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GCHQ Director, Jeremy Fleming, said on Friday 23 April that the UK needs to prioritize advances in quantum computing if the country wants to prosper and remain secure.

Hes right. The vast amounts of data protected by RSA encryption is under threat of theft and forgery should quantum computing live up to promise.

While such peril remains years away at least, companies and governments worldwide are getting to grips with quantum computing, as the technology leaves the realm of physics laboratories and into the inboxes of presidents and prime ministers.

Classical computers, such as those in our phones, laptops, and even the worlds most powerful supercomputers, conduct computations with ones and zeros binary digits, or bits.

When presented with sufficiently complex problems, classical computers begin to struggle.

Consider this number:

25195908475657893494027183240048398571429282126204032027777137836043662020707595556264018525880784406918290641249515082189298559149176184502808489120072844992687392807287776735971418347270261896375014971824691165077613379859095700097330459748808428401797429100642458691817195118746121515172654632282216869987549182422433637259085141865462043576798423387184774447920739934236584823824281198163815010674810451660377306056201619676256133844143603833904414952634432190114657544454178424020924616515723350778707749817125772467962926386356373289912154831438167899885040445364023527381951378636564391212010397122822120720357

If we were to ask a classical, general-purpose computer which two prime numbers multiply together make this 617-digit number? it would have to essentially guess at each possible combination. Using this method, most estimates suggest it would take around 300 trillion years to crack much longer than the age of the universe. There are ways to speed this up, but this form of encryption is extremely difficult to crack classically.

This is vital for protecting important data and is the kind of problem that underpins RSA encryption which is used to protect vast amounts of data on the internet.

A quantum computer, on the other hand, could figure out the answer in seconds.

While researchers agree that you would need around a few thousand qubits to conduct such a calculation (were only around the 100-qubit mark right now), it is not beyond the realms of possibility for such a feat to be achieved this decade.

With vast use cases, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to weather forecasting, quantum computings potential encryption-cracking capabilities should put the technology firmly on the priority list for world leaders and security chiefs.

In the Vincent Briscoe Lecture, Fleming made frequent mention of quantum computing.

He highlighted that a small percentage of technologies must be truly sovereign to retain the UKs strategic technical advantage, and quantum computing is no doubt a core part of this. The elements of cryptographic technology that are a part of these technologies was no doubt an allusion to quantum computing. The country, or corporation, that possess the first full-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer will be the biggest threat to cryptography the world has ever seen.

Fleming will undoubtably be aware of Chinas quantum supremacy announcement in December 2020, in which a team at the University of Science and Technology of China performed a calculation with a photonic quantum computer 100 trillion times the speed of classical supercomputers.

While photonic devices are so far unprogrammable, in that each can only perform one specific calculation, the progress in China is a wake-up call for Western powers to get to grips with the technology.

The UK is among the leaders in the West, in both spending and academic prowess, but Chinas $15bn of investments into quantum technologies dwarfs the rest of the pack President Biden will no doubt be keeping a close eye on developments in this nascent industry.

Quantum computing is no doubt going to develop significantly as a theme over the coming years, as recent developments indicate. Governments and corporations alike must now take steps to engage, or risk falling behind.

Integer factorization is just one of the applications of quantum computing, in what is becoming a rich ecosystem of research and development. GlobalDatas quantum computing value chain sets out the segments of this growing industry.Related Report Download the full report from GlobalData's Report StoreGet the Report

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GCHQ boss is right to be keeping his eye on quantum computing - Verdict

IonQ is the only company that provides access to its quantum computing platform via both the Amazon Braket and Microsoft Azure clouds, as well as through direct API access.

FREMONT, CA: IonQ announced full integration of its quantum computing platform with Qiskit, an open-source quantum software development kit, or SDK. Qiskit users can now submit programs directly to IonQ's platform without writing any new code. Through the Qiskit Partner Program, this new integration makes IonQ's high-connectivity high-fidelity 11 qubit system available to the 275,000+ enterprise, government, startup, partner, and university members already using Qiskit to create and run quantum programs.

