Mediaboss Marketing

The University of Michigan has formed a collaboration with Michigan State University and Purdue University to study quantum science and technology, drawing together expertise and resources to advance the field.

The three universities are partnering to form the Midwest Quantum Collaboratory, or MQC, to find grand new challenges we can work on jointly, based on the increased breadth and diversity of scientists in the collaboration, said Mack Kira, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Michigan Engineering and inaugural director of the collaboration.

U-M researchers call quantum effects the DNA of so many phenomena people encounter in their everyday lives, ranging from electronics to chemical reactions to the study of light wavesand everything they collectively produce.

We scientists are now in a position to start combining these quantum building blocks to quantum applications that have never existed, said Kira, also a professor of physics at U-Ms College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. It is absolutely clear that any such breakthrough will happen only through a broad, diverse and interdisciplinary research effort. MQC has been formed also to build scientific diversity and critical mass needed to address the next steps in quantum science and technology.

Collaborators at U-M include Steven Cundiff, professor of physics and of electrical engineering and computer science. Cundiffs research group uses ultrafast optics to study semiconductors, semiconductor nanostructures and atomic vapors.

The main goal of the MQC is to create synergy between the research programs at these three universities, to foster interactions and collaborations between researchers in quantum science, he said.

Each university will bring unique expertise in quantum science to the collaboration. Researchers at U-M will lead research about the quantum efforts of complex quantum systems, such as photonics, or the study of light, in different semiconductors. This kind of study could inform how to make semiconductor-based computing, lighting, radar or communications millions of times faster and billions of times more energy efficient, Kira says.

Similar breakthrough potential resides in developing algorithms, chemical reactions, solar-power, magnetism, conductivity or atomic metrology to run on emergent quantum phenomena, he said.

The MQC will be a virtual institute, with in-person activities such as seminars and workshops split equally between the three universities, according to Cundiff. In the first year, MQC will launch a seminar series, virtual mini-workshops focused on specific research topics, and will hold a larger in-person workshop. The collaboration hopes fostering connections between scientists will lead to new capabilities, positioning the MQC to be competitive for large center-level funding opportunities.

We know collaboration is key to driving innovation, especially for quantum, said David Stewart, managing director of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute. The MQC will not only provide students with scientific training, but also develop their interpersonal skills so they will be ready to contribute to a currently shorthanded quantum workforce.

The MQC will also promote development of the quantum workforce by starting a seminar series and/or journal club for only students and postdocs, and encouraging research interaction across the three universities.

MQC also provides companies with interest in quantum computing with great opportunities for collaboration with faculty and students across broad spectrums of quantum computing with the collaborative expertise spanning the three institutions, said Angela Wilson, director of the MSU Center for Quantum Computing, Science and Engineering.

Additionally, bringing together three of our nations largest universities and three of the largest quantum computing efforts provides potential employers with a great source of interns and potential employees encompassing a broad range of quantum computing.

See the article here:
U-M forms collaboration to advance quantum science and technology - University of Michigan News

In the first part of thisweek's technology segment on RNZ's Nine to Noon show Italk with Kathryn Ryan about some of the big trends in techthis year, starting with plugging gaps in broadbandcoverage, the work done by the RuralConnectivity Group and extending the 5Gnetwork.

By March 2022 willreach 87 percent of NZ.

As we get towards the endof the build the rate of filling in those gaps drops.Well see why later.

The RuralConnectivity Group built close to 300 mobiletowers. A lot of the work was done while the country was inlockdown.

The last announcement was in Septemberwhen it reached 272 towers.

Bigtech companies are making moves to head off regulatoryaction after all what do you think Facebook changing itsname to Meta was really about?

They think there will be soon bebreakthroughs in quantum computing that will let them readall that top secret material.

"Tech consultancyBooz Allen Hamilton has warned that China will soon plan thetheft of high value data, so it can decrypt it once quantumcomputers break classicalencryption.

If youre on this call youre partof the unlucky group being laid off, said Vishal Garg,chief executive of mortgage firm Better.com, on the call,later uploaded to social media.

