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Digital transformation modernizes businesses, ball in your court – Daily News

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

The past few years have seen accelerated rates of digital transformation across almost every industry and sector. Spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, a broad swathe of industries across the globe saw a decades worth of transformation in a matter of months. That momentum has continued beyond the pandemic too. But if the benefits of digital transformation are to continue accruing, then carriers and operators must keep evolving.

But, what is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers. Its also a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and get comfortable with failure.

They are, after all, enablers of so much of the infrastructure thats crucial to digital transformation. Aside from connectivity, things like cloud services and the Internet of Things (IoT) would be all but impossible without them. They also help ensure that organisations have better security and data protection, are able to scale flexibly, and can more easily collaborate with various technology providers, businesses, and startups to foster innovation.

Why does digital transformation matter?

A business may take on digital transformation for several reasons. But by far, the most likely reason is that they have to: Its a survival issue. Here, improving the customer experience is a top priority at most organizations. Digital transformation efforts rely on digital technology to convert customer insight into customer-centric products and services. This helps organizations to better engage customers and gain even more value for the business.

In a nutshell, digital transformation can help businesses save costs by reducing manual labor, streamlining processes and improving productivity. For example, by adopting cloud storage, businesses can save on hardware costs and reduce the need for physical storage.

Put in another way, it enables businesses to modernize legacy processes, accelerate efficient workflows, strengthen security, and increase profitability.

It changes the way an organization operates. Systems, processes, workflow, and culture are all part of this process. This transformation affects each level of an organization and brings together data across areas to work together more effectively.

By taking advantage of workflow automation and advanced processing, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), companies can connect the dots on the customer journey in a way that wasnt possible before.

For many companies, the driver for digital transformation is cost-related. Moving data to a public, private, or hybrid cloud environment lowers operational costs. It frees up hardware and software costs while freeing up team members to work on other projects.

As Liu Kang, president of Huawei Global Carrier Marketing & Solution Sales Dept recently explained at MWC Shanghai, In the telecommunication industry, operators have always been the leaders and enablers of digital transformation.

Operators have not only continuously optimised and accumulated their own innovation capabilities during digital transformation, he added, but also enabled digital upgrade in thousands of industries, which has accumulated huge innovation potential.

He backed this up by illustrating how carriers and operators have historically embraced technological shifts and evolved accordingly.

Among consumers, for example, operators have changed from providing simple voice services to providing ubiquitous gigabit and implementing intelligent interaction. For industry, meanwhile, the shift to digital production from office digitalisation to marketing and customer service digitalisation is inseparable from the overflow of capabilities accumulated during carriers digital transformation.

Looking forward, Liu added, it will be important for carriers to build three new capabilities of digital transformation.

The first is the infrastructure layer, which transforms ICT collaboration into the ability to elastic integrate strategic resources.

One of the most intuitive manifestations is that connections are moving from 100 Mbit/s uplink, Gbit/s downlink, and cloud native capabilities to new connections with typical characteristics such as Gbit/s uplink, 10 Gbit/s downlink, and endogenous intelligence, Liu said. On this basis, the combination of network + computing, the requirements of cloud-network synergy, cloud-edge collaboration, and cloud-device synergy are emerging.

The second is the operation layer, which converts massive data into the ability to cope with complex scenarios in an agile manner. From data aggregation, to data aggregation + intelligent support further accelerates data transfer in peoples production and life activities, enables smart operations throughout the entire process and business, and directly doubles experience and efficiency. And the continuous innovation of the model.

The third is the digital service layer, which transforms advantageous services into the ability to quickly stimulate innovation. With digital transformation, operators can fully exploit the advantages of SIM, which is a natural entry point, and provide more innovative digital services.

In order to support this evolution, Huawei has introduced several new product lines aimed at helping carriers transform from Internet service providers to managed service providers and seize new opportunities in digital transformation, thereby driving new growth.

At MWC Shanghai, Steven Zhao, Vice President of Huaweis Data Communication Product Line, stated that Huawei launched its digital managed network solution and products in February 2023, which received positive feedback from carriers around the world. Many of them carried out digitally managed network services (such as Managed LAN, Managed WAN, Managed Security, and Managed DCN) on top of traditional IP private lines and upgraded their transport networks to improve IP private line quality assurance and automation capabilities. This not only enables the rapid growth of these carriers B2B services but also significantly improves enterprise customer experience at lower service costs.