As part of the announcement, IonQ has released an open-source provider library that integrates seamlessly with Qiskit, which can be found on the Qiskit Partners GitHub organization or downloaded via The Python Package Index. Qiskit users with an IonQ account will be able to run their quantum programs on IonQ's cloud quantum computing platform with little to no modificationsimply change the code to point to the IonQ backend and run as usual.

"IonQ is excited to make our quantum computers and APIs easily accessible to the Qiskit community," said IonQ CEO & President Peter Chapman. "Open source has already revolutionized traditional software development. With this integration, we're bringing the world one step closer to the first generation of widely-applicable quantum applications."

This integration builds on IonQ's ongoing success. IonQ recently entered into a merger agreement with dMY Technology Group, Inc. III to go public at an expected valuation of approximately $2 billion. IonQ also recently released a product roadmap setting out its plans to develop modular quantum computers small enough to be networked together in 2023, which could pave the way for broad quantum advantage by 2025. Last year, the company unveiled a new $5.5 million, 23,000 square foot Quantum Data Center in Maryland's Discovery District and announced the development of the world's most powerful quantum computer, featuring 32 perfect atomic qubits with low gate errors and an expected quantum volume greater than 4,000,000.

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IonQ Announces Full Integration of its Quantum Computing Platform with Qiskit - CIO Applications

After a year in which scientists raced to understand Covid-19 and to develop treatments and vaccines to stop its spread, Cleveland Clinic is partnering with IBM to use next-generation technologies to advance healthcare research and potentially prevent the next public health crisis.

The two organizations on Tuesday announced the creation of the "Discovery Accelerator," which will apply technologies such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence to pressing life sciences research questions. As part of the partnership, Cleveland Clinic will become the first private-sector institution to buy and operate an on-site IBM quantum computer, called the Q System One. Currently, such machines only exist in IBM labs and data centers.

Quantum computing is expected to expedite the rate of discovery and help tackle problems with which existing computers struggle.

The accelerator is part of Cleveland Clinic's new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, a facility introduced in January on the heels of a $500 million investment by the clinic, the state of Ohio and economic development nonprofit JobsOhio to spur innovation in the Cleveland area.

The new center is dedicated to researching and developing treatments for viruses and other disease-causing organisms. That will include some research on Covid-19, including why it causes ongoing symptoms (also called "long Covid") for some who have been infected.

"Covid-19 is an example" of how the center and its new technologies will be used, said Dr. Lara Jehi, chief research information officer at the Cleveland Clinic.

"But ... what we want is to prevent the next Covid-19," Jehi told CNN Business. "Or if it happens, to be ready for it so that we don't have to, as a country, put everything on hold and put all of our resources into just treating this emergency. We want to be proactive and not reactive."

Quantum computers process information in a fundamentally different way from regular computers, so they will be able to solve problems that today's computers can't. They can, for example, test multiple solutions to a problem at once, making it possible to come up with an answer in a fraction of the time it would take a different machine.

Applied to healthcare research, that capability is expected to be useful for modeling molecules and how they interact, which could accelerate the development of new pharmaceuticals. Quantum computers could also improve genetic sequencing to help with cancer research, and design more efficient, effective clinical trials for new drugs, Jehi said.

Ultimately, Cleveland Clinic and IBM expect that applying quantum and other advanced technologies to healthcare research will speed up the rate of discovery and product development. Currently, the average time from scientific discovery in a lab to getting a drug to a patient is around 17 years, according to the National Institutes of Health.

"We really need to accelerate," Jehi said. "What we learned with the Covid-19 pandemic is that we cannot afford, as a human race, to just drop everything and focus on one emergency at a time."

Part of the problem: It takes a long time to process and analyze the massive amount of data generated by healthcare, research and trials something that AI, quantum computing and high-performance computing (a more powerful version of traditional computing) can help with. Quantum computers do that by "simulating the world," said Dario Gil, director of IBM Research.

"Instead of conducting physical experiments, you're conducting them virtually, and because you're doing them virtually through computers, it's much faster," Gil said.

For IBM, the partnership represents an important proof point for commercial applications of quantum computing. IBM currently offers access to quantum computers via the cloud to 134 institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Daimler, but building a dedicated machine on-site for one organization is a big step forward.

