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Quantum computing has the potential to fundamentally transform the technology industry by applying the weird effects of the quantum realm to complex business problems. But right now, quantum computing faces a more mundane problem itself: finding enough recruits.

Demand for digital skills in the workplace has been on a steady upward trend for years, but the sudden increased reliance on technology since the start of 2020 has made competition in tech recruitment even more fierce.

The CIO's guide to Quantum computing

Quantum computers offer great promise for cryptography and optimization problems, and companies are racing to make them practical for business use. ZDNet explores what quantum computers will and wont be able to do, and the challenges that remain.

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The challenge is even greater for organizations dealing in highly specialized technologies. Quantum computing, for example, combines a variety of specialist fields such as quantum theory, advanced mathematics, and computer science that aren't seen on your typical CV, shrinking the talent pool considerably for companies looking to hire in this nascent, but increasingly competitive, industry.

SEE:Quantum computing's next big challenge: A quantum skills shortage

"It is incredibly small," says Samantha Edmondson, head of talent at British quantum computing startup, Universal Quantum, which is on a mission to build the world's first million-qubit quantum computer.

"Say if we were looking to hire an experienced quantum physicist that had the kind of expertise we needed, then yes, you're looking at a small handful of academic groups across the world that you can really pick from."

Quantum computers operate on inherently different principles to classical computers, requiring a new approach to problem-solving and a workforce consisting of academic, technical, and businesses expertise.

No one candidate is going to possess all of these. "It involves so many different skills: we need classical hardware engineers, we need software engineers, we need mathematicians, we need simulation and modelling experts," says Edmondson.

"I think the challenge for us is, if we go to hire a classical engineer, they don't have the physics background; if we hire a physicist, they're not used to working with classical hardware engineering analogue design is new to them."

Another fundamental challenge for businesses is getting people interested in technical fields to begin with.

Not only are fewer young people taking IT and STEM-related subjects at school, but research also suggests that younger generations aren't all too confident about their chances of landing a career in tech either.

Robert Liscouski, CEO of Quantum Computing Inc (QCI), says this is reflective of endemic problems in how young people are educated, which doesn't necessarily include skills that are transferrable into the modern, professional workforce. "I think we're not doing a very good job at all of preparing young people for these technology jobs," he tells ZDNet.

"I think we still have this 19th Century education going on that's really focused on educating children so they can work in factories."

Better education, meanwhile, remains out of reach for most. "Where I live in Northern Virginia, we have a couple of academies that are geared for really advanced education in the secondary school and high schoolThe admission requirements in those programmes are so competitive that kids need to be at the absolute top of their game," says Liscouski.

"That's great you want that advanced thinking. But we need to figure out how we kind of bring that into the entire high school system and inculcate these kids into thinking about technology differently."

One solution for the shortage of specialist tech talent is for employers to bring on employees that are not necessarily already experts in the field, and then train them up on the job.

For a field like quantum computing, this still means being selective in the candidates you can hire higher-level education and expertise in mathematics, physics, engineering, and coding are always going to rank highly, for instance. Even so, internships and training programs can help to lower the barriers to entry.

Universal Quantum runs a three-month internship scheme that's open to graduates who hold a master's in physics or mathematics. Typically, interns take on a specific project that they are given total responsibility for, with Universal Quantum providing support through one-on-one mentoring and drop-in sessions with quantum physicists.

SEE:What is quantum computing? Everything you need to know about the strange world of quantum computers

The internship culminates in them presenting their work to a large section of the company. "Typically, we'll speak to them at the beginning and get a sense of what their interests are, and then we'll match that to a company need we have," says Edmondson.

"They'll often say, 'I don't know anything about quantum' or 'I've never worked in quantum,' and we have to reassure them and say 'that's completely fine, we're happy to teach you that when you come here.' That's quite exciting to them."

Liscouski too believes that deep quantum expertise isn't necessarily a requirement for enterprises to begin taking advantage of quantum computing, although he acknowledges that not all companies have the resources to offer comprehensive training programmes. "It's very hard for small companies and it's very hard for medium-sized companies because you don't have that luxury of taking 10% of your workforce out and putting them in training for a period of time," he says.