The year we filled in the telecommunicationsgaps was first posted atbillbennett.co.nz.

Scoop Media

New Zealand technology news

Bill Bennett publishes technology news and features that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers.

Covering enterprise and small business computing, start-ups, listed companies, the technology channel and devices. Bennett's main focus is on New Zealand innovation.

Bill Bennett stories are republished on Geekzone and Scoop.

Stories published on this site are available to publishers for a fixed fee or a monthly subscription.

View post:
The year we filled in the telecommunications gaps | Scoop News - Scoop

2021 will be remembered for a lot of things, but when its all said and done we think itll eventually get called the year quantum computing finally came into focus.

Thats not to say useful quantum computers have actually arrived yet. Theyre still somewhere between a couple years and a couple centuries away. Sorry for being so vague, but when youre dealing with quantum physics there arent yet many guarantees.

This is because physics is an incredibly complex and challenging field of study. And the difficulty gets cranked up exponentially when you start adding theoretical and quantum to the research.

Were talking about physics at the very edge of reason. Like, for example, imagining a quantum-powered artificial intelligence capable of taking on the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.

That might sound pretty wacky, but this story explains why its not quite as out there as you might think.

But lets go even further. Lets go past the edge of reason and into the realm of the speculative science. Earlier this year we wondered what would happen if physicists could actually prove that reality as we know it isnt real.

Per that article:

Theoretically, if we could zoom in past the muons and leptons and keep going deeper and deeper, we could reach a point where all objects in the universe are indistinguishable from each other because, at the quantum level, everything that exists is just a sea of nearly-identical subparticulate entities.

This version of reality would render the concepts of space and time pointless. Time would only exist as a construct by which we give meaning to our own observations. And those observations would merely be the classical side-effects of existing in a quantum universe.

So, in the grand scheme of things, its possible that our reality is little more than a fleeting, purposeless arrangement of molecules. Everything that encompasses our entire universe may be nothing more than a brief hallucination caused by a quantum vibration.

Nothing makes you feel special like trying to conceive of yourself as a few seasoning particles in an infinite soup of gooey submolecules.

If having an existential quantum identity-crisis isnt your thing, we also covered a lot of cool stuff that doesnt require you to stop seeing yourself as an individual stack of materials.

Does anyone remember the time China said it had built a quantum computer a million times more powerful than Googles? We dont believe it. But thats the claim the researchersmade. You can read more about that here.

Oh, and that Google quantum system the Chinese researchers referenced? Yeah, it turns out it wasnt exactly the massive upgrade over classical supercomputers it was chalked up to be either.

But, of course, we forgive Google for its marketing faux pas. And thats because, hands down, the biggest story of the year for quantum computers was the time crystal breakthrough.

As we wrote at the time:

If Googles actually created time-crystals, it could accelerate the timeline for quantum computing breakthroughs from maybe never to maybe within a few decades.

At the far-fetched, super-optimistic end of things we could see the creation of a working warp drive in our lifetimes. Imagine taking a trip to Mars or the edge of our solar system, and being back home on Earth in time to catch the evening news.

And, even on the conservative end with more realistic expectations, its not hard to imagine quantum computing-based chemical and drug discovery leading to universally-effective cancer treatments.

Talk about a eureka moment!

But there were even bigger things in the world of quantum physics than just advancing computer technology.

Scientists from the University of Sussex determined that black holes emanate a specific kind of quantum pressure that could lend some credence to multiple universe theories.

Basically, we cant explain where the pressure comes from. Could this be blow back from white holes swallowing up energy and matter in a dark, doppelganger universe that exists parallel to our own? Nobody knows! You can read more here though.

Still there were even bigger philosophical questions in play over the course of 2021 when it came to interpreting physics research.

Are we incapable of finding evidence for God because were actually gods in our rights? That might sound like philosophy, but there are some pretty radical physics interpretations behind that assertion.

And, if we are gods, can we stop time? Turns out, whether were just squishy mortal meatbags or actual deities, we actually can!