Zhao added that carriers can expand the B2B market by upselling managed services (such as Managed LAN and Managed Security) to existing private line customers, and this will allow carriers to quickly transform from ISPs to MSPs. Huaweis digital managed network solution enables carriers to achieve rapid revenue growth in the B2B market by providing innovative digital transformation solutions for SMEs, accelerating the digital transformation of numerous industries, and promoting social and economic development.

During MWC Shanghai Huawei also launched several products and solutions aimed at building trustworthy data infrastructure that will help carriers better grow and cope with changing industry trends.

Huaweis IT Product Line President Peter Zhou noted that these products and solutions are designed to help overcome the many technical challenges facing carriers currently, including a lack of strong multi-cloud ecosystems, the recent explosion of generative AI apps, and the weak resilience of data. As such, he said, Huawei is focused on helping carriers through these issues by ensuring that theyre equipped to deal with new types of apps, new forms of data, and to build new forms of resilience.

New Apps: Accelerating valuable data acquisition through data paradigms

Carrier-built data centres are currently turning to multi-cloud deployment models. Similarly, enterprises are operating an increasing number of cloud-native apps in their data centres. These changes are increasing the performance and reliability requirements set for industrial container storage. Zhou explained that Huaweis solutions are well-positioned to help carriers adapt to these changes. For example, more than 40 carriers have chosen Huaweis container storage solution.

Generative AI is also being introduced to many parts of carriers businesses, including network operations, customer service, and B2B large language model (LLM) training. This is changing the data paradigm and storage architecture. Faced with the exponential increase of LLM parameters and data, time-consuming data preprocessing, and unstable training process, the Huawei AI storage solution uses cutting-edge technologies like efficient backup and recovery of checkpoints, channel-associated data processing, and vectorized indexing to accelerate data preprocessing, powering the LLM training that houses trillions of parameters.

New Data: Resolving problems from data gravity with intelligent data fabric

In addition to having to handle new types of apps, data centres are also facing new challenges thanks to surges in data volume. In the past, cloud data centres mainly used an integrated server architecture that couples apps with local disks. Now, this method is resulting in wasted resources, poor performance, and low reliability. It also limits carriers ability to expand flexibly.

The explosive increase in data has also resulted in severe increases in data gravity, which makes data more difficult to access or move from distant systems or locations. Zhou explained that Huawei is tackling this issue by using an intelligent data fabric that provides unified global data views and scheduling functions across multiple systems, regions, and clouds.

New Resilience: Building intrinsic storage resilience capabilities

The final area Zhou said Huawei was trying to tackle was storage resilience. While traditional data security systems focused on preventing disruption from physical threats, like natural disasters, they are struggling to deal with the increase in human threats that are plaguing the digital world, like ransomware and malicious attacks. To tackle this issue, Huawei created the ransomware protection storage solution which ensures multi-layer protection and intrinsic storage resilience, building the last line of defense for data security. Up to now, more than 50 strategic customers have chosen the solution of Huawei.

All of these solutions have applications in East African countries, such as Tanzania and Kenya. While the latter in particular has long been a leader in the African technology space and last year was ranked the second-most digitally mature country on the continent after South Africa.

Its carriers and operators are also relatively mature and therefore well-placed to adapt and evolve to the latest digital transformation requirements of the business sector. Doing so will also be critical when it comes to ensuring growth both among their customers and the broader economy.

As Liu said in anticipation of the future: A new wave of intelligent digital era is coming and Huawei will continue to work with the industry to continuously promote digital transformation and accelerate the transformation of innovation potential into industry development momentum.

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Digital transformation modernizes businesses, ball in your court - Daily News

I wish I’d had the Nextbase iQ Smart Dash Cam when my car got … – TechRadar

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

Our car got written off quite recently and, while there were thankfully no injuries, the incident was very stressful. Someone rear-ended us at around 30-40mph while our car was stopped at traffic lights. It tore the rear drivers side wheel off our car and did the same thing to the front wheel of the car being driven by the person who hit us.

Weve got no idea what they were doing because we didnt have a rear-facing dash cam fitted. In retrospect, I really wish we'd made the time to fit one. We did, however, have a front-facing model in the car and it captured the whole thing including being pushed right across the two-lane urban carriageway until the car was almost touching the kerb.

It all happened so fast and, once you've got over the initial shock it's still easy to forget capturing obvious things, like taking pictures or recording what is said. That's why having a dash cam makes an awful lot of sense. Even more so if you've got the new Nextbase iQ model, because it's a new breed of 'smart' dash cam that does all of the work for you, compiling all of that invaluable data and pushing it to the cloud for safe keeping.

