yet have much to sell. Despite this, some software firms are already marketing their work on quantum algorithms, which are written for hardware that does not yet exist....

....MUCH MORE

Also at Nature, Oct. 2:
Beyond quantum supremacy: the hunt for useful quantum computers

Way back in 2017 Nature was posting (and we were linking): "Google's Quantum AI Laboratory set out investment opportunities on the road to the ultimate quantum machines" (GOOG).

And some other links:
March 2019
"Inside the high-stakes race to make quantum computers work"
March 2019
Quantum Computing That Is Actually Useful Gets A Bit Closer to Reality
October 2018
Computing: "D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service"
October 2018
"10 Quantum Computing Startups Getting Funded in 2018"
Keeping in mind that Google is pretty fired up on D-Wave's architecture while Rigetti and Alibaba are developing proprietary systems....
September 2018
Cloud-Based Quantum Computing Is Almost Ready For Business
Thus sayeth Rigetti:...
March 2018
TASS: A multi-qubit quantum computer could be created in Russia within a year
March 2018
Quantum Computing: "Volkswagen Refining Machine Learning on D-Wave System"

"Google and VW partner on quantum computing to improve electric car batteries"

Volkswagen Using D-Wave Quantum Computer To Fight Beijing Traffic (plus the VW Level 5 autonomous vehicle)
February 2018
"The Argument Against Quantum Computers"
February 2018
Supremecy—Quantum Algorithms Struggle Against Old Foe: Clever Computers
January 2018
Breaking Bitcoin With a Quantum Computer

And the 2017 series:
Questions America Wants Answered: "Is Quantum Computing an Existential Threat to Blockchain Technology?"
Yeah, I Got Your Bitcoin Right Here: "‘Quantum Checks’ to Replace Cryptocurrencies in the Future?"
Computing: Will Quantum Devices Outperform Classical Computers by Year-end 2017? (thus achieving 'quantum supremecy')
The route to high-speed quantum computing is paved with error
"Google's Quantum AI Laboratory set out investment opportunities on the road to the ultimate quantum machines" (GOOG).

And many, many more.

Including 2015's
"Google says it has now proven that D-Wave’s quantum computer really works" (GOOG)
We have quite a few posts on D-Wave, links below, and through most of them our attitude was a dubious "Show me".
It appears they may have. 

Cryptography and Quantum Computers

The author seems optimistic - note headline - but I'm not so sure.

From Nautil.us:

How Classical Cryptography Will Survive Quantum Computers

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, certainly raised the profile of quantum computing a few notches last year, when he gamely—if vaguely¹—described it for a press conference. But we’ve heard a lot about quantum computers in the past few years, as Google, I.B.M., and N.A.S.A., as well as many, many universities, have all been working on, or putting money into, quantum computers for various ends. The N.S.A., for instance, as the Snowden documents revealed, wants to build one for codebreaking, and it seems to be a common belief that if a full-scale, practical quantum computer is built, it could be really useful in that regard. A New Yorker article early this year, for example, stated that a quantum computer “would, on its first day of operation, be capable of cracking the Internet’s most widely used codes.” But maybe they won’t be as useful as we have been led to believe.

Some are looking at ways to “fight quantum with quantum”—but there is another (and cheaper) option.

Quantum computation is based on the superposition principle of quantum physics. Bits in a normal computer are either 0 or 1. Quantum physics allows bits to be in a superposition of 0 and 1, in the same way Schrödinger’s cat can be in a superposition of “alive” and “dead.” This sometimes lets quantum computers explore possibilities more quickly than normal computers. For a general search problem, such as trying to find the key to a secret code by trying all of them, quantum computers are expected to have quadratic speed-up. For example, the Advanced Encryption Standard, approved by the United States government, has up to 2²⁵⁶—or about a 1 followed by 77 zeros—keys. A quantum computer could make that same search as if there were only 2¹²⁸ keys—about a 3 followed by 38 zeros. On the one hand, that’s a lot faster. On the other hand, it’s still an awful lot of searching to do.