"What we're seeing is the emergency of quantum as a new industry within the world of information technology and computing," Gil said. "What we're seeing here in the context of Cleveland Clinic is ... a partner that says, 'I want the entire capacity of a full quantum computer to be [dedicated] to my research mission."

The partnership also includes a training element that will help educate people on how to use quantum computing for research which is likely to further grow the ecosystem around the new technology.

Cleveland Clinic and IBM declined to detail the cost of the quantum system being installed on the clinic's campus, but representatives from both organizations called it a "significant investment." Quantum computers are complex machines to build and maintain because they must be stored at extremely cold temperatures (think: 200 times colder than outer space).

The Cleveland Clinic will start by using IBM's quantum computing cloud offering while waiting for its on-premises machine to be built, which is expected to take about a year. IBM plans to later install at the clinic a more advanced version of its quantum computer once it is developed in the coming years.

Jehi, the Cleveland Clinic research lead, acknowledged that quantum computing technology is still nascent, but said the organization wanted to get in on the ground floor.

"It naturally needs nurturing and growing so that we can figure out what are its applications in healthcare," Jehi said. "It was important to us that we design those applications and we learn them ourselves, rather than waiting for others to develop them."

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Cleveland Clinic and IBM hope their tech partnership could help prevent the next pandemic - Action News Now

With much of the world steeped in data, where everything from refrigerators and watches to cars and surgical tools are connected to the internet via cloud computing, cryptography the basic building block of digital security has never been more important.

Encryption is one of the fundamental applications of cryptography, which converts information into what should be an unbreakable code, typically to prevent unauthorised access.

However, the rise of quantum computers, which are capable of breaking todays encryption protocols at a speed and scale beyond anything weve ever seen, according strategy advisory company the Future Today Institute, threatens to upend decades of encryption, posing unprecedented national security threats worldwide.

The lab in Abu Dhabi cannot be found anywhere else in the world

Dr Najwa Aaraj, Cryptography Research Centre

The UAE, which announced plans to build a quantum computer last month, has joined some of the worlds biggest economies in prioritising cryptography research the first country in the Middle East to do so.

The woman leading the UAEs cryptography plans says the level of research being conducted at the Abu Dhabi-based Technology Innovation Institute is unlike anywhere else in the world.

Speaking to The National, Dr Najwa Aaraj, who was appointed chief researcher at the Cryptography Research Centre at the Technology Innovation Institute last year, outlined her plans for the cutting-edge initiative that will give the UAE sovereignty over the future of its digital security.

I want the country to be known for this field, she said.

The Cryptography Research Centre is part of the Technology Innovation Institute in Masdar City, which focuses on applied research for Abu Dhabi government's Advanced Technology Research Council.

It is also one of the few centres of its kind to bring together theoretical and applied cryptographers from the public and private sector and from around the world.

Ms Aaraj, who got her PhD in information security from Princeton University in New Jersey, US, oversees the team of 50 and is actively hiring for about a dozen positions.

We assembled a team of professionals from across the global cryptography community to investigate the current and future challenges of digital society and to respond with practical solutions, Ms Aaraj said.

She said the qualities of the lab in Abu Dhabi cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

You get connected to the east, to the west, to the US, to Europe, and you can have really good collaboration.

"So at the end, the intellectual environment that I've had in Abu Dhabi and the UAE, I can confidently say, I haven't had it anywhere else, she said.

TII recently announced partnerships with Yale University in Connecticut, US, and a board of advisors from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, the University of Toulouse and Computer Science at Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon in France, plusRuhr-University Bochum in Germany.

I still work with Princeton with my adviser on a few research topics, she added.

Last month, Ms Aarajs team introduced a software library to store algorithms capable of fighting off attacks in a post-quantum world.

Abu Dhabi's new library is a collection of algorithms to safeguard confidential data and information that aims to advance digital data security in the capital and the broader UAE.

TII's work focused on data confidentiality, integrity, authentication and privacy.

We have a very strong team here from Emirati talent and also global talent

Dr Najwa Aaraj

It was the second library of algorithms Ms Aarajs team has introduced. The first was the "national sovereign" crypto library, which is currently being integrated into digital infrastructure and multiple systems in the country.

