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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget speech was replete with geeky terms. One of them was quantum technology. "Quantum technology is opening up new frontiers in computing, communications, cyber security with wide-spread applications. It is expected that lots of commercial applications would emerge from theoretical constructs which are developing in this area," Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Finance, said. "It is proposed to provide an outlay of Rs 8,000 crore over a period five years for the National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications," she announced.

One could argue India is far behind in quantum computing and the money allocated is hardly enough for a catch-up. Arvind Krishna, the new CEO of IBM, wrote a guest column for Business Today in 2018, where he highlighted that "for many business leaders, quantum computing seems like a technology that is still years away from practical use. The truth is, the technology exists and a practical quantum future is closer than we think. The field has more than 50 years of scientific advancements already behind it".

Krishna, who in 2018, was the Director of IBM Research, made several interesting points in the column. Here's what he said:

Quantum's potential: "At their most basic, quantum computers process information in a completely different way than classical computers. Instead of classical bits, binary zeros and ones that work one after another, the principles of quantum mechanics give quantum bits (or qubits) exponential compute power. Qubits can represent zeros and ones simultaneously, and they use this "superposition" capability to work together to solve problems," he wrote. "Because they're able to exist in more than one state at a time, qubits supercharge the output quantum computers can generate - enabling us to run experiments more efficiently. This could lead to everything from quantum chemistry that drives drug discovery breakthroughs, to quantum algorithms that optimize global manufacturing supply chains," he believed.

How are businesses using quantum tech: "Businesses are already using quantum computing to examine previously unsolvable problems in their industries. Automotive manufacturers are designing new materials for batteries and electronics. Financial institutions are trying to optimise risk analysis. While there is still much to be done in terms of stabilising and developing quantum systems, each breakthrough gets us closer to applications with commercial, intellectual, and societal benefits," Krishna wrote.

Skills development: The world needs more people and organisations that understand and have quantum computing skills in hardware, physics, chemistry, and computer science to write algorithms and programmes, he held. "Quantum computing must also be ubiquitous in the classroom. From computer science courses to chemistry and business classes, today's students need to understand the technology, and hopefully pursue career paths rooted in quantum computing," he said.

"Organisations, too, can get educated about the opportunities of quantum computing. The IBM Q Network has commercial relationships with a number of universities around the world to integrate quantum education into classrooms and develop academic-industry partnerships," he added. IBM Q Network is a community of Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions, start-ups and national research labs working with IBM to advance quantum computing.

"Now is the time to begin exploring what we all can do with near-term quantum computers, how to make the most of these systems, and how to prepare for the more advanced systems we will build. As with artificial intelligence - a once emerging technology that is now being widely adopted across businesses - there is work to be done now to ensure early adopters will reap the benefits of quantum computing," Krishna concluded.

Also read: IBM CEO Ginni Rometty to step down; Arvind Krishna to succeed

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IBM's new CEO Arvind Krishna explains why practical future of quantum computing is closer than we think - Business Today

NEW DELHI :The budget proposal to earmark 8,000 crore for quantum computing over the next five years can boost critical areas of the Indian economy, including space research and defence capabilities. However, the impact will only be felt over the long term, industry officials said.

The quantum of money proposed for the sector is almost on a par with the amount invested by the US to develop the technology.

However, the success of the initiative will depend on careful planning and implementation. Moreover, considering that there are no private companies in India working on quantum computing, the initiative, by and large, will have to be led by state-run institutions.

The fact that Indias allocation for quantum research is close to what some of the larger economies like the US are planning to spend, reflects a serious effort on the governments part," said Vishal Malhotra, tax partner, Ernst and Young (EY).

Quantum computers will open up enormous opportunities for India, particularly in the field of defence, space research, weather forecasting, and healthcare by crunching large amounts of data and solving problems infinitely faster than existing supercomputers. Googles 54-bit quantum computer took merely 200 seconds for an experimental computation that a supercomputer would have taken 10,000 years to solve.

The announcement is significant as the scale of investments necessary to make headway in quantum computing is not possible without the support of the government or large corporations. It should boost attempts of domestic technology providers, who have been keen to enter this field, but did not have the necessary scale or resources," said Nishant Singh, head of technology and telecom data, GlobalData, a data analytics firm.

The recent advancements in the field of quantum computing, including IBMs unveiling of the worlds first quantum computing system for scientific and commercial use, Googles quantum supremacy, and Microsoft taking quantum computing to the cloud, have made the world realise the possibilities it can offer.

