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NEW YORK, July 04, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., a nationally recognized shareholder rights law firm, reminds investors that class actions have been commenced on behalf of stockholders of IonQ, Inc. IONQ, Energy Transfer LP ET, Digital Turbine, Inc. APPS, and Teladoc Health, Inc. TDOC. Stockholders have until the deadlines below to petition the court to serve as lead plaintiff. Additional information about each case can be found at the link provided.

IonQ, Inc. IONQ

Class Period: March 20, 2021 May 2, 2022

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 1, 2022

On May 3, 2022, Scorpion Capital released a research report alleging, among other things, that IonQ is a "scam built on phony statements about nearly all key aspects of the technology and business." It further claimed that the Company reported "[f]ictitious revenue' via sham transactions and related-party round-tripping."

On this news, the Company's stock fell $0.71, or 9%, to close at $7.15 per share on May 3, 2022, on unusually heavy trading volume.

The complaint filed in this class action alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose to investors: (1) that IonQ had not yet developed a 32-qubit quantum computer; (2) that the Company's 11-qubit quantum computer suffered from significant error rates, rendering it useless; (3) that IonQ's quantum computer is not sufficiently reliable, so it is not accessible despite being available through major cloud providers; (4) that a significant portion of IonQ's revenue was derived from improper round-tripping transactions with related parties; and (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.

For more information on the IonQ class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/IONQ

Energy Transfer LP ET

Class Period: April 13, 2017 December 20, 2021

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 2, 2022

Energy Transfer is a Delaware company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Energy Transfer is a company engaged in natural gas and propane pipeline transport. It was founded in 1996 and became a publicly traded partnership in 2006. The Partnership through its subsidiaries provides transportation, storage, and terminalling services for products like natural gas, crude oil, NGL, and refined products. The Partnership also constructs natural gas pipelines through its various subsidiaries.

On April 13, 2017, the horizontal directional drilling activities ("HDD") for the Rover Pipeline Project, one of the Partnership's natural gas pipeline construction projects, caused a large inadvertent release of drilling mud near the Tuscarawas River in Ohio. On August 8, 2019, Energy Transfer filed its quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the SEC, reporting the Partnership's financial and operating results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2019. This quarterly report disclosed that two years earlier, in mid-2017 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC")'s Enforcement Staff began a formal investigation "regarding allegations that diesel fuel may have been included in the drilling mud at the Tuscarawas River HDD." On this news, the price of Energy Transfer stock declined $0.65, or 4.6% over two trading days, to close at $13.38 on August 12, 2019.

Then, on December 16, 2021, FERC publicly issued to Energy Transfer the Order To Show Cause and Notice of Proposed Penalty, which directed the Partnership to show cause why it should not be assessed a civil penalty in the amount of $40,000,000. The order presented the allegation by the Enforcement Staff that the HDD crews intentionally included diesel fuel and other toxic substances and unapproved additives in the drilling mud during its HDDs under the Tuscarawas River. On this news, the price of Energy Transfer shares declined $0.24, or 2.8% over the course of two trading days, to close at $8.25, on December 20, 2021.

The Complaint alleges Energy Transfer concealed and misrepresented that: (a) Energy Transfer had inadequate internal controls and procedures to prevent contractors from engaging in illegal conduct with regards to drilling activities, and/or failed to properly mitigate known issues related to such controls and procedures; (b) Energy Transfer through its subsidiary hired third-party contractors to conduct HDDs for the Rover Pipeline Project, whose conduct of adding illegal additives in the drilling mud caused severe pollution near the Tuscarawas River when the April 13 Release took place; and (c) Energy Transfer continually downplayed its potential civil liabilities when FERC was actively investigating the Partnership's wrongdoing related to the April 13 Release and consistently provided it with updated information about FERC's findings on this matter.

For more information on the Energy Transfer class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/ET

Digital Turbine, Inc. APPS

Class Period: August 9, 2021 May 17, 2022

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 5, 2022

Digital Turbine is a software company that delivers products to assist third parties in monetizing through the utilization of mobile advertising. The Company completed the acquisitions of AdColony Holdings AS ("AdColony") and Fyber N.V. ("Fyber") on April 29 and May 25, 2021, respectively.

