Mediaboss Marketing

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.

More:
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.

Go here to see the original:
The Looming Threat of Broken Cryptography - BankInfoSecurity.com

Join Transform 2021 for the most important themes in enterprise AI & Data. Learn more.

Honeywell expects that as advances in quantum computing continue to accelerate over the next 18 to 24 months, the ability to replicate the results of a quantum computing application workload using a conventional computing platform simulation will come to an end.

The companys System Model H1 has now quadrupled its performance capabilities to become the first commercial quantum computer to attain a 512 quantum volume. Ascertaining quantum volume requires running a complex set of statistical tests that are influenced by the number of qubits, error rates, connectivity of qubits, and cross-talk between qubits. That approach provides a more accurate assessment of a quantum computers processing capability that goes beyond simply counting the number of qubits that can be employed.

Honeywell today provides access to a set of simulation tools that make it possible to validate the results delivered on its quantum computers on a conventional machine. Those simulations give organizations more confidence in quantum computing platforms by allowing them to compare results. However, quantum computers are now approaching a level where at some point between 2022 and 2023 that will no longer be possible, Honeywell Quantum Solutions president Tony Uttley said.

Honeywell has pursued an approach to quantum computing that differs from those of rivals by focusing its efforts on a narrower range of more stable qubits. Each system is based on a trapped-ion architecture that leverages numerous individual charged atoms (ions) to hold information. It then applies electromagnetic fields to hold (trap) each ion in a way that allows it to be manipulated and encoded using laser pulses.

The company makes its quantum computers available via a subscription to a cloud service and counts BMW, DHL, JP Morgan Chase, and Samsung among its customers. Systems residing outside of Boulder, Colorado and Minneapolis are made available to customers for up to two weeks at a time before being taken offline for two weeks to add additional capacity.

Subscriptions for the System Model H1 service are currently sold out, and each Honeywell quantum computing customer has previously tried to employ a different platform before switching to Honeywell, Uttley said. The company is now moving toward making a third-generation System Model H2 service available that will offer higher levels of unspecified quantum volume, Uttley added.

Honeywell has committed to delivering a tenfold increase in quantum volume every five years. The company has been able to deliver a fourfold increase in the amount of quantum volume it can make available in the last five months alone, Uttley said.

Quantum computers can process bits that have a value of both 0 and 1 at the same time, which makes them more powerful than conventional computing platforms. Advances in quantum computing, however, will by no means signal the demise of conventional computers, Uttley added. Instead, its becoming apparent that quantum computers and conventional computers are simply going to be better suited to running different classes of workloads, Uttley said.

These systems will run side by side for decades, Uttley added. Conventional computing platforms are not going to be replaced anytime soon.

Quantum computers, however, are better suited to addressing complex computational challenges involving chemistry, routing optimizations using, for example, logistics and traffic management applications, and even the training of AI models. In the latter case, a quantum computer can identify the starting point for the training of an AI model that would then be completed by a conventional computer. Other more intractable problems involving, for example, applications for ways to reduce the level of carbon in the atmosphere are only feasible to run on a quantum computing platform.

It may still be a while before quantum computing delivers on its full promise, but while the way quantum systems work may not be widely understood, there is now no turning back.

Go here to see the original:
Honeywell says quantum computers will outpace standard verification in 18 to 24 months - VentureBeat

Quantum computer is fundamentally different than conventional & supercomputers and use the technology based on quantum phenomena. Unlike classical computers, it uses quantum bits (qubits) to process the data. In addition, quantum computing performs complex calculations proficiently when compared with classical computers and this factor majorly fuels the growth of the enterprise quantum computing market application. Furthermore, it finds its application in aerospace & defense, BFSI, healthcare & life science, energy & utilities, manufacturing, IT & telecom, and other industries.

The global Quantum Computing market is expected to expand at a CAGR of +26% over the forecast period 2019-2025.

The report, titled Global Quantum Computing market defines and briefs readers about its products, applications, and specifications. The research lists key companies operating in the global market and also highlights the key changing trends adopted by the companies to maintain their dominance. By using SWOT analysis and Porters five force analysis tools, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of key companies are all mentioned in the report. All leading players in this global market are profiled with details such as product types, business overview, sales, manufacturing base, competitors, applications, and specifications.

Top Key Vendors in Market:

D-Wave Systems Inc. (Canada), QX Branch (US), International Business Machines Corporation (US), Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited (UK), 1QB Information Technologies (Canada), QC Ware, Corp. (US), StationQ- Microsoft (US), Rigetti Computing (US), Google Inc. (US), River Lane Research (US)

Get Sample Copy of this Report @ https://www.a2zmarketresearch.com/sample?reportId=705

Quantum Computing market has been studied in terms of all parameters such as applications, types, products and many other. Each and every data leading to growth or fall of the respective segments have been explained. Entire supply chain with respect to market is studied in depth and is conveyed in the most comprehensive way possible. The reasons there is going to be an increasing trend to this market are studied and are elaborated. Driving forces, restraints and opportunities are given to help give a better picture of this market investment for the forecast period.

Different global regions such as North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and India have been analyzed on the basis of the manufacturing base, productivity, and profit margin. This Quantum Computing market research report has been scrutinized on the basis of different practical oriented case studies from various industry experts and policymakers. It uses numerous graphical presentation techniques such as tables, charts, graphs, pictures and flowchart for easy and better understanding to the readers.

It also gives detailed insight into the competitive landscape and the vendors of Quantum Computing market with detailed business profiles of the key players. Data about the companies, specifications of their respective products, various portfolios, fanatical overview, generation of revenue, recent developments and upcoming challenges about market are well explained. A complete SWOT analysis including growth opportunities of this market is done to help make well informed market selection.

Get Upto 20% Discount on this Report @ https://www.a2zmarketresearch.com/discount?reportId=705

Key questions answered in the report include:

Table of Content:

Global Quantum Computing Market Research Report 2019-2025

Chapter 1: Industry Overview

Chapter 2: Quantum Computing Market International and China Market Analysis

Chapter 3: Analysis of Revenue by Classifications

Chapter 4: Analysis of Revenue by Regions and Applications

Chapter 5: Analysis of Quantum Computing Market Revenue Market Status.

Chapter 6: Sales Price and Gross Margin Analysis

Continue for TOC..

Buy This Report @

https://www.a2zmarketresearch.com/buy?reportId=705

*If you need anything more than these then let us know and we will prepare the report according to your requirement.

About a2zmarketresearch:

The A2Z Market Research library provides syndication reports from market researchers around the world. Ready-to-buy syndication Market research studies will help you find the most relevant business intelligence.

Our Research Analyst Provides business insights and market research reports for large and small businesses.

The company helps clients build business policies and grow in that market area. A2Z Market Research is not only interested in industry reports dealing with telecommunications, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, financial services, energy, technology, real estate, logistics, F & B, media, etc. but also your company data, country profiles, trends, information and analysis on the sector of your interest.

Contact Us:

1887 WHITNEY MESA DR HENDERSON, NV 89014

+1 775 237 4147

[emailprotected]

Read more:
Explore why Quantum Computing Market is thriving worldwide by 2025 with top key players like D-Wave Systems Inc. (Canada), QX Branch (US),...