In the few images that IBM has released, its quantum computing lab looks like the engine room of a spaceship: bright white rooms with countless cables dangling from the ceiling down to a floating floor, pierced with vents. This technological tangle is just the background for the main show: rows of metal supports on which hang what look like... white solar boilers.

There, within these boilers, a historical revolution is taking shape. IBM, a computing dinosaur more than a century old, is trying to reinvent itself by winning one of the most grueling, expensive and potentially promising scientific races ever: the race to develop the quantum computer. "We are living in the most exciting era in the history of computing," says Dario Gil, Senior Vice President of IBM and head of the company's research division, in an exclusive interview with Calcalist. "We are witnessing a moment similar to the one recorded in the 40s & 50s of the last century, when the first classic computers were built." A few weeks after this conversation, his statements were further confirmed, when the Nobel Prize Committee announced the awarding of the prize in the field of physics to three researchers whose research served as a milestone in the development of the field.

The name Dario Gil shakes a lot of quanta and cells in the brains, and maybe even in the hearts, of physicists and computer engineers all over the world. This is the person who leads the most advanced effort in the world to develop a quantum computer. In September, when Gil landed in Tel Aviv for a short visit to give the opening lecture at the IBM conference, the hall was packed with senior engineers, researchers from the top universities in Israel, and representatives of government bodies - all enthralled by what Gil had to say.

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Dario Gil.

(Photo: Elad Gershgoren)

Gil (46) was born in Spain and moved to the United States to study at MIT University. He completed his doctoral studies there, and immediately after graduation began working at IBM in a series of research and development positions. Since 2019, he has been leading the company's research division, which has 3,000 engineers at 21 sites, including Israel. Under his management, in 2016, IBM built the first quantum computer whose services are available to anyone: if you have a complicated question, you can go to the IBM Quantum Experience website, remotely access one of the quantum computers through the cloud - and, perhaps, receive an answer. But as with everything related to quantum computing, it just sounds simple.

"Quantum computing is not just a name for an extremely fast computer," says Gill. In fact, he explains, the quantum computer is no longer a supercomputer that uses the same binary method that is accepted in every classical computer, but a completely new machine, another step in the evolution leading from strings of shells, through beaded invoices and calculating bars, to gear-based mechanical computers, to the electronic computer and now to the quantum computer. "Essentially, the quantum computer is a kind of simulator of nature, through which it is possible to simulate natural processes, and thus solve problems that previously had no solution," explains Gil. "If the classical computer is a combination of mathematics and information, then quantum computing is a combination of physics and information."

This connection makes it possible to solve certain types of problems with unprecedented speed: Google, which is also developing a quantum computer, claimed in 2019 that it had reached "quantum supremacy" a demonstration of a calculation that a quantum computer would perform more efficiently than a classical computer. The researchers at Google showed how a quantum computer performed in 200 seconds a calculation that they claim would have required a classical computer ten thousand years to complete. This claim has since been disproved by other researchers, who have presented an algorithm that allows a classical computer to perform the same calculation in a reasonable amount of timebut even this Google failure provides an idea of the enormous power a quantum computer will have.

"The quantum computer does not make the classical computer superfluous: they will live together, and each of them will solve different problems," explains Gil. "It's like asking you how to get from point A to point B: you can walk, ride a bicycle, travel by car or fly. If the distance between these points is 50 km, you won't fly between them, right? Accordingly, it is a mode suitable for a classic computer. A quantum computer allows you to fly, even to the moon, and quickly."

You will soon explain to me how it works, and in which areas exactly, but before that, let's start from the bottom line: what can we do with it?

"Quantum computing will make it possible to crack a series of problems that seemed unsolvable, in a way that will change the world. Many of these issues are related to energy. Others are related to the development of new and exciting materials. We tend to take the materials available to us for granted, but in the past there were eras that were defined by the materials that dominated them - The Stone Age', the 'Bronze Age', the 'Iron Age'. Quantum computing will help us develop materials with new properties, therefore the first sector that is already using it is industry, especially the car industry: the car manufacturers are interested in better chemistry, which will enable the production of more efficient and durable batteries for electric vehicles. For a normal computer this is a huge task, and to complete it we have to give up accuracy and settle for approximate answers only, but quantum computing can help quickly develop materials that will fit the task, even without entering the lab. The efficiency of a quantum computer when it comes to questions in chemistry is also used in the pharmaceutical industry, There they are beginning to make initial use of such computers to examine the properties of molecules, and in this way to speed up the development of new drugs; and also in the fertilizer industry, which will be able to develop substances whose production will not harm the environment.

The uses are not limited to the material world. "For the financial sector, for example, the quantum computer enables the analysis of scenarios, risk management and forecasting, and the industry is already very interested in such possible applications, which could provide the general public with dramatically improved performance in investment portfolios, for example.

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IBM.

(Photo: Shutterstock)

At the same time, there are industries that quantum computing will force to recalculate their course, and the information security industry is at the forefront. The modern encryption systems (mainly RSA, one of whose developers is the Israeli Prof. Adi Shamir) are asymmetric: each recipient publishes a code that allows the information sent to them to be encrypted ("public key"), which includes the product of two large prime numbers that are kept secret. To decipher the encrypted information, this product must be broken down into factors - but without knowing what the initial numbers are, "this task would require a normal computer to calculate for many years," explains Gil. "However, for the quantum computer, such a calculation can be a matter of seconds."

There is a real threat here to an entire industry, the logic behind which has been built since the 1970s, and now suddenly the ground is cracking under it.

"True, a normal computer needs ten thousand years to solve an encryption that a quantum computer would solve in an instant. That is why the quantum computer threatens the world of cyberspace and encryption, which are the basis of all global information security. This is an example that is not related to physics or nature, but simply to the stronger and faster computing power of the quantum computer.

The computer that works against all the rules of intuition

To understand the power of the quantum computer, this concept, "quantum computing", must first be broken down. The first step is to stop thinking in the familiar concepts of one and zero. Forget about bits and binaries. The key to understanding quantum computing is the recognition that this dichotomy is not there: instead of the bit, quantum computing relies on a basic unit of information called a qubit (short for "quantum bit"). The qubit is simultaneously one, zero and everything in between.