Luckily, after the crash, we had the good sense to remove the media card from our older dash cam, which contained the footage of the accident. But what if we'd been hospitalized and couldn't retrieve it? Even getting to our car after it had been towed to a pound in order to remove personal effects turned out to be problematical. So it's scarily easy to be parted from your evidence, and that is definitely not a good thing.

I therefore think it's a great idea to have a cloud-based dash cam that can be worked remotely using an app. It offers much more reassurance. Were still waiting the outcome of the insurance findings, but you would hope with the footage we submitted supplemented by the shocked audio captured in our car, would prove conclusive.

Since then, Ive taken owning a dash cam a lot more seriously than I used to. Talking to a group of motoring journalists recently, there seemed to be mixed feelings about owning one. As they quite rightly pointed out, a dash cam might be great at catching events that affect you but arent your fault. Equally though, they can incriminate you, the driver too if youre in the wrong. A fair point, I guess.

Thats where the new Nextbase iQ Smart Dash Cam might make people who arent convinced about these things even more nervous. The latest model from the British company does it all, from scanning the road ahead and capturing events through to offering up a view of the cabin of your car and its occupants too. Spend a little more and you can also add on the rear-facing camera and connect everything up, so youve got a one-stop safety and security solution.

Being this well covered when it comes to being in your car along with when youre not thanks to remote vehicle monitoring by the iQ seems like a great idea on the whole.

Getting setup and ready to go is straightforward enough, too. Nextbase has launched the iQ app and thats available as of now. All you need to do is download it and work your way through the steps. After launching it you simply work through the various screens before pressing continue. Initially it advises not to fix the iQ dash cam to your screen for simplifying the setup procedure.

Youll need to find your ODB port in the car too, which will be slightly different if youre used to plugging a dash cam into the 12-volt power supply in your car. The ODB port is generally found under the dash, usually on the drivers side of the car but if youre stuck Nextbase advises checking your owners manual.

Once located, you plug the connector from the dash cam into this port, which only goes in one way. This gives your dash cam its power and the design of the unit means this is effectively an always on solution, hence the constant remote monitoring it offers.

If youre not keen on doing this, Nextbase also includes a hardwiring kit inside the box allowing you or a trained professional, the option of creating a more permanent connection. This route is perhaps less ideal if you have more than one vehicle and plan to transfer the iQ from one car to the other.

In order to gain access to remote Live View, you need to have one of the Nextbase subscription packages - you get two months free if paying annually. This is worth doing if you want to benefit from the extra features including event notifications, Smart Sense Parking Security and Witness mode. Theres the convenience of cloud storage and also the ability to carry out remote downloads.

The app itself is nicely laid out, with Live View, History and More tabs along the bottom that let you access core features. Up at the top there are Events, Library and Downloads tabs that are self-explanatory. One of the most appealing aspects of the Nextbase iQ is that it seems future-proof too, thanks to over-the-air-updates that will help keep it relevant over time.

Nextbase says that it will be offering at least three new features towards the end of the year. First up is Guardian Mode, which notifies you when a family member or friend is using your vehicle, or if its travelled beyond agreed boundaries when left with a mechanic. Youll even be able to add restrictions to things like speed and heavy braking.

Voice Control is the next feature that looks interesting in that youll be able to place calls, control smart home devices and get directions, all directly via the Nextbase iQ. Topping it all off is another key feature in the shape of Roadwatch AI, which tracks the speed and trajectory of other vehicles around you. There's not much else out there currently that comes close to the Nextbase iQ in terms of specification muscle.

While completing my Nextbase iQ review I found that setting the camera up and using the app, along with its extensive list of features was generally very straightforward. Video and audio quality is excellent, as you'd expect from this brand, and the way you can view clips, share them and generally get help when you need it is all very impressive. One of the best aspects, at least in my own personal experience, is that a lot of the help and assistance is done by the camera and app automatically.

Based on our experience having the aforementioned accident, you're not always thinking clearly after a crash. So to have the benefit of a smart camera doing its thing in the background is well worth the outlay. It's one less thing to worry about and, if you're unlucky enough to have an accident or car-related incident, that provides a great deal of reassurance, even if that service comes with a subscription cost.

Use Fundamental Analysis in Crypto Investing: The "Get Rich Slowly" Approach – Decrypt

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

Earn a free on-chain NFT by taking our free course,Crypto Investing: Fundamentals First. Decrypt will cover gas fees for the first 10,000 mints!