But there’s another type of cryptography, called public-key cryptography, which was invented in the 1970s. As the name suggests, these are systems where two people can agree on a key, or part of a key, by exchanging only public information. This is incredibly useful in modern electronic commerce—if you want to send your credit card number safely over the Internet to Amazon, for instance, you don’t want to have to drive to their headquarters to have a secret meeting first. Public-key systems rely on the fact that some mathematical processes seem to be one-way—they are easy to do but difficult to undo. For example, for you to take two large whole numbers and multiply them is relatively easy. But for someone to take the result and factor it into the original numbers seems much harder. This particular one-way function is used in RSA cryptography, one of the most popular public-key systems.

Unfortunately for RSA, not all one-way functions are created equal. The factoring problem falls into a category known as “hidden subgroup problems.” A group is a particular type of mathematical structure and a hidden subgroup is another structure inside it unknown to the codebreaker—in the factoring example, the product produces the group and the unknown factors produce the hidden subgroup. On hidden subgroup problems, quantum computers are predicted to get exponential speed-up. Factoring is faster than searching to begin with, so an ordinary computer could factor a number of size 2¹⁵³⁶⁰ in the time it takes to search 2²⁵⁶ keys. But a quantum computer could factor that same number in more like the time it takes to search 20,000 keys. That’s an enormous speed-up. It would pretty much destroy RSA, and the situation is similar with all of the other public-key systems currently in common use.

That would be a big shake-up for public-key cryptography, but cryptographers aren’t just giving up. Some are looking at ways to “fight quantum with quantum”—but there is another (and cheaper) option. Research is also being done into what is often called post-quantum cryptography, although a more precise name might be quantum-resistant cryptography. These are systems running on ordinary computers but based on problems that are not in the hidden subgroup category. These problems include solving systems of multivariable polynomials, finding the shortest distance from a point to an n-dimensional skewed grid of other points, and finding the closest bit string to a set of other bit strings.

For example, if Alice wants to send Bob a message, she could identify it with a point in Bob’s n-dimensional grid and then add some “noise” to it by moving it off the grid a small amount. If n is very large and the angles in the grid are skewed—very far from right angles—it seems difficult for Eve the Eavesdropper to figure out Alice’s original point, and a quantum computer doesn’t seem to help much. But if Bob (and only Bob) has a different set of lines drawn through the same points, but with angles closer to 90 degrees, then he has a “trap door” which allows him to recover the point and the message. Variations on this idea are known as lattice-based cryptography, and are some of the front-runners for post-quantum use.....MORE

"IBM’s Big Bet on the Quantum-Centric Supercomputer"

From IEEE Spectrum, August 21 (the writers are employees of IBM):

Recent advances point the way to useful classical-quantum hybrids

Back in June 2022, Oak Ridge National Laboratory debuted Frontier—the world’s most powerful supercomputer. Frontier can perform a billion billion calculations per second. And yet there are computational problems that Frontier may never be able to solve in a reasonable amount of time.

Some of these problems are as simple as factoring a large number into primes. Others are among the most important facing Earth today, like quickly modeling complex molecules for drugs to treat emerging diseases, and developing more efficient materials for carbon capture or batteries.

However, in the next decade, we expect a new form of supercomputing to emerge unlike anything prior. Not only could it potentially tackle these problems, but we hope it’ll do so with a fraction of the cost, footprint, time, and energy. This new supercomputing paradigm will incorporate an entirely new computing architecture, one that mirrors the strange behavior of matter at the atomic level—quantum computing.

For decades, quantum computers have struggled to reach commercial viability. The quantum behaviors that power these computers are extremely sensitive to environmental noise, and difficult to scale to large enough machines to do useful calculations. But several key advances have been made in the last decade, with improvements in hardware as well as theoretical advances in how to handle noise. These advances have allowed quantum computers to finally reach a performance level where their classical counterparts are struggling to keep up, at least for some specific calculations.

For the first time, we here at IBM can see a path toward useful quantum computers, and we can begin imagining what the future of computing will look like. We don’t expect quantum computing to replace classical computing. Instead, quantum computers and classical computers will work together to run computations beyond what’s possible on either alone. Several supercomputer facilities around the world are already planning to incorporate quantum-computing hardware into their systems, including Germany’s Jupiter, Japan’s Fugaku, and Poland’s PSNC. While it has previously been called hybrid quantum-classical computing, and may go by other names, we call this vision quantum-centric supercomputing.