"Typically, you hire people because you need them now, not because you need them in six months."

One alternative is to target students at university, college, or even school: something that QCI previously offered with its quantum computing clubs, where participants learn to use the company's software, Qatalyst.

"We're moving into actually the academic instructional program, where professors are using our software as part of their curriculum, and we've got a whole curriculum development programme for that," says Liscouski.

"We're trying to push this down to the lowest common denominator in terms of who can access it. We're even trying to get into high schools to help that workforce development."

Qatalyst is a quantum application accelerator that enables end users to transform real-world problems into quantum-ready requests, and then it processes those requests on a combination of classical computers and cloud-based quantum processors, including Ion-Q, D-Wave, and Rigetti.

SEE:Quantum computing: Getting it ready for business

It enables businesses to make use of quantum applications without needing to have their own quantum computers or specialists.

"It's intended to try to put that technology in the hands of folks who are trying to solve business problems without having to be quantum programmers," says Liscouski.

"Our focus on our platform and the development that we've done to connect to any number of quantum platforms, is to disintermediate, or de-emphasise, the need for this high-end talent that's going to make a program run on a quantum computer."

In many ways, QCI proposes a technical solution to a shortage of specialist skills -- although Liscouski acknowledges that technology on its own is not the be-all to end-all. "We still have this shortcoming of all of this talent that's going to make this stuff work at scale," he adds.

"Quantum programmes are different than classical programmes. The way you look at a problem classically is different to the way you look at a problem from a quantum point of viewThinking about those problems requires a different level of thinking than classical computers."

Given the scant interest in technology careers shown by Generation Z, outreach is going to play a significant role in putting burgeoning, next-generation technologies like quantum computing on their radars undoubtedly the first step to addressing any skills gaps.

Edmondson says tech organizations need to become involved in attracting young people at a grassroots level within schools, as well as getting more creative in how they portray opportunities in the tech sector. "It's definitely a responsibility of businesses to try to nurture the talent pool coming forward and undertake outreach that will assist with that and that's just getting young people excited about things," she says.

SEE:Tech jobs have an image problem, and it's making the skills shortage worse

"We set up a lab in Spitalfields Market in London in a huge shipping container and were giving live demonstrations and experiments. People would come in and we'd talk to them about what we were doing and get them excited. That's relatively small-scale right now, but if somebody goes away and because of that becomes excited to learn something or do a new subject, that's a win."

Liscouski says that exposure to new technologies from an early age will also play an important role in equipping the next-generation workforce with key digital skills and have them working on real-world problems. "I think there has to be either post-high school training capability, or post-college training capability, or colleges have to extend and think more broadly about what they're preparing students to do," he adds.

"Because, at the end of the day, quantum computing like any computer that we know of unless there is end-user adoption, unless there is a focus on what problems can be solved, it becomes a science experiment and is just going to stay in the research world."

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Quantum computing skills are hard to find. Here's how companies are tackling the shortage - ZDNet

COMPUTING

Two of Worlds Biggest Quantum Computers Made in ChinaCharles Q. Choi | IEEE Spectrumscientists in China have tested two different quantum computers on what they say are more challenging tasks than [Googles] Sycamore faced and showed faster results. They note their work points to an unambiguous quantum computational advantage.i

Alternative Rocket Builder SpinLaunch Completes First Test FlightMichael Sheetz | CNBCThe company is developing a launch system that uses kinetic energy as its primary method to get off the groundwith a vacuum-sealed centrifuge spinning the rocket at several times the speed of sound before releasing. This is about building a company and a space launch system that is going to enter into the commercial markets with a very high cadence and launch at the lowest cost in the industry, SpinLaunch CEO Jonathan Yaney told CNBC.

Scientists Build Tiny Robot That Could Deliver Drugs With Amazing AccuracyJulian Dossett | CNET[A] team of scientists at [ETH Zurich] has built a microrobot thats inspired by the movement of starfish larva. Their yet-to-be-named robot measures just a quarter of a millimeter across and swims through liquid by moving tiny surface hairs, or cilia, found on all kinds of microorganisms, including newborn starfish.

