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Quantum computing is a revolutionary force with the potential to redefine industries, including the cryptocurrency market. For this reason, Bitcoin, the largest crypto by market capitalization at $1.27 trillion, stands at a crossroads.

With its reliance on the Proof-of-Work (POW) consensus protocol and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for encryption, Bitcoin faces significant vulnerabilities against quantum computing.

The POW mechanism, integral to Bitcoins operation, involves miners solving complex mathematical problems to validate transactions and secure the network. However, quantum computing, with its ability to perform calculations at unprecedented speeds, threatens to disrupt this balance.

Quantum algorithms like Grovers could theoretically solve these problems much faster than classical computers. Therefore, this technology has the potential to centralize mining power and undermine the decentralized ethos of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin network hash rate using the most current value against aquantum computingtechnology, increasing over time at the same rate, as dictated by Moores Law, gives an estimated timeframe of approximately 27years until asinglequantum computer will be capable of completely out-mining the rest of the network, and hence be able to take over complete control of it, Dan A.Bard, Teaching Staff at theUniversity of Kent, wrote.

Furthermore, Bitcoins ECC encryption, a staple for securing wallet addresses, is also at risk. Quantum computers could one day use Shors algorithm to break ECC, exposing Bitcoin transactions to potential security breaches.

This vulnerability extends particularly to legacy addresses, which include a significant portion of Bitcoins founder, Satoshi Nakamotos holdings.

Once the public key is revealed, Shors algorithm adapted for ECDSA could be run on an ideal quantum computer to find the public key in polynomial time. Classically, finding a solution would be super-polynomial, orders of magnitude slower Polynomial time is potentially feasible, and it is conjectured that, eventually, ECDSA will be breakable by quantum computers,researchers at Acheron Trading wrote.

Despite these challenges, the immediate threat remains theoretical. Current quantum computing capabilities, as demonstrated by the largest Grover search to date using six qubits, are far from the scale required to disrupt Bitcoin mining or break ECC encryption effectively. However, the potential for quantum advantage, a state where quantum computers outperform their classical counterparts in specific tasks, looms on the horizon.

The Bitcoin community appears unlikely to shift from POW to alternative consensus mechanisms like Proof-of-Stake (POS). Even cryptographer Adam Back stated that PoS cryptocurrencies lack immutability, decentralization, and the verifiable, significant cost of production, highlighting their fundamental differences from Bitcoin.

Being hard money, immutable, decentralized, and verifiably costly to produce. The tech is structured to make that economically stable, and actually hard to modify. PoS coins have none of those properties. they also have a CEO, and dozens of competitors. There is only one Bitcoin, Back argued.

This resistance to change reflects the importance of proactive measures to safeguard the network against future quantum threats.

Read more: Proof of Work and Proof of Stake Explained

The path forward involves a delicate balance between maintaining Bitcoins foundational principles and adapting to technologies like quantum computing. Upgrading encryption methods and exploring quantum-resistant algorithms are critical steps to ensure Bitcoins resilience. The transition to quantum-safe cryptography will protect against immediate threats and secure the network against future advancements in quantum computing.

Disclaimer

In adherence to the Trust Project guidelines, BeInCrypto is committed to unbiased, transparent reporting. This news article aims to provide accurate, timely information. However, readers are advised to verify facts independently and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content. Please note that ourTerms and Conditions,Privacy Policy, andDisclaimershave been updated.

Original post:
Quantum Computing Could Destroy Bitcoin in 27 Years - BeInCrypto

In the past few years, an increasing number of tech companies, organizations, and even governments have been working on one of the next big things in the tech world: successfully building quantum computers.

These actors see a lot of potential in the technology. Quantum computing spreads across a wide range of disciplines both on the hardware research and application development fronts, including elements of computer science, physics, and mathematics. The goal is to combine these subjects to create a computer that utilizes quantum mechanics to solve complex problems faster than on classical computers.