Alright. If none of those stories impress you, weve saved this one for last. If being a god, inventing time crystals, or even stopping time doesnt float your boat, how about immortality? And not just regular boring immortality, butquantum immortality.

Its probably not probable, and adding the word quantum to something doesnt necessarily make it cooler, but anythings possible in an infinite universe. Plus, the underlying theories involving massive-scale entanglement are incredible read more here.

Seldom a day goes by where something incredible isnt happening in the world of physics research. But thats nothing compared to the magic weve yet to uncover out there in this fabulous universe we live in.

Luckily for you, Neural will be back in 2022 to help make sense of it all. Stick with us for the most compelling, wild, and deep reporting on the quantum world this side of the non-fiction realm.

View post:
Neural's best quantum computing and physics stories from 2021 - The Next Web

We are living in a do-anything-from-anywhere economy enabled by an exponentially expanding data ecosystem. Its estimated that 65% of global gross domestic product (GDP) will be digital in 2022. This influx of data presents both opportunities and challenges. After all, success in our digital present and future relies on our ability to secure and maintain increasingly complex information technology (IT) systems. Here, I will examine near-term and long-term predictions that address the way the IT industry will deliver the platforms and capabilities to harness this data to transform our experiences at work, home and in the classroom.

The edge discussion will separate into two focus areasedge platforms that provide a stable pool of secure capacity for the diverse edge ecosystems and software-defined edge workloads or software stacks that extend application and data systems into real-world environments. We are already seeing this shift today. As we move into 2022, we expect edge platforms to become more capable and pervasive.

The opening of the private mobility ecosystem will accelerate with more cloud and IT industries involved on the path to 5G. The enterprise use of 5G is still early. In fact, today, 5G is not significantly different or better than WiFi in most enterprise use cases. This will change in 2022 as more modern and capable versions of 5G become available to enterprises.

More importantly, we expect the ecosystem delivering new and more capable private mobility, to expand and include IT providers, such as Dell Technologies, besides public cloud providers and even new open-source ecosystems focused on acceleration of the open 5G ecosystem.

Edge will become the new battleground for data management as it becomes a new class of workload. Data management and edge will increasingly converge and reinforce each other.

As the digital transformation accelerates, it has become clear that most of the data in the world will be created and acted on outside of centralized data centres. We expect that the entire data management ecosystem will become very active in developing and utilizing edge IT capacity as the ingress and egress of their data pipelines, and will also utilize edges to remotely process and digest data.

The security industry is now moving from discussion of emerging security concerns to a bias towards action. Enterprises and governments are facing threats of greater sophistication and impact on revenue and services. As a result, the security industry is responding with greater automation and integration. The industry is also pivoting from automated detection to prevention and response with a focus on applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to speed remediation.

Quantum computing: Hybrid quantum or classical compute will take centre-stage, providing greater access to quantum. In 2022, we expect two major industry consensuses to emerge. First, we expect the industry will see the inevitable topology of a quantum system in a hybrid quantum computer. The second major consensus is that quantum simulation using conventional computing will be the most cost-effective and accessible way to get quantum systems into the hands of our universities, data science teams and researchers. In fact, Dell and IBM already announced significant work in making quantum simulation available to the world.

Automotive: The automotive ecosystem will rapidly shift focus from a mechanical ecosystem to a data and compute industry. We are seeing a shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, resulting in radical simplification of the physical supply chain. Dell is actively engaged with most of the worlds major automotive companies in their early efforts, and we expect 2022 to continue their evolution towards digital transformation and deep interaction with IT ecosystems.

Digital twins: Digital twins will become easier to create and consume as the technology is more clearly defined with dedicated tools. Over the next several years, we will see digital twins becoming easier to create and consume as we define standardized frameworks, solutions and platforms.

As a technology optimist, I increasingly see a world where humans and technology work together to deliver impactful outcomes at an unprecedented speed. These near-term and long-term perspectives are based on the strides we are making today. If we see even incremental improvement, there is enormous opportunity to positively transform the way we work, live and learn, and 2022 will be another year of accelerated technology innovation and adoption.