Governments the world over are starting to grasp the potential of the technology. China already has a national strategy on quantum computing, having spent $400 million on a national quantum lab and filing twice as many patents as the US on quantum technology.

The US government had also announced a National Quantum Initiative in 2019 with an outlay of $1.2 billion ( 8,500 crore).

The recent announcement by the finance minister is a significant development for the scientific and industrial community of India, said Anil Prabhakar, professor, department of electrical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

The quantum science and technology initiative in India has been broadly defined around computing, communications, and measurements. Of these, quantum computing is expected to provide the ability to solve hitherto intractable problems in resource optimisation, machine learning, and data security, and also help us design new materials with futuristic applications," Prabhakar said.

However, we are 5-10 years away from seeing quantum computing being used to solve real-world problems., according to experts.

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Budget 2020: Govt bets on AI, data analytics and quantum computing - Livemint

Quantum Computing Inc () CEO Robert Liscouski tells Proactive the technology company has released its Mukai quantum application development platform, featuring a software stack ready to solve extremely complex optimization problems.

Liscouski says applications like Mukai are necessary to drive business value, as it ultimately gives access to end-users using quantum computing.

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Quantum Computing releases its new software application called Mukai - Proactive Investors USA & Canada

IBM inventors received 9,262 U.S. patents in 2019, achieving a milestone of most patents ever awarded to a U.S. company, and marking the company's 27thconsecutive year of U.S. patent leadership.

In 2019,IBM led the industryin the number of U.S. patents granted across key technology areas such as AI, blockchain, cloud computing, quantum computing and security.

In 2019, according toIFI CLAIMS Patent Services,provider of a global patent data platform, U.S. patent filings hit an all-time high with 333,530 patents granted, representing an unprecedented 15% increase from 2018.

IBM was awarded more than 1,800 AI patents, including a method for teaching AI systems how to understand and deduce the nuances and implications behind certain text or phrases of speech by analyzing other related content.

IBM also led in the number of blockchain patents granted, which includes several patents for improving the security of blockchain networks. One patented technique would help in resisting "replay attacks," where an attacker copies and uses signature information from one transaction on a blockchain to later perform other transactions on the blockchain that are not authorized.

IBM inventors were granted more than 2,500 patents in cloud technology, including a patent for a method to jointly manage cloud and non-cloud computing platforms. Working with a unified portal, this technique receives, organizes and streamlines incoming cloud and non-cloud tasks and requests, which could help organizations easily migrate to hybrid cloud platforms.

IBM's quantum computing program continued to grow in 2019. Quantum computing innovations by IBM included a method to scale a quantum computer to support additional qubits, as well as enabling a breakthrough approach for simulating molecules.

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IBM Tops U.S. Patent List for 2019 With Innovations in AI, Blockchain, Cloud and Quantum Computing - Database Trends and Applications

Deltec Bank, Bahamas - A combination of quantum computing and blockchain technology could change things as transactions can be even more secure and faster with increased encryption.

Research from Juniper Research has suggested that cybercriminals will have stolen 12 billion records by the time we reach the end of 2019 and estimate that could be as much as 33 billion in 2023. With the growth in digital and connected technologies, cyber attacks are becoming a larger problem by the day.

As you might expect, with the likely promise of financial gain, banks are prime targets for any form of cybercrime. To combat the threat, it is important that banks update and review their systems and procedures. They cannot wait for hackers and need to proactively invest in the right technology that meets the needs of a modern-day consumer. Beyond that, banks are processing millions of transactions every day. There is a fear that classical computing will reach its optimum in terms of size and power, especially as data volumes grow and financial institutions invest deeper into artificial intelligence (AI).

To combat these challenges, financial institutions have started to turn towards the field of quantum computing. Experts believe that quantum technology could solve problems related to security, processing power, and data efficiency. In this post, we look at what quantum computing is and how it might impact the banking and financial services industry.

What is quantum computing?

Quantum computers are expected to exceed the capability of classical computers on the next 5 to 10 years. This will provide a vast increase in the processing power over the traditional silicon chips. The finance sector has many areas where more secure, faster transactions would be a huge benefit. With quantum computing, this is made possible whereby the data is represented by what are known as qubits, rather than standard binary bit units (0s and 1s).