Despite this description evoking images and scenarios fit for a sci-fi blockbuster, it is still hard to pinpoint what a quantum computer would do. Indeed, it seems that the only major application which people have identified is that of cryptanalysis.

Quantum computing has the potential to break cryptosystems that are the foundations of the technology protecting the privacy of data and information created and shared every day. When (and if) an applicable quantum computer is created, we will need to upgrade all our digital security protocols.

A traditional (digital) computer processes zeros and ones, so called bits. These, to a first order approximation, are represented as on/off electrical signals. A quantum computer, though, processes quantum states; these are units that can be thought of as being both zero and one at the same time. Such a state is called a quantum bit, or qubit.

If you hold n bits in a traditional computer then these n bits can represent any number between zero and 2^n-1, but a single bit can only represent one number at a time. If you had n qubits, then the quantum computer can represent EVERY number between 0 and 2^n-1 simultaneously.

The physics of quantum phenomena is counter-intuitive. For example, two qubits can be entangled so that even though they can be separated by a large distance, an operation performed on one of the entangled qubits can have an instantaneous effect on the other qubit.

This is where the privacy concern around quantum computers comes from: they not only store data differently, but also process it differently, giving users a very different form of computational model. With this model, quantum computers could be faster than traditional ones with regards to a few known tasks: unluckily, the two main tasks which quantum computers are good at are factoring large numbers and solving so-called discrete logarithm problems. I say unluckily, as it is precisely these two hard mathematical problems which lie at the base of all current security protocols on the internet.

The ability of a quantum system to solve these two mathematical problems will break the internet and all the systems we use day to day. The advent of a quantum computer and its effect on cybersecurity and data privacy is often dubbed the quantum apocalypse.

Thankfully, the advent of a suitably powerful quantum computer capable of breaking current cryptographic solutions does not yet seem to be on the horizon. But organizations and businesses that truly care about the privacy of their users and customers should start preparing for the worst by looking to integrate existing technologies and solutions in their operations and processes.

There are currently two distinct approaches to face an impending quantum apocalypse. The first uses the physics of quantum mechanics itself and is called Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). However, QKD only really solves the problem of key distribution, and it requires dedicated quantum connections between the parties. As such, it is not scalable to solve the problems of internet security; instead, it is most suited to private connections between two fixed government buildings. It is impossible to build internet-scale, end-to-end encrypted systems using QKD.

The second solution is to utilize classical cryptography but base it on mathematical problems for which we do not believe a quantum computer gives any advantage: this is the area of post-quantum cryptography (PQC). PQC algorithms are designed to be essentially drop-in replacements for existing algorithms, which would not require many changes in infrastructure or computing capabilities. NIST (the US standards institute) has recently announced standards for public key encryption and signatures which are post-quantum secure. These new standards are based on different mathematical problems, the most prominent of which is a form of noisy linear algebra, called the Learning-with-Errors problem (LWE).

NISTs standards only consider traditional forms of public key encryption and signatures. Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) is different from traditional public key encryption in that it allows the processing of the data encrypted within the ciphertexts, without the need to decrypt the ciphertexts first.

As a first approximation, one can view traditional public key encryption as enabling efficient encryption of data in transit, whilst FHE offers efficient encryption of data during usage. Most importantly, with FHE nobody would be able to see your data but you because they wouldnt have your key.

All modern FHE encryption schemes are based on the LWE problem, thus FHE is already able to be post-quantum secure. So, if you deploy an FHE system today, then there is no need to worry about the future creation of a quantum computer.

Visit link:
Surviving the quantum apocalypse with fully homomorphic encryption - Help Net Security

March 20, 2024 The latest advances in quantum computing include investigating molecules, deploying giant supercomputers and building the quantum workforce with a new academic program. Researchers in Canada and the U.S. used a large language model to simplify quantum simulations that help scientists explore molecules.

This new quantum algorithm opens the avenue to a new way of combining quantum algorithms with machine learning, said Alan Aspuru-Guzik, a professor of chemistry and computer science at the University of Toronto, who led the team.

The effort used CUDA-Q, a hybrid programming model for GPUs, CPUs and the QPUs quantum systems use. The team ran its research on Eos, NVIDIAs H100 GPU supercomputer. Software from the effort will be made available for researchers in fields like healthcare and chemistry. Aspuru-Guzik detailed the work in a talk at GTC.

Quantum Scales for Fraud Detection

At HSBC, one of the worlds largest banks, researchers designed a quantum machine learning application that can detect fraud in digital payments. The banks quantum machine learning algorithm simulated a whopping 165 qubits on NVIDIA GPUs. Research papers typically dont extend beyond 40 of these fundamental calculating units quantum systems use.

HSBC used machine learning techniques implemented with CUDA-Q and cuTensorNet software on NVIDIA GPUs to overcome challenges simulating quantum circuits at scale. Mekena Metcalf, a quantum computing research scientist at HSBC, will present her work in a session at GTC.

Raising a Quantum Generation

In education, NVIDIA is working with nearly two dozen universities to prepare the next generation of computer scientists for the quantum era. The collaboration will design curricula and teaching materials around CUDA-Q.

Bridging the divide between traditional computers and quantum systems is essential to the future of computing, said Theresa Mayer, vice president for research at Carnegie Mellon University. NVIDIA is partnering with institutions of higher education, Carnegie Mellon included, to help students and researchers navigate and excel in this emerging hybrid environment.

To help working developers get hands-on with the latest tools, NVIDIA co-sponsored QHack, a quantum hackathon in February. The winning project, developed by Gopesh Dahale of Qkrishi a quantum company in Gurgaon, India used CUDA-Q to develop an algorithm to simulate a material critical in designing better batteries.

A Trio of New Systems

Two new systems being deployed further expand the ecosystem for hybrid quantum-classical computing.

The largest of the two, ABCI-Q at Japans National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, will be one of the largest supercomputers dedicated to research in quantum computing. It will use CUDA-Q on NVIDIA H100 GPUs to advance the nations efforts in the field.

In Denmark, the Novo Nordisk Foundation will lead on the deployment of an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, a significant part of which will be dedicated to research in quantum computing in alignment with the countrys national plan to advance the technology.

The new systems join Australias Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, which announced in February it will run CUDA-Q on NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips at its National Supercomputing and Quantum Computing Innovation Hub.

Partners Drive CUDA-Q Forward

In other news, Israeli startup Classiq released at GTC a new integration with CUDA-Q. Classiqs quantum circuit synthesis lets high-level functional models automatically generate optimized quantum programs, so researchers can get the most out of todays quantum hardware and expand the scale of their work on future algorithms.

Software and service provider QC Ware is integrating its Promethium quantum chemistry package with the just-announced NVIDIA Quantum Cloud.

ORCA Computing, a quantum systems developer headquartered in London, released results running quantum machine learning on its photonics processor with CUDA-Q. In addition, ORCA was selected to build and supply a quantum computing testbed for the UKs National Quantum Computing Centre which will include an NVIDIA GPU cluster using CUDA-Q.

Nvidia and Infleqtion, a quantum technology leader, partnered to bring cutting-edge quantum-enabled solutions to Europes largest cyber-defense exercise with NVIDIA-enabled Superstaq software.

A cloud-based platform for quantum computing, qBraid, is integrating CUDA-Q into its developer environment. And California-based BlueQubit described in a blog how NVIDIAs quantum technology, used in its research and GPU service, provides the fastest and largest quantum emulations possible on GPUs.

Get the Big Picture at GTC

To learn more, watch a session about how NVIDIA is advancing quantum computing and attend an expert panel on the topic, both at NVIDIA GTC, a global AI conference, running March 18-21 at the San Jose Convention Center.