This is the moment to stop and explain the theory that underlies the quantum computer, and which seems to go against common sense. "Quantum theory makes it possible to explain the behavior of very, very small particles," Gil explains. "At school we are presented with a model of an atom that looks like a planet, with a nucleus and electrons moving around, but at the beginning of the 20th century, this model turned out to be not very accurate." This happened when physicists such as Max Planck and Albert Einstein realized that light, which until then physics saw as a wave, also behaves as a particle - and the energy of this particle can only be described in "quantum" jumps, that is, as discrete packets. In the decades that followed, this theory was developed more and more, and proved to be effective in describing a variety of phenomena in the world of particles. And yet, its deep meanings remain obscure even today.

Such is, for example, the idea that a particle is in more than one place. According to quantum theory, a particle moving between two points moves simultaneously in all the paths between them, a state called "superposition". It's not that we don't know its exact location: it just doesn't have one. Instead, it has a distribution of possible locations that coexist. In other words, reality is not certain, but probabilistic.

And this is not the only puzzle posed by quantum theory. Another confusing concept is "entanglement", a situation in which several particles exhibit identical physical values, and respond simultaneously to a change in one of them, even if they are at a great distance from each other. Gil suggests thinking of it as tossing two coins: anyone who has studied statistics knows that the probabilities of getting a "head" or a "tail" on each of them are independent. But in the quantum model, if the coins (representing particles here) are intertwined, then tossing one of them will result in the same result in the other. "Einstein didn't believe in interweaving, and hated these patterns," Gil says with a smile.

Measurements that affect the results? A reality that is not absolute but statistical? Particles that become twins even at infinite distance? If these ideas sound puzzling, incomprehensible or counter-intuitive to you, you are not alone: "Whoever comes across quantum theory and is not left stunned, has not understood it," said the physicist Niels Bohr, Einstein's contemporary and his great nemesis, who won the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the development of the theory (Einstein, by the way, had reservations about Bohr's interpretation of the theory's conclusions). Another physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the theory, Richard Feynman, commented on this when he said: "If you think you have understood quantum theory, you have not."

The same Feynman is the father of quantum computing: he wanted to simulate the behavior of particles, but due to the probabilistic nature of the theory, a classical computer that would try to perform such a simulation would require an enormous amount of calculations, so that the simulation would become impractical. "Feynman, and like him other physicists, thought that the field of computing focused on mathematical horizons and moved too far away from nature, and that physics could be more connected to the world of information," explains Gil. "In a historic lecture he gave in 1981, Feynman claimed that there was nothing to give a classical computer to deal with particle simulation, because nature is not classical. He said, 'If we want to simulate nature, we need a machine that behaves like nature, in a quantum way.'" In 1998, this vision was realized, when the first quantum computer was built at the University of Oxford in Great Britain.

A quantum computer utilizes the enigmatic properties of quantum theory, those that are not fully understood by us, to perform calculation operations. In a normal computer, the basic unit of information is a "bit", which can have one of two values, 0 or 1; Using such bits makes it possible to perform any calculation imaginable - although some of these calculations may take a very long time. In a quantum computer, the qubit, thanks to superposition, represents not one absolute value, but a distribution of values. "You can think of it as a question of more dimensions: one and zero are just the ends, the poles of a coin for example, but it can also have a sideways tilt," explains Gil. Using statistical approaches it is possible to examine the state of the qubit and obtain useful results. This probabilistic approach is not suitable for every problem, but in solving certain problems it is infinitely more efficient than the classical computer's search for an absolute answer.

"Because of the entanglement effect, it is also possible to cause the qubits to influence each other," says Gil. And since each qubit represents an entire field of possibilities, each addition of a qubit increases the number of possible connections between the qubits with exponentially increasing power (in the classical computer, on the other hand, the addition of bits grows linearly). At the moment, IBM holds the record for qubits: last year it unveiled a quantum processor with 127 qubits, and its stated goal is to launch a processor with 433 qubits this year, and a processor with 1,021 qubits next year.

Three degrees colder than outer space

This ambition is more pretentious than it seems. It turns out that "building a machine that will behave like nature" is a complex story like no other: the qubits are very sensitive to outside influences, which makes building a computer a very complicated and expensive business. "The quantum computer is very powerful, but at the same time also very delicate," explains Gil: "It utilizes physical processes that occur in the world, but such processes are a system in which everything is connected, everything affects everything, and this can disrupt the results: if energy from the outside world goes inside and connect to the qubits, this will make them behave like normal bits, and thus the unique ability of quantum computation will be lost. Therefore, a quantum computer must be very isolated from the entire environment. The big challenge is to produce a system that is sufficiently isolated from the outside world, but not too isolated."

When I try to find out what the cost of building a quantum computer is - and IBM has already built 40 of them - Gil avoids a clear answer, but it is enough to hear what this effort entails: "There are several different approaches to building a quantum computer; IBM chose a cryogenic approach, meaning deep freezing, and the use of superconductors. The temperature in the computer is close to absolute zero: at the bottom of its case the temperature is minus 273 degrees Celsiusthree degrees less than the temperature of outer space, and less than one degree above absolute zero. The temperature should be close to absolute zero, but not reach it, because then there is no movement at all, Not even of the atoms."

The result is a cooling and protection case that resembles a water heater in its shape, and inside it has the calculation unit, whose shape gave it the nickname "chandelier" according to Gil and his team. "Inside the layers of protection there is a cylinder with the processor in it. Even if only a fraction of an energy particle enters the computer, literally a fraction of nothing, it will be enough to disrupt the results," Gil clarifies.

The great sensitivity, and the protection requirements derived from it, mean that the quantum computer is quite cumbersome: in the newest models, which try to include more and more qubits, the case already reaches a height of several meters. To some extent it is reminiscent of the first generations of classic computers, which looked like huge cabinets. Those classic computers kept getting smaller and smaller, until today we squeeze millions of times more computing power into a simple smartphone, but in the case of quantum computers, we cannot expect a similar process: "The quantum computer requires unique conditions that cannot be produced in a simple terminal device, and this will not change in the foreseeable future," Gil explains. "I believe that quantum computing will be a service that we can access remotely, as we access cloud services today. It will work similar to what IBM already enables today: the computer sits with us, and we make it possible to access the 'brain' and receive answers. Of the 40 computers we have built since 2016, today 20 are available to the public. About half a million users all over the world have already made use of the capabilities of the quantum computer we built, and based on this use, about a thousand scientific publications have already been published."