Qubits provide greater flexibility as they can allow for a combination of 0s and 1s simultaneously rather than one at a time in classical computing. In short, this means they can store more data than traditional bits. The ability to quickly analyze data and spot patterns is massively increased.

Bloomberg has reported that Googles most advanced quantum computer, Sycamore, could solve a computational task that would take a traditional model 10,000 years, within just 3 minutes.

Quantum computing in banking

There are several ways that quantum computing could impact banking.

Quantum Cryptography

Financial data that can be encoded with quantum cryptography will be far more secure than any other kind of digital security method. Data in a quantum state is always changing state meaning it cannot be read, prevent ambitious hackers from getting their hands on too much information.

One of the examples of how quantum cryptography is being used is known as a quantum distributed key system.

https://richtopia.com/emerging-technologies/quantum-computing-financial-services-fintech

Quantum Distributed Keys

Measurement-Device Independent Quantum Key Distribution (MKI-QKD) promises secure digital communication that cannot be broken, even by a quantum computer itself. The system creates very complex mathematical equations that are very time-consuming to complete. However, quantum computers make the calculations instantly simple.

MKI-QKD protects data by combing a secure quantum distributed key with a long message that cannot be broken without the associated key. Without huge technical detail, third-parties can be detected if they eavesdrop, meaning keys created by two parties are no longer identical, disturbing the quantum event. Banks such as ABN-AMRO are already starting to integrate this type of secure technology.

Fraud Detection

A clear benefit of quantum technology for banking lies in fraud detection. Automation of fraud detection relies on recognizing patterns in data. Quantum computers are perfect for supporting pattern recognition algorithms thanks to their qubit setup, rather than standard bits, as discussed earlier in this post. More advanced fraudulent acts can be detected thanks to self-learning networks and banks can mitigate fraud before it even happens.

Quantum Blockchain

Blockchain has been around for some time now but arguably, has never really fulfilled its potential as the next great banking innovation. According to Deltec Bank, Bahamas- A combination of quantum computing and blockchain technology could change things as transactions can be even more secure and faster with increased encryption. It also means that the computing power is there to remove any latency and power issues that exist within blockchain technologies.

Quantum Transactions

Quantum computers will accelerate the field of high-frequency trading. Banks like Barclays and JP Morgan are already experimenting with this kind of technology. This comes through the ability to handle billions of transactions per second in a world where institutions can quickly get overloaded with data, especially where it comes to areas like stock markets. Quantum computing reduces the likelihood of crashes and data loss. Algorithms can be built that automatically initiate trades based on pre-defined strategies.

Quantum Data

Quantum computing will likely accelerate the field of artificial intelligence (AI) in banking. AI is heavily reliant on large volumes of data to be able to learn. Given quantum computing can process data faster than ever before, machines will quickly gather feedback that shortens their learning curve.

For example, functions like bank loans could be almost instantaneous as quantum machines can process the data without any latency. Portfolio managers will not need to worry about managing their investments as a quantum system will be able to continuously provide them with optimal solutions.

The future of banking with quantum technology

Reports say that major banks like Barclays and JP Morgan are already looking towards quantum computing as a way to secure their future. These institutions are already experimenting with the technology and researching how it can be deployed in the real-world. The theories are still in their infancy and we will not truly know the impact until such time banks are running tasks fully on quantum machines. This brand new way of working is being referred to as the quantum advantage and will likely be something we hear a lot more about over the forthcoming decade.

Disclaimer: The author of this text, Robin Trehan, has an Undergraduate degree in economics, Masters in international business and finance and MBA in electronic business. Trehan is Senior VP at Deltec International http://www.deltecbank.com. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this text are solely the views of the author, and not necessarily reflecting the views of Deltec International Group, its subsidiaries and/or employees.

About Deltec Bank

Headquartered in The Bahamas, Deltec is an independent financial services group that delivers bespoke solutions to meet clients unique needs. The Deltec group of companies includes Deltec Bank & Trust Limited, Deltec Fund Services Limited, and Deltec Investment Advisers Limited, Deltec Securities Ltd. and Long Cay Captive Management.

Media ContactCompany Name: Deltec International GroupContact Person: Media ManagerEmail: Send EmailPhone: 242 302 4100Country: BahamasWebsite: https://www.deltecbank.com/

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Deltec Bank, Bahamas A combination of Quantum Computing and Blockchain Technology Will Have a huge Impact on Banking - Press Release - Digital...