On May 17, 2022, Digital Turbine issued a press release revealing that it will "restate its financial statements for the interim periods ended June 30, 2021, September 30, 2021, and December 31, 2021, following a review of the presentation of revenue net of license fees and revenue share for the Company's recently acquired businesses."

On this news, the Company's shares fell $1.93, or 7.1%, to close at $25.28 per share on May 18, 2022, on unusually heavy trading volume.

The complaint filed in this class action alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose to investors: (1) that the Company's recent acquisitions, AdColony and Fyber, act as agents in certain of their respective product lines; (2) that, as a result, revenues for those product lines must be reported net of license fees and revenue share, rather than on a gross basis; (3) that the Company's internal control over financial reporting as to revenue recognition was deficient; and (4) that, as a result of the foregoing, the Company's net revenues was overstated throughout fiscal 2022; and (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.

For more information on the Digital Turbine class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/APPS

Teladoc Health, Inc. TDOC

Class Period: October 28, 2021 April 27, 2022

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 5, 2022

Teladoc provides virtual healthcare services in the U.S. and internationally through Business-to-Business ("B2B") and Direct-to-Consumer ("D2C") distribution channels. The Company offers its customers various virtual products and services addressing, among other medical issues, mental health through its BetterHelp D2C product, and chronic conditions.

Teladoc touts itself as "the first and only company to provide a comprehensive and integrated whole person virtual healthcare solution that both provides and enables care for a full spectrum of clinical conditions[.]" Despite recent market concerns over new entrants to the telehealth field, such Amazon.com, Inc. ("Amazon") and Walmart Inc. ("Walmart"), the Company has continued to assure investors of the Company's dominant market position in the industry.

In fact, as recently as February 2022, Teladoc forecasted full year ("FY") 2022 revenue of $2.55 - $2.65 billion, as well as adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization ("EBITDA") of $330 - $355 million, on anticipated continued growth through its competitive advantages.

Throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) increased competition, among other factors, was negatively impacting Teladoc's BetterHelp and chronic care businesses; (ii) accordingly, the growth of those businesses was less sustainable than Defendants had led investors to believe; (iii) as a result, Teladoc's revenue and adjusted EBITDA projections for FY 2022 were unrealistic; (iv) as a result of all the foregoing, Teladoc would be forced to recognize asignificant non-cash goodwill impairment charge; and (v) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On April 27, 2022, Teladoc announced its first quarter ("Q1") 2022 financial results, including revenue of $565.4 million, which missed consensus estimates by $3.23 million, and "[n]et loss per share of $41.58, primarily driven by [a] non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $6.6 billion or $41.11 per share[.]" Additionally, the Company revised its FY 2022 revenue guidance to $2.4 - $2.5 billion and adjusted EBITDA guidance to $240 - $265 million "to reflect dynamics we are currently experiencing in the [D2C] mental health and chronic condition markets." On a conference call with investors and analysts that day to discuss Teladoc's Q1 2022 results, Defendants largely attributed the Company's poor performance, revised FY 2022 guidance, and $6.6 billion non-cash goodwill impairment charge to increased competition in its BetterHelp and chronic care businesses.

On this news, Teladoc's stock price fell $22.48 per share, or 40.15%, to close at $33.51 per share on April 28, 2022.

For more information on the Teladoc class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/TDOC

About Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.:

Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is a nationally recognized law firm with offices in New York, California, and South Carolina. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in commercial, securities, derivative, and other complex litigation in state and federal courts across the country. For more information about the firm, please visit http://www.bespc.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Contact Information:

Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.Brandon Walker, Esq. Melissa Fortunato, Esq.(212) 355-4648investigations@bespc.comwww.bespc.com

Link:
Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. Reminds Investors That Class Action Lawsuits Have Been Filed Against IonQ, En - Benzinga

Rigetti and Riverlane Receive a 500 Thousand ($613K USD) Grant to Work on Error Correction

