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Singapore is looking to carve out a global footprint in artificial intelligence (AI) with the release of international standards for large language model (LLM) testing and investments in quantum computing and new data center capacity.

Quantum has the potential to unlock new value, where higher processing capabilities can be harnessed in areas such as simulating complex molecules for drug discovery, said Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat at last week's Asia Tech x Singapore 2024 summit.

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He added that quantum computing can also have synergies with AI, for example, in improving the efficiency of developing and training advanced AI models. This development, in turn, can further drive innovations in deep learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.

However, there still are challenges to resolve in quantum, including requirements for cryogenic cooling and error correction, Heng said. He noted that researchers worldwide were assessing different approaches to achieve scale and enable quantum computing to be commercially viable.

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Singapore wants to address thesechallenges with its National Quantum Strategy, coupled with almost SG$300 million ($221.99 million) in investment. This cash is on top of a previous SG$96.6 million commitmentannounced in 2022. The new investment is earmarked for five years, through to 2030, to boost the country's position as a leading hub in the development and deployment of quantum technologies, Heng said.

This roadmap focuses on four areas, including initiatives in quantum research, such asquantum communications and security and quantum processors, and a scholarship program to produce 100 PhD and 100 master's-level graduates over the next five years, he said.

Efforts are underway for Singapore to buildcapabilities in the design and development of quantum processors. This work will encompass research onqubit technologies, including photonic networks, neutral atoms, and superconducting circuits.

ZDNET understands Singapore's target is to have the first prototype ready in the next three years and scale out production in five years.

The government in 2022 unveiled a three-year initiative to build a quantum-safe network that it hopes will showcase "crypto-agile connectivity" and facilitate trials with both public and private organizations. The initiative also includes a quantum security lab for vulnerability research.

Singapore last week also launched its green data center roadmap to chart "digital sustainability and chart green growth pathways" for such facilities, supporting AI and computing developments.

The country has over 1.4 gigawatts of data center capacity and is home to more than 70 cloud, enterprise, and co-location data centers.

Singapore is aiming to add at least 300 megawatts of additional data center capacity "in the near term" and another 200 megawatts through green energy deployments, said Janil Puthucheary, senior minister of state for the Ministry of Communications and Information, at the summit.

Efforts will be made to enhance efficiency through both hardware and software, Puthucheary said, pointing to technologies that maximize energy efficiency and capacity, and green software tools.

He added that improving data center efficiency is also about greening software, so the carbon emissions of applications can be reduced.

He said the focus will be placed on data centers to accelerate their use of green energy, with the government offering support via grants and incentives to switch to energy-efficient IT equipment. In addition, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) will work with PUB to help data centers push their water usage effectiveness (WUE) to 2.0 cubic meters or less per megawatt hour, up from the 2021 median WUE of 2.2 cubic meters.

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IMDA will jointly develop standards and certifications with industry partners to drive the development and operation of data centers with power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.3 or lower.

In addition, the BCA-IMDA Green Mark for data centers will be refreshed by year-end to raise the standards for energy efficiency in data centers. IMDA will also introduce standards for IT equipment energy efficiency and liquid cooling by 2025, to drive the adoption of these technologies in Singapore.

The green data center roadmap outlines plans to reduce energy use for air-cooling by raising operating temperatures via IMDA's tropical DC methodology.

According to the government agency, data centers can achieve 2% to 5% energy savings for every 1C increase in operating temperature.

It also pointed to simulations that have found existing data centers can achieve a 50% reduction in energy consumption of supporting infrastructure, with energy-efficient retrofits and upgrades for key equipment, such as chiller plants and uninterruptible power supplies.

"We aim to uplift all data centers in Singapore to achieve PUE of less than 1.3 at 100% IT load over the next 10 years," IMDA said. "This gives existing data centers sufficient time to plan for upgrades."

The tech industry today emits an estimated 1.5% to 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Heng noted, with this figure projected to climb as the use of AI expands alongside the need for data storage and processing.

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He said technologies that drive the country's digital economy, such as cloud and AI, fuel demand for powerful and energy-intensive computing.

"Data centers lie at the heart of such activities and require large amounts of energy for processing and cooling. Greening ICT, especially data centers, is therefore crucial in a digital and carbon-constrained world," he said.

"There is a need to balance the economic and social benefits of digital applications with the environmental effects from the resultant emissions," he said, noting that Singapore has committed to a net-zero target by 2050.

"The [green data center] roadmap sets out low-carbon energy sources that data centers can explore, which include bioenergy, fuel cells with carbon capture, low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia for a start," Puthucheary explained. "We welcome proposals from the industry to push boundaries in realizing these pathways in Singapore."

Meanwhile, the country wants to lead the way by releasing standards for large language model (LLM) testing, developed via partnerships with global organizations such as MLCommons, IBM, and Singtel.