Fundamental analysis eschews the analysis of price charts (technical analysis) by looking at a broad set of indicators as well as some well reasoned but somewhat subjective judgements of industry analysts. Before introducing how fundamental analysis relates to crypto investing, lets look at how fundamental analysis is used in traditional investing spaces.

For stock market investors, fundamental analysts look for stocks that are trading below their fair market value, which means stocks that are trading for less than analysts perceive the company to be worth; this means that the current market cap (the number of stocks multiplied by the current price) is less than the analysts believe it is worth.

For example, lets say a company has 5 million shares that are trading for $20 each. This equates to a market cap of $100 million. If analysts believe the company should actually be fairly valued at $140 million, this would equate to a stock price of $28 per share and would be a buying opportunity. Or, if they determined that the fair market value was $80 million dollars, this would equate to a share price of $16. This could also be taken advantage of by shorting the stock or selling it if you already have it in your portfolio (in the belief the price will drop). Investing based on fundamental analysis assumes the market eventually realizes that a stock is not valued correctly and adjusts the price accordingly.

Fundamental analysis predicts price movements over a longer time frame, while technical analysis tends to favor short-term price movement predictions.

If fundamental analysts determine that the current stock price seems to accurately reflect the companys value (in this case they believe it is valued around $100 million), there is no actionable investing play. In this case, they would likely move on in order to see if there is an opportunity to profit off a different company that is overvalued or undervalued.

In general, fundamental analysis predicts price movements over a longer time frame (sometimes years), while technical analysis tends to favor short-term price movement predictions. When it comes to stock investing, metrics to consider include: the outlook of the industry (where the stock is), the state of the economy in general (bullish or bearish), the performance of the stock in question (earnings per share, profitability, and so on), and the quarterly and annual reports given by the company in question.

The use of hard numbers and metrics is called quantitative fundamental analysis. Using these standardized measurements is a core part of fundamental analysis, but there is another side to these longer term price predictions that utilizes what is known as qualitative fundamental analysis.

More subjective and less tangible in some respects, qualitative fundamental analysis measures the quality of a company by looking at its name recognition, leadership team, organizational structure, and other market differentiators such as more advanced or patented technology or products. While quantitative analysis is more of a science, qualitative analysis is more of an art. In general, it is often suggested to combine both types of fundamental analysis to get a clearer investing picture.

Fundamental analysts in the crypto sector use similar methods, but must rely on different data sets and qualitative measures. With no quarterly reports and blurred industry designations, these crypto analysts must look at other indicators. When it comes to quantitative analysis, looking at the tokenomics (covered in our previous article) is a good place to start. From there, you may want to delve into qualitative analysis by looking at the core team, early investors, the whitepaper, previous project accomplishments, and the trajectory of the upcoming roadmap and their chances of success.

Opinions can certainly be mixed when analyzing some of these characteristics. Lets take the leader or team of a project. Some analysts value a public and open team of well known individuals with past success. On the other hand, other analysts may value a leaderless project that may have a pseudonymous or anonymous team or no leader at all.

For example, Bitcoin doesnt have a headquarters, board of directors, or even a known founder. While Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, no one knows who this person or group is. For analysts that may be concerned about the legal or regulatory risks that come with a crypto company or team, this could actually be considered a positive not a negative. In keeping with this, other analysts may prefer the governance of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) over the centralized decision-making of a small team.

In much the same way that you wouldnt compare CocaCola with Ford or McDonalds with SpaceX (but you would compare Ford with Tesla), you need to separate crypto projects by their intended use cases and their relevant sectors. Use cases for the blockchain include: cryptocurrency, oracles, decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, AI, decentralized storage, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, and much more.

Once categories are established, you need to try to answer the following questions

Of course, the questions are the easy part of the test. The answers are what require some work; they get graded as time goes on and ones predictions are validated or proven wrong. When it comes to crypto, many of these sectors are expected to gain market share from centralized alternatives. Lets look at cloud storage as an example.

The cloud storage market was valued around $90 billion in 2022 and is expected to surpass $300 billion by 2028. The crypto sectors decentralized storage market is currently valued at around $4.75 billion. If you believe that decentralized cloud storage options will gain market share from centralized cloud storage alternatives in this burgeoning industry, you may want to crunch some numbers to see if investing in this sector makes sense.

Popular options for decentralized cloud storage include Filecoin, Arweave, and Storj. If you believe they are undervalued, you may want to select ones that you believe have the most promise, are undervalued relative to their competitors, or have higher market penetration. To reduce your risk, you may simply want to diversify your exposure into a number of these projects.