Rigetti Computing and Riverlane have received this grant from Innovate UK, the UKs national innovation agency, to study syndrome extraction on superconducting quantum computers. This would be a critical step for providing error correction on the qubits in a fault tolerant quantum computer. Since a qubit cannot be measured directly without collapsing quantum error correction circuits have to be made more complex than their classical counterparts. A common method is to include additional qubits in the circuit called ancilla (or auxiliary) qubits that can be entangled with the data qubits and subsequently measured to form a syndrome pattern. This syndrome pattern can indicate if there is an error within the data qubits and what qubits are affected. Additional gates can then be applied to the data qubits based upon the syndrom to fix the data qubits and correct the errors. The beauty of this approach is that while the ancilla qubits are measured the data qubits are not measured so they remain in the quantum state and dont collapse. This research from Rigetti and Riverlane will explore ways of implementing this error correction process while minimizing any additional errors that could result from the syndrome extraction process itself. For more about this grant and research project, you can view a press release located here.

June 27, 2022

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Rigetti and Riverlane Receive a 500 Thousand ($613K USD) Grant to Work on Error Correction - Quantum Computing Report

Its been a nightmare couple months for cryptocurrency investors. Theyve watched their Bitcoin BTC holdings hemorrhage 70 percent of their value since the record high of $69,000 back in November. Overall, theyve suffered crypto losses totaling more than half (55%) of capitalization, or an estimated market loss of $2 trillion.

The days when crypto enthusiasts could talk about crypto as if Bitcoin were the new reserve currency, or the digital equivalent of the gold standard, or even a transformation of what it means to invest, are over. Crypto looks more like a classic boom and bust investment, like Dutch tulips, rather than the next best hope for humanity.

PARIS, FRANCE - FEBRUARY 06: In this photo illustration, a visual representation of the digital ... [+] Cryptocurrency, (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)

As I warned in an earlier Forbes column, the crypto boom was driven by systematic policy failures by major central banks. As long as they made bad decisions about monetary supply or failed to take on inflation, cryptocurrencies were going to look like solid investments. As soon as central banks shook off their inertia, crypto values started heading south. Meanwhile, the threat of regulation of the crypto marketregulations that might strangle the Bitcoin goosehas raised additional uncertainties about where the market is headed, and whether it pays to buy low nowor run for the hills.

Nonetheless, as Bloomberg reports, venture capitalists still want in the crypto game. Theyre being smart. They sense that despite the burst bubble since January, cryptocurrencies will be here to stay. They may not save humanity from itself, as some thought, but they remain a valuable speculative instrument but also a store of value when other investments look uncertain or too volatile to handle.

At the same time, Bitcoin and crypto do offer a deeper secret that is important to the rest of humanity. That secret isnt what they do, but how they do it. i.e. with Distributed Ledger Technology or blockchain.

An abstract digital structure showing the concept of blockchain technology with hexadecimal hash ... [+] data inside each block.

We can think of blockchain as an enormous spreadsheet thats reproduced thousands of times across a network of computers, that regularly updates the spreadsheet and its common database. The growing list of records in the ledger, called blocks, are linked or chained together to all previous blocks of transactions, using a cryptographic fingerprint known as a hash. Each transaction is independently verified and confirmed by peer-to-peer computer networks, time-stamped, and then added to the distributed ledger. Once recorded, the data cannot be alteredand its only shared with those who are part of the encrypted ledger.

Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has predicted that blockchain is the future of our financial markets, including digital currencies. High-tech guru George Gilder sums up the future of blockchain this way: Even though bitcoin may not, after all, represent the potential for a new gold standard, its underlying technology will unbundle the roles of money. Blockchain may even represent the future of the Internet.

There is, however, a cloud hovering over the DLT future, a quantum cloud.

This column pointed out back in 2018 that DLT was vulnerable to future quantum computer attack. Our latest report from the Quantum Alliance Initiative at the Hudson Institute, gives some idea of the cost of such a future quantum computer assault. Our econometric calculations indicate that such an attack would amount to $1.8 trillion in direct losses, with an additional loss of $1.4 trillion in indirect impacts. Taken together, a successful quantum computer decryption of cryptocurrencys most valuable assetits blockchain encryptionwould result in a $3.34 trillion hit on the U.S. economy, with negative ripple effects across the global economy for a long time to come.

Stablecoins doesnt fare any better in this scenario. Since these crypto instruments are pegged to 1:1 ratios with fiat currencies, the resulting liquidity crunch as margin calls come due and banks scramble to cover losses, means they too become quantum road kill.