Wind and Solar Could Meet 85 Percent of Current Electricity NeedsK. Holt | EngadgetWindandsolar powercould meet around 85 percent of US electricity needs, according to a paper published inNature Communications. Batteries, capacity overbuilding and other storage options could increase that figure. A blend of wind and solar power should be enough to meet most of the current energy needs in advanced, industrialized nations, according to the study.

An E. Coli Biocomputer Solves a Maze by Sharing the WorkSiobhan Roberts | MIT Technology Reviewthis multitalented bacterium has a new trick: it can solve a classic computational maze problem using distributed computingdividing up the necessary calculations among different types of genetically engineered cells. This neat feat is a credit to synthetic biology, which aims to rig up biological circuitry much like electronic circuitry and to program cells as easily as computers.

Lidar Uncovers Hundreds of Lost Maya and Olmec RuinsKiona N. Smith | WiredOver the last several years, lidar surveys have revealedtens of thousands of irrigation channels, causeways, and fortresses across Maya territory, which now spans the borders of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Infrared beams can penetrate dense foliage to measure the height of the ground, which often reveals features like long-abandoned canals or plazas.The results have shown that Maya civilization was more extensive, and more densely populated, than we previously realized.

The Long Search for a Computer That Speaks Your MindAdam Rogers | WiredThe trick is to use data from the brain to synthesize speech in real time so users can practice and the machine can learn. New brain computer interface systems are getting there. The endgame, probably half a decade away, will be some unification of accuracy and intelligibility with real-time audio. Thats the common direction all of the groups doing this are going towarddoing it in real time, Anumanchipalli says.i

AR Is Where the Real Metaverse Is Going to HappenSteven Levy | WirediOur overarching goal is to help bring the metaverse to life, Mark Zuckerberg told his workforce in June. [Niantic CEO John] Hanke hates this idea. Hes read all the science fiction books and seen all the films that first imagined the metaverseall great fun, and allwrong. He believes that his vision, unlikevirtual reality, will make the real world better without encouraging people to totally check out of it.

Image Credit: Shubham Dhage / Unsplash

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through November 13) - Singularity Hub

Nov. 12, 2021 Supercomputing Frontiers Europe will take place from July 11-15, 2022. The conference is organized by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM), University of Warsaw. The event aims to enable the widest participation of HPC enthusiasts from all around the world, to learn, share and advance. Save the dates!

The last edition of Supercomputing Frontiers Europe was a success with more than 800 registrations, from 77 countries. The conference gathered 43 distinguished speakers including 4 keynote speakers: Irene Qualters from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Anders Jensen, the Executive Director of the EuroHPC JU, Hiroaki Kitano from The Systems Biology Institute and Roberto Car, the recipient of the 2020 ACM Gordon Bell Prize, from Princeton University.

We are witnessing a very interesting period of intense, concerted and carefully planned European engagement in the global supercomputing development which allows us to be on the right track to establish SCFE as a permanent forum for discussing new ideas and emerging technologies in supercomputing. says Dr. Marek Michalewicz, committee chair and Supercomputing Frontiers conference creator.

SCFE strives to give an open space for the HPC community to interact and discuss visionary ideas. The annual event is attended by scientists, researchers, supercomputer centres managers, students and representatives of leading technology vendors and start-ups. Each year the organisers prepare free workshops for the audience to participate in, delivered by the leaders of the field.

The tentative topics for SCFE22 will be:

Submission closing date is April 30, 2022. CFP: https://easychair.org/cfp/SCFE2022.

Submitted papers will be subjected to a peer review and carefully evaluated based on originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of exposition. All authors of accepted papers from the conference will be invited by the SCFE22 program committee to submit and publish their paper (after further independent review) in a special issue of the international journal of Supercomputing Frontiers and Innovations.