Google and Microsoft are heating up the competition

IBM is not the only company participating in the quantum computing race, but Gil exudes full confidence in its ability to lead it: according to him, most competitors only have parts of the overall system, but not a complete computer available to solve problems. Google, as mentioned, is a strong contender in this race, and it also allows remote access to its quantum computing service, Google Quantum AI; Microsoft is also working to provide a similar service on its cloud platform, Azure.

Meanwhile, quantum computing is a promise "on paper". The theoretical foundations for this revolution were laid already 40 years ago, the first proofs were presented more than 20 years ago, the industry has been buzzing around this field for several years - and we still haven't seen uses that would serve a regular person.

"If you go back to the 1940s, when the first computers were invented, you will see that even then the uses and advantages of the new invention were not clear. Those who saw the first computers said, 'Oh, great, you can use it to crack the code of encryption machines in wars, maybe even calculate routes of ballistic missiles, and that's it. Who's going to use it? Nobody,'" Gil laughs. "In the same way, the success of quantum computing will depend on its uses: how easy it will be to program, how large the community of users will be, what talents will get there. The quantum revolution will be led by a community, which is why education for this field is so important: we need more and more smart people to start to think 'how can I use quantum computing to advance my field'.

"What is beginning these days is the democratization phase of quantum computing, which will allow anyone to communicate with the computer without being an advanced programmer in the field: it will be possible to approach it with a question or a task that will be written in the classical languages of one or zero. That is why we are already seeing more use of quantum computing capacity today.

"There are also many startups that do not actually work to establish a quantum computer, but focus on various components of this world (for example, the Israeli company Quantum Machines, which develops hardware and software systems for quantum computers, and last July was selected by the Innovation Authority to establish the Israeli Quantum Computing Center). The activity of such companies creates a completely new ecosystem, thus promoting the industry and accelerating its development, just as is happening today in the field of ordinary computers. IBM will not rely only on itself either: we would like to benefit from the innovation of smart people in this field, of course also in Israel.

"I am convinced that the big bang of quantum computing will happen in this decade. Our ambition at IBM is to demonstrate 'quantum supremacy' already in the next three years. I believe that the combination of advances in artificial intelligence, together with quantum computing, will bring about a revolution in the industry of the kind that Nvidia made in its market (Nvidia developed unique processors for gaming computers, which made it the chip company that reached a billion dollar revenue the fastest.) Quantum computing can generate enormous value in the industry. It is phenomenally difficult, but it is clear to me that we will see the uses already in the current decade."

The Nobel Prize opens a new horizon for quantum computing

Quantum computing has ignited the imagination of researchers for many decades, but until now it has not left the confines of laboratories. However, the awarding of the Nobel Prize to three researchers in the field indicates that the vision is becoming a real revolution. Alain Aspect of France, the American John Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger received the award for research they conducted (separately) since the 1970s, in which they examined the phenomenon of quantum entanglement (described in the article), proved its existence and laid tracks for its technological use.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize to the entanglement researchers proves that quantum computing is more than a mental exercise for a sect of physicists, and is a defining moment for companies that invest capital in the development of the field. They are pushed to this effort due to a fundamental change in the world in which they operate: in recent decades, the world of computing has operated according to "Moore's Law", which foresees that the density of transistors in computer processors will double every two years in a way that will increase the computing power of these chips. However, as the industry approaches the physical limit after which it will be impossible to cram more transistors onto a chip, the need to develop a quantum computer has become acute.

The numbers also signal that something is happening in the field. In 2020, the scope of the quantum computing market was less than half a billion dollars, but at the end of 2021, in a signal that the vision is beginning to be realized, the research company IDC published an estimate according to which in 2027 the scope of the market will reach $8.6 billion and investments in the field will amount to $16 billion (compared to $700 million in 2020 and $1.4 billion in 2021). IBM CEO Arvind Krishna also recently estimated that in 2027 quantum computing will become a real commercial industry.

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Quantum Leap: "The big bang of quantum computing will come in this decade" - CTech

Image credits: EIT Digital

EIT Digital, a pan-European organisation that promotes innovation, education, and entrepreneurship in digital technology, has announced this years 20 finalists across Europe for its EIT Digital Challenge.

The finalists will pitch in front of a jury of experts and investors, and participate in a matchmaking session with invited corporates and investors. The winners will be announced at an event on October 27.

The winners will receive a waived entry into the 12-month EIT Digital Accelerator programme worth 50,000. In addition, they will get dedicated services in international access to finance and business development from the EIT Digital Accelerator team.

The EIT Digital Accelerator provides tailor-made growth support by helping participants raise capital, find customers, and scale up internationally. This is done through a distributed team of business developers and fundraising experts from 10 European countries.

Since 2012, the EIT Digital Accelerator has supported startups and scaleups from 18 countries. Together, these startups have raised over 1B in investment. The Accelerator has also been recognised as the worlds top public Business Accelerator by UBI Global, and as one of the top three accelerator brands in Europe by Startup Heatmap Europe.

Here are the 20 selected finalists for the EIT Digital Challenge 2022.

HQ: Luxembourg

Anisoprint is a hardware startup producing carbon fibre 3D printers. The printers can manufacture carbon-reinforced plastic parts that can substitute metal parts in aerospace and engineering areas, cutting costs and increasing productivity. The company works with various clients in sports, robots, quadcopters, medical prostheses and orthoses, and sports goods.

HQ: Munich, Germany

Build38 provides mobile application protection solutions and services including artificial intelligence and robust app shielding technology. The company claims that its solutions are easy to integrate and can be done in minutes.

The company protects applications across various industries, including automotive, banking, insurance, public transportation, and healthcare.

Based out of Munich, the company has offices in Barcelona and Singapore.

HQ: Bressanone, Italy

Covision Quality is a spinoff of Covision Lab and works with its research and institutional partners. The company has developed software for automating and scaling visual inspection and defect detection on metals and plastics through computer vision and machine learning.