Whats the answer? As weve mentioned in other columns, crypto companies need to adopt quantum-safe encryption to protect their future. That means either installing post-quantum cryptographic algorithms like the ones being standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology or turning to quantum-based cryptography, which uses quantum random number generators and quantum key distribution to create hack-proof communication links across the ledger.

There are even quantum security companies that offer both.

Likewise, it would make sense for a government regulatory crypto regime to require installing quantum-safe solutions for the entire industry. Making cryptocurrencies quantum secure could even set the next cryptographic standard for the rest of the financial sector, from banks to equity and credit markets.

Either way, the future of blockchain, like the future of crypto, hangs in the balance. So will the future of the U.S. economy, unless we start getting smart about the quantum threat to come.

Go here to read the rest:
Can Crypto Still Save The World? - Forbes

The insatiable need to compress time to insights from massive and complex datasets is fueling the demand for quantum computing integration into high performance computing (HPC) environments. Such an integration would allow enterprises to accelerate and optimize current HPC applications and processes by simulating and emulating them on todays noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) computers.

Currently, enterprises are reliant on the advantages that can be achieved using only classical accelerator technology such as GPUs and FPGAs. However, HPC systems are limited in their ability to process and analyze large amounts of data needed to execute multiple workflows, even with the added compute power of classical accelerators. Using quantum computing technologies, not only will enterprises be able to accelerate current HPC processes, but they will also be empowered to solve intractable industry problems beyond the scope of the most advanced classical compute systems.

Today, quantum computing systems are still in early development and far from commercial maturity. Quantum computing hardware vendors are challenged in their ability to stabilize and scale the large number of qubits needed to solve complex problems and allow for error correction due to decoherence. As a result, NISQ machines cannot provide a means for enterprises to realize a quantum advantage, defined by IDC as being able to solve a problem that has actual value to a business, humanity, or otherwise.

Despite these challenges, enterprises are investing in quantum initiatives to identify uses cases and develop algorithms so that they are quantum ready when a fault-tolerant universal machine is realized. As a result, government entities, such as China, Germany and the US; IT industry leaders such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services (AWS); and private investors are escalating funding for quantum computing to push this technology to new levels of maturity.

IDC expects investments in the quantum computing market will reach nearly $16.4 billion by the end of 2027. IDC believes that these investments will lead to waves of technology innovation and breakthroughs that will allow organizations to apply quantum computing to a diverse and expanding group of use cases that involve the analysis of huge amounts of diverse datasets, exponentially large numbers of variables, and an inexhaustible number of possible outcomes.

The ability to address large-scale use cases using quantum computing is possible due to the qubits unique superpositioning and entanglement properties. Quantum and classical computers store and compute data based on a series of 0s and 1s. In classical computing, this is done using a bit. Bits are only capable of holding the values of 0 or 1. Bits cannot hold the value of 0 and 1 simultaneously. Qubits do have this capability. This property is referred to as superposition. Through qubit entanglement, a pair of qubits is connected or linked. Change in the state of one qubit results in a simultaneous, predictable change in the other qubit. Combined, the quantum properties of superpositioning and entanglement provide qubits the ability to process more data faster, cheaper, and better (more accurately or precisely) than a classical computer. As a result, enterprises can use quantum computing systems to explore new and unique use cases which can accelerate current business processes and workloads.

The list of use cases is growing at a rapid pace. Included in this list are performance intensive compute (PIC) specific use cases that address newly defined problems, refine solutions generated and iterated in the PIC environment, simulate quantum algorithms, and more. Energized by this innovative technology, many enterprises dont want to delay the commencement of their quantum journey. Approximately 8 out of 10 enterprises that are currently investing, or planning to invest, in quantum computing expect to integrate quantum computing technologies as a hybrid model to enhance their current performance intensive computing (PIC) capabilities. Because of this trend, IDC anticipates that several performance-intensive computing workloads will initially be turbocharged by quantum computing-based accelerators. Yet, in the long-term many of these workloads will eventually cross the computing paradigm and become quantum only.