Stay in touch Conference website: https://supercomputingfrontiers.eu/2022. Twitter: https://twitter.com/SCFE_conference. #SCFE22

About the Organizer

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM), University of Warsaw, is involved in interdisciplinary scientific research based on mathematical modeling, computer simulations, modeling, multi-scale and large-scale computations. The popularmeteo.pl weather portal for over 25 years has been providing the most accurate weather predictions for Poland and is visited about 200 million times annually. ICM researchers created decision support tools for globalcivil aviation (in collaboration with ICAO). For nearly a year now ICM is supporting the Polish Government and crisis management authorities in Poland by providing short and long term predictions of epidemic in Poland usingICM Epidemiological Model for the COVID-19. ICM plays crucial role in securing access for Polish scientists from over 500 institutions to the entire body of scientific literature, including over 26,000 journal titles, and over 150 000 book titles by maintaining theVirtual Library of Science. ICM networking team has participated in a number of cutting edge networking solutions, both for high throughput and low latency requirements. In 2019, ICM engineers have established a production100Gbps connection over 12,375 4 miles CAE-1(Collaboration Asia Europe-1) line between Warsaw and Singapore.

Source: Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling, University of Warsaw

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Supercomputing Frontiers Europe 2022 to be Held July 11-15, 2022 - HPCwire

Illustration of a quantum wave packet in close vicinity of a conical intersection between two potential energy surfaces. The wave packet represents the collective motion of multiple atoms in the photoactive yellow protein. A part of the wave packet moves through the intersection from one potential energy surface to the other, while another part remains on the top surface, leading to a superposition of quantum states. Credit: DESY, Niels Breckwoldt

A new analytical technique is able to provide hitherto unattainable insights into the extremely rapid dynamics of biomolecules. The team of developers, led by Abbas Ourmazd from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee and Robin Santra from DESY, is presenting its clever combination of quantum physics and molecular biology in the scientific journal Nature. The scientists used the technique to track the way in which the photoactive yellow protein (PYP) undergoes changes in its structure in less than a trillionth of a second after being excited by light.

In order to precisely understand biochemical processes in nature, such as photosynthesis in certain bacteria, it is important to know the detailed sequence of events, Santra explains their underlying motivation. When light strikes photoactive proteins, their spatial structure is altered, and this structural change determines what role a protein takes on in nature. Until now, however, it has been almost impossible to track the exact sequence in which structural changes occur. Only the initial and final states of a molecule before and after a reaction can be determined and interpreted in theoretical terms. But we dont know exactly how the energy and shape changes in between the two, says Santra. Its like seeing that someone has folded their hands, but you cant see them interlacing their fingers to do so.

Whereas a hand is large enough and the movement is slow enough for us to follow it with our eyes, things are not that easy when looking at molecules. The energy state of a molecule can be determined with great precision using spectroscopy; and bright X-rays for example from an X-ray laser can be used to analyze the shape of a molecule. The extremely short wavelength of X-rays means that they can resolve very small spatial structures, such as the positions of the atoms within a molecule. However, the result is not an image like a photograph, but instead a characteristic interference pattern, which can be used to deduce the spatial structure that created it.

Since the movements are extremely rapid at the molecular level, the scientists have to use extremely short X-ray pulses to prevent the image from being blurred. It was only with the advent of X-ray lasers that it became possible to produce sufficiently bright and short X-ray pulses to capture these dynamics. However, since molecular dynamics takes place in the realm of quantum physics where the laws of physics deviate from our everyday experience, the measurements can only be interpreted with the help of a quantum-physical analysis.

A peculiar feature of photoactive proteins needs to be taken into consideration: the incident light excites their electron shell to enter a higher quantum state, and this causes an initial change in the shape of the molecule. This change in shape can in turn result in the excited and ground quantum states overlapping each other. In the resulting quantum jump, the excited state reverts to the ground state, whereby the shape of the molecule initially remains unchanged. The conical intersection between the quantum states therefore opens a pathway to a new spatial structure of the protein in the quantum mechanical ground state.

The team led by Santra and Ourmazd has now succeeded for the first time in unraveling the structural dynamics of a photoactive protein at such a conical intersection. They did so by drawing on machine learning because a full description of the dynamics would in fact require every possible movement of all the particles involved to be considered. This quickly leads to unmanageable equations that cannot be solved.

The photoactive yellow protein we studied consists of some 2000 atoms, explains Santra, who is a Lead Scientist at DESY and a professor of physics at Universitt Hamburg. Since every atom is basically free to move in all three spatial dimensions, there are a total of 6000 options for movement. That leads to a quantum mechanical equation with 6000 dimensions which even the most powerful computers today are unable to solve.

However, computer analyses based on machine learning were able to identify patterns in the collective movement of the atoms in the complex molecule. Its like when a hand moves: there, too, we dont look at each atom individually, but at their collective movement, explains Santra. Unlike a hand, where the possibilities for collective movement are obvious, these options are not as easy to identify in the atoms of a molecule. However, using this technique, the computer was able to reduce the approximately 6000 dimensions to four. By demonstrating this new method, Santras team was also able to characterize a conical intersection of quantum states in a complex molecule made up of thousands of atoms for the first time.

The detailed calculation shows how this conical intersection forms in four-dimensional space and how the photoactive yellow protein drops through it back to its initial state after being excited by light. The scientists can now describe this process in steps of a few dozen femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second) and thus advance the understanding of photoactive processes. As a result, quantum physics is providing new insights into a biological system, and biology is providing new ideas for quantum mechanical methodology, says Santra, who is also a member of the Hamburg Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter. The two fields are cross-fertilizing each other in the process.

Reference: Few-fs resolution of a photoactive protein traversing a conical intersection by A. Hosseinizadeh, N. Breckwoldt, R. Fung, R. Sepehr, M. Schmidt, P. Schwander, R. Santra and A. Ourmazd, 3 November 2021, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04050-9

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Clever Combination of Quantum Physics and Molecular Biology - SciTechDaily

Nov 8th 2021

by By the Science and technology correspondents of The Economist

The astonishingly rapid development and rollout of coronavirus vaccines has been a reminder of the power of science and technology to change the world. Although vaccines based on new mRNA technology seemed to have been created almost instantly, they actually drew upon decades of research going back to the 1970s. As the saying goes in the technology industry, it takes years to create an overnight success. So what else might be about to burst into prominence? Here are 22 emerging technologies worth watching in 2022

It sounds childishly simple. If the world is getting too hot, why not offer it some shade? The dust and ash released into the upper atmosphere by volcanoes is known to have a cooling effect: Mount Pinatubos eruption in 1991 cooled the Earth by as much as 0.5C for four years. Solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management, would do the same thing deliberately.

This is hugely controversial. Would it work? How would rainfall and weather patterns be affected? And wouldnt it undermine efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions? Efforts to test the idea face fierce opposition from politicians and activists. In 2022, however, a group at Harvard University hopes to conduct a much-delayed experiment called SCoPEX. It involves launching a balloon into the stratosphere, with the aim of releasing 2kg of material (probably calcium carbonate), and then measuring how it dissipates, reacts and scatters solar energy.

Proponents argue that it is important to understand the technique, in case it is needed to buy the world more time to cut emissions. The Harvard group has established an independent advisory panel to consider the moral and political ramifications. Whether the test goes ahead or not, expect controversy.

Keeping buildings warm in winter accounts for about a quarter of global energy consumption. Most heating relies on burning coal, gas or oil. If the world is to meet its climate-change targets, that will have to change. The most promising alternative is to use heat pumpsessentially, refrigerators that run in reverse.

Instead of pumping heat out of a space to cool it down, a heat pump forces heat in from the outside, warming it up. Because they merely move existing heat around, they can be highly efficient: for every kilowatt of electricity consumed, heat pumps can deliver 3kW of heat, making them cheaper to run than electric radiators. And running a heat pump backwards cools a home rather than heating it.

Gradient, based in San Francisco, is one of several companies offering a heat pump that can provide both heating and cooling. Its low-profile, saddle-bag shaped products can be mounted in windows, like existing air conditioners, and will go on sale in 2022.

Electrifying road transport is one thing. Aircraft are another matter. Batteries can only power small aircraft for short flights. But might electricity from hydrogen fuel cells, which excrete only water, do the trick? Passenger planes due to be test-flown with hydrogen fuel cells in 2022 include a two-seater being built at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. ZeroAvia, based in California, plans to complete trials of a 20-seat aircraft, and aims to have its hydrogen-propulsion system ready for certification by the end of the year. Universal Hydrogen, also of California, hopes its 40-seat plane will take off in September 2022.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes global warming. So why not suck it out using machines? Several startups are pursuing direct air capture (DAC), a technology that does just that. In 2022 Carbon Engineering, a Canadian firm, will start building the worlds biggest DAC facility in Texas, capable of capturing 1m tonnes of CO2 per year. ClimeWorks, a Swiss firm, opened a DAC plant in Iceland in 2021, which buries captured CO2 in mineral form at a rate of 4,000 tonnes a year. Global Thermostat, an American firm, has two pilot plants. DAC could be vital in the fight against climate change. The race is on to get costs down and scale the technology up.

A new type of agriculture is growing. Vertical farms grow plants on trays stacked in a closed, controlled environment. Efficient LED lighting has made the process cheaper, though energy costs remain a burden. Vertical farms can be located close to customers, reducing transport costs and emissions. Water use is minimised and bugs are kept out, so no pesticides are needed.

In Britain, the Jones Food Company will open the worlds largest vertical farm, covering 13,750 square metres, in 2022. AeroFarms, an American firm, will open its largest vertical farm, in Daneville, Virginia. Other firms will be expanding, too. Nordic Harvest will enlarge its facility just outside Copenhagen and construct a new one in Stockholm. Plenty, based in California, will open a new indoor farm near Los Angeles. Vertical farms mostly grow high-value leafy greens and herbs, but some are venturing into tomatoes, peppers and berries. The challenge now is to make the economics stack up, too.

Ships produce 3% of greenhouse-gas emissions. Burning maritime bunker fuel, a dirty diesel sludge, also contributes to acid rain. None of this was a problem in the age of sailwhich is why sails are making a comeback, in high-tech form, to cut costs and emissions.

In 2022 Michelin of France will equip a freighter with an inflatable sail that is expected to reduce fuel consumption by 20%. MOL, a Japanese shipping firm, plans to put a telescoping rigid sail on a ship in August 2022. Naos Design of Italy expects to equip eight ships with its pivoting and foldable hard wing sails. Other approaches include kites, suction wings that house fans, and giant, spinning cylinders called Flettner rotors. By the end of 2022 the number of big cargo ships with sails of some kind will have quadrupled to 40, according to the International Windship Association. If the European Union brings shipping into its carbon-trading scheme in 2022, as planned, that will give these unusual technologies a further push.

Most people do not do enough exercise. Many would like to, but lack motivation. Virtual reality (VR) headsets let people play games and burn calories in the process, as they punch or slice oncoming shapes, or squat and shimmy to dodge obstacles. VR workouts became more popular during the pandemic as lockdowns closed gyms and a powerful, low-cost headset, the Oculus Quest 2, was released. An improved model and new fitness features are coming in 2022. And Supernatural, a highly regarded VR workout app available only in North America, may be released in Europe. Could the killer app for virtual reality be physical fitness?

The impressive success of coronavirus vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) heralds a golden era of vaccine development. Moderna is developing an HIV vaccine based on the same mRNA technology used in its highly effective coronavirus vaccine. It entered early-stage clinical trials in 2021 and preliminary results are expected in 2022. BioNTech, joint-developer of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, is working on an mRNA vaccine for malaria, with clinical trials expected to start in 2022. Non-mRNA vaccines for HIV and malaria, developed at the University of Oxford, are also showing promise.

For years, researchers have been developing techniques to create artificial organs using 3D printing of biological materials. The ultimate goal is to take a few cells from a patient and create fully functional organs for transplantation, thus doing away with long waiting-lists, testing for matches and the risk of rejection.

That goal is still some way off for fleshy organs. But bones are less tricky. Two startups, Particle3D and ADAM, hope to have 3D-printed bones available for human implantation in 2022. Both firms use calcium-based minerals to print their bones, which are made to measure based on patients CT scans. Particle3Ds trials in pigs and mice found that bone marrow and blood vessels grew into its implants within eight weeks. ADAM says its 3D-printed implants stimulate natural bone growth and gradually biodegrade, eventually being replaced by the patients bone tissue. If all goes well, researchers say 3D-printed blood vessels and heart valves are next.

Long seen as something of a fantasy, flying taxis, or electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, as the fledgling industry calls them, are getting serious. Several firms around the world will step up test flights in 2022 with the aim of getting their aircraft certified for commercial use in the following year or two. Joby Aviation, based in California, plans to build more than a dozen of its five-seater vehicles, which have a 150-mile range. Volocopter of Germany aims to provide an air-taxi service at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Other contenders include eHang, Lilium and Vertical Aerospace. Keep an eye on the skies.

After a stand-out year for space tourism in 2021, as a succession of billionaire-backed efforts shot civilians into the skies, hopes are high for 2022. Sir Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic just beat Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin to the edge of space in July, with both billionaires riding in their own spacecraft on suborbital trips. In September Elon Musks company, SpaceX, sent four passengers on a multi-day orbital cruise around the Earth.

All three firms hope to fly more tourists in 2022, which promises to be the first year in which more people go to space as paying passengers than as government employees. But Virgin Galactic is modifying its vehicle to make it stronger and safer, and it is not expected to fly again until the second half of 2022, with commercial service starting in the fourth quarter. Blue Origin plans more flights but has not said when or how many. For its part, SpaceX has done a deal to send tourists to the International Space Station. Next up? The Moon.

They are taking longer than expected to get off the ground. But new rules, which came into effect in 2021, will help drone deliveries gain altitude in 2022. Manna, an Irish startup which has been delivering books, meals and medicine in County Galway, plans to expand its service in Ireland and into Britain. Wing, a sister company of Google, has been doing test deliveries in America, Australia and Finland and will expand its mall-to-home delivery service, launched in late 2021. Dronamics, a Bulgarian startup, will start using winged drones to shuttle cargo between 39 European airports. The question is: will the pace of drone deliveries pick upor drop off?

For half a century, scientists have wondered whether changes to the shape of a supersonic aircraft could reduce the intensity of its sonic boom. Only recently have computers become powerful enough to run the simulations needed to turn those noise-reduction theories into practice.

In 2022 NASAs X-59 QueSST (short for Quiet Supersonic Technology) will make its first test flight. Crucially, that test will take place over landspecifically, Edwards Air Force Base in California. Concorde, the worlds first and only commercial supersonic airliner, was not allowed to travel faster than sound when flying over land. The X-59s sonic boom is expected to be just one-eighth as loud as Concordes. At 75 perceived decibels, it will be equivalent to a distant thunderstormmore of a sonic thump. If it works, NASA hopes that regulators could lift the ban on supersonic flights over land, ushering in a new era for commercial flight.

Architects often use 3D printing to create scale models of buildings. But the technology can be scaled up and used to build the real thing. Materials are squirted out of a nozzle as a foam that then hardens. Layer by layer, a house is printedeither on site, or as several pieces in a factory that are transported and assembled.

In 2022 Mighty Buildings, based in California, will complete a development of 15 eco-friendly 3D-printed homes at Rancho Mirage. And ICON, based in Texas, plans to start building a community of 100 3D-printed homes near Austin, which would be the largest development of its kind.

Its become a craze in Silicon Valley. Not content with maximising their productivity and performance during their waking hours, geeks are now optimising their sleep, too, using an array of technologies. These include rings and headbands that record and track sleep quality, soothing sound machines, devices to heat and cool mattresses, and smart alarm clocks to wake you at the perfect moment. Google launched a sleep-tracking nightstand tablet in 2021, and Amazon is expected to follow suit in 2022. It sounds crazy. But poor sleep is linked with maladies from heart disease to obesity. And what Silicon Valley does today, everyone else often ends up doing tomorrow.

Diets don't work. Evidence is growing that each persons metabolism is unique, and food choices should be, too. Enter personalised nutrition: apps that tell you what to eat and when, using machine-learning algorithms, tests of your blood and gut microbiome, data on lifestyle factors such as exercise, and real-time tracking of blood-sugar levels using coin-sized devices attached to the skin. After successful launches in America, personalised-nutrition firms are eyeing other markets in 2022. Some will also seek regulatory approval as treatments for conditions such as diabetes and migraine.

Remote medical consultations have become commonplace. That could transform the prospects for wearable health trackers such as the Fitbit or Apple Watch. They are currently used primarily as fitness trackers, measuring steps taken, running and swimming speeds, heart rates during workouts, and so forth. But the line between consumer and medical uses of such devices is now blurring, say analysts at Gartner, a consultancy.

Smart watches can already measure blood oxygenation, perform ECGs and detect atrial fibrillation. The next version of the Apple Watch, expected in 2022, may include new sensors capable of measuring levels of glucose and alcohol in the blood, along with blood pressure and body temperature. Rockley Photonics, the company supplying the sensor technology, calls its system a clinic on the wrist. Regulatory approval for such functions may take a while, but in the meantime doctors, not just users, will be paying more attention to data from wearables.

Coined in 1992 by Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash, the word metaverse referred to a persistent virtual world, accessible via special goggles, where people could meet, flirt, play games, buy and sell things, and much more besides. In 2022 it refers to the fusion of video games, social networking and entertainment to create new, immersive experiences, like swimming inside your favourite song at an online concert. Games such as Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite are all stepping-stones to an emerging new medium. Facebook has renamed itself Meta to capitalise on the opportunityand distract from its other woes.

An idea that existed only on blackboards in the 1990s has grown into a multi-billion dollar contest between governments, tech giants and startups: harnessing the counter-intuitive properties of quantum physics to build a new kind of computer. For some kinds of mathematics a quantum computer could outperform any non-quantum machine that could ever be built, making quick work of calculations used in cryptography, chemistry and finance.

But when will such machines arrive? One measure of a quantum computers capability is its number of qubits. A Chinese team has built a computer with 66 qubits. IBM, an American firm, hopes to hit 433 qubits in 2022 and 1,000 by 2023. But existing machines have a fatal flaw: the delicate quantum states on which they depend last for just a fraction of a second. Fixing that will take years. But if existing machines can be made useful in the meantime, quantum computing could become a commercial reality much sooner than expected.

Unlike a human influencer, a virtual influencer will never be late to a photoshoot, get drunk at a party or get old. That is because virtual influencers are computer-generated characters who plug products on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

The best known is Miquela Sousa, or Lil Miquela, a fictitious Brazilian-American 19-year-old with 3m Instagram followers. With $15bn expected to be spent on influencer marketing in 2022, virtual influencers are proliferating. Aya Stellaran interstellar traveller crafted by Cosmiq Universe, a marketing agencywill land on Earth in February. She has already released a song on YouTube.

In April 2021 the irrepressible entrepreneur Elon Musk excitedly tweeted that a macaque monkey was literally playing a video game telepathically using a brain chip. His company, Neuralink, had implanted two tiny sets of electrodes into the monkeys brain. Signals from these electrodes, transmitted wirelessly and then decoded by a nearby computer, enabled the monkey to move the on-screen paddle in a game of Pong using thought alone.

In 2022 Neuralink hopes to test its device in humans, to enable people who are paralysed to operate a computer. Another firm, Synchron, has already received approval from American regulators to begin human trials of a similar device. Its minimally invasive neural prosthetic is inserted into the brain via blood vessels in the neck. As well as helping paralysed people, Synchron is also looking at other uses, such as diagnosing and treating nervous-system conditions including epilepsy, depression and hypertension.

Winston Churchill once mused about the absurdity of growing a whole chicken to eat the breast or wing. Nearly a century later, around 70 companies are cultivating meats in bioreactors. Cells taken from animals, without harming them, are nourished in soups rich in proteins, sugars, fats, vitamins and minerals. In 2020 Eat Just, an artificial-meat startup based in San Francisco, became the first company certified to sell its products, in Singapore.

It is expected to be joined by a handful of other firms in 2022. In the coming year an Israeli startup, SuperMeat, expects to win approval for commercial sales of cultivated chicken burgers, grown for $10 a popdown from $2,500 in 2018, the company says. Finless Foods, based in California, hopes for approval to sell cultivated bluefin tuna, grown for $440 a kilogramdown from $660,000 in 2017. Bacon, turkey and other cultivated meats are in the pipeline. Eco-conscious meat-lovers will soon be able to have their steakand eat it.

By the Science and technology correspondents of The Economist

This article appeared in the What next? section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2022 under the headline What next?

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What next? 22 emerging technologies to watch in 2022 - The Economist