Tag: Quantum Computing

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Fiction Science Club

How quantum tech could change everything everywhere

Illustration combining 1660 star atlas and picture of quantum computing hardware
Quantum computing could change our perspective on the cosmos. (Illustration: Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1660 / Microsoft, 2022)

What does quantum computing have in common with the Oscar-winning movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once”? One is a mind-blowing work of fiction, while the other is an emerging frontier in computer science — but both of them deal with rearrangements of particles in superposition that don’t match our usual view of reality.

Fortunately, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has provided a guidebook to the real-life frontier, titled “Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything.”

“We’re talking about the next generation of computers that are going to replace digital computers,” Kaku says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “Today, for example, we don’t use the abacus anymore in Asia. … In the future, we’ll view digital computers like we view the abacus: old-fashioned, obsolete. This is for the garbage can. That’s how the future is going to evolve.”

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Could the Pacific Northwest become ‘Quantum Valley’?

Physicists adjust quantum hardware at PNNL
Christian Boutan and Jihee Yang adjust quantum hardware at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. (PNNL Photo / Andrea Starr)

California’s Silicon Valley may rule the roost for internet startups, and Kendall Square in the Boston area may set the pace for the biotech industry, but could the Pacific Northwest leap into the lead for quantum computing?

Experts who are exploring one of the computing world’s hottest frontiers say there’s a chance that Seattle could become the heart of a “Quantum Valley” — but it could take years for the promise of quantum computing to pay off.

“I’d say we’re on the order of a decade plus before we start to see this start to really materialize,” said Louis Terminello, associate laboratory director for physical and computational sciences at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Terminello is among the authors of a recent commentary calling for increased public investment to solidify the Pacific Northwest as home of the nation’s top regional cluster for research and development in quantum information science — in short, Quantum Valley.

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Azure Quantum joins the hunt for new fuel-cell catalysts

A hydrogen-powered car fills up at a refueling station
A hydrogen-powered car fills up at a refueling station. (Johnson Matthey via YouTube)

Chemists at Microsoft Azure Quantum are teaming up with Johnson Matthey, a British-based clean-tech company, to identify new types of catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells.

The project demonstrates how quantum information science could help reduce the automobile industry’s carbon footprint and address the challenge of climate change.

“So far, Johnson Matthey has seen a twofold acceleration in quantum chemistry calculations, and we’re just getting started,” Nathan Baker, senior director of partnerships for chemistry and materials at Microsoft, said today in a blog posting. “Both companies recognize that the discoveries needed to create a zero-carbon future will require significant breakthroughs in chemical and materials science, and are enthusiastic about the difference we can make in the world together.”

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Cosmic Tech

IBM marks medical milestone for quantum computers

An overhead view shows IBM's Quantum System One at Cleveland Clinic. (Photo by Ryan Lavine for IBM)
An overhead view shows IBM's Quantum System One at Cleveland Clinic. (Photo by Ryan Lavine for IBM)

IBM and Cleveland Clinic today unveiled the first quantum computer dedicated solely to research in health care and life sciences — a sleek cube of glass and metal that’s likely to generate sci-fi movie concepts for years to come.

Researchers hope IBM Quantum System One will eventually generate new biomedical discoveries as well.

“This includes quantum machine learning to design more efficient immunotherapies and designing quantum-accelerated models to predict drug combinations,” Jeanette Garcia, senior research manager of quantum computational science at IBM, said in an emailed statement.

The potential applications extend beyond medical research.

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Amazon and Google make a couple of quantum leaps

Visualization of electric field energy density for metamaterial waveguide, from AWS' Palace simulation
This Palace simulation visualizes the electric field energy density for a metamaterlal waveguide. (AWS Graphic)

Today’s news from the frontier of quantum computing includes Amazon Web Services’ release of cloud-based simulation software for modeling the electromagnetic properties of quantum hardware, Google’s latest technological advance aimed at lowering the error rate of quantum calculations, and new recommendations about the public sector’s role on the frontier.

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Fiction Science Club

Get a reality check on supersized quantum mania

Multiple Ant-Men in scene from "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"
Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) faces proliferating quantum timelines in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania." (Marvel Studios via Cedric Dumler / IMDB)

Ant-Man may be getting small in Marvel’s latest superhero movie — but in the real world, quantum is getting big.

Quantum information science is one of the top tech priorities for the White House, right up there with artificial intelligence. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM and other tech heavyweights are closing in on the development of honest-to-goodness quantum processors. A company called IonQ has a billion-dollar plan to build quantum computers in the Pacific Northwest. The market for quantum computing is projected to hit $125 billion by 2030.

So you might think “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” will be going all-out to feature real-life advances in quantum physics.

If that’s what you’re expecting from the movie, think again. “There’s no connection to real physics, or our understanding of reality,” says Chris Ferrie, a quantum physicist at the University of Technology Sydney and the UTS Center for Quantum Software and Information.

Ferrie should know, and not just because he has a Ph.D.: His latest book, titled “Quantum Bullsh*t,” colorfully catalogs all the ways in which popular depictions of quantum physics go wrong. In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Ferrie explains why those depictions tend to focus on the B.S. rather than the theory’s brilliance.

“The reality .. that quantum physics is a tool for engineers to make predictions about their experiments … is really boring,” he says.

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Are quantum computers for real? The answer is fuzzy

IonQ quantum hardware in data center
The IonQ Forte quantum system is roughly the same size as a standard data center cabinet. (IonQ Photo)

Do full-fledged quantum computers already exist, or will it be a decade before they come into being? Will they have to be the size of a football field? A data center cabinet? A microwave oven?

It seems as if the more you talk to computer scientists involved in the quantum computing quest, the less certain the answers become. It’s the flip side of the classic case of Schrödinger’s Cat, which is both dead and alive until you open the box: Quantum computers could be regarded as already alive, or not yet born.

For example, Microsoft is working on a full-stack quantum computer based on an exotic technology that’s expected to come to fruition on the time scale of a decade. Maryland-based IonQ has been making its quantum systems commercially available since 2019, and plans to start building next-gen quantum computers next year at a research and manufacturing facility in Bothell, Wash. Meanwhile, D-Wave Systems, which is headquartered near Vancouver, B.C., has been selling quantum hardware for more than a decade.

So are quantum computers ready for prime time? Researchers say that they’re not, and that the timeline for development is fuzzy. It all depends on how you define quantum computers and the kinds of problems you expect them to handle.

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DARPA boosts Microsoft’s quantum computer concept

Quantum computing chip
Microsoft has engineered devices such as this one to pave the way for creating topological qubits. (Microsoft Photo / John Brecher)

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is laying down a bet on Microsoft’s long-running effort to create an industrial-scale quantum computer that takes advantage of the exotic properties of superconducting nanowires.

Microsoft is one of three companies selected to present design concepts as part of a five-year program known as Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing, or US2QC. The DARPA program is just the latest example showing how government support is a driving force for advancing the frontiers of quantum computing — at a time when those frontiers are still cloaked in uncertainty.

“Experts disagree on whether a utility-scale quantum computer based on conventional designs is still decades away or could be achieved much sooner,” Joe Altepeter, US2QC program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, said in a news release. “The goal of US2QC is to reduce the danger of strategic surprise from underexplored quantum computing systems.”

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Washington state’s quantum industry gets a roadmap

Quantum cryostat at Microsoft
This cryostat creates ultra-cold temperatures for quantum experiments. (Microsoft Photo / John Brecher)

A newly issued report says Washington state provides one of America’s best settings for expanding the frontiers of quantum information science — but those frontiers are so strange and new that it’s hard to get a handle on their potential.

The technology landscape report, titled “Quantum Information Sciences in Washington State,” was prepared by analysts at Moonbeam for the Washington Technology Industry Association’s Advanced Technology Cluster — and issued by the WTIA in conjunction with this week’s Northwest Quantum Nexus Summit at the University of Washington.

Formed in 2019, the Northwest Quantum Nexus’ membership shows why the region is well-suited to play a leading role in the quantum revolution.

NQN’s partners include Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, which have both rolled out cloud-based quantum computing platforms; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is working on a range of quantum applications for national security purposes; and premier research institutions including UW and Washington State University.

“This report validates our thesis that Washington state has the right mix of organizations and capabilities — ranging from startups to legacy enterprises — to ensure Washington becomes a global leader in both quantum adoption and commercialization,” WTIA’s CEO, Michael Schutzler, said in a news release.

But the report also says the state’s tech ventures aren’t taking full advantage of homegrown talent.

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Amazon and Boeing join Northwest’s quantum team

UW's Xinxin Tang and IonQ's Peter Chapman at Northwest Quantum Nexus Summit
IonQ CEO Peter Chapman shows off a quantum chip as University of Washington researcher Xinxin Tang looks on. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

It’s been almost four years since Pacific Northwest leaders in the field of quantum computing gathered in Seattle for the first Northwest Quantum Nexus Summit, and since then, the scientific buzz over quantum has only gotten buzzier. So what’s next for the Nexus? A star-studded second summit.

Amazon Web Services and Boeing are joining this week’s gathering at the University of Washington, and nearly 300 academic, business and government representatives have signed up to attend. Some of the companies showing up at the second summit — such as the Seattle startup Moonbeam Exchange — didn’t even exist when the first summit took place in March 2019.

Over the past four years, UW has received about $45 million in federal funding to support research into quantum information science. Quantum computing has gotten fresh boosts from Congress and the Biden administration. The Pacific Northwest’s two cloud computing powerhouses, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, have both rolled out hybrid quantum platforms. And just last week, Maryland-based IonQ announced that it’s setting up a research and manufacturing facility for quantum computers in Bothell, a Seattle suburb.

Microsoft, UW and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory got the ball rolling for the Northwest Quantum Nexus in 2019. IonQ, Washington State University and the University of Oregon’s Center for Optical, Molecular and Quantum Science joined the team a couple of years later. Now the addition of Amazon and Boeing brings two of the region’s tech giants into the fold.

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