Quantum and classical hardware vendors are working to develop quantum and quantum-inspired computing systems dedicated to solving HPC problems. For example, using a co-design approach, quantum start-up IQM is mapping quantum applications and algorithms directly to the quantum processor to develop an application-specific superconducting computer. The result is a quantum system optimized to run particular applications such as HPC workloads. In collaboration with Atos, quantum hardware start-up, Pascal is working to incorporate its neutral-atom quantum processors into HPC environments. NVIDIAs cuQuantum Appliance and cuQuantum software development kit provide enterprises the quantum simulation hardware and developer tools needed to integrate and run quantum simulations in HPC environments.

At a more global level, the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) announced its funding for the High-Performance Computer and Quantum Simulator (HPCQS) hybrid project. According the EuroHPC JU, the goal of the project is to prepare Europe for the post-exascale era by integrating two 100+ qubit quantum simulators into two supercomputers and developing the quantum computing platform, both of which will be accessible via the cloud.

Due to the demand for hybrid quantum-HPC systems, other classical and quantum hardware and software vendors have announced that they too are working to develop a hybrid quantum-HPC solutions. For example, compute infrastructure vendor, HPE, is extending its R&D focus into quantum computing by specializing in the co-development of quantum accelerators. Because quantum software vendor, Zapata, foresees quantum computing, HPC, and machine learning converging, the company is creating the Orquestra Universal Scheduler to manage task executions on HPC clusters and current HPC resources.

Yet, recent results from an IDC survey indicate that approximately 15% of enterprises are still deterred from quantum computing adoption. For quantum computing to take off, a quantum computing workforce made up of quantum scientists, physicists, engineers, developers, and operators needs to evolve. However, this should not deter enterprises from beginning their quantum computing journeys. Instead, hesitant adopters should take advantage of the development and consulting services offered by quantum hardware and software vendors, as well as IT consultants that specialize in quantum computing technologies. Because the choice is clear, become quantum ready or be left behind. IDC projects that worldwide customer spend for quantum computing will grow to $8.6 billion in 2027.

Authors

Heather West, Ph.D., Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group, IDC

Ashish Nadkami, Group Vice President, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group, IDC

Sample of IDC Reports

Worldwide Quantum Computing Forecast, 2021-2025: Imminent Disruption for the Next Decade

IDCs Worldwide Quantum Computing Taxonomy, 2022

Emerging Trends in End-User Adoption of Quantum Computing-as-a-Service Solutions

2021 Worldwide Quantum Technologies Use Case Report

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IDC Perspective on Integration of Quantum Computing and HPC - HPCwire

Perhaps the most famously weird feature of quantum mechanics is nonlocality: Measure one particle in an entangled pair whose partner is miles away, and the measurement seems to rip through the intervening space to instantaneously affect its partner. This spooky action at a distance (as Albert Einstein called it) has been the main focus of tests of quantum theory.

Nonlocality is spectacular. I mean, its like magic, said Adn Cabello, a physicist at the University of Seville in Spain.

But Cabello and others are interested in investigating a lesser-known but equally magical aspect of quantum mechanics: contextuality. Contextuality says that properties of particles, such as their position or polarization, exist only within the context of a measurement. Instead of thinking of particles properties as having fixed values, consider them more like words in language, whose meanings can change depending on the context: Timeflies likean arrow. Fruitflies likebananas.

Although contextuality has lived in nonlocalitys shadow for over 50 years, quantum physicists now consider it more of a hallmark feature of quantum systems than nonlocality is. A single particle, for instance, is a quantum system in which you cannot even think about nonlocality, since the particle is only in one location, said Brbara Amaral, a physicist at the University of So Paulo in Brazil. So [contextuality] is more general in some sense, and I think this is important to really understand the power of quantum systems and to go deeper into why quantum theory is the way it is.

Researchers have also found tantalizing links between contextuality and problems that quantum computers can efficiently solve that ordinary computers cannot; investigating these links could help guide researchers in developing new quantum computing approaches and algorithms.

And with renewed theoretical interest comes a renewed experimental effort to prove that our world is indeed contextual. In February, Cabello, in collaboration with Kihwan Kim at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, published a paper in which they claimed to have performed the first loophole-free experimental test of contextuality.

The Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell is widely credited with showing that quantum systems can be nonlocal. By comparing the outcomes of measurements of two entangled particles, he showed with his eponymous theorem of 1965 that the high degree of correlations between the particles cant possibly be explained in terms of local hidden variables defining each ones separate properties. The information contained in the entangled pair must be shared nonlocally between the particles.

Bell also proved a similar theorem about contextuality. He and, separately, Simon Kochen and Ernst Specker showed that it is impossible for a quantum system to have hidden variables that define the values of all their properties in all possible contexts.

In Kochen and Speckers version of the proof, they considered a single particle with a quantum property called spin, which has both a magnitude and a direction. Measuring the spins magnitude along any direction always results in one of two outcomes: 1 or 0. The researchers then asked: Is it possible that the particle secretly knows what the result of every possible measurement will be before it is measured? In other words, could they assign a fixed value a hidden variable to all outcomes of all possible measurements at once?

Quantum theory says that the magnitudes of the spins along three perpendicular directions must obey the 101 rule: The outcomes of two of the measurements must be 1 and the other must be 0. Kochen and Specker used this rule to arrive at a contradiction. First, they assumed that each particle had a fixed, intrinsic value for each direction of spin. They then conducted a hypothetical spin measurement along some unique direction, assigning either 0 or 1 to the outcome. They then repeatedly rotated the direction of their hypothetical measurement and measured again, each time either freely assigning a value to the outcome or deducing what the value must be in order to satisfy the 101 rule together with directions they had previously considered.

They continued until, in the 117th direction, the contradiction cropped up. While they had previously assigned a value of 0 to the spin along this direction, the 101 rule was now dictating that the spin must be 1. The outcome of a measurement could not possibly return both 0 and 1. So the physicists concluded that there is no way a particle can have fixed hidden variables that remain the same regardless of context.

While the proof indicated that quantum theory demands contextuality, there was no way to actually demonstrate this through 117 simultaneous measurements of a single particle. Physicists have since devised more practical, experimentally implementable versions of the original Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem involving multiple entangled particles, where a particular measurement on one particle defines a context for the others.

In 2009, contextuality, a seemingly esoteric aspect of the underlying fabric of reality, got a direct application: One of the simplified versions of the original Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem was shown to be equivalent to a basic quantum computation.

The proof, named Mermins star after its originator, David Mermin, considered various combinations of contextual measurements that could be made on three entangled quantum bits, or qubits. The logic of how earlier measurements shape the outcomes of later measurements has become the basis for an approach called measurement-based quantum computing. The discovery suggested that contextuality might be key to why quantum computers can solve certain problems faster than classical computers an advantage that researchers have struggled mightily to understand.

Robert Raussendorf, a physicist at the University of British Columbia and a pioneer of measurement-based quantum computing, showed that contextuality is necessary for a quantum computer to beat a classical computer at some tasks, but he doesnt think its the whole story. Whether contextuality powers quantum computers is probably not exactly the right question to ask, he said. But we need to get there question by question. So we ask a question that we understand how to ask; we get an answer. We ask the next question.

Some researchers have suggested loopholes around Bell, Kochen and Speckers conclusion that the world is contextual. They argue that context-independent hidden variables havent been conclusively ruled out.

In February, Cabello and Kim announced that they had closed every plausible loophole by performing a loophole free Bell-Kochen-Specker experiment.

The experiment entailed measuring the spins of two entangled trapped ions in various directions, where the choice of measurement on one ion defined the context for the other ion. The physicists showed that, although making a measurement on one ion does not physically affect the other, it changes the context and hence the outcome of the second ions measurement.

Skeptics would ask: How can you be certain that the context created by the first measurement is what changed the second measurement outcome, rather than other conditions that might vary from experiment to experiment? Cabello and Kim closed this sharpness loophole by performing thousands of sets of measurements and showing that the outcomes dont change if the context doesnt. After ruling out this and other loopholes, they concluded that the only reasonable explanation for their results is contextuality.

Cabello and others think that these experiments could be used in the future to test the level of contextuality and hence, the power of quantum computing devices.

If you want to really understand how the world is working, said Cabello, you really need to go into the detail of quantum contextuality.

Read more here:
The Spooky Quantum Phenomenon You've Never Heard Of - Quanta Magazine