Likewise, many make price predictions for BTC using these questions:

Many of the longer term BTC price predictions utilize fundamental analysis to calculate a variety of prices ($100,000, $250,000, or $1,000,000/BTC) at a variety of future dates. These numbers are generally not picked out of thin air; they are backed up by fundamental analysis. Of course, the difference in how you answer some of these key questions about BTC accounts for the large price disparities in these predictions.

Oftentimes, this analysis must accurately weigh BTCs fundamental or intrinsic value. For BTC proponents, some view this technology as revolutionary and almost priceless. For crypto skeptics (Peter Schiff, Warren Buffet), many see BTC and other cryptocurrencies as being worthless and posit that they have no inherent or intrinsic value. Many fall between these two extreme viewpoints in some sort of fundamentally analysis-derived middle ground.

Knowing the core concepts about fundamental analysis can help you make more informed investing decisions. This may allow you to understand the rationale of price predictions given by experts or to even make your own rough estimations on future price movements. Ultimately, the decision is up to you on how to assess the value of this burgeoning and dynamic space. While many have predicted the fall of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the crypto ecosystem writ large, it is still continuing to be a major economic powerhouse with a combined market cap in excess of $1 trillion (down from a high of nearly $3 trillion in 2021).

As the crypto market is still nascent and very volatile, you may want to strongly consider reading and listening to the fundamental analysis of crypto experts and analysts. While it is often quite difficult to predict the crypto prices in shorter time horizons (days, weeks, and even months), using fundamental analysis can help you predict the future price of these assets in 510 years provided the analysis is done correctly and the critical assumptions become reality.

Disclaimer: This investing series is strictly for informational and entertainment purposes. It should not be construed as financial or investment advice. Do not invest based on price prediction tools or forecasts laid out in this series. Please consult an investing professional or financial planner if you feel you need investment guidance.

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Use Fundamental Analysis in Crypto Investing: The "Get Rich Slowly" Approach - Decrypt

Western Digital sees shoots of growth after HDD winter Blocks and … – Blocks and Files

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

Following another low revenue quarter at Seagate, Western Digital disk sales were also depressed but flash bucked the downcycle trend, and WD thinks the disk market is bottoming out.

Western Digital revenue for Q1 of its fiscal 2024 ended September 29 was $2.75 billion, down 26 percent year-on-year, with a net loss of $685 million compared to a $27 million net profit a year earlier.

CEO David Goeckeler said: Western Digitals fiscal first quarter results exceeded our expectations [with] sequential margin improvement across flash and HDD businesses. Our Consumer and Client end markets continue to perform well and we now expect our Cloud end market to grow going forward.

Looking at the revenues by media type, disk revenues were $1.19 billion, down 30.8 percent annually, while flash revenues came in at $1.56 billion, up 9.6 percent.

Cloud media revenues have fallen so much for five quarters in a row that they are now below client device sales and risk sliding below consumer device sales:

Financial summary

Cloud revenues were depressed due to lower nearline hard drive shipments to datacenter customers than last quarter and declines in both disk and SSD datacenter shipments year-over-year.

WD shipped 10.4 million drives, 29.3 percent down year-over-year, and exabyte shipments declined 5 percent from last quarter. Cloud market buyers bought 5.3 million units, down 38.4 percent year-over-year; client buyers 2.6 million, down 23.5 percent annually; and consumer buyers 2.5 million drives, just 7.4 percent down. The Chinese market was also subdued.

The average selling price per drive was $112 vs $125 a year ago, and higher than in each of the preceding three quarters.

The 26TB UltraSMR drive accounted for nearly half of Western Digital nearline exabyte shipments. WD says its on track with qualification of its 28TB UltraSMR drive and has a road map into the 40TB capacity range, without transitioning to HAMR technology.

Goeckeler said: HAMR is in development. Its going well, and well be able to fold that into our road map at the appropriate time. But for now, weve got a great road map Were leading the adoption of SMR into the cloud data center. And we have many more generations to go on our current road map, and then well move to HAMR at the appropriate time when its mature and we can build it at scale.

A comparison of Seagate and Western Digital HDD revenues over the past few quarters show WD is a near-permanent second placed player:

In theearnings call, Gockeler said: Industry analysts estimate the HDD addressable market to grow at approximately 12 percent compound annual growth rate to $25 billion over the next three years, with cloud representing over 90 percent of the total addressable market. This is quite different from the Pure Storage view that no new disk drives will be sold after 2028.