Source: Elica Kyoseva, Nvidia

See more here:
NVIDIA Amplifies Quantum Computing Ecosystem with New CUDA-Q Integrations and Partnerships at GTC - HPCwire

Quantum computing is advancing, with giants like Google and IBM providing services, yet challenges remain due to insufficient qubits and their susceptibility to external influences, requiring complex entanglement for reliable results. Photonic approaches offer room temperature operation and faster speeds, but face loss issues; however, a novel method demonstrated by researchers uses laser pulses to create inherently error-correcting logical qubits, simplifying quantum computing but still needing improvements in error tolerance.

Significant advancements have been made in quantum computing, with major international companies like Google and IBM now providing quantum computing services via the cloud. Nevertheless, quantum computers are not yet capable of addressing issues that arise when conventional computers hit their performance ceilings. This limitation is primarily the availability of qubits or quantum bits, i.e., the basic units of quantum information, is still insufficient.

One of the reasons for this is that bare qubits are not of immediate use for running a quantum algorithm. While the binary bits of customary computers store information in the form of fixed values of either 0 or 1, qubits can represent 0 and 1 at one and the same time, bringing probability as to their value into play. This is known as quantum superposition.

This makes them very susceptible to external influences, which means that the information they store can readily be lost. In order to ensure that quantum computers supply reliable results, it is necessary to generate a genuine entanglement to join together several physical qubits to form a logical qubit. Should one of these physical qubits fail, the other qubits will retain the information. However, one of the main difficulties preventing the development of functional quantum computers is the large number of physical qubits required.

Many different concepts are being employed to make quantum computing viable. Large corporations currently rely on superconducting solid-state systems, for example, but these have the disadvantage that they only function at temperatures close to absolute zero. Photonic concepts, on the other hand, work at room temperature.

The creation of a photonic Schrdinger cat state in other words the quantum superposition of states of the laser pulse amplitude that can be distinguished on a macroscopic scale (white or black cat) can only be achieved using the most advanced quantum optical techniques and has already been demonstrated to be possible. In the present experiment that is subject of the research paper, it proved to be feasible to extend this to three states (white, gray, and black cats). This light state thus approaches a logical quantum state in which errors can be, in principle, universally corrected. Credit: Peter van Loock

Single photons usually serve as physical qubits here. These photons, which are, in a sense, tiny particles of light, inherently operate more rapidly than solid-state qubits but, at the same time, are more easily lost. To avoid qubit losses and other errors, it is necessary to couple several single-photon light pulses together to construct a logical qubit as in the case of the superconductor-based approach.

Researchers of the University of Tokyo together with colleagues from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany and Palack University Olomouc in the Czech Republic have recently demonstrated a new means of constructing a photonic quantum computer. Rather than using a single photon, the team employed a laser-generated light pulse that can consist of several photons.

Our laser pulse was converted to a quantum optical state that gives us an inherent capacity to correct errors, stated Professor Peter van Loock of Mainz University. Although the system consists only of a laser pulse and is thus very small, it can in principle eradicate errors immediately.

Thus, there is no need to generate individual photons as qubits via numerous light pulses and then have them interact as logical qubits. We need just a single light pulse to obtain a robust logical qubit, added van Loock.

To put it in other words, a physical qubit is already equivalent to a logical qubit in this system a remarkable and unique concept. However, the logical qubit experimentally produced at the University of Tokyo was not yet of a sufficient quality to provide the necessary level of error tolerance. Nonetheless, the researchers have clearly demonstrated that it is possible to transform non-universally correctable qubits into correctable qubits using the most innovative quantum optical methods.

Reference: Logical states for fault-tolerant quantum computation with propagating light by Shunya Konno, Warit Asavanant, Fumiya Hanamura, Hironari Nagayoshi, Kosuke Fukui, Atsushi Sakaguchi, Ryuhoh Ide, Fumihiro China, Masahiro Yabuno, Shigehito Miki, Hirotaka Terai, Kan Takase, Mamoru Endo, Petr Marek, Radim Filip, Peter van Loock and Akira Furusawa, 18 January 2024, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adk7560

Read more from the original source:
Quantum Computing Breakthrough: Scientists Develop New Photonic Approach That Works at Room Temperature - SciTechDaily

Quantum computing is one of the most potentially transformative areas of computer research happening today. An interdisciplinary team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, under the leadership ofDon Towsley, Distinguished Professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS), is helping to lead the charge toward thisnext era of computing. Towsley and his UMass colleagues in CICS and the College of Engineering are responsible fordesigning the infrastructure to support future city-scale quantum networks, an effort overseen by theCenter for Quantum Networks, a $26 million, five-year, renewable effort led by the University of Arizona, one of the National Science Foundations engineering research centers.

Quantum computing differs fundamentally from the bit-based computing we all do every day. A bit is typically expressed as a 0 or a 1 and represents an electrical current that is either off or on. Bits are the basis for all the software, web sites and emails that make up our electronic world. Even the simplest digital artifacts are composed of thousands of them: this story, for instance, contains more than 170,000 bits.

By contrast, quantum computing relies on quantum bits, or qubits, which are like regular bits except that they represent particles in a quantum state. Matter in a quantum state behaves very differently, which means that qubits arent relegated to being only 0s or 1s, offor on.

That difference in their behavior opens up a range of possibilities in computingthough they are not magical, points outStefan Krastanov, assistant professor of information and computer sciences at UMass Amherst and one of the researchers helping to design the quantum network. For many computing problems, quantum computers are no more powerful than conventional ones, he says. However, for a growing family of important problems like drug discovery, cryptography and scientific simulations, only quantum algorithms have a chance of providing solutions.

One of the stranger aspects of the quantum state is that matter can be entangled. The game of pool is a helpful analogy here. In our everyday world, a cue ball smacking into the three ball will send the three ball into the corner pocket. But in a quantum world, the three ball could be entangled with, say, the eight ball, and when the cue hits the three, both the three and the eight will react in exactly the same way simultaneously, even though nothing touched the eight ball.

Entangling quantum computers over a quantum internet could provide unparalleled digital securityone of the main applications of the Center for Quantum Networks researchas well as vastly increase the computing power of todays most powerful machines.

But for any of this to happen, there needs to be a secure quantum network that can link quantum computers and transmit entangled qubits. The problem, says Towsley, is that quantum informationthose qubitsis incredibly fragile, and very sensitive to environmental noise, such as heat. This requires the careful design of a network architecture, algorithms and protocols to protect against this noise.

Towsley and his UMass colleagues, including Krastanov andFilip Rozpedek, assistant professor of information and computer science;as well asTaqi Raza, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering;are working out how to send qubits securely without the risk of loss or decay. Its a problem that requires expertise in both computer science and engineering, because, as Raza, whose expertise is in critical infrastructure security, puts it, security cuts across all the various specialties that must contribute to a successful quantum network. We are working to embed security principles in quantum networks from the start.

Quantum computing is not just an advance intechnology, saysLaura Haas, Donna M. and Robert J. Manning Dean of CICS. Its a paradigm shift in how we process information. Were proud contributors to this thrilling journeytousherin the next era of computing.NSFs recognition ofUMass Amherstas a key hubin the Northeastamplifiesour sense of pride and highlights the significant roleour talented researchersplay in advancing the field.

And theres more to come. Thanks to aseed fund created by anonymous donors, including a gift of $5 million, Towsley is leading the creation of a UMass Amherst Center of Excellence to support research in quantum information systems that will work to develop a quantum internet and to provide network security to connect quantum computers.

Our role as a core institution in the NSF Center for Quantum Networks is part of a broader, growing interdisciplinary initiative in quantum information systems here at UMass, involving faculty and researchers in CICS, electrical and computer engineering, and physics in the College of Natural Sciences, saysSanjay Raman, dean of the College of Engineering. Between the three colleges, we have nine core faculty in the quantum information systems area, working on everything from quantum materials, devices and circuits to algorithms and security, and many others who are helping to explore the science and applications of the quantumworld.

Source:https://www.umass.edu/

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UMass Amherst Researchers Join $26 M Quantum Computing Effort to Build Internet of the Future - AZoQuantum