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In 2013, Rigetti Computing began its push to make quantum computers. That effort could bear serious fruit starting in 2023, the company said Friday.

That's because next year, the Berkeley, California-based company plans to deliver both its fourth-generation machine, called Ankaa, and an expanded model called Lyra. The company hopes those machines will usher in "quantum advantage," when the radically different machines mature into devices that actually deliver results out of the reach of conventional computers, said Rigetti founder and Chief Executive Chad Rigetti.

Quantum computers rely on the weird physics of ultrasmall elements like atoms and photons to perform calculations that are impractical on the conventional computer processors that power smartphones, laptops and data centers. Advocates hope quantum computers will lead to more powerful vehicle batteries, new drugs, more efficient package delivery, more effective artificial intelligence and other breakthroughs.

So far, quantum computers are very expensive research projects. Rigetti is among a large group scrambling to be the first to quantum advantage, though. That includes tech giants like IBM, Google, Baidu and Intel and specialists like Quantinuum, IonQ, PsiQuantum, Pasqal and Silicon Quantum Computing.

"This is the new space race," Rigetti said in an exclusive interview ahead of the company's first investor day.

For the event, the company is revealing more details about its full technology array, including manufacturing, hardware, the applications its computers will run and the cloud services to reach customers. "We're building the full rocket," Rigetti said.

Although Rigetti isn't a household name, it holds weight in this world. In February, Rigetti raised $262 million and became one of a small number of publicly traded quantum computing companies. Although the company has been clear its quantum computing business is a long-term plan, investors have become more skeptical. Its stock price has dropped by about three quarters since going public, hurt most recently when Rigetti announced the delay of a $4 million US government contract that would have accounted for much of the company's annual revenue of about $12 million to $13 million.

The company argues it's got the right approach for the long run, though. It starts in early 2023 with Ankaa, a processor that includes 84 qubits, the fundamental data processing element in a quantum computer. Four of those ganged together are the foundation for Lyra, a 336-qubit machine. The names are astronomical: Ankaa is a star, and Lyra is a constellation.

Rigetti doesn't promise quantum advantage from the 336 qubit machine, but it's the company's hope. "We believe it's absolutely within the realm of possibility," Rigetti said.

Having more qubits is crucial to more sophisticated algorithms needed for quantum advantage. Rigetti hopes customers in the finance, automotive and government sectors will be eager to pay for that quantum computing horsepower. Auto companies could research new battery technologies and optimize their complex manufacturing operations, and financial services companies are always looking for better ways to spot trends and make trading decisions, Rigetti said.

Rigetti plans to link its Ankaa modules into larger machines: a 1,000-qubit computer in 2025 and a 4,000-qubit model in 2027.

Rigetti isn't the only company trying to build a rocket, though. IBM has a 127-qubit quantum computer today, with plans for a 433-qubit model in 2023 and more than 4,000 qubits in 2025. Although qubit count is only one measure of a quantum computer's utility, it's an important factor.

"What Rigetti is doing in terms of qubits pales in comparison to IBM," said Moor Insights & Strategy analsyt Paul Smith-Goodson.

Along with those machines, Rigetti expects developments in manufacturing, including a 5,000-square-foot expansion of the company's Fremont, California, chip fabrication facility now underway, improvements in the error correction technology necessary to perform more than the most fleeting quantum computing calculations, and better software and services so customers can actually use its machines.

Rigetti Computing's plans for improvements to its broad suite of quantum computing technology.

To reach its goals, Rigetti also announced four new deals at its investor event:

Qubits are easily perturbed, so coping with errors is critical to quantum computing progress. So is a better foundation less prone to errors. Quantum computer makers track that with a measurement called gate fidelity. Rigetti is at 95% to 97% fidelity today, but prototypes for its fourth-generation Ankaa-based systems have shown 99%, Rigetti said.

In the eyes of analyst Smith-Goodson, quantum computing will become useful eventually, but there's plenty of uncertainty about how and when we'll get there.

"Everybody is working toward a million qubit machine," he said. "We're not sure which technology is really going to be the one that is going to actually make it."

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Quantum Computing's Impact Could Come Sooner Than You Think - CNET

From the White House to the boathouse, infrastructure has traditionally been narrowly defined as the roads, bridges, waterways, and other projects that allowed a post-industrial America to flourish.