Dubbed Project Moonshot, the LLM testing tool provides benchmarking, red-teaming, and testing baselines to help developers and organizations mitigate risks associated with LLM deployment.

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LLMs without guardrails can reinforce biases and create harmful content, with unintended consequences. "IMDA is seeking to establish guardrails to manage the risks while enabling space for innovation," the government agency said.

"It is important to adopt an agile, test-and-iterate approach to address key risks in model development and use. Project Moonshot provides intuitive results, so testing unveils the quality and safety of a model or application in an easily understood manner, even for a non-technical user."

The testing tool provides a five-tier scoring system where each completed scoring sheet will place the application on a scale. Grade cut-offs can be determined by the author of each of these scoring sheets.

AI Verify Foundation and MLCommons jointly developed the testing LLM benchmarks. The latter is an open-engineering consortium supported by Qualcomm, Google, Intel, and NVIDIA and recognized by the US National Institute of Science and Technology under its AI Safety Consortium. AI Verify Foundation is Singapore's not-for-profit foundation that focuses on developing AI testing tools.

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Project Moonshot is currently available as an open beta.

IMDA said it is working with companies such as Anthropic to develop a practical guide to multilingual and multicultural red-teaming for LLMs. The guide is slated for release later this year for global use.

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Singapore looks to boost AI with plans for quantum computing and data centers - ZDNet

TOKYO, June 3, 2024 In support of the development of large-scale superconducting quantum computers, researchers with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), one of the largest public research organizations in Japan, in collaboration with Yokohama National University, Tohoku University, and NEC Corporation, proposed and successfully demonstrated a superconducting circuit that can control many qubits at low temperature.

To realize a practical quantum computer, it is necessary to control the state of a huge number of qubits (as many as one million) operating at low temperature. In conventional quantum computers, microwave signals for controlling qubits are generated at room temperature and are individually transmitted to qubits at low temperature via different cables. This results in numerous cables between room and low temperature and limits the number of controllable qubits to approximately 1,000.

In this study, a superconducting circuit that can control multiple qubits via a single cable using microwave multiplexing was successfully demonstrated in proof-of-concept experiments at 4.2 K in liquid helium. This circuit has the potential of increasing the density of microwave signals per cable by approximately 1,000 times, thereby increasing the number of controllable qubits significantly and contributing to the development of large-scale quantum computers.

The above results were published in npj Quantum Information on June 3.

Article Information Journal:npj Quantum Information Title:Microwave-multiplexed qubit controller using adiabatic superconductor logic Authors: Naoki Takeuchi, Taiki Yamae, Taro Yamashita, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, and Nobuyuki Yoshikawa DOI: 10.1038/s41534-024-00849-2

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation has established itself as a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies while promoting the brand statement of Orchestrating a brighter world. NEC enables businesses and communities to adapt to rapid changes taking place in both society and the market as it provides for the social values of safety, security, fairness and efficiency to promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential.

Source: NEC

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NEC Joins Forces to Enhance Qubit Control Within Large-scale Quantum Computer Systems - HPCwire

Chinese scientists are one step closer to a future large-scale quantum computer after building the worlds largest quantum simulation machine based on the trapped-ion technique, praised by one academic journal reviewer as a milestone to be recognised.

The breakthrough was achieved under the leadership of Duan Luming, a quantum physicist renowned for his pioneering research, who returned to China in 2018 after 15 years of teaching in the United States.

Duan received his doctorate in 1998 from the University of Science and Technology of China, the countrys premier institute for quantum research, before joining the University of Michigan in the early 2000s.

Since his return, he has been a full-time professor at Tsinghua Universitys Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences.

Duan and his colleagues, along with several research groups at universities and hi-tech companies around the world, have been chasing the trapped-ion approach to qubits.

Quantum bits, or qubits, are the building blocks of quantum computers, just as bits are in regular computers.

However, qubits are extremely difficult to harness in a controlled and repeatable way because of what is called their hazy nature.

Regular bits can be described as switches that are either on or off. But because uncertainty and probability hold sway in quantum physics, qubits can be both on and off at the same time, and also exist in a variety of in-between states.

Ions, or charged atomic particles, can be trapped and suspended in free space using electromagnetic fields. The qubits are stored in stable electronic states of each ion, and quantum information can be transferred through the collective motion of the ions in a shared trap.

But scalability remains a key challenge for this system.

This is where the trapped-ion approach comes in, as it offers one of the most promising architectures for a scalable, universal quantum computer.

Researchers earlier achieved quantum simulations with up to 61 ions in a one-dimensional crystal. Ion crystals are solids made up of ions bound together in a regular lattice the symmetrical three-dimensional structural arrangements of atoms, ions or molecules inside a solid.

But Duan and his teams quantum simulator was able to achieve the stable trapping and cooling of a two-dimensional crystal of up to 512 ions, in a first for science.