Ms Aaraj said it is critical these algorithms, which can safeguard the UAE's data in sectors such as finance, defence and healthcare, are developed in-country and owned exclusively by the UAE.

Not having control over these data safeguards leaves countries vulnerable to an ever-increasing number of threats.

Abu Dhabi, which holds about 5.6 per cent of the worlds proven oil reserves, is positioning itself as a technology and industrial hub.

Earlier this month, Rashed Al Blooshi, undersecretary of Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, said the emirate is focused on a number of non-oil sectors including industry, agriculture, tourism, health and technology to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons.

Ms Aaraj is keen to support that mission, and confident she can deliver on growing the emirates technology sector.

We have a very strong team here from Emirati talent and also global talent. To actually be a hub and attract top experts in the field to come and work from here Im sure this will happen.

Countries like the US, France, the UK and China are pouring billions of dollars into preparing for a post-quantum future.

Governments are vying to attract talent and investment ahead of the first real-world quantum use cases, according to the Future Today Institute, which outlined national efforts.

The US passed the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018, earmarking $1.2 billion for quantum research, and last year it rolled out five new quantum computing centres, including one at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in New York, to build new nuclear, chemical and physics applications.

Ahead of the curve is the UK, which launched its National Quantum Technologies Programme in 2013 and is now in its second phase, with $1.3bn in investment.

Germanys programme is funded at $2.4bn, according to the Future Today Institute.

In China, researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei, published a paper in the journal Science describing their quantum computer achieving speeds 10 billion times faster than Googles Sycamore quantum processor, which was the first to achieve quantum supremacy, in October 2019.

Physicists at Google said at the time that their 53-bit quantum computer calculated something that an ordinary computer even a very powerful one simply could not have completed.

Sycamore performed a challenging calculation in 200 seconds. On the worlds current fastest traditional computer, that same calculation would have taken 10,000 years.

In February 2021, researchers from Google and Canadian quantum computing company D-Wave Systems solved a real-world challenge 3 million times faster than a classical computer.

Sundar Pichai with one of Google's quantum computers in the Santa Barbara lab. A quantum computer can reduce a calculation that would ordinarily take years to minutes. By processing a lot more information faster, they can evaluate many outcomes simultaneously, thereby increasing their calculating power exponentially. AFP

Quantum computers are able to process multiple possibilities at once, solving problems at a much faster rate. AP

A component of Google's Quantum Computer in the Santa Barbara lab. Todays computers function using something called bits, which are arranged in a combination of ones and zeroes. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or "qubits", which mean they are capable of solving calculations a traditional computer could never answer.. Reuters

Quantum computers are as fragile as they are complex. They require an ultra-cold environment to operate of just above zero Kelvin a unit of temperature which is minus 273. This helps keep the environment stable, with less energy and therefore less chance of the qubits flipping between states.EPA

Sundar Pichai and Daniel Sank with one of Google's Quantum Computers in the Santa Barbara lab. In late 2019, Google announced it had achieved "quantum supremacy". This means that its quantum computer became the first to solve a calculation in less than four minutes that would have taken the worlds most powerful supercomputer 10,000 years to complete. Reuters

Quantum computing could help solve everything from the mundane, such as finding the most efficient route, to huge breakthroughs in science, including creating new cancer treatments or possibly even finding a cure for cancer.They may even one day answer questions about the origins of the universe and address mysteries of space and time. Image: AFP

Quantum computers will also able to sort through reams of data on complicated subjects like climate change to predict how it will progress. AFP

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Meet the Abu Dhabi cryptographer keeping your personal data safe - The National

Quantum computers have been on my mind a lot lately. A friend who likes investing in tech, and who knows about my attempt to learn quantum mechanics, has been sending me articles on how quantum computers might help solve some of the biggest and most complex challenges we face as humans, as a Forbes commentator declared recently. My friend asks, What do you think, Mr. Science Writer? Are quantum computers really the next big thing?

Ive also had exchanges with two quantum-computing experts with distinct perspectives on the technologys prospects. One is computer scientist Scott Aaronson, who has, as I once put it, one of the highest intelligence/pretension ratios Ive ever encountered. Not to embarrass him further, but I see Aaronson as the conscience of quantum computing, someone who helps keep the field honest.