Not anymore.

In the latest sign that the technology revolution is moving in new directions, a six-line law with no name is helping to redefine the traditional notions of infrastructure to include artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and semiconductors.

The legislation, quietly signed by President Biden last month, amended a 2015 law widely known as a highway bill, as befitted its name: the Fixing Americas Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.

A provision of the law provides for expedited Federal environmental and permitting review for covered infrastructure construction projects. Currently, those projects include some of the largest, most complex, and novel infrastructure projects in the U.S., such as massive pipelines and multibillion-dollar renewable energy projects, according to a Federal steering council overseeing them.

Now, with the recent change in the law, the projects potentially qualifying for speeded-up review also encompass semiconductors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced computer hardware and software, quantum information science and technology, data storage and data management, (and) cybersecurity.

The amended law, titled only An Act, added those computer-related projects.

The legislations sponsor, Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., says his intention is to boost national security, especially by fast-tracking permitting reviews of semiconductor plants expected to be built because of the Chips and Science Act. That law, also signed by Biden last month, provided funding incentives to establish such plants.

I came to Washington to create jobs for the American people and bolster our national security to beattheChinese Communist Partyin the competition that will define the century, Hagerty said after Biden signed the FAST Act law on Aug. 16. His office called the FAST Act legislation a watershed bill that enacts regulatory reform that benefits private-sector companies building products that are essential to American national and economic security.

A technology industry expert familiar with the legislation downplayed its effects, saying that Hagertys bill does not represent a collective movement to recast what critical infrastructure looks like. I think that smartly, what youre starting to see is more the ability to leverage technology as components of broader infrastructure projects. It doesnt make the components themselves infrastructure.

But the official summary of the bill by the respected Congressional Research Service calls AI, semiconductors and the other new technology projects now covered by the FAST Act infrastructure projects.

And infrastructure experts say that redefinition has the potential to fast-track a variety of tech projects beyond the scope of what has long been considered critical infrastructure.

Anthony Lamanna, a professor at the Del E. Webb School of Construction at Arizona State University, says infrastructure has traditionally been viewed as the built environment for civilization your water, your sewage, your electric.

When he first read the FAST Act revision, Lamanna says, I have a background in concrete and construction, so my gut was that the tech stuff doesnt really fit.

On further reflection, he says, Maybe we start looking at this as the chip manufacturers are part of this future cyber infrastructure I think somebody coming up with this stuff seems to be thinking far into the future. By fast-tracking these projects, were saying this is important to civilization in the future.

Adie Tomer, a senior fellow and infrastructure expert at the Brookings Institution, likened the language in Hagertys bill to last years high-profile Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which he says makes it explicit that the way infrastructure is construed is that broadband and digital technology is considered infrastructure.

Clearly, we are modernizing our definition of physical infrastructure to include digital tech, says Tomer, who supports the change but says it also bears further scrutiny because data storage facilities and other projects potentially covered by Hagertys bill are privately owned.

What should be the Federal relationship with the private owners of those kinds of facilities? Tomer asked. I dont think its necessarily clear yet Its a critical area to watch.

On the day Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act last year, a White House blog post hailing the legislation focused almost exclusively on projects such as roads, bridges, and rail, along with broadband.

But a MeriTalk review of the legislation shows that the word digital appears 144 times, including a Federal requirement to adopt digital management systems on construction sites using state-of-the-art automated and connected machinery and optimized routing software.

The bill also requires the administration to report to Congress on using digital tools and platforms as climate solutions, including AI and blockchain technologies.

The move towards redefining infrastructure for the tech age echoes recent developments in Europe, where the European Union adopted tougher cybersecurity rules for network and information systems. The European Commission, which proposed the measures, defined them as critical infrastructure protection that would make Europe fit for the digital age.

In Washington, the FAST Act legislation was introduced in the Senate by Hagerty and several co-sponsors on Jan. 10 and passed the same day by unanimous consent. After a brief floor debate, it cleared the House in July by a vote of 303-89.

During the debate, Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., called the legislation a commonsense bill that will build on the progress we are already making today with the CHIPS and Science Act.

The bill here simply adds key national security-related technologies, like semiconductors, to the types of projects that are eligible for an existing Federal program that improves the coordination between Federal departments on permitting, Costa added.