John Roese is global chief technology officer, Dell Technologies.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters

* Enter a valid email

* Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!!

Originally posted here:
The tech that will change the dialogue n 2022 - Mint

A new academic paper reveals a worrisome tendency for cosmic rays to disrupt quantum computer processors in a way that may be nearly impossible for current error correction techniques to reliably counteract.

One of the biggest obstacles faced by quantum computers is dealing with error correction. Traditionally, this has been most commonly handled by grouping together multiple qubits, the quantum equivalent of traditional computing's bits, into a sort of committee within quantum processing units. Rather than the system relying on a single qubit, which may or may not be correct, it instead relies on the consensus provided by an entire group of qubits. This strips away erroneous outliers and greatly reduces the error rate to a point where it's extremely unlikely that it will interfere with an ongoing processing job.

Unfortunately, in a very sci-fi-sounding turn of events, it appears that an unseen enemy from outer space may be threatening the viability of this error-correcting technology.

Cosmic rays are invisible, microscopic particle beams that constantly bombard the Earth from sources as far away as other galaxies. They typically collide harmlessly with the planet's atmosphere as well as objects within it. In fact, you'll likely be hit by several of them while reading this article. Luckily, for our peace of mind, they generally go completely unnoticed and do absolutely no harm before continuing on their cosmic journey. Unfortunately for quantum computing developers, it appears that quantum processors may be far, far more sensitive to these typically unnoticeable intruders than they realized.

In a paper published in Nature Physics and covered by Ars Technica, it's been revealed that one of these typically harmless rays could cause a major problem when it hits an operating quantum CPU. According to the findings of several researchers working at Google Quantum AI, a cosmic ray strike on an operating quantum computer core can result in the formation of a quasiparticle called a phonon.

These phonons have the capacity to disrupt operations by inverting the quantum state of not only a single qubit, but an entire entangled set of qubitsas they proliferate across the processor. This means a strike could distribute errors across an entire qubit set, essentially nullifying the protection provided by the committee-like error correction mentioned above.

In an experiment detailed within the paper, Google researchers tested a set of 26 qubits that were known to be amongst their most reliable. This set was then left in an idle state for 100 microseconds. While idling, reliable qubits should generally remain in their current state. To use a traditional, binary computing analogy, a 1 should remain a 1, a 0 should remain a 0.

On average, the 26 qubits set in question displayed an error rate of about 4 qubits that erroneously flipped their state within the 100 microsecond test period. This is well within the built-in error correction's ability to compensate by relying on the remaining majority of 22 qubits. However, during confirmed quantum ray strikes, 24 of the 26 qubits were found to have erroneously flipped to the opposite state. This result is well beyond traditional error correction's ability to compensate for. Such an outcome would place the entire group in error and could throw the entire processing job's continuity into question.

Cosmic ray interference is nothing new. As Ars noted, they can also interact with traditional CPUs by messing with the electrical charges they rely on to complete their logic operations. However, the unique and still-developing structure of quantum processors makes them far more prone to such interference, with Google's research indicating that a cosmic ray-induced error happens as often as every 10 seconds. This means the hours-long processing jobs most quantum CPUs are being tasked with could include hundreds, if not thousands of errors littered throughout their results.

Making matters worse is the fact that the processor these researchers used for their testing was rather small. As processing demands increase, so too must the size of the quantum processor. But, the larger the processor, the more surface area there is to potentially suffer a cosmic ray collision. It appears the threat of forced errors is only going to become direr as quantum CPUs continue making their way towards practical applications.

Unfortunately, there is no practical way to reliably block these problematic, intergalactic travelers. They are moving at almost the speed of light, after all. However, as pointed out by Ars Technica, some clever workarounds have already been developed to help devices like astronomical imaging equipment cope with quantum ray interference. While the paper does not specifically explore the viability of these potential solutions, they do seem to indicate the problem of cosmic ray interference is a surmountable one.

Read the original here:
Quantum computing now has an out-of-this-world problem: Cosmic rays - ZDNet