Covision claims that its customers can increase time to inline deployment by 20x and reduce pseudo scrap rates by up to 90%.

HQ: London, UK

Daye is a femcare startup offering healthcare products designed with women in mind. The companys new product is a tampon using CBD to handle period cramps, aka dysmenorrhea. CBD is an extract from the flower of the industrial hemp plant and is a legal marijuana relative.

HQ: London, UK

Elemendar has developed an Artificial Intelligence capability READ application that reads human-authored cyber threat intelligence and translates it into machine-readable industry-standard structured information (STIX & MITRE ATT&CK). The companys solution enables clients to understand and defend against new threats faster.

HQ: London, UK

Faradai Energy Intelligence Platform is an AI and cloud-based PaaS data analytics solution for commercial buildings, industrial facilities, and renewable energy plants. Through machine learning algorithms and big data analytics, Faradai provides energy saving, operational efficiency, energy procurement optimisation, predictive maintenance, solar energy, and sustainability management for its customers.

HQ: Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Founded by Mark Linders and Chantal Linders, Dutch company Greenhabit was launched within the EIT Digital Innovation Factory to help people with diabetes and cardiac conditions stick to their rehabilitation programmes.

The company employs a scientific approach to behavioural change. By providing daily activities and rewarding progress, the app employs gamification to keep users interested. In addition, Greenhabit can pinpoint patient requirements using AI to address the root cause of bad behaviour.

HQ: Vienna, Austria

Based out of Vienna, JENTIS is a server-side tracking tool that helps businesses extract complete, accurate, and consistent raw data to accelerate their growth. The Austrian company developed the SaaS solution to reduce errors and deviations in web analytics tools and to streamline operations.

HQ: Helsinki, Finland

Loupedeck manufactures customisable consoles designed to optimise productivity and maximise creativity through interactions with creative software.

The companys product line-up includes Loupedeck+, Loupedeck Live, and Loupedeck CT.

Each console is custom-designed to support various workflows, including photo and video editing, audio composition, graphic design, content creation, and live streaming.

HQ: Madrid, Spain

Based out of Madrid, Meep has developed MaaS solutions in the form of mobile applications in which all modes of transport available in a city, public and private, are integrated.

The company aims to combine traditional public transport services with new micro-mobility to put the citizen in the centre of public transport, radically improving their digital experience.

Through the app, the Spanish company provides digital solutions for Transit Authorities, Transit Operators, and Mobility Service Providers to create an interconnected mobility ecosystem.

HQ: Paris, France

Medicalib is an online portal that helps find health professionals, nurses, physiotherapists, and midwives in less than an hour.

HQ: London, UK

MiiCare is a social enterprise company that has developed a digital health coach, Monica, to support older adults (physically and emotionally) to live a healthier, safer, and happier life, and ease the pressure on their families and caregivers.

HQ: San Sebastin, Spain

Multiverse Computing provides software for companies from the financial industry to help them gain an edge with quantum computing. It combines quantum and quantum-inspired solutions to address complex open problems in finance by demonstrating industry use cases to bring value to financial institutions.

The companys flagship product, Singularity, enables financial professionals to run efficient quantum algorithms on any quantum computer from a simple spreadsheet to address highly complex problems such as portfolio optimisation and fraud detection without requiring any knowledge of quantum computers.

HQ: Barcelona, Spain

Outvise is an online talent marketplace for Business Tech freelance experts.

The platform connects companies with highly skilled freelance experts and management consultants to address their talent gaps across all functional areas, from strategy, marketing, and sales to operations, technology, and IT, in a fast and cost-effective way.

HQ: Berlin, Germany

Parloa is a Conversational AI platform for automating omni-channel customer services like phonebot and chatbots. The companys solution allows customer concerns, primarily on the phone, to be identified within seconds and repetitive tasks to be automated. Through this solution, Parloa aims to help every company worldwide to have better customer conversations.

HQ: Espoo, Finland

Sellforte is a marketing mix modelling platform serving companies to measure marketing ROI and plan scenarios for future media investments.

HQ: Stockholm, Sweden

Based out of Stockholm, Snafu is a full-service record label built on AI music discovery. To discover talent, the platforms proprietary algorithms analyse open platforms, including Spotify, SoundCloud, Youtube, and TikTok.

Then, as per the companys claims, the solution predicts which artists are likely to be popular, depending on sentiment analysis, song structure, decision trees, and neural networks.

HQ: Barcelona, Spain

Vottun focuses on helping companies adopt blockchain technology to improve their current business processes and create new business models.

The company has developed a platform that provides different blockchain ready-to-use solutions and APIs to create value. Currently, in the public blockchain, the company supports Ethereum, Stellar, Algorand, Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin, and Inmutable X (only for NFTs).

HQ: Warsaw, Poland

WorkTrips.com (previously Hotailors) is a next-gen AI-powered travel platform. The platform organises business travels that grant access to real-time offers from 2,000,000+ hotels and 700+ airlines worldwide. The company says that with its platform, businesses can easily control their travel policy, reduce spending and increase the efficiency of their company.

HQ: Rome, Italy

W.SENSE is a deep-tech telecommunication company, born as a spinoff of Sapienza University in Rome. It specialises in underwater monitoring and communication systems based on IoUT solutions.

Catch our interview with Paul Down, Head of Sales at Intigriti.

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Meet the 20 finalists for EIT Digital Challenge 2022; one of them is Dutch - Silicon Canals

Alireza Najafi-Yazdi, founder and CEO at Anyon Systems is interviewed by Yuval Boger. Alireza and Yuval talk about Alirezas full-stack quantum computer company that tackles everything from cryogenics to qubits to software, how to keep quantum computers running without attaching a technician to them, and much more.

Yuval Boger: Hello, Alireza, and thanks for joining me today.

Alireza Najafi-Yazdi: Hi Yuval, thank you very much for the invitation.

Yuval: So who are you and what do you do?

Alireza: Well, Im Alireza Najafi-Yazdi. Im the founder and CEO of Anyon Systems, and we are a quantum computing hardware company located in Montreal. And we also have some satellite presence in the Waterloo region in Canada as well.