That environmental review and permitting process, Hagerty has said, should be much speedier for the tech projects now covered by his bill, dramatically (reducing) the time required to stand up new manufacturing capacity in strategically critical sectors, such as semiconductor fabrication.

The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council oversees that expedited permitting process. When it added another industry to the eligible projects last year, it chose one decidedly more traditional than high tech: mining.

Mining is an important infrastructure sector, the body wrote.

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Are AI and Quantum Computing Infrastructure? The Feds Say Yes - MeriTalk

Moritz Schlick Postdoc position in the field of Quantum Computing for excited state chemistry and chemical dynamics

The Moritz Schlick early-career programme (MSECP) at the University of Vienna supports early stage postdocs with high potential for an academic career. Participants in the programme receive outstanding financial support as well as training and mentoring to allow them to develop their full potential. Moritz Schlick early-career Postdoc Programm (univie.ac.at)

1. General Description (research group)

The Gonzlez research groups focus (https://theochem.univie.ac.at/) is driven by understanding chemical phenomena using contemporary computational and theoretical methods. In particular, we employ ab initio quantum chemistry to understand relationships between structure and function but we also develop chemical dynamics methods to model and predict chemical and photochemical process of complex systems and to control chemical reactions using light. Prof. Gonzlez's current research focus is put at using highly accurate electronic structure methods, developing molecular reaction dynamical methods and interfacing both fields to achieve basic understanding of chemical processes and structure-function relationships as well as obtain quantitative predictions in molecules, biological systems and materials.

2. Job Description for the Moritz Schlick position

A Postdoc position is available for an early stage researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria, in the field of quantum computing for excited state chemistry and chemical dynamics.

Quantum Chemistry is one of the leading applications for quantum computers. Simple model systems have already been made available on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers. With the number of qubits growing larger, advanced algorithms of quantum chemistry can be applied to quantum computers.

Future quantum computers will be coupled to classical high-performance computer (HPC) systems and work as accelerators, where the algorithms showing unfavorable scaling on these classical systems will get offloaded onto the quantum devices. Coupling the quantum algorithms with computer codes executed on standard HPC systems is therefore extremely important.

Within this position, the candidate will explore and adapt currently available algorithms for quantum chemistry on quantum computers and combine the electronic structure calculations with our in-house ab initio molecular dynamics code SHARC. Potential applications on photophysical, photochemical or photobiological systems are possible. Exploratory simulations will be carried out on quantum simulators and NISQ type devices, with emphasis on in silico applications aimed at designing photoactive materials for energy conversion and storage.

The applicant will work within in quantum chemistry and chemical dynamics group at the Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, led by Prof. Leticia Gonzalez.

In this position, a one-time financial contribution of 75K will be made available.

3. Qualification profile (minimum)

4. Qualification profile (additional skills, necessary language, IT qualifications etc.)

5. Research Fields (keywords)

6. Mentor

The additional mentor for this position is Christoph Dellago.

7. Earliest Start Date: February, 2023.

See the article here:
Moritz Schlick Postdoc, Quantum Computing for excited state chemistry and chemical dynamics job with UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA | 308872 - Times Higher...

Amir Naveh, CPO & Co-founder of Classiq

Sector: Quantum computing

Founders: Nir Minerbi, Amir Naveh, Dr. Yehuda Naveh

Investors: Entre Capital, Team8, Wing Capital, IN-Venture, Phoenix, HSBC, HPE, NTT, Awz Ventures, OurCrowd

Classical computers can do amazing things, we've seen that in the past 80 years. But some things they're unable to do, explained Amir Naveh, CPO and Co-founder of Classiq. From drug discovery to efficient fertilizer, development, to doing high-performance stuff that computers are not very good at doing. Quantum computers can do all these things, and they can do it with amazing efficiencies All of this is going to happen in the coming few years and in the next 20 years we will see a full-blown revolution."

Classiq has developed a technological solution that enables the development of software for quantum computers which is similar to advanced software development for regular computers. The solution developed by the company is protected by more than 20 patents, and the company's software development platform is considered the most advanced in the world of quantum computing.

