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For the past few years, the main mechanism used by the U.S. against China in the U.S.-Chinese tech war has been Executive Orders limiting (or even banning) certain software and drones manufactured and/or owned by Chinese companies from use by government agencies. Now, instead of only playing defense against Chinese technology, Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Todd Young (R-IN) have teamed up to support the Endless Frontier Act (Act). Originally introduced in 2020, S. 3832 will be revamped and made a keystone of this new Act.

The bipartisan group in Congress seeks to invest in U.S. education, science, and technology as well as research and development. This Act would invest $100 billion in these areas over a five-year period. The Act, as originally submitted, would rename the National Science Foundation as the National Science and Technology Foundation, and establish two Deputy Directors, one for Science and one for Technology.

The Deputy Director of Technology would oversee a newly created Directorate for Technology whose goals include:

The ten key focus areas would be:

For the drone industry this is great news. The Act would increase scholarships, fellowships and other student support in areas including AIML, automation, robotics and advanced manufacturing, which are all important to autonomous flight. However, the fate of the Endless Frontier Act is still unknown. We will follow its path through Congress and see if it may pave the way for more legislation like it.

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The Endless Frontier Act: Shifting the Focus from Defense to Offense - JD Supra

Quantum computing can get pretty esoteric in a hurry, so we won't bother trying to hash it out beyond the basic premise, which is that there are some problems too complex for even the world's biggest and most sophisticated supercomputers. Quantum computers deal with the sorts of problems for which there's an almost incalculable amount of data, and in theory can crunch all that data in a hurry.

"Universal quantum computers" this is from IBM "leverage the quantum mechanical phenomena of superposition and entanglement to create states that scale exponentially with number of qubits, or quantum bits."

Evidently, issues surrounding the world's pathogens, including the ominous horizon of viral global pandemics, are ripe for investigation via this sort of big data computing. The so-called "Discovery Accelerator" program between the Clinic and IBM aims to do just that. The whole point, via the press materials, is to accelerate the pace of discovery in medical research.

As part of this partnership, IBM announced that it willinstall its first U.S.-based private sector "Quantum System One" on Cleveland Clinics campus in Cleveland. In a press release, IBM said it also planned to install "the first of IBMs next-generation 1,000+ qubit quantum systems at a client facility," also in Cleveland, in the coming years.

Much of quantum computing remains entirely theoretical, and the costs associated with the construction and maintenance of these high-tech machines remain under wraps, but if successful these IBM machines will facilitate ongoing research in healthcare, and are being touted as key ingredients for medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs. Like dozens of other fashionable partnerships and local real estate development projects in recent years, this, too, is being celebrated as an opportunity to put Cleveland on the map.

The partnership comes, however, after both Cleveland and IBM have had disappointing forays into the arenas of big data and artificial intelligence to solve social ills.

In Cleveland, the Unify Project, a mercurial high-tech nonprofit that was meant to use big data and AI to end poverty (or something), crumbled without ever producing much of anything. It is now Unify Labs, or perhaps Unify Jobs, and appears to have pivoted into an equity and inclusion-focused job board.

For its part, IBM recently put Watson Healthup for sale, the Wall Street Journal reported. This was the company's "audacious" plan to help doctors diagnose and cure cancer, among other things, with artificial intelligence. A report in the medical journal STAT found that mismanagement, rapid turnover via layoffs and departures and a culture where marketing was prioritized over science led to the internal combustion of the multibillion-dollar enterprise.

But quantum computing! In an innovation district! That's something else entirely, and something that the overwhelmingly impoverished residents in the zip codes surrounding the Clinic's campus will no doubt enthusiastically get behind.

Through this innovative collaboration, we have a unique opportunity to bring the future to life, said Tom Mihaljevic, President and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, in a press release. These new computing technologies can help revolutionize discovery in the life sciences. The Discovery Accelerator will enable our renowned teams to build a forward-looking digital infrastructure and help transform medicine, while training the workforce of the future and potentially growing our economy.

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Cleveland Clinic to be First U.S. Site of IBM "Quantum Computer" for Advanced Healthcare Research - Cleveland Scene

Quantum Motion's researchers have shown that it is possible to create a qubit on a standard silicon chip.

Forget about superconducting circuits, trapped ions, and other exotic-sounding manufacturing techniques typically associated with quantum computing: scientists have now shown that it is possible to create a qubit on a standard silicon chip, just like those found in any smartphone.

UK-based start-up Quantum Motion has published the results of its latest experiments, which saw researchers cooling down CMOS silicon chips to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius), enabling them to successfully isolate and measure the quantum state of a single electron for a whole nine seconds.

The apparent simplicity of the method, which taps similar hardware to that found in handsets and laptops, is striking in comparison to the approaches adopted by larger players like IBM, Google or Honeywell, in their efforts to build a large-scale quantum computer.

SEE: Building the bionic brain (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

To create and read qubits, which are the building blocks of those devices, scientists first have to retain control over the smallest, quantum particles that make up a material; but there are different ways to do that, with varying degrees of complexity.

IBM and Google, for example, have both opted for creating superconducting qubits, which calls for an entirely new manufacturing process; while Honeywell has developed a technology that individually traps atoms, to let researchers measure the particles' states.

These approaches require creating new quantum processors in a lab, and are limited in scale. Intel, for example, hascreated a 49-qubit superconducting quantum processorthat is about three inches square, which the company described as already "relatively large", and likely to cause complications when it comes to producing the million-qubit chips that will be required for real-world implementations at commercial scale.

With this in mind, Quantum Motion set off to find out whether a better solution could be found in proven, existing technologies. "We need millions of qubits, and there are very few technologies that will make millions of anything but the silicon transistor is the exception," John Morton, professor of nanoelectronics at University College London (UCL) and co-founder of Quantum Motion, tells ZDNet.

"So rather than scaling up a new approach, we looked at whether we could piggy back off of that capability and use these tools to build something similar, but with qubits."

As Morton explains, when a transistor is switched on, it sucks in a bunch of electrons that enable current to pass. Cooling down the chip to a low temperature, however, slows down this process, and enables researchers to watch the electrons as they enter the transistor one by one "Like watching sheep walking into a field," says Morton. Instead of letting all of the particles in, the researchers allowed only one electron to enter; and once isolated, the particle could be used and measured as a qubit.

"We're hacking the process of creating qubits, so the same kind of technology that makes the chip in a smartphone can be used to build quantum computers," says Morton.

The significant advantage that silicon chips offer over alternative quantum approaches is scale. The qubit density that can be obtained with a silicon chip is effectively much higher due to the small size of electrons; according to Morton, this would let a single chip pack millions of qubits, where a superconducting quantum computer could require an entire building for the same yield.

What's more, silicon chips are now sitting on decades-worth of tweaking and development, meaning that quantum devices could rely on established processes and fabrication plants. This would fast-track the development of quantum processors, while bringing down prices.

In other words, rather than starting from scratch, Quantum Motion proposes taking the best of what is already out there. "Plus, every time the silicon industry makes an advance, you could benefit from in the qubit technology," says Morton.

As promising as the experiment may be, it is still very early days for silicon-based quantum computing: Morton and his team, for now, have only isolated and measured the state of a single electron. In a next step, the researchers are planning on creating a quantum gate by entangling two qubits together on the chip.

Quantum Motion's findings, rather, should be seen as a blueprint for producing quantum chips more efficiently, by leveraging existing manufacturing processes.

The start-up's findings are likely to grab the attention of larger competitors. Intel, for one, has shown growing interest for the opportunities that silicon chips present for quantum. The Santa Clara giant has partnered with QuTech, a Netherlands-based startup, to explore the potential of silicon spin qubits.

Excerpt from:
'We're hacking the process of creating qubits.' How standard silicon chips could be used for quantum computing - ZDNet

In the second part of a series on the science of consciousness, Sen Duke features those who believe the human brain works more like a quantum computer.

The mystery of consciousness, according to Roger Penrose, the 89-year-old winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, will only be solved when an understanding is found for how brain structures can harness the properties of quantum mechanics to make it possible.

Penrose, emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford a collaborator of the late Stephen Hawking who won the Nobel for his work on the nature of black holes, has been interested in consciousness since he was a Cambridge graduate student. He has authored many books on consciousness, most notably The Emperors New Mind (1989), and believes it to be so complex that it cannot be explained by our current understanding of physics and biology.

As a young mathematician, Penrose believed, and still does today, that something is true, not because it is derived from the rules or axioms, but because its possible to see that its true. The ultimate truth in mathematics, he reasoned, cannot, therefore, be proven by following algorithms; a set of calculations performed to instruction.

It followed, Penrose deduced, that the truth of how consciousness operates in the brain may not be provable by algorithms or thinking of the brain as a computer. This idea set off a life-long quest to understand the mysterious processes governing consciousness going on in our heads, which, Penrose says, remain beyond our existing understanding of physics, mathematics, biology or computers.

After The Emperors New Mind was published, Penrose received a letter from Stuart Hameroff, professor of anaesthesiology at the University of Arizona, who also had a long interest in understanding consciousness. In the letter, Hameroff described tiny structures in the brain called microtubules, which he believed were capable of generating consciousness by tapping into the quantum world.

Hameroff, who has worked as an anaesthesiologist for 45 years, believes anaesthesia may work through specifically targeting consciousness through its action on the neural microtubules. After writing the letter, he met Penrose in 1992, and over the next two years they developed radical ideas about consciousness which ran counter to the thinking of most neuroscientists, and still do.

Penrose and Hameroff believe that the human brain works more like a quantum computer than any classical computers. This is because future quantum computers will be designed to harness the ability of quantum particles to exist in multiple locations, states and positions all at once. These quantum effects arise in the microtubules, they suggest, which then act as the brains link to the quantum world.

The microtubules were structures that Hameroff had studied in since his graduate student days. They interested him initially, he recalls, because of their role in cancer. The microtubules were crucial to cell division, by splitting chromosomes perfectly in two. If microtubules did not function then chromosomes could be divided unevenly in three or four, not two, he says, thus triggering cancer.

The central role that the microtubules played in cell division, led Hameroff to speculate that they were controlled by some form of natural computing. In his book Ultimate Computing (1987), he argues that microtubules have sufficient computation power to produce thought. He also argues that the microtubules the tiny structures which give the cell its shape and act like a scaffold are the most basic units of information processing in the brain, not the neurons.

The fact that microtubules are found in animals, plants and even single-celled amoeba, says Hameroff means that consciousness is probably widespread and exists at many levels. The way microtubules work to produce consciousness, he says, can be thought of as being similar to how a conductor directs the sounds produced by individual musicians and orchestrates it into a coherent functioning orchestra.

Consciousness will be a different experience in humans compared to amoeba, says Hameroff. A single-celled organism might have proto-consciousness; that is consciousness without no memory, without context, isolated, not connected with anything else, and occurring at low intensity. There wouldnt be any sense of self memory or meaning, but there would be some glimmer of feeling or awareness.

Penrose agreed with Hameroff that the microtubules could possibly maintain the quantum coherence needed for complex thought and a collaboration began that continues today. Consciousness, the two believed, was a non-logarithmic, quantum process that could only be understood by a theory that linked the brain to quantum mechanics.

This led Penrose and Hameroff to develop a theory called orchestrated reduction, or OR. This proposed that areas of the brain where consciousness occurs must be structured so that they can hold innumerable quantum possibilities all at once per the rules of quantum mechanics while permitting the controlled reduction of such endless possibilities, without destroying the quantum system.

The microtubules were, both agreed, the best currently known structures in the brain where quantum processes could take place in a stable way and be harnessed to generate our conscious experience. They agreed that consciousness might ultimately be found in many locations across the brain, not just confined to the microtubules.

According to Hameroff, the presence of pyramid-shaped cells containing microtubules organised to run in two directions, rather than in parallel, which is more usual, was the difference between the parts of the brain where consciousness happens and the unconscious brain. Its notable, he says, that these pyramidal cells are not present in the cerebellum; an area considered to be unconscious.

One of the main criticisms of the Penrose-Hameroff quantum-based theory of consciousness is that there is no way to measure whether quantum processes are happening in the microtubules or any other parts of the brain. Penrose accepts such criticism but believes such measurements will become possible over the long term.

Hameroff already has plans to test whether quantum states exist inside microtubules. If he can prove this, his next step will be to see if such states disappear under anaesthesia. If they do then he says it strengthens the theory that microtubules host conscious thought.

Brain scanning techniques like PET and MRI, have become very powerful but are of little or no use in consciousness studies, says Penrose. They can, he notes, monitor blood flow and where activity is happening in the brain but they cant say whether that activity involves conscious thought. For that something else is required.

One way to measure thought, some scientists believe, is by observing brainwaves. For example, some evidence suggests that brainwaves, oscillating at about 40 Hertz, can be correlated with consciousness.

Penrose and Hameroff would like to find evidence for quantum brain oscillations in the microtubules but have no tools yet to achieve this.

This is a long-term project, which I dont see resolving for many years, says Penrose who, given his age, would like to see things moving faster. I feel pretty sure that we havent really understood fully how biological systems are organised and how they may be taking advantage of the subtle effects of [quantum] physics.

The big difficulty with trying to measure quantum processes in the brain, Penrose points out, is that such effects are destroyed when they are observed or brought into contact with the outside world. It is going to be very hard to have direct access to consciousness, as to observe it, currently, would be to destroy it.

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Can science explain the mystery of consciousness? - The Irish Times

Quantum computing eventually could break existing cryptographic methods with brute force attacks, so organizations need to prepare now, says Evangelos Rekleitis of ENISA, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity.

We have known about [quantum computing] since the 1990s that could actually break all widely used cryptosystems, things like Diffie Hellman and elliptic curves and RSA, Rekleitis says. For public key systems, we will have to find replacements. Once we have a quantum computer, things like elliptic curves and RSA are mostly dead.

Although quantum computers are not yet available, he says, "if I was a hacker with a lot of resources, and was able to capture and store all the communications that we are right now exchanging that are secured by a public key cryptosystem, after 10 or 15 years, once I get a [quantum computer], I can start decrypting all the past information that you have exchanged. So for a lot of organizations, the implications are now, so we'll have to act as soon as possible.

In a video interview with Information Security Media Group, Rekleitis discusses:

Rekleitis, network and information security officer at ENISA, has has more than a decade of experience in information and communications technology governance, compliance and risk management. He has taken part in many EU-funded research projects on ICT security, privacy and risk assessment.

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The Looming Threat of Broken Cryptography - BankInfoSecurity.com