Yuval: And I apologize, but I want to say Id never heard a few before, but I only heard of you very recently. And then I found out that youve been out in the market, active for a number of years. Is that by design or is it just my ignorance?

Alireza: It is to some extent by design. We actually started in 2014 and really officially launched a company in January 2015. And in that regard, we are one of the oldest companies in the quantum computing market. I think older than us, perhaps Rigetti by a few months and maybe D-wave by quite a few years. And it was around that time that John Martinez and his team joined Google and the Google quantum effort started, and IBM also started their recent superconducting effort. So, were almost as old as the industry is.

Yuval: And I think youre building a complete system, both the hardware and the software and everything in between using superconducting qubits. Is that correct?

Alireza: That is correct. So we actually, we are pretty unique in some aspects, and that is we build every major component of a superconducting quantum computer in-house. We build all of our own dilution fridges, which Ive noticed shocks many people. They dont expect a quantum computing hardware company to be able to build its own dilution fridge. We build our own controlled electronics. We build and develop our own firmware stack and we kind of stop right at the SDK thats when we handed over to the client and other partners to build compilers or sophisticated algorithms and whatnot. So thats where were primarily focused on the harder and the peripheral of a quantum processor.

Yuval: That sounds like a major undertaking. I think there are very large companies who try to do full stack solutions. Can you give me a sense about the size of your company? How many people, or what kind of funding that make it possible to do a full stack solution?

Alireza: Sure. Were not too large a group. Were 25 people, but weve been at it for quite a long time now. Its more than seven years almost in December. Thats going to be eight years of working on this project so we have a nimble and very efficient team, but we also took some time to build all this stuff.

Yuval: And I think you have a quantum computer that actually works that youve sold a few. Is that correct?

Alireza: That is correct. So we have a system that we built for DRDC. This is a Canadian defense research establishment here in Canada, part of the department of the national defense. And thats a six-qubit machine. Thats the extent I can disclose. And we are now in the process of building a second unit. Its actually a very nice and commercial unit for data centers. And thats going to be installed sometime next year, hopefully the first half of next year at Calcul Quebec, which is a super computing center here in Canada. And that serves a number of universities here in Canada. So yeah, were in the process of building that system. And the first phase of that system, were going to install a 12-qubit chip. And the system is, as I speak to you, were almost all the major components, hardware components are either on the floor or theyre being integrated. So were going to start testing in the next couple of months.

Yuval: What makes your system different or better than other quantum computers and specifically other superconducting quantum computers? It doesnt sound like you have more qubits. Are they better qubits? Are they better connected? Are they designed for different use? Help me get the differentiation, please.

Alireza: There are two things, Yuval. So here at Anyon, our activities follow two prongs. One, we have our own internal R&D that is focused on a very particular type of architecture and superconducting qubits and a novel qubit architecture that were following. And the other stream of our work for the time being focuses on delivering near term intermediate scale machines, NISQ machines, to data centers and area adapters.

So these two machines that I talked about, they feature that NISQ architectures. They are transmon qubits. They are tunable transmon qubits with tunable couplers. To some extent, similar to the architecture that Google has followed, we followed the same philosophy in many aspects. We like that philosophy very much. Of course, on the control electronics level, cryogenics, all these are essential, and also even on the quantum processor, there are certain things that are very unique to ours.

What we have been striving to achieve is higher gate fidelity and minimal crosstalk. So on the crosstalk, we have really a state of art performance metrics. You could put the crosstalk, literally speaking, to zero, and performance metrics in terms of gate fidelities, consistently, were getting performance metrics, which you can call us among the top three players in terms of performance of the qubits. And theyre getting even better and better as time goes on.

And scaling up the number of qubits is no longer an issue. We can scale up to few dozens, lets say to 60, 70 qubit with the existing platform that weve developed. Its just a matter of check size of the client because building these machines costs a lot of money and somebody has to pay for it.

Yuval: I was looking at the website and some of your press releases. And it sounds like the two of the customers that are mentioned are the government or defense-related customers. Im guessing that these customers are not using it on a public cloud, like a Braket or Azure. Is that by design or is this just happened this way that the first two customers are government customers?

Alireza: Part of it happened by design. Its just a philosophy that we have in terms of how a eventual quantum computer would be used. We think a quantum computer is going to be a hardware accelerator. Its going to be sitting next to a classic high performance computing infrastructure. So I mentioned Calcul Quebec and the supercomputing center. So we are very excited because this machine that were building for them is going to be directly coupled into their existing HPC fabric to Narval, which is the largest public supercomputer here in Canada and the 81st or so largest supercomputer in the world.

So theres a lot of interesting integration work being done between the HPC and the quantum computing infrastructure were building. And because of that, lets say putting a machine on the cloud and having a TCP/IP API call, thats just slow. But we dont think thats how a machine would be eventually used.

We understand these are smaller-scale machines, perhaps mostly for education and trying proof of concept, but nevertheless, you want to really move toward the right direction. So thats why we didnt go directly into the cloud. And theres also when it comes to cloud, the business case has not been there, or at least Im personally not convinced about the cloud yet. Building a machine costs millions and millions of dollars of capital. And then you put it on the cloud and you charge the client a few cents a shot. And Im not sure if you get return on investment anytime soon. And at the end of the day, were a commercial company. Unit economy matters. And thats why it was so far has not been commercially attractive enough yet.

Yuval: How about uptime? When I look at computers on the cloud, theyre not up 24 hours a day. They have limited windows of operation. When you deliver a computer to a customer. Do you have to deliver a technician that tweaks the qubits every day? Or how are these computers maintained?

Alireza: Its a very good question. And this is one of the things that has been the subject of significant activities here at Anyon. Weve been working on developing automated calibration systems that, as you said, tweaking. Yes, you need some calibration. You need regular calibration, perhaps 24 hours or even shorter time intervals. And you dont want a technician next to the machine. You want this to be done automatically. So there are a lot of quantum control concepts. Software engineer concepts have gone into building the infrastructure to make sure that these things can be maintained without direct interference by sys admins or our technicians.