Classiq has been selected as one of "Tomorrow's Growth Companies" according to Qumra Capital. This year, for the fourth year in a row, Qumra published its list of the most promising growth companies in Israeli high-tech, naming those who are on the path to becoming the next big thing.

This is, for me, the journey of a lifetime. It is amazing technology, the company is growing really fast I really hope to see this quantum revolution going from a research phase to more actual practical usage applications. Once it starts it will be exponential. It won't be twice as good it will be a thousand times better, a million times better. It's hard to imagine how the world is going to change but I hope in the next decade we will see some amazing things.

You can watch the full interview in the video above.

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"Once the quantum revolution starts it will be exponential" - CTech

Cloud migration has become a tech buzzword across enterprises worldwide. However, to be an effective cloud user means not only getting introduced to the concept, but also thoroughly evaluating your existing IT infrastructure and processes, identifying their potential in moving to cloud, and effectively planning your migration strategy. Given the many advantages of migration, businesses are looking to tap into the long-term benefits of cloud computing, which include:

Conducting an objective and accurate assessment of their existing services, applications, security, and network infrastructure has been a challenge for organizations. Numerous discovery tools, including Cloudscape, Cloudamize, Device42, and TSO Logic, can help you understand your on-premise infrastructure.

Though these discovery tools do a good job in terms of understanding the infra estate as well as other basic information like CPU, RAM, disk storage, and OS, they have their own limitations. Mostly, the assessments are far from being accurate during and after migration. This is because the organizations do not go deeper in terms of understanding the applications and the business. The most common challenges of cloud migration are:

Broad basing the discovery

The good news, however, is that none of these challenges are insurmountable. To make the migration process as smooth as possible, we need to discover or analyze the source code, configurations, applications, and databases too and not just focus on infra discovery.

This helps to better understand the internal dependencies of applications and the roadblocks in the migration process. Both static and dynamic analyzers should be used together with the infra discovery tool to have a fail-proof migration.

As static analyzers help understand the components of applications and their dependencies on 3rd-party applications, it helps analyze the impact of re-platforming or refactoring the application. This is where AI and ML can be used in conjunction with these mechanisms to get a better understanding.

The ML and AI journey to cloud

With Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) in cloud becoming mainstream, organizations are able to overcome these challenges. AI/ML automatically generate insights from data. From predictive maintenance in manufacturing plants and fraud detection in financial services to accelerating scientific discovery, businesses of all types can benefit from this technology.

This has also given rise to applications such as chatbots, virtual assistants, and search engines that rival human interaction capabilities. As the dynamic and complex business environments of the modern times require a shift to data-driven decision making, there is a growing demand for robust, lineage, governance, and risk mitigation tactics.

ID2C Changing the game of data discovery

ID2C is TCS proprietary ML-driven tool, which combines discovery tool and static analyzers outputs along with other available data and intelligently deduces technology stack and dependencies to derive more value. This enables accurate identification of a variety of different technologies from different vendors even when they are seemingly disconnected. TCS AWS business unit conducts assessment projects worth $5M every year while influencing more than $100M foundation, migration, and operations projects.

AI/ML-driven data discovery combined with anomaly detection is a critical aspect of big data and cloud cost optimization and has the potential to save enterprises significant amounts of money. So why did we create an artificial intelligence-based platform for enhanced data discovery? Benefits include:

As cloud native transformations are being increasingly sought after, TCS ID2C tool built on AWS cloud helps enterprises in their cloud journey by helping understand the on-premise environment better and thereby derives correct strategies to transform their application portfolio now and in the future.

Author Bio

TCS

Ph: +91 9731397076

E-mail: Guruprasad.kambaloor@tcs.com

Guruprasad Kambaloor works as a Chief Architect in the AWSBU division of TCS. Guru has a rich experience of 26+ years in the IT industry spanning many domains like Healthcare, Life Sciences, E&R, Banking, and multiple technologies like Cloud, IoT, Blockchain, Quantum Computing. Currently he heads the Platform Engineering for AWSBU which has built platforms like Cloud Counsel, Cloud Mason, Migration Factory, Exponence to name a few. His current interests are AI/ML, Quantum Computing, and its relevance/usage in Cloud.

To learn more, visit us here.

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Cloud Assessment: Clarifying the Vision, Transforming the Organization - CIO