A Tale of Bits and Qubits
At the heart of our vision for a quantum-centric supercomputer is the quantum hardware, which we call a quantum processing unit (QPU). The power of the QPU to perform better than classical processing units in certain tasks comes from an operating principle that’s fundamentally different, one rooted in the physics of quantum mechanics.

In the standard or “classical” model of computation, we can reduce all information to strings of binary digits, bits for short, which can take on values of either 0 or 1. We can process that information using simple logic gates, like AND, OR, NOT, and NAND, which act on one or two bits at a time. The “state” of a classical computer is determined by the states of all its bits. So, if you have N bits, then the computer can be in just one of 2N states. 

But a quantum computer has access to a much richer repertoire of states during computation. A quantum computer also has bits. But instead of just 0 and 1, its quantum bits— qubits—via a quantum property known as superposition, represent 0, 1, or a linear combination of both. While a digital computer can be in just one of those 2N states, a quantum computer can be in many logical states at once during the computation. And the superpositions the different qubits are in can be correlated with one another in a fundamental way, thanks to another quantum property known as entanglement. At the end of the computation, the qubit assumes just one state, chosen based on probabilities generated during the running of the quantum algorithm.

It’s not obvious how this computing paradigm can outperform the classical one. But in 1994, Peter Shor, a mathematician at MIT, discovered an algorithm that, using the quantum-computing paradigm, could divide large numbers into their prime factors exponentially faster than the best classical algorithm. Two years later, Lov Grover discovered a quantum algorithm that could find a particular entry in a database much faster than a classical one could.

Perhaps most importantly, since quantum computers follow the laws of quantum mechanics, they are the right tool for simulating the fundamentally quantum phenomena of our world, such as molecular interactions for drug discovery or materials design....

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"Quantum Computers on Path to Extinguish Current Encryption Techniques"

From the uberwonks at EE Times, December 26:

In the coming years, large-scale quantum computers will make most current cryptography techniques insecure. To avoid this, two major global directions are being pursued.

In the digital age, each one of us carries out activities daily that would be impossible without cryptographic techniques. The security of our information, however, risks being thrown into crisis by the advent of future quantum computers, equipped with vast computing resources, potentially able to overcome current cryptographic techniques. A new generation of devices under development by companies such as Microsoft, Google, and IBM will multiply the computing capabilities of computers and will probably make obsolete the encryption systems currently in use, based on the transmission of radio waves.

Quantum cryptography is a method of transmitting secret information that offers the guarantee of maximum security. Unlike conventional cryptography based on calculation hypotheses, quantum cryptography has a significant advantage: Its security is based on the laws of physics proving to be unconditionally safe with quantum cryptographic techniques. Quantum mechanics aims to describe the heart of matter, where natural phenomena occur on a subatomic scale. Current systems of quantum cryptography rely on encoding a computer bit in a property of a single photon, which is the fundamental constituent of light and electromagnetic radiation.

The collaboration agreement between imec and the National University of Singapore (NUS) aims to jointly develop scalable, robust, and efficient quantum technologies for the distribution of secure keys for the internet of the future. In the coming years, large-scale quantum computers will make most of the current cryptography techniques insecure. To avoid this, two major global directions have been pursued: a post-quantum cryptography approach and another hardware-based approach called quantum cryptography.

Post-quantum cryptography is essentially about updating existing algorithms and cryptographic standards. It still maintains a security profile that is still based on unproven hypotheses. It consists of the definition and the study of cryptographic systems capable of guaranteeing high levels of security even against attackers equipped with quantum computers. The first challenge in this area consists of identifying mathematical problems that are difficult to solve for an attacker who is not significantly affected by the existence of quantum computers.

Quantum cryptography, on the other hand, offers a much stronger security guarantee. With this approach, two essential constitutive elements are quantum key distribution (QKD) and quantum random number generation (QRNG). Now, however, the methods and processes that enable these quantum technologies are limiting and expensive. As a result, these bottlenecks have made quantum cryptography unattractive for widespread diffusion. Imec and NUS aim to solve some of these bottlenecks (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Block diagram of quantum cryptography

“Our approach consists of developing and integrating all QKD key components in a single silicon-photonics–based chip, which ensures a cost-effective solution,” said Joris Van Campenhout, R&D Program director at imec. Dr. Charles Lim, assistant professor at NUS, said, “The development of chip-based prototypes will allow us to turn today’s QKD technologies into an efficient communication networking solution.”