Particularly this one that is going to the supercomputing center. Theres a lot of interesting requirements in terms of maintaining it. The uptime should be 24/7 for long, long periods of time. So it is so far, weve run our machines for month and month without a problem. Typically, we have to just warm up to swap a new generation of chips. So weve been able to maintain these machines up for quite some time. And well continue to monitor and learn from that experience.

Yuval: Given that you are a full stack company, do you need any help from any other industry player? I mean, if you were controlling the quantum computing industry, what would you have people do that theyre not doing today or do to help you move faster?

Alireza: Well, were not definitely controlling the industry, but we were kind of controlling our fate and our technology. And thats been always the idea, but theres a lot of room for collaboration. As I mentioned to you, were so focused on the hardware that we strategically have decided to let others take care of algorithms, perhaps compiler optimization, and things of that nature. And I think this is a great area of collaboration. Benchmarking is another great area of collaboration. Those who have particular expertise in benchmarking. And they want to go from one hardware to another. Theyre more than welcome to talk to us. And we would love to hear from them as well. Thats another area of collaboration. And there is in between a lot of components that either we dont make, or we dont want to make anymore, that we love to see supply chain for.

A good example is a dilution fridge. For example, dilution fridge. When we started in 2015, there were just two companies at the time that you could call them commercial. One was Blue Force, and the other one was Oxford Instruments. And we were not sure if they were bought out by our competitors, but with these big giants, what would be our fate? So we decided at the time it makes both the strategic sense, and also for long term, if you want to go larger and larger number of qubits and build bigger and bigger systems to have our own dilution for systems, we are probably going to keep some of these very key equipment or key components internally and build them internally. But we are always on the lookout to see what others can do and take some load off our shoulders.

Yuval: And in terms of applications, do you feel that your computers are best for one particular type of application like optimization or chemistry or something else? Or really is the entire spectrum for you?

Alireza: We build whats called universal quantum computers. These are gate-based machines. And in theory, you can run any algorithm you want. Youre just limited by the coherence time of the qubits, and the gate facility is the same as you were running on, lets say, IBM or Googles machine. That being said, a good question is, whats the best application for a quantum computer?

And theres also some companies who are following application-specific quantum processes or architectures and an interesting discussion is what is it, what exactly is that? And how would that play out in the long term? So for the time being, we believe its good to remain as generic as possible. So were going to continue working on building gate-based universal machines and try to make the hardware more accurate, and dip our toes into fault tolerance and error correction. But this is, I think, a very active field of research and still, everybodys at very, very early stages of this.

Yuval: Alireza, how can people get in touch with you to learn more about your work?

Alireza: They can reach out to us through LinkedIn, through our website, through Twitter. They can, if they want to talk to me in person, Im both on LinkedIn and on Twitter and Im responsive.

Yuval: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

Alireza: Thank you very much, Yuval.

Yuval Boger is an executive working at the intersection of quantum technology and business. Known as the Superposition Guy as well as the original Qubit Guy, he can be reached on LinkedIn or at this email.

October 9, 2022

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Podcast with Alireza Najafi-Yazdi, CEO of Anyon Systems - Quantum Computing Report

John Prisco, President and CEO of Safe Quantum, a quantum security consulting firm is interviewed by Yuval Boger. John and Yuval talk about the maturity of PQC, QKD, quantum networks, and their timing overlap, national and international testbeds for quantum security, successful case studies and more.

Yuval Boger: Hello John, and thanks for joining me today.

John Prisco: Hello, how are you?

Yuval: Im doing well. Who are you and what do you do?

John: Well, Im John Prisco, and I am the president of Safe Quantum and I consult in the areas of quantum key distribution and quantum internet.

Yuval: There have been a lot of buzzwords floating around: post-quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution, and the quantum internet. Could you make some sense for me in these?

John: Yes, I think were in a very early stage in a number of areas that would be based on quantum. Obviously, quantum computers are just at the beginning of development, and they dont have very many qubits yet, but eventually, they will. And when they do, then well have something to worry about with having our encryption schemes broken that we depend on today. However, the work thats being done at NIST to develop post-quantum cryptographic algorithms will become quantum resistant. The hope is that these mathematically based algorithms will prevent quantum computers or at least slow them down in terms of being able to decrypt secret information.

On the other side of the equation is quantum key distribution, which doesnt depend on arithmetic or mathematical rigor. It is relying on quantum mechanics and physics principles. Its a very interesting technique, it uses keys that are made of individual photons of light, and because of the various quantum mechanical properties, youre not really able to even observe these keys without changing their state. Once the state has changed, the key no longer works, it no longer unlocks the secret information and therefore provides the protection that one would want when transmitting very secure and sensitive information.

Yuval: If Im an enterprise and I hear about post-quantum cryptography as an interim step, and then quantum key distribution is something that could be a little bit better and maybe about the quantum internet is the best thing, is it feasible for me to jump right to the best thing?

John: Well, unfortunately, its not at the moment, and thats because theres a lot of work to be done, actually, in all three areas. Jumping ahead to the quantum internet is probably a misnomer. We should probably first talk about a quantum network, which is not as far-reaching as the internet. And there are a number of test beds around the world that are today working in this area. And at this point, these systems are relying on creating quantum repeaters and using quantum memory. But at this point of development, the repeaters are repeating one photon of information. So when you consider gigabit per second type transmission rates, theres a long way to go before we could have a complete quantum internet.

But there are many advances going forward throughout the world on quantum networking. And one in particular that I follow closely because its right here in the United States, is a company called Qunnect. And what I find interesting about them is that theyre attempting to build quantum network, the basis for quantum internet, using room temperature apparatus. Which is terrific because when you try to commercialize something, its very difficult to commercialize a product that has a dilution refrigerator, which is a room full of refrigeration equipment to get superconducting properties out of quantum setup in milli-Kelvins of temperatures. When you have high vacuums, and very low temperatures, you have a long way to commercialization, so I like following companies that are trying to do things at room temperature because I think we get there sooner with that kind of approach.

Yuval: If we start from post-quantum cryptography, I understand that NIST has announced for finalists or candidates for standards, but some of them have already been cracked. How is that process going, and what do you anticipate will happen with it?

John: Well, its a long-term process. It started six years ago, and I think it started with something like 88 algorithms that were presented. NIST has been diligently working on looking at the veracity of each one of these algorithms, and theyd come up with four finalists. In addition to the four, there were others in the finalist category, and one of them was hacked a couple of months ago, I think in March. And then, more recently, another had been broken. But thats all part of the process working. It is open to the public so that people will try to, in some way, bypass the protections that the algorithm offers.

And when you look at an arithmetic approach, which is all of post-quantum cryptography, you have to understand that these algorithms will have a shelf life, just like the RSA algorithms are coming to the end of their useful shelf life. Well, post quantum cryptography may have a 30-plus year shelf life, but eventually, it will be cracked by something. So its very important to understand that that approach is a quantum-resistant approach. Im probably more in line with the QKD basing its protections on laws of physics, but I think you need both of them. I think its important to have a defense in-depth strategy, and I think its important to have two totally different approaches so that if one fails, its not likely the other will have the same failure mechanism and therefore, youd have more survivability.

But I do think post-quantum cryptography is going to require crypto agility just for the reasons we mentioned, you may be heading down the road with a finalist candidate algorithm, and then something happens where a mathematician comes up with an algorithm that defeats that approach. Well, you have to be able to turn on a dime and adopt one of the other algorithms that are in their golf bag, so to speak.

Yuval: I think quantum key distribution uses a side channel to transfer decryption or encryption keys to both parties outside the main channel. And I believe that a previous company that you were involved with did QKD as a service. If I understand QKD, what does as a service mean in that context?

John: Well, it means that you are providing a transmission pathway for a customer to secure data in motion. And that could be between two of the customer premises locations. It could be from a customer to the cloud. And when you say as a service, it means that you secure the fiber rights of way between points A and point B. You install the hardware, which is producing the keys and sharing the keys. And its a complete service, if there is maintenance required, you provide that as well.

And one of the most important things about this approach is that you can separate the encryption key from the data. Today we make it awfully easy for people to harvest information and the key thats used to encrypt that information. And even though they may not be able to break that key today, they can simply and inexpensively store the data and the key. And then in the future, when they have the means to break that key, like with a more powerful quantum computer then we currently have, now suddenly all that secure, sensitive information is subject to being read in plain text.

There are an awful lot of things to consider. The time it takes to convert from a classical encryption approach to a quantum encryption approach is measured in decades. The last time there was a conversion like this, it took over 20 years for companies to completely convert to the RSA algorithms. Its probably going to take more like 20 to 30 years this time around because we have so much more data that were storing and transmitting. What was happening in the seventies is much, much smaller than whats happening in the 2020s. This is not going to be an overnight plug-and-play kind of project, its going to take a long time. And you have to constantly be watching to see, are nefarious actors able to crack the new algorithms, and will our sensitive information soon be read by enemies?

Yuval: So its not a three-stage rocket where first you have PQC and then you move to the second stage with key distribution and then maybe to a quantum network, these are overlapping stages, if I understand correctly?

John: They are, and I think you know, have QKD today, which is probably the best approach to preventing harvesting attacks, because its available today, and it will give you the quantum mechanical security that boasts. PQC is probably two years away from being standardized for the first few algorithms. And then of course that conversion to PQC, which is an enormous task, will probably take at least 20 years.

But the quantum internet is going to require a fair amount of development. Today what we do is we entangle photons and then we try to swap that entanglement in a quantum repeater or quantum memory. And as I mentioned before, each photon is transmitted individually, and it has one bit of information, a one or a zero, could be polarization, could be phase whatever, but one and a zero. Now youre talking about having billions and billions of photons in order to complete a simple telecommunications transaction. And the hardware and infrastructure has to be put in place for this. But fortunately, we do have test beds springing up all around the world, and breakthroughs are being made on a fairly monthly basis. So well get there, but it will probably be on the order of 20 to 25 years before any substantial networks for substantial distances with substantial data rates will be prevalent.

Yuval: Youve probably consulted with a lot of companies and looked at many others, are there any examples that you could give of someone that you felt was doing a good job in preparing for this next type of risk?

John: Yes, in fact, Ive had the pleasure of working with a number of companies, JPMorgan Chase, for one. And what I really think they did right is that they hired quantum experts, their quantum business is run by a fellow named Marco Pistoia, came out of IBM and hes a friend of mine, and I always tell him that hes a quantum rockstar, and he is. We did a project when I was consulting for Toshiba that was based on securing a blockchain application. I think if you generalize this to companies and what they might do, I think its important to have people who understand what quantum is, what quantum science information technology is all about.

And then you have to start doing some proof of concept tests. Ive done a number of QKD proof of concepts. One of my first ones was, again, working with Toshiba and we did a Verizon 5G network security. This is all public, there have been press releases on both the companies Ive just mentioned. But thats really what you have to do, you have to get started, you have to make an investment. And theres an equal investment to understanding the PQC algorithms. And the first thing you have to do is take an inventory of your data, what data? Whats the shelf life of the data? Whats the sensitivity of the data? And you have to work from the most sensitive and longest shelf life to the least sensitive and the shortest shelf life. But just knowing that is going to take a long time in a large corporation. So getting started now is important.

The federal government is a totally different situation because the information is always very sensitive. And when you look at some of the executive orders that came out last month about when government agencies should be converted to quantum encryption, they were talking about 2032 to 2035. Now, what worries me about that is the harvesting attacks, thats going to be 10 to 13 years of people sniffing cables. Even the submariner cables crossing the ocean have been tapped. Its very difficult to know when youre tapping an optical fiber because you just simply bend it, and the light leaks out of the core and then you detect that light. The thing is that with conventional classical telecommunications, when you detect that light, you also get all the information thats being sent over that fiber. So you can imagine an optical fiber carrying tremendous amounts of data and all of it being recorded inexpensively and kept somewhere. And then eventually, when you can break that encryption, now all of these very sensitive bits of data are revealed.

I dont think we have as much time as people think that, Well, we can do this over 20 years, 25 years. Sure, it may take that long, but I think you have to take measures before that, especially if your information is a long shelf life and is extremely sensitive. And QKD actually is the only thing that can really protect you at the moment.

Yuval: You mentioned governments and security is obviously not just a corporate issue but also a national issue. Which countries, in your opinion, are ahead in quantum security? And which countries are perhaps behind?

John: Well, I think that the United States has caught up with China. We do some things better than they do. They do other things better than we do. But in terms of quantum computing, I think the US leads. I actually think that some of the QKD implementations in China lead the US. But theres a lot going on in Europe as well. Theres British Telecom thats now doing a metro scale network using Toshiba QKD and thats a very large project and very interesting in terms of seeing a large telecommunications company make that bet. The Netherlands is, and the group at Delft is doing a wonderful job on quantum networking, and theyre just a lot of things going on like Barcelona, Germany, theyre all doing a lot in the field of quantum networking,.

But this is going to be a public-private partnership in the United States, just like the moon launch was in the sixties. And thats the way to really win this race. And people, a few years ago, started to have that Sputnik moment where they said, Wow, look at Chinas just invested 10 billion in quantum. We better do something about that. And I think we have, and I think in fact that the NSF has been funding universities and a lot of basic research as well as the venture community funding startup companies. I think that combination is a winning combination. It won once before during the sixties and the Space Race, and I think itll win again.

Yuval: As we get close to the end of our conversation today, you mentioned a couple of test beds in Europe, I think in the US, I think theres a big one in Chicago. Are there others that people could get involved with or should pay attention to?

John: Well, theres Chicago Quantum Exchange, thats the one that you are referencing. And of course, that has Department of Energy laboratories working along with very fine universities and terrific researchers. Recently, NIST announced that theyre going to build a DCQ Network, a quantum network that will initially deploy quantum networking on the NIST campus, but then will bring to bear several other agencies like NASA, NSA, CIA. That will be an interesting one to watch. And there is all sorts of rumors about a network coming into Boston and another one coming into New York, and probably another on the West Coast. But none of that has really been publicly announced yet, so well see which ones of those occur. But I think its really important that we have these partnerships, test beds, that have universities involved and that have venture capital involved and government involved. Government is looking for the private sector to come with ideas. Many of these companies have been working on networking for a couple of years, three years, and they can bring to bear a lot of experience.

Yuval: Excellent, John, how can people get in touch with you to learn more about your work?

John: Well, you can go to my website, which is SafeQuantum.com, and all my information is there. I am leading the use cases TAC (technical advisory committee) at QEDC. And if youre a company that wants to join QEDC, I would recommend it. Theres a tremendous amount of knowledge within the group and its a very good place to learn. You can also look at me in Forbes Technology Council. I try to publish one paper a month there. Thats how you can find me. And LinkedIn.

Yuval: Thats perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

John: Well, thank you.

Yuval Boger is a quantum computing executive. Known as the Superposition Guy as well as the original Qubit Guy, he most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer for Classiq. He can be reached on LinkedIn or at this email.

October 12, 2022

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Podcast with John Prisco, President and CEO of Safe Quantum - Quantum Computing Report

Intel Corp.s two primary research organizations, Intel Labs and Components Research, announced today that theyre making big progress as they work toward large-scale production of quantum computing processors.

At the 2022 Silicon Quantum Electronics Workshop in Orford, Quebec, Intels researchers said that theyve been able to demonstrate the highest reported yield and uniformity rate when manufacturing silicon spin qubit devices at the companys transistor research and development facility. The research is believed to be a key milestone for Intel as it moves toward being able to fabricate quantum computing chips on its existing transistor manufacturing processes.

Intel is a key player in the race to build quantum computers, which are more advanced machines that encode data as qubits, as opposed to the conventional bits used in traditional computers. The advantage of qubits is theyre not restricted to states of 1 or 0. They can also exist as both states at the same time, a characteristic thats known as superposition.

Thats thanks to the quirks of quantum physics. Intel likens qubits to a coin that could be heads, tails or spinning nonstop. While the coin is spinning, it can be considered as head and tail at the same time.

As Intel explains further, if a spinning coin is able to represent two states at once, then two spinning coins can represent four states: HH, TT, HT, TH. From there, the possibilities expand rapidly, with three spinning coins able to represent eight states.

Whats important to understand is that qubits ability to represent multiple states makes them vastly more powerful than traditional bits. As such, the more qubits there are in a quantum computer, the more capable the machine will be.

Whats surprising is that, as magical as these qubits might seem, theyre actually manufactured in the same way as traditional computer chips. Theyre produced on silicon wafers as spin qubits, with the biggest difference being that theyre much more fragile. They can only exist at incredibly low temperatures to maintain their stability.

Until now, most research processes have focused on creating one quantum chip at a time. Thats what Intel has done differently, instead using existing extreme ultraviolet lithography techniques to create a typical 300-millimeter wafer packed with multiple quantum chips. According to Intel, its prototypes demonstrate the strongest uniformity thus far, with a yield rate of around 95%.

An image from Intels cryoprober during automation shows the quantum qubit devices at 1.6 Kelvin, where quantum dots can be formed in all 16 locations (four sensors and 12 qubit locations) and tuned to the last (single) electron without requiring engineer input. These results, enabled by Intel-fabricated device uniformity and repeatability, were collected across the entire wafer. The system is continually operated to generate the largest set of quantum dot device data reported to date.

Intel Director of Quantum Hardware James Clarke said the research shows that the idea of fabricating quantum chips on the companys existing transistor process nodes is a sound strategy that will deliver results as the technology matures.

Because Intel has achieved higher yield and uniformity versus earlier chips, it can now use statistical process control techniques to identify areas of the fabrication process that can be optimized. In this way, it can accelerate its research efforts and hopefully scale one day to mass-produce thousands or even millions of qubits for commercial quantum computers.

In the future, we will continue to improve the quality of these devices and develop larger scale systems, with these steps serving as building blocks to help us advance quickly, Clarke said.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said Intel is desperate to keep making waves in terms of semiconductor innovation, even if those advances come in more obscure areas such as quantum computing. Achieving quality and high yields is key for all computer chip production, and it looks as if Intel has made a key breakthrough in terms of the quality and reliability of mass produced quantum chips, he said. Intel deserves congratulations for its work, emerging as an early leader in the development of new chip platforms that will likely be crucial in the not-so-distant future.

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Intel hits major milestone as it moves toward mass production of quantum computer chips - SiliconANGLE News