WD says it had record flash bit shipments, up 49 percent annually, and is ramping a set of client SSD products using 172-layer, QLC (4bits/cell) NAND for shipment in calendar 2024, with a 232-layer NAND product set to follow that.

Goeckeler said: Industry analysts forecast the flash market to grow at approximately 15 percent compounded annual growth rate over the next three years to $89 billion in calendar year 2025. We believe content increases in the consumer and client end markets, as well as explosive growth of data created in the cloud by emerging applications such as generative AI, virtual reality, and autonomous driving, are driving a faster growth in flash versus HDD.

He pointed to the strength of the SanDisk consumer flash brand and WDs gaming market presence (Black brand SSDs), but did not mention enterprise and cloud (hyperscaler) flash drives, a weak area for WD flash.

An analyst asked: What is the team doing to improve its competitiveness in its enterprise and cloud SSD portfolio?

Goeckeler responded: Well, we like the portfolio we have. We qualified our NVMe-based enterprise SSD at multiple cloud providers. And unfortunately, we qualified right into a significant downturn in cloud consumption of enterprise SSDs. So, as that starts to come back over the next several quarters and as we go through 24, we expect our position to improve as those vendors start consuming again. I mean, the reality is theres just not a lot of buying in that market going on right now.

He said the enterprise SSD market is relatively depressed and we had qualifications at multiple hyperscalers. Those products are still active. Were migrating them forward to future nodes, and we expect those to ramp as that market recovers.

He noted that flash pricing is beginning to rise, a signal that the flash recession may be ending, supported by consumer and client SSD sales.

The flash business results were overshadowed by WDs declaration it is set to spin off its flash business next year.

Goeckeler said: We are now emerging from a historic storage cyclical downturn As we progress through fiscal year 24, we see an improving market environment in both businesses, meaning HDD and NAND/SSD. Specifically for disk, he said: We think this past quarter was the bottom And we see improving demand as we move throughout the fiscal year on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

The outlook for the WDs Q2 is revenues of $2.95 billion +/- $100 million, a 5.1 percent fall from a year ago at the mid-point a much lower revenue decline rate than we have become used to over the past few quarters. Things are looking up.

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Western Digital sees shoots of growth after HDD winter Blocks and ... - Blocks and Files

The National Quantum Computing Centre Signs Agreement with IBM to Provide Quantum Computing Access to UK … – IBM Newsroom

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

OXFORDSHIRE, U.K.,November 2, 2023 The National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) today announces an agreement with IBM for the center to provide UK researchers with cloud access to IBM Quantums Premium Plan, including IBMs fleet of quantum computing systems, with the aim to drive new research directions based on the use of quantum computing. Through this initiative, and by joining the IBM Quantum Network, the NQCC further spearheads their vision toenable the UK to solve some of the most complex and challenging problems facing society by harnessing the potential of quantum computing.

The NQCC is a co-sponsored program by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Its objective is to drive new research horizons by serving the UK academic, research, and public sector communities to enable proof-of-concept projects, feasibility studies and discovery-led science.

Providing quantum computing access is an important step in contributing towards the national effort, NQCC Director, Dr Michael Cuthbert said. The agreement with IBM will enable the NQCC to provide utility-scale quantum computing resources for the UKs vibrant research community, which will open up new avenues of fundamental and applied research, with the prospect of boosting the development of novel technologies and drive new discoveries.

IBM Quantum offers users access to utility-scale processors with more than 100 qubits. These systems deliver performance capable of serving as scientific tools to explore an expanded scale of problems that classical systems may never be able to solve.

Organizations that collaborate with the NQCC will have the opportunity to access quantum computers which, as shown in recently published research, are capable of accurately modeling a physical system in nature beyond leading classical approaches, said Dr. Scott Crowder, Vice President, Adoption and Business Development, IBM Quantum. This quantum utility gives our users the ability to explore hard problems and to begin extracting real value.

Aligned with the recently publishedNational Quantum Strategyand the commitment of 2.5 billion of investment, the NQCC as a national lab is committed to working with organizations across government, industry and the research community, to support the delivery of quantum computing capabilities for the UK and build the user community for quantum computing.

The centerseeks to enable the UK to become a quantum-ready nation and take full advantage of the benefits that quantum computing can offer, by supporting the UK-based organizations.It will help to boost access to quantum computing resources for UK-based users and further catalyze itsSparQ user engagement program enabling the user journey from awareness to advocacy.

NQCCs mission complements STFCs other long-term partnership with IBM: the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation programme, which applies AI, