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Several companies are working to advance the technology, according to a new report.

The market for quantum networking is projected to reach $5.5 billion by 2025, according to a new report from Inside Quantum Technology (IQT).

While all computing systems rely on the ability to store and manipulate information in individual bits, quantum computers "leverage quantum mechanical phenomena to manipulate information" and to do so requires the use of quantum bits, or qubits, according to IBM.

SEE:Quantum computing: An insider's guide (TechRepublic)

Quantum computing is seen as the panacea for solving the problems computers are not equipped to handle now.

"For problems above a certain size and complexity, we don't have enough computational power on earth to tackle them,'' IBM said. This requires a new kind of computing, and this is where quantum comes in.

IQT says that quantum networking revenue comes primarily from quantum key distribution (QK), quantum cloud computing, and quantum sensor networks. Eventually, these strands will merge into a Quantum Internet, the report said.

Cloud access to quantum computers is core to the business models of many leading quantum computer companiessuch as IBM, Microsoft and Rigettias well as several leading academic institutions, according to the report.

Microsoft, for instance, designed a special programming language for quantum computers, called Q#, and released a Quantum Development Kit to help programmers create new applications, according to CBInsights.

One of Google's quantum computing projects involves working with NASA to apply the tech's optimization abilities to space travel.

The Quantum Internet network will have the same "geographical breadth of coverage as today's internet," the IQT report stated.

It will provide a powerful platform for communications among quantum computers and other quantum devices, the report said.

And will enable a quantum version of the Internet of Things. "Finally, quantum networks can be the most secure networks ever built completely invulnerable if constructed properly," the report said.

The report, "Quantum Networks: A Ten-Year Forecast and Opportunity Analysis," forecasts demand for quantum network equipment, software and services in both volume and value terms.

"The time has come when the rapidly developing quantum technology industry needs to quantify the opportunities coming out of quantum networking," said Lawrence Gasman, president of Inside Quantum Technology, in a statement.

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) adds unbreakable coding of key distribution to public key encryption, making it virtually invulnerable, according to the report.

QKD is the first significant revenue source to come from the emerging Quantum Internet and will create almost $150 million in revenue in 2020, the report said.

QKD's early success is due to potential usersbig financial and government organizationshave an immediate need for 100% secure encryption, the IQT report stated.

By 2025, IQT projects that revenue from "quantum clouds" are expected to exceed $2 billion.

Although some large research and government organizations are buying quantum computers for on-premise use, the high cost of the machines coupled with the immaturity of the technology means that the majority of quantum users are accessing quantum through clouds, the report explained.

Quantum sensor networks promise enhanced navigation and positioning and more sensitive medical imaging modalities, among other use cases, the report said.

"This is a very diverse area in terms of both the range of applications and the maturity of the technology."

However, by 2025 revenue from quantum sensors is expected to reach about $1.2 billion.

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Originally posted here:
Quantum networking projected to be $5.5 billion market in 2025 - TechRepublic

A new research centre with the potential to revolutionise computing, communication, sensing and imaging technologies is set to be launched by the University of Sheffield this week (22 January 2020).

The Sheffield Quantum Centre, which will be officially opened by Lord Jim ONeill, Chair of Chatham House and University of Sheffield alumnus, is bringing together more than 70 of the Universitys leading scientists and engineers to develop new quantum technologies.

Quantum technologies are a broad range of new materials, devices and information technology protocols in physics and engineering. They promise unprecedented capabilities and performance by exploiting phenomena that cannot be explained by classical physics.

Quantum technologies could lead to the development of more secure communications technologies and computers that can solve problems far beyond the capabilities of existing computers.

Research into quantum technologies is a high priority for the UK and many countries around the world. The UK government has invested heavily in quantum research as part of a national programme and has committed 1 billion in funding over 10 years.

Led by the Universitys Department of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and Department of Computer Science, the Sheffield Quantum Centre will join a group of northern universities that are playing a significant role in the development of quantum technologies.

The University of Sheffield has a strong presence in quantum research with world leading capabilities in crystal growth, nanometre scale device fabrication and device physics research. A spin-out company has already been formed to help commercialise research, with another in preparation.

Professor Maurice Skolnick, Director of the Sheffield Quantum Centre, said: The University of Sheffield already has very considerable strengths in the highly topical area of quantum science and technology. I have strong expectation that the newly formed centre will bring together these diverse strengths to maximise their impact, both internally and more widely across UK universities and funding bodies.

During the opening ceremony, the Sheffield Quantum Centre will also launch its new 2.1 million Quantum Technology Capital equipment.

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the equipment is a molecular beam epitaxy cluster tool designed to grow very high quality wafers of semiconductor materials types of materials that have numerous everyday applications such as in mobile phones and lasers that drive the internet.

The semiconductor materials also have many new quantum applications which researchers are focusing on developing.

Professor Jon Heffernan from the Universitys Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, added: The University of Sheffield has a 40-year history of pioneering developments in semiconductor science and technology and is host to the National Epitaxy Facility. With the addition of this new quantum technologies equipment I am confident our new research centre will lead to many new and exciting technological opportunities that can exploit the strange but powerful concepts from quantum science.

Originally posted here:
University of Sheffield launches Quantum centre to develop the technologies of tomorrow - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

The past decade saw technological advancements that transformed how we work, live, and learn. The next one will bring even greater change as quantum computing, cloud computing, 5G, and artificial intelligence mature and proliferate. These changes will happen rapidly, and the work to manage their impact will need to keep pace.

This session at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, brought together industry experts to discuss how these technologies will shape the next decade, followed by a panel discussion about the challenges and benefits this era will bring and if the world can control the technology it creates.

Henry Blodget, CEO, cofounder, and editorial director, Insider Inc.

This interview is part of a partnership between Business Insider and Microsoft at the 2020 World Economic Forum. Business Insider editors independently decided on the topics broached and questions asked.

Below, find each of the panelists most memorable contributions:

Julie Love believes global problems such as climate change can potentially be solved far more quickly and easily through developments in quantum computing.

She said: We [Microsoft] think about problems that were facing: problems that are caused by the destruction of the environment; by climate change, and [that require] optimization of our natural resources, [such as] global food production.

Its quantum computing that really a lot of us scientists and technologists are looking for to solve these problems. We can have the promise of solving them exponentially faster, which is incredibly profound. And that the reason is this: [quantum] technology speaks the language of nature.

By computing the way that nature computes, theres so much information contained in these atoms and molecules. Nature doesnt think about a chemical reaction; nature doesnt have to do some complex computation. Its inherent in the material itself.

Love claimed that, if harnessed in this way, quantum computing could allow scientists to design a compound that could remove carbon from the air. She added that researchers will need to be really pragmatic and practical about how we take this from, from science fiction into the here-and-now.

I believe the future of AI is actually interdependence, collaboration, and cooperation between people and systems, both at the macro [and micro] levels, said Cassell, who is also a faculty member of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

At the macro-level, [look], for example, at robots on the factory floor, she said. Today, theres been a lot of fear about how autonomous they actually are. First of all, theyre often dangerous. Theyre so autonomous, you have to get out of their way. And it would be nice if they were more interdependent if we could be there at the same time as they are. But also, there is no factory floor where any person is autonomous.

In Cassells view, AI systems could also end up being built collaboratively with experts from non-tech domains, such as psychologists.

Today, tools [for building AI systems] are mostly machine learning tools, she noted. And they are, as youve heard a million times, black boxes. You give [the AI system] lots of examples. You say: This is somebody being polite. That is somebody being impolite. Learn about that. But when they build a system thats polite, you dont know why they did that.

What Id like to see is systems that allow us to have these bottom-up, black-box approaches from machine learning, but also have, for example, psychologists in there, saying thats not actually really polite, or its polite in the way that you dont ever want to hear.'

One thing I constantly wish is that there was a more standardized measurement for everybody to report how much theyre spending per employee on employee training because that really doesnt exist, when you think about it, said Smith, Microsofts president and chief legal officer since 2015.

I think, anecdotally, one can get a pretty strong sense that if you go back to the 1980s and 1990s employers invested a huge amount in employee training around technology. It was teaching you how to use MS-DOS, or Windows, or how to use Word or Excel interestingly, things that employers dont really feel obliged to teach employees today.

Learning doesnt stop when you leave school. Were going to have to work a little bit harder. And thats true for everyone.

He added that this creates a further requirement: to make sure the skills people do pick up as they navigate life are easily recognizable by other employers.

Ultimately, theres a wide variety of post-secondary credentials. The key is to have credentials that employers recognize as being valuable. Its why LinkedIn and others are so focused on new credentialing systems. Now, the good news is that should make things cheaper. It all should be more accessible.

But I do think that to go back to where I started employers are going to have to invest more [in employee training]. And were going to have to find some ways to do it in a manner that perhaps is a little more standardized.

Suri said 5G will be able to help develop industries that go far beyond entertainment and telecoms, and will impact physical or manual industries such as manufacturing.

The thing about 5G is that its built for machine-type communications. When we received the whole idea of 5G, it was how do we get not just human beings to interact with each other, but also large machines, he said.

So we think that there is a large economic boost possible from 5G and 5G-enabled technologies because it would underpin many of these other technologies, especially in the physical industries.

Suri cited manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture as just some of the industries 5G could help become far more productive within a decade.

He added: Yes, well get movies and entertainment faster, but it is about a lot of physical industries that didnt quite digitize yet. Especially in the physical industries, we [Nokia] think that the [productivity] gains could be as much as 35% starting in the year 2028 starting with the US first, and then going out into other geographies, like India, China, the European Union, and so on.

Read the rest here:
Quantum computing, climate change, and interdependent AI: Academics and execs predict how tech will revolutionize the next decade - Business Insider

Are we here right now? And if we are, can we trust what we see before us?

The idea of life as a complete or occasional dream state isn't new it goes back millennia, stretching through Mahayana Buddhism to the ancient Greeks and into the Renaissance. In the past few decades, the idea that perceived reality is in fact a quantum computer simulation has gained a lot of cachet, too.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here; let us return to the 17th century in what's known as the Spanish Golden Age. It's then that live theater thrived on the Iberian Peninsula, when Pedro Caldern de la Barca wrote Life is a Dream, now staged, with a youthful cast and spirit, at North Coast Repertory Theatre.

Caldern's play, written and first performed in 1635, took place in Poland and what was then the Grand Duchy of Muskovy, but director Elio Robles has set the production in the manner and dress of 17th century Spain. At its center is a story central to many European plays of the era: the transfer of dynastically held royal power.

Events begin with two travelers, Rosaura (Andrea Carrillo), who is disguised as a man, and Clarin (Jeremy Stolp), arriving at a prison tower to find a miserable man bound in chains. The man is Segismundo (Victor Parra) and we come to learn that he has been jailed simply for the crime of being born, held under the eye of Clotaldo (Andrew Hempstead). Although it may not be clear in the first act, the main overall drama at the heart of Life is a Dream is the story of Segismundo and Rosura. The reason behind her guise as a man is a desire to control her own destiny a central theme of the play and to regain her own honor.

Clotaldo takes Rosaura and Clarin into custody, but recognizes a sword in her possession as one that once belonged to him. Thinking she is male, Clotaldo believes that she might be his son. The action then shifts to the court of King Basilo (Jesse Chavez), where it is revealed that he had been warned decades before that his son will be born a violent, ruthless maniac, and so banished him to the tower forever. He reveals this secret to his niece Estrella (Michelle Purnell) and nephew Astolfo (Garrett Vallejo) on the eve of Clotaldo arriving with Rosaura and Clarin.

This sets in motion the king's decision to have his son freed and brought to the court, where he proposes to test his abilities as a potential heir to the throne. First, he orders that Segismundo be drugged nearly to death. Segismundo arrives at the palace convinced that either his past time in chains has been a horrible dream or perhaps the present is a dream escape from his captivity.

In addition to the themes of father-son conflict and court intrigue that blossom into full war by the play's end, Segismundo's pondering on the state of what is real and whether one's actions in what's perceived to be a dream have echoes in reality is at the heart of the play.

This is not as obtuse and inaccessible as it may sound, for Caldern was a great playwright of his time, a peer of Cervantes with a poet's gift for psychological insights. Life is a Dream manages to be entertaining while deftly moving through such ideas as fate, determinism undermining free will, gender roles and men subjugating women.

That is a lot to weave into a story but, under Robles' direction, things move along at a good clip. And while some of the internecine royal court activity slackens matters, it gives way to Segismundo and Rosura meeting and becoming more revealed to one another in the next act, focusing the story. A Humboldt State University alum with experience as an actor in Radioman last year at Dell'Arte, Robles is well-suited to helm this production, which is excellently costumed by Megan Hughes.

As Segismundo, Parra has the best role and builds well on his previous role at NCRT in last season's Native Gardens, bringing spark and soul-searching to a man often at odds with reality and existence. Like most of the young cast in Life is a Dream, he has a pedigree from HSU Theater Arts Department productions. This also includes the very good Carrillo in her NCRT debut as Rosaura, as well as Stolp and Vallejo in adept supporting performances.

Life is A Dream blends elements of a fairy tale with a larger morality tale, offering much to ponder about reality, free will and the value of honor. As for how much of the world we perceive is truly real, that's perhaps an answer for another time.

North Coast Repertory Theatre's Life is a Dream plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Feb. 8, with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. through Feb. 9. For more information, call 442-NCRT or visit http://www.ncert.net.

David Jervis is an Arcata-based freelance writer and editor. He prefers he/him pronouns.

Opening

Ferndale Repertory Theatre unpack's a graphic novelist's relationship with her late father in the drama Fun Home from Jan. 23 through Feb. 16. Call 786-5483 or visit http://www.ferndalerep.org.

An alternative take on the Bard and the Danish prince hits the stage with local musicians playing an original score Jan. 30 through Feb. 1 with The Hamlet Question at HSU's Gist Hall Theatre. Call 826-3928.

The Arcata Playhouse hosts an international production of Plush and Barrio Caleidoscopio with Teatro de la Vuelta and Dell'Arte Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Call 822-1575 or visit http://www.arcataplayhouse.org.

Immersive theater comes to the Bayside Community Hall when Taiko Swingposium recreates a Japanese American internment camp mess hall with actors, dancers, San Jose Taiko and the HSU Jazz Orchestra Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Call 633-3155 or visit Taiko Swing Humboldt on Facebook.

Continued here:
Is This the Real Life? - North Coast Journal

Shweta Agrawal from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, has become one of the 14 recipients of the Swarnajayanti Fellowship 2020. It wasinstituted by the Centre to commemorate the golfen jubilee of India's independence and is funded by the Department of abd Technology.

Agarwal said she would like to use the fellowship to conduct a deep study on one of the most promising approaches for post-quantum cryptography lattice-based cryptography to improve algorithms and understand gaps between theory and practice. Lattice-based cryptography, resistant to attack by both classical and quantum computers,is the leading candidate for post quantum cryptography and design of a cryptographic system for the future.

Cryptography is a branch of theoretical computer science that seeks to provide guarantees to the art of secret keeping. This field balances itself on the tightrope of mathematical beauty on one side, and practical importance on the other. The scientific charm of this field lies in the deeply paradoxical questions it poses.

The simplest goal of cryptography is to hide information so that learning a message from a cryptographically sealed envelope implies a solution to some well known mathematical problem. By suitably choosing the underlying mathematical problems to be difficult, we may rest assured that an attackers chances of learning secret information are extremely small.

Typically, an attacker is modelled as a classical computer. However, recent times have seen significant advances in the construction of quantum computers, which are based on the laws of quantum rather than classical physics. Most modern-day cryptography relies on the difficulty of problems which, while difficult for classical computers, are efficiently solvable by quantum computers. Thus, most modern-day cryptography breaks down if quantum computers are used by the attacker.

A few weeks ago, Google claimed to have demonstrated quantum supremacy by constructing a quantum computer that can experimentally demonstrate a massive speedup over a classical computer. Soon after, Chinese researchers claimed that they expect to demonstrate quantum supremacy by next year. Thus, the advent of quantum computers has crossed the realm of scientific fantasy and looms as a real threat in the near future. Therefore, it is imperative to redesign cryptography ground up to resist quantum computersthat is, to design post-quantum cryptography. This is the focus of Agrawals work. (DST media cell)

Developing expertise in post-quantum cryptography is of national importance. Aside from its practical importance, this is a rich and emerging area of cryptography, and construction of state of the art systems in this field can significantly enhance the visibility of India in the global arena. Not only does her proposed work help create intellectual property, but it also creates expertise within the country that will lead to intelligent post-quantum cryptography design for the use of our government, military, industry and society alike.

In her current work, Agrawal has provided constructions of advanced cryptographic protocols that are believed to be resistant to quantum computers. She has particularly focused on the emerging field of computing on encrypted data, which may allow (for instance), machine learning algorithms to be run on encrypted genetic data, leading to advances in the field of personalized medicine. Such algorithms, if realised efficiently, can have wide applications in areas as diverse as medicine, governance, social sciences, and many others, leading to an elegant synthesis of disparate sciences.

This is a young field, and there are significant gaps in the understanding of this area. Her research agenda is to tackle fundamental questions in lattice based cryptography, to endeavour to fill in these gaps. She hopes to create national expertise in lattice based cryptography that will benefit society by creating knowledge and applications alike.

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Read the rest here:
IIT Madras student to improve algorithms in lattice cryptography - Down To Earth Magazine