The feat holds great significance for the future of quantum computing, given that scalability is a major hurdle. The teams scaling up of the ions in a stable simulation system is seen as likely to pave the way to building more powerful quantum computers.

The findings of their study were published on Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

This is the largest quantum simulation or computation performed to date in a trapped-ion system, commented one reviewer.

Quantum simulators are devices that actively use quantum effects to answer questions about model systems and, through them, real systems. They are increasingly popular tools in the world of quantum computing for their role in advancing scientific knowledge and developing technologies.

Duan and his team also managed to perform a quantum simulation calculation using 300-ion qubits. They found the computational complexity of 300-ion quantum bits working simultaneously to be astronomical, far exceeding the direct simulation capability of classical computers.

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US-returned Chinese physicist and team achieve world first in quantum computing - South China Morning Post

As technology continues to advance toward higher realms, a new mechanism has entered the crosshairs of scientists: quantum computing. This process uses the principles of fundamental physics to "solve extremely complex problems very quickly," according to McKinsey & Company.

Using logic-based computing to solve problems isn't a new phenomenon; it was (and remains) the basis for artificial intelligence and digital computers. However, quantum computers are "poised to take computing to a whole new level," McKinsey said, because the introduction of physics into computing has the "potential tosolvevery complex statistical problems that are beyond the limits of today's computers." Quantum computing alone "could account fornearly $1.3 trillion in valueby 2035."

However, while organizations like McKinsey are clearly high on the potential for quantum computing, others say that it could create a slew of new problems.

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Quantum computing is a huge leap forward because "complex problems that currently take the most powerful supercomputer several years could potentially be solved in seconds," said Charlie Campbell for Time. This could open "hitherto unfathomable frontiers in mathematics and science, helping to solve existential challenges like climate change and food security."

Quantum computing is already being used for more practical purposes. One company called D-Wave Systems has "used its quantum computer to help clients determine driver schedules for grocery-store deliveries, the routing of cross-country promotional tours and cargo-handling procedures at the port of Los Angeles," said Bob Henderson for The Wall Street Journal. It could even help optimize seemingly minute problems, such as the arranging of planes at airport gates. If trying to arrange just 50 planes at 100 gates, the number of possibilities would be "10 to the hundredth power far more than the number of atoms in the visible universe," said Henderson. No standard computer "could keep track of all these possibilities.But a quantum computer potentially could."

While ubiquitous usage of quantum computers is a long way away, there are some strides being made, as Google "has built a quantum computer that's about 158 million times faster than the world's fastest supercomputer," said Luke Lango, a senior investment analyst at InvestorPlace. And quantum theory in general "has led to huge advancements over the past century. That's especially true over the past decade," as scientists "have started to figure out how to harness the power of quantum mechanics to make a new generation of superquantum computers."

But with new advancements come new sets of problems. Case-in-point: Quantum computers have "become a national security migraine," said Campbell for Time, because its ability to solve problems "will soon render all existing cryptography obsolete, jeopardizing communications, financial transactions and even military defenses."

This would be "potentially a completely different kind of problem than one we've ever faced," Glenn S. Gerstell, a former general counsel for the National Security Agency, said to The New York Times. There may be "only a 1% chance of that happening, but a 1% chance of something catastrophic is something you need to worry about." This risk "extends not just to future breaches but to past ones: Troves of encrypted data harvested now and in coming years could ... be unlocked," said Zach Montague for the Times.

Even as the risks are documented, investors are working to ensure quantum computers can be used on a widespread scale. Curtis Priem, the co-founder of AI chip manufacturer Nvidia, is "looking to establish New York's Hudson Valley as an epicenter of quantum-computing research in the country," the Journal said. Priem has already donated more than $75 million to develop a quantum computing system at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, making it the first college campus in the world with such a device.

Others are looking at the future of the industry through a more financial lens; Illinois legislators will soon be "asked to consider a series of incentives" as part of the state's "intensifying push to become the nation's hub for quantum computing," said Crain's Chicago Business. One of these major proposals is the creation of an "'enterprise zone' that would allow the state to provide quantum companies exemptions from sales, payroll and utility taxes for up to 40 years." If lawmakers in Illinois pass these incentives, there is a high chance that other states could follow.

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Is quantum computing the next technological frontier? - The Week

Artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing at breakneck pace, with the EU struggling to keep up with the regulatory, competitive and economic implications. But quantum computing is one technology which has the potential to speed up the development of AI where the EU might have the upper hand.

According to data analysed by Science|Business, France, the Netherlands, and Austria are hotspots in the field. Quantum computing is promising to transform a range of other technologies, including AI, and leading organisations in these three countries are preparing for the new wave.

The French National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) tops the pack, winning around 40 million from Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, followed by the Technical University of Delft, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic

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France, Netherlands and Austria lead EU quantum innovators pack - Science Business