The other expert is physicist Terry Rudolph. He is a co-author, the R, of the PBR theorem, which, along with its better-known predecessor, Bells theorem, lays bare the peculiarities of quantum behavior. In 2011 Nature described the PBR Theorem as the most important general theorem relating to the foundations of quantum mechanics since Bells theorem was published in 1964. Rudolph is also the author of Q Is for Quantum and co-founder of the quantum-computing startup PsiQuantum. Aaronson and Rudolph are on friendly terms; they co-authored a paper in 2007, and Rudolph wrote about Q Is for Quantum on Aaronsons blog. In this column, Ill summarize their views and try to reach a coherent conclusion.

First, a little background. Quantum computers exploit superposition (a particle inhabits two or more mutually exclusive states at the same time) and entanglement (a special form of superposition, in which two or more particles influence each other in spooky ways) to do things that ordinary computers cant. A bit, the basic unit of information of a conventional computer, can be in one of two states, representing a one or zero. Quantum computers, in contrast, traffic in qubits, which are constructed out of superposed particles that embody numerous states simultaneously.

For decades, quantum computing has been little more than a hypothesis, or laboratory curiosity, as researchers wrestled with the technical complexities of maintaining superposition and entanglement for long enough to perform useful calculations. (Remember that as soon as you look at an electron or cat, its superposition vanishes.) Now, tech giants like IBM, Amazon, Microsoft and Google have invested in quantum computing, as have many smaller companies, 193 by one count. In March, the startup IonQ announced a $2 billion deal that would make it the first publicly traded firm dedicated to quantum computers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that IonQ plans to produce a device roughly the size of an Xbox videogame console by 2023. Quantum computing, the Journal states, could speed up calculations related to finance, drug and materials discovery, artificial intelligence and others, andcrack many of the defensesused to secure the internet. According to Business Insider, quantum machines could help us cure cancer, and even take steps to reverse climate change.

This is the sort of hype that bugs Scott Aaronson. He became a computer scientist because he believes in the potential of quantum computing and wants to help develop it. Hed love to see someone build a machine that proves the naysayers wrong. But he worries that researchers are making promises they cant keep. Last month, Aaronson fretted on his blog Shtetl-Optimized that the hype, which he has been countering for years, has gotten especially egregious lately.

Whats new, Aaronson wrote, is that millions of dollars are now potentially available to quantum computing researchers, along with equity, stock options, and whatever else causes ka-ching sound effects and bulging eyes with dollar signs. And in many cases, to have a shot at such riches, all an expert needs to do is profess optimism that quantum computing will have revolutionary, world-changing applications and have themsoon. Or at least, not object too strongly when others say that. Aaronson elaborated on his concerns in a two-hour discussion on the media platform Clubhouse. Below I summarize a few of his points.

Quantum-computing enthusiasts have declared that the technology will supercharge machine learning. It will revolutionize the simulation of complex phenomena in chemistry, neuroscience, medicine, economics and other fields. It will solve the traveling-salesman problem and other conundrums that resist solution by conventional computers. Its still not clear whether quantum computing will achieve these goals, Aaronson says, adding that optimists might be in for a rude awakening.

Popular accounts often imply that quantum computers, because superposition and entanglement allow them to carry out multiple computations at the same time, are simply faster versions of conventional computers. Those accounts are misleading, Aaronson says. Compared to conventional computers, quantum computers are unnatural devices that might be best suited to a relatively narrow range of applications, notably simulating systems dominated by quantum effects.

The ability of a quantum computer to surpass the fastest conventional machine is known as quantum supremacy, a phrase coined by physicist John Preskill in 2012. Demonstrating quantum supremacy is extremely difficult. Even in conventional computing, proving that your algorithm beats mine isnt straightforward. You must pick a task that represents a fair test and choose valid methods of measuring speed and accuracy. The outcomes of tests are also prone to misinterpretation and confirmation bias. Testing creates an enormous space for mischief, Aaronson says.