The quantum distribution of keys makes it possible to transmit a secret key from one user to another, reaching the condition of perfect secrecy from a mathematical point of view and therefore making any interception attempts useless.....

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Understanding Tech: "Quantum Computer Technology Assessment"

Following up on Sunday's Computing: "‘The next quantum breakthrough will happen in five years".

From EE Times, February 1:

Development of quantum computers has advanced steadily over the last decade, spurred by the promise of harnessing the unique properties of quantum physics: qubits, or quantum bits, exist as either 0s, 1s or simultaneously as a zero and one.

Multiple companies now offer quantum applications as a service via cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

Development is led by established companies and startups. An earlier column on quantum computing surveys the field. Here we provide an overview and perspectives on the status of quantum technologies.

For background, a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report examines the status and prospects for quantum computing. This post draws heavily on the GAO report.

An excellent overview of quantum computers by our colleague Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio is here.

Multiple technologies are required to deploy quantum computers, making it harder to predict when the technology will be practical. As the pace of development accelerates, many experts remained convinced practical quantum computers are still at least a decade away.

Analog vs. qubit-gate

Physical qubits, or quantum bits, are the basic building block. There are two main quantum computing methods: analog and gate-based quantum computers. The table below summarizes the differences between the two technologies. 

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Physical qubits include naturally-occurring particles and artificial structures. The former includes atoms, trapped ions and photons. Trapped ions and photons are the leading technologies for this segment.

Artificial physical qubits simulate naturally occurring particles, creating qubit gates. Quantum gates are similar to logic gates in conventional computers.

This category includes superconducting circuits, quantum dots and crystal defects. An example is a nitrogen atom within a diamond’s carbon lattice, which is called a color center. Superconducting circuits dominate this category.

In designing quantum computers from qubits, technology has been developed to manipulate quantum properties and entangle multiple qubits with one another. These manipulations are accomplished with lasers, microwaves, electric or magnetic fields and other methods. Examples are listed at the bottom of the table above.

Quantum challenges

Steady progress may soon yield quantum machines with thousands of qubits and approaching 1 million qubits after 2030. Such advances will greatly expand deployment by cloud services providers, academic institutions and corporations.

The next table summarizes the challenges facing quantum developers. The lower section outlines deployment challenges.....

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What Can Quantum Computers Be Used For?

From Quanta Magazine:

Computing’s Search for Quantum Questions

Recent tests show that quantum computers made by D-Wave systems should solve some problems faster than ordinary computers. Researchers have begun to map out exactly which queries might benefit from these quantum machines.  

Quantum bits, or “qubits,” can be in a superposition of the values zero and one.

It was billed as the vindication of the quantum computer. Late last year, researchers at Google announced that a quantum machine called the D-Wave 2X had executed a task 100 million times faster than a classical computer. The claim implies that the machine can complete in one second a task that might take a classical computer three years.

It also erased one facet of the skepticism that has long faced this particular version of a quantum computer. In the past, critics of so-called “quantum annealers” made by the Canadian company D-Wave Systems have wondered if the machines make use of intrinsically quantum processes at all.

Part of the problem lies in the catch-22 of quantum computing: The quantum features only work when they’re not being observed, so observing a quantum computer to check if it’s exploiting quantum behavior will destroy the quantum behavior being checked. “It’s hard to devise a physics experiment to study something you aren’t allowed to observe,” said Catherine McGeoch, a computer scientist at D-Wave. December’s news convincingly satisfied critics that the quantum annealer really does exploit uniquely quantum effects.

But it didn’t settle a more important question: What can these computers do that classical computers can’t? The claim of a 100-million-factor speedup did not conclusively prove that the D-Wave 2X — and quantum annealers in general — will profoundly surpass the abilities of classical machines. A case in point: The paper announcing the results was careful to mention that the 100-million-factor speedup came when the D-Wave computer was pitted against one particular type of algorithm running on a classical computer. Change the algorithm to a more efficient one, and the speedup disappears. “It’s a little like saying, ‘OK, we’re going to have a motorcycle race. Everybody bring out your motorbike.’ But only one person knows it’s going to be on dirt,” said Helmut Katzgraber, a computational physicist at Texas A&M University. “Then they bring the dirt bike, but nobody else knows. That’s basically what’s been done there.”

So how would the D-Wave machine compare in a fair race against the fastest classical computers? It depends on the racetrack.

Computer scientists are now actively mapping out so-called “benchmark problems” — the classes of problems that are particularly suited to the type of hybrid quantum machines epitomized by the D-Wave 2X. A study co-authored by Katzgraber and posted to the scientific preprint site arxiv.org in April concludes that scaled-up quantum annealers should be able to outperform classical computers in certain narrow computing domains. Fortunately, these domains are likely to include important problems in machine learning, protein folding and route planning, to name a few. But exactly which of these problems will show a marked improvement when processed by a quantum annealer, and how fast the speedup will be — these are questions that computer scientists are only beginning to understand.

Quantum Persuasion
Convincing people of a machine’s supremacy won’t be a thorny issue for a universal quantum computer, which a quantum annealer like the D-Wave machine is not. Though both types of machines solve problems using an array of qubits — the quantum analogue to classical bits of information — they’re inherently different. With a universal quantum computer, a user can measure and control the quantum states of individual qubits, which in theory allows the machine to solve problems that would effectively be impossible to solve using a classical device. For example, a universal quantum computer would be able to find the prime factors of a very large number, and thus crack many encryption schemes used today. “What you want to show, basically, is that you have solved a problem with a quantum device that you can’t solve classically,” said Matthias Troyer, a computational physicist at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). “The ultimate problem is to do an impossible calculation. That would convince most people.”

Universal quantum machines exist, though the engineering challenges of making them are so great that the most sophisticated of them can solve only simple problems like finding the prime factors of a relatively small number such as 56,153. In May, IBM announced that it had set up a cloud-based interface so that outside researchers could use the company’s quantum processor. It has five qubits....MORE

Microsoft Wants To Redefine the Power Industry With Quantum Computing

From IEEE Spectrum's The Institute:

How Microsoft Could Redefine the Power Industry with Quantum Computing

Governments and tech companies have been investing heavily in quantum computing in the hopes that it will revolutionize cryptography, machine learning, chemistry, communication, and other fields. But it surprised me to learn that the much-talked-about technology also could have a great impact on energy, leading to cleaner fuel, lower emissions, and more efficient electrical power systems.

In November I spoke with Krysta M. Svore, general manager for Microsoft Quantum, to learn more about the impact of quantum computing on the energy sector. Svore was named in August to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee, which advises the president and the energy secretary.

Like other companies, Microsoft is working to scale up its quantum hardware to enable computers with a broad range of capabilities and a big speedup over classical computers. Svore says the company is working with others around the world to build a full quantum “stack”—from applications and software down to control and devices. Some researchers are working to see if quantum-inspired code, run for the moment on conventional computers, might give the energy industry a leg up.

Microsoft recently announced that Azure Quantum, a public ecosystem, is available to the public. In a blog post by Svore, Microsoft Quantum invited applications developers and researchers to start using the platform—a step that is expected to accelerate many quantum applications.

“It’s an exciting time to be in quantum information science,” Svore says. “Quantum computing is redefining what is possible with technology—creating unprecedented possibilities to solve some of humanity’s most complex challenges.”

A BIG ADVANTAGE

The new breed of computers is expected to excel at simulating quantum systems, like molecules. That should have a big impact on the energy sector.

“We see huge potential in areas leading to cleaner fuel, emissions reduction, and energy efficiency,” Svore says.

Among other things, quantum computers are expected to aid in chemistry and materials development far beyond the capacity of present-day supercomputers. The simulation capabilities could help researchers create batteries with greater storage capacity; and high-temperature superconductors, which could be used for new catalysts that could convert and optimize alternative fuel sources. Quantum computing could be used for climate modeling, for example, to find potential locations of wind flow that would help in designing new wind-energy sources. It would require collecting historical data and implementing it into certain models.

Quantum computing applications are ideal for such processes, and give high-resolution and calibrated results with real data. Also, such applications can upload the data into geographic information systems for the best wind-turbine locations.

An even bigger and more immediate impact might be seen in today’s smart grids. Optimizing the best reliable and available electrical source with high efficiency in power generation and transmission systems in large power grids using today’s computers is costly and almost impossible. Grid operators today are struggling to figure out the best way to handle the influx of renewable energy. Currently, utilities settle for solutions that are not optimal.

Hybrid systems that combine multiple renewable energy sources are especially difficult to optimize. For example, a grid that includes both wind and solar energy generation has the advantage of supplying less expensive energy as long as the sun shines and the wind blows. But to meet customers’ energy demands at night or during calm days, the grid needs to pull from stored power or ramp up energy production from other resources. An automated intelligent system that could track demand, predict peaks in consumption, coordinate energy storage, and manage resources could dramatically boost efficiency and so pave the way for cheaper, more reliable power.

Unlike today’s state-of-art supercomputers, quantum computers promise to be able to perform that optimization in real time. Microsoft researchers are already tackling grid applications by creating quantum-inspired code, Stove says. Such code is mapped onto conventional computing hardware, but it could ultimately run on scaled-up quantum hardware.

In June 2018 researchers announced they had devised a quantum-inspired algorithm for unit commitment, an optimization problem that seeks to identify the best generating resources to run based upon forecasted loads as well as power generation efficiencies and capacity limitations. Unit commitment remains one of the most significant problems in power system management.

The Microsoft team demonstrated its algorithm, which outperforms more powerful classical solvers. When scaled-up quantum computers become available and the algorithm runs on them, there will be an even bigger advantage.

EXPLORING SOLUTIONS IN DUBAI

In 2019 the company formalized its quantum network, a coalition of groups and individuals working on the technology. One member is the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, which is working closely with Microsoft to explore quantum-inspired solutions for energy applications....

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Does Lockheed Have a Quantum Computer or Doesn't It? (LK)

They don't. The Times seems to think they do.
From the New York Times:

A Strange Computer Promises Great Speed

Our digital age is all about bits, those precise ones and zeros that are the stuff of modern computer code.

But a powerful new type of computer that is about to be commercially deployed by a major American military contractor is taking computing into the strange, subatomic realm of quantum mechanics. In that infinitesimal neighborhood, common sense logic no longer seems to apply. A one can be a one, or it can be a one and a zero and everything in between — all at the same time. 

It sounds preposterous, particularly to those familiar with the yes/no world of conventional computing. But academic researchers and scientists at companies like Microsoft, I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard have been working to develop quantum computers. 

Now, Lockheed Martin — which bought an early version of such a computer from the Canadian company D-Wave Systems two years ago — is confident enough in the technology to upgrade it to commercial scale, becoming the first company to use quantum computing as part of its business.

Skeptics say that D-Wave has yet to prove to outside scientists that it has solved the myriad challenges involved in quantum computation. 

But if it performs as Lockheed and D-Wave expect, the design could be used to supercharge even the most powerful systems, solving some science and business problems millions of times faster than can be done today. 

Ray Johnson, Lockheed’s chief technical officer, said his company would use the quantum computer to create and test complex radar, space and aircraft systems. It could be possible, for example, to tell instantly how the millions of lines of software running a network of satellites would react to a solar burst or a pulse from a nuclear explosion — something that can now take weeks, if ever, to determine. 

“This is a revolution not unlike the early days of computing,” he said. “It is a transformation in the way computers are thought about.” Many others could find applications for D-Wave’s computers. Cancer researchers see a potential to move rapidly through vast amounts of genetic data. The technology could also be used to determine the behavior of proteins in the human genome, a bigger and tougher problem than sequencing the genome. Researchers at Google have worked with D-Wave on using quantum computers to recognize cars and landmarks, a critical step in managing self-driving vehicles. 

Quantum computing is so much faster than traditional computing because of the unusual properties of particles at the smallest level. Instead of the precision of ones and zeros that have been used to represent data since the earliest days of computers, quantum computing relies on the fact that subatomic particles inhabit a range of states. Different relationships among the particles may coexist, as well. Those probable states can be narrowed to determine an optimal outcome among a near-infinitude of possibilities, which allows certain types of problems to be solved rapidly. 

D-Wave, a 12-year-old company based in Vancouver, has received investments from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, which operates one of the world’s largest computer systems, as well as from the investment bank Goldman Sachs and from In-Q-Tel, an investment firm with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and other government agencies....MORE

HT: Smithsonian Magazine: "Lockheed Martin Has Crazy-Fast Quantum Computers And Plans on Actually Using Them" .

However....

From The Physics of Finance:

Quantum Computing, Finally!! (or maybe not) 

Today's New York Times has an article hailing the arrival of superfast practical quantum computers (weird thing pictured above), courtesy of Lockheed Martin who purchased one from a company called D-Wave Systems. As the article notes,

... a powerful new type of computer that is about to be commercially deployed by a major American military contractor is taking computing into the strange, subatomic realm of quantum mechanics. In that infinitesimal neighborhood, common sense logic no longer seems to apply. A one can be a one, or it can be a one and a zero and everything in between — all at the same time. ...  Lockheed Martin — which bought an early version of such a computer from the Canadian company D-Wave Systems two years ago — is confident enough in the technology to upgrade it to commercial scale, becoming the first company to use quantum computing as part of its business.

The article does mention that there are some skeptics. So beware.

Ten to fifteen years ago, I used to write frequently, mostly for New Scientist magazine, about research progress towards quantum computing. For anyone who hasn't read something about this, quantum computing would exploit the peculiar properties of quantum physics to do computation in a totally new way. It could potentially solve some problems very quickly that computers running on classical physics, as today's computers do, would never be able to solve. Without getting into any detail, the essential thing about quantum processes is their ability to explore many paths in parallel, rather than just doing one specific thing, which would give a quantum computer unprecedented processing power. Here's an article giving some basic information about the idea.

I stopped writing about quantum computing because I got bored with it, not the ideas, but the achingly slow progress in bringing the idea into reality. To make a really useful quantum computer you need to harness quantum degrees of freedom, "qubits," in single ions, photons, the spins of atoms, etc., and have the ability to carry out controlled logic operations on them. You would need lots of them, say hundreds and more, to do really valuable calculations, but to date no one has managed to create and control more than about 2 or 3. I wrote several articles a year noting major advances in quantum information storage, in error correction, in ways to transmit quantum information (which is more delicate than classical information) from one place to another and so on. Every article at some point had a weasel phrase like ".... this could be a major step towards practical quantum computing." They weren't. All of this was perfectly good, valuable physics work, but the practical computer receded into the future just as quickly as people made advances towards it. That seems to be true today.... except for one D-Wave Systems....MORE

 Previously:  

Quantum Computing: CIA and Bezos Invest in D-Wave Systems In.

Answer a simple Question and win a million bucks:

P vs. NP

The Clay Mathematics Institute posted the prizes for seven damn-near insoluble math problems back in 2000.
The first of the Millennium questions to be solved, Poincaré's Conjecture, was proved in 2006. In 2010 the Institute announced that Dr. Grigoriy Perelman had indeed resolved the Conjecture. It was a big deal in Topology circles. 

Perelman turned down the money and went back to his office.

Next up, one of the most difficult unanswered problems in Computer Sciences P vs. NP which will probably take a quantum computer to solve.*...

"The CIA and Jeff Bezos Bet on Quantum Computing" (AMZN)
"Does probability come from quantum physics?"
 "Hacking the Quantum: A New Book Explains How Anyone Can Become an Amateur Quantum Physicist"
  Quantum Physicists Disagree on the Nature of Reality
 Multiple Steps Toward the 'Quantum Singularity'

You Think the Have/Have-not Divide Is Big Now? Just Wait Until AI has a Quantum Computer Brain

Following up on the post immediately below, "How Amazon Rebuilt Itself Around Artificial Intelligence".
From MIT's Technology Review, December 18, 2017:

If it fulfills its promise, quantum machine learning could transform AI.

A company in California just proved that an exotic and potentially game-changing kind of computer can be used to perform a common form of machine learning.

The feat raises hopes that quantum computers, which exploit the logic-defying principles of quantum physics to perform certain types of calculations at ridiculous speeds, could have a big impact on the hottest area of the tech industry: artificial intelligence.

Researchers at Rigetti Computing, a company based in Berkeley, California, used one of its prototype quantum chips—a superconducting device housed within an elaborate super-chilled setup—to run what’s known as a clustering algorithm. Clustering is a machine-learning technique used to organize data into similar groups. Rigetti is also making the new quantum computer—which can handle 19 quantum bits, or qubits—available through its cloud computing platform, called Forest, today.

The demonstration does not, however, mean quantum computers are poised to revolutionize AI. Quantum computers are so exotic that no one quite knows what the killer apps might be. Rigetti’s algorithm, for instance, isn’t of any practical use, and it isn’t entirely clear how useful it would be to perform clustering tasks on a quantum machine.

Still, Will Zeng, head of software and applications at Rigetti, argues that the work represents a key step toward building a quantum machine. “This is a new path toward practical applications for quantum computers,” Zeng says. “Clustering is a really fundamental and foundational mathematical problem. No one has ever shown you can do this.”

There is currently a remarkable amount of excitement surrounding efforts to develop practical quantum computers. Big technology companies, including IBM, Google, Intel, and Microsoft, as well as a few well-funded startups are racing to build exotic machines that promise to usher in a fundamentally new form of computing.

First dreamed up by physicists almost 40 years ago, quantum computers do not handle information using binary 1s and 0s. Instead, they exploit two quantum phenomena—superposition and entanglement—to perform calculations on large quantities of data at once. The nature of quantum physics means that a computer with just 100 qubits should be capable of calculations on a mind-boggling scale.

Rigetti is something of an underdog in the race. IBM recently announced that it has built a quantum computer with 50 qubits, and Google is widely rumored to have a device of similar scale. Still, Rigetti has plenty of boosters. The company has raised around $70 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent firms.

Having more qubits doesn’t necessarily equate to superiority, though. Maintaining quantum states and manipulating qubits reliably represent formidable challenges.

Like some others, Rigetti uses a hybrid approach, meaning its quantum machine works in concert with a conventional one to make programming more straightforward. Zeng says the company’s systems are also more modular than its rivals’, which may offer a significant edge when it comes to scaling machines up further.

Quantum computing has tremendous potential, in theory. There is good evidence that quantum machines can be used to solve cryptographic challenges and to simulate new material. And there is hope that algorithms such Rigetti’s will eventually transform the world of machine learning and AI....

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Previously:

April 2017
Quantum Computing Startup Rigetti Computing Raises $64 Million in Funding
The other day I mentioned that D-Wave wasn't yet a "real" quantum computer but that they were closer than anyone currently in production. Here's one of the up-and-comers....

"What Makes Quantum Computing So Hard to Explain?"

From Quanta:

To understand what quantum computers can do — and what they can’t — avoid falling for overly simple explanations.

Quantum computers, you might have heard, are magical uber-machines that will soon cure cancer and global warming by trying all possible answers in different parallel universes. For 15 years, on my blog and elsewhere, I’ve railed against this cartoonish vision, trying to explain what I see as the subtler but ironically even more fascinating truth. I approach this as a public service and almost my moral duty as a quantum computing researcher. Alas, the work feels Sisyphean: The cringeworthy hype about quantum computers has only increased over the years, as corporations and governments have invested billions, and as the technology has progressed to programmable 50-qubit devices that (on certain contrived benchmarks) really can give the world’s biggest supercomputers a run for their money. And just as in cryptocurrency, machine learning and other trendy fields, with money have come hucksters.

In reflective moments, though, I get it. The reality is that even if you removed all the bad incentives and the greed, quantum computing would still be hard to explain briefly and honestly without math. As the quantum computing pioneer Richard Feynman once said about the quantum electrodynamics work that won him the Nobel Prize, if it were possible to describe it in a few sentences, it wouldn’t have been worth a Nobel Prize.

Not that that’s stopped people from trying. Ever since Peter Shor discovered in 1994 that a quantum computer could break most of the encryption that protects transactions on the internet, excitement about the technology has been driven by more than just intellectual curiosity. Indeed, developments in the field typically get covered as business or technology stories rather than as science ones.

That would be fine if a business or technology reporter could truthfully tell readers, “Look, there’s all this deep quantum stuff under the hood, but all you need to understand is the bottom line: Physicists are on the verge of building faster computers that will revolutionize everything.”

The trouble is that quantum computers will not revolutionize everything.

Yes, they might someday solve a few specific problems in minutes that (we think) would take longer than the age of the universe on classical computers. But there are many other important problems for which most experts think quantum computers will help only modestly, if at all. Also, while Google and others recently made credible claims that they had achieved contrived quantum speedups, this was only for specific, esoteric benchmarks (ones that I helped develop). A quantum computer that’s big and reliable enough to outperform classical computers at practical applications like breaking cryptographic codes and simulating chemistry is likely still a long way off....

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