A shorter edition this week, readers, after the frenzy of activity and speculation following IBM’s quantum conference and as we enter the languorous, mulled wine-fuelled Christmas period. Still, as the old saying definitely goes, quantum physics stops for no man, and the past seven days have still been marked by scientific breakthroughs, festive German get-togethers and new commitments to harnessing quantum to solve the problems of tomorrow. DoD gets serious about quantum encryption The US Department of Defense has revealed more about its plans to quantum-proof its systems, according to thi ..read more

Well, this one doesn’t look like a suit-bag! (Photo by IBM Research) What is the best way to make a quantum computer actually capable of solving the big, intractable problems we want quantum computing to solve? “Make it modular,” argues IBM, which debuted its Quantum System Two machine earlier this week. In a video with ambient music conjuring visions of the promo material for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (or “Look Around You,” depending on your tastes), Big Blue made a clear argument that hooking up multiple quantum processors into a single quantum circuit will deliver the number of logical qu ..read more

The imposing offices of Zhejiang University. (Photo by StaryKierowca / Shutterstock) Alibaba wanted to do everything. Founded as an online delivery business in Hangzhou, China in 1999, the company would eventually find itself dabbling with all kinds of technological platforms. In 2017, it founded its DAMO Academy, an “arms-length research affiliate…positioned around developing data-enabled technologies for fundamental business and social challenges,” according to a contemporaneous advertorial published by Alibaba in MIT Tech Review. Its founding principle, the article continued, was that the ..read more

An AI-generated approximation of what the Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt would look like if he were trapped inside a quantum computer, moments before a Dr. Manhattan-esque transformation. (Image by Shutterstock) Though mainly concerned with the serious business of tinkering with the taxation burden shouldered by the great British public, the annual Autumn Statement never fails to provide something for Tech Monitor to cover. This year, that came in the form of a new slab of cash for AI research and reforms designed to spur traditionally skittish UK pension funds into investing more in British tech busi ..read more

A great deal in quantum computing rests on faith — faith that theory can, in time, be crafted into reality using lasers, silicon and extremely powerful refrigerators. It is on the strength of that faith that millions upon millions of dollars have been invested in quantum startups and into quantum research, in a bid to explore just how many problems the most powerful computational form in history can solve more efficiently than its classical antecedent. We won’t know for sure that this can happen until we have a quantum computer capable of harnessing more than a handful of logical qubits. This ..read more

At Quantum Untangled, we like to delve into the important questions about practical quantum computing — like, how long before we get quantum-powered weather forecasting, which nation is winning the battle for the most qubits, or when the complete collapse of encrypted communications as we know them will actually take place. But in these casual sojourns through quantum thickets, it’s easy to lose sight of the smaller picture, so this week we’re taking you on a tour of some of the announcements, think pieces and breakthroughs that you may have missed in the past seven days. Falling behind Suns ..read more

Climate change is placing enormous pressure on classical computation to predict future extreme weather events. Some argue that quantum computers will be more equipped to take on that burden. (Photo by CHOKCHAI POOMICHAIYA / Shutterstock) By the time you’re reading this, it should be raining in Cornwall. If the UK’s Met Office’s predictions are correct, this will not be ordinary rain — that, after all, is no great revelation for this country in deepest, darkest November. No, this will be unusual rain, menacing rain, rain that falls not in dribs or drabs or pitters and patters or in the fashio ..read more

Post-quantum encryption is haunted by the spectre of HNDL attacks. Whether this is a worry for now or the future is another question entirely. (Image by Swill Klitch / Shutterstock) By now, readers of this newsletter will be familiar with the rationale behind post-quantum encryption. In about a decade’s time — or sooner, if you’re more optimistic — scientists will manage to build a quantum computer capable of harnessing hundreds of logical qubits. From there, it will be possible to build more powerful machines capable of running Shor’s Algorithm and cracking open any messages protected by RS ..read more

Noise is the enemy of practical quantum computing. (Image by Shutterstock) Learning to play a musical instrument to a professional standard takes thousands of hours. You might be able to hammer out ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ after just a few lessons, but a concert-level performance of Liszt’s La Campanella takes a lifetime of hard graft. The same applies to any feat of human achievement: we learn through error, self-correction, and practice. Repeating a scale over and over imprints that pattern into our muscles and mind, forming new core memories that, over time, guide us as we continue ..read more

Climate change is accelerating - though some researchers hope that quantum computing can help blunt its impacts. (Photo by Viacheslav Lopatin / Shutterstock) Blaise Pascal is remembered as a betting man. The 17th-century French philosopher’s eponymous wager – that it’s impossible to know whether or not a Supreme Being exists, but it’s wiser to gamble that one does exist than not – helped fuel centuries of theological debate. More recently, the wager has been repurposed by climate scientists and auxiliary billionaire businessmen. Even if, wrote Warren Buffett, “there is only a 1% chance the p ..read more