Moreover, the hardware and software of conventional computers keeps improving. By the time quantum computers are ready for the marketplace, they might lose potential customersif, for example, classical computers become powerful enough to simulate the quantum systems that chemists and materials scientists actually care about in real life, Aaronson says. Although quantum computers would retain their theoretical advantage, their practical impact would be less.

As quantum computing attracts more attention and funding, Aaronson says, researchers may mislead investors, government agencies, journalists, the public and, worst of all, themselves about their works potential. If researchers cant keep their promises, excitement might give way to doubt, disappointment and anger, Aaronson warns. The field might lose funding and talent and lapse into a quantum-computer winter like those that have plagued artificial intelligence.

Lots of other technologiesgenetic engineering, high-temperature superconductors, nanotechnology and fusion energy come to mindhave gone through phases of irrational exuberance. But something about quantum computing makes it especially prone to hype, Aaronson suggests, perhaps because quantum stands for something cool you shouldnt be able to understand.

And that brings me back to Terry Rudolph. In January, after reading about my struggle to understand the Schrdinger equation, Rudolph emailed me to suggest that I read Q Is for Quantum. The 153-page book explains quantum mechanics with a little arithmetic and algebra and lots of diagrams of black-and-white balls going in and out of boxes. Q Is for Quantum has given me more insight into quantum mechanics, and quantum computing, than anything Ive ever read.

Rudolph begins by outlining simple rules underlying conventional computing, which allow for the manipulation of bits. He then shifts to the odd rules of quantum computing, which stem from superposition and entanglement. He details how quantum computing can solve a specific problemone involving thieves stealing code-protected gold bars from a vault--much more readily than conventional computing. But he emphasizes, like Aaronson, that the technology has limits; it cannot compute the uncomputable.

After I read Q Is for Quantum, Rudolph patiently answered my questions about it. You can find our exchange (which assumes familiarity with the book) here. He also answered my questions about PsiQuantum, the firm he co-founded in 2016, which until recently has avoided publicity. Although he is wittily modest about his talents as a physicist (which adds to the charm of Q Is for Quantum), Rudolph is boosterish about PsiQuantum. He shares Aaronsons concerns about hype, and the difficulties of establishing quantum supremacy, but he says those concerns do not apply to PsiQuantum.

The company, he says, is closer than any other firm by a very large margin to building a useful quantum computer, one that solves an impactful problem that we would not have been able to solve otherwise (e.g., something from quantum chemistry which has real-world uses). He adds, Obviously, I have biases, and people will naturally discount my opinions. But I have spent a lot oftime quantitatively comparing what we are doing to others.

Rudolph and other experts contend that a useful quantum computer with robust error-correction will require millions of qubits. PsiQuantum, which constructs qubits out of light, expects by the middle of the decade to be building fault-tolerant quantum computers with fully manufactured components capable of scaling to a million or morequbits, Rudolph says. PsiQuantum has partnered with the semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries to achieve its goal. The machines will be room-sized, comparable to supercomputers or data centers. Most users will access the computers remotely.

Could PsiQuantum really be leading all the competition by a wide margin, as Rudolph claims? Can it really produce a commercially viable machine by 2025? I dont know. Quantum mechanics and quantum computing still baffle me. Im certainly not going to advise my friend or anyone else to invest in quantum computers. But I trust Rudolph, just as I trust Aaronson.

Way back in 1994, I wrote a brief report for Scientific American on quantum computers, noting that they could, in principle, perform tasks beyond the range of any classical device. Ive been intrigued by quantum computing ever since. If this technology gives scientists more powerful tools for simulating complex phenomena, and especially the quantum weirdness at the heart of things, maybe it will give science the jump start it badly needs. Who knows? I hope PsiQuantum helps quantum computing live up to the hype.

This is an opinion and analysis article.

Further Reading:

Will Artificial Intelligence Ever Live Up to Its Hype?

Is the Schrdinger Equation True?

Quantum Mechanics, the Chinese Room Experiment and the Limits of Understanding

Quantum Mechanics, the Mind-Body Problem and Negative Theology

For more ruminations on quantum mechanics, see my new bookPay Attention: Sex, Death, and Science and Tragedy and Telepathy, a chapter in my free online bookMind-Body Problems.

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Will Quantum Computing Ever Live Up to Its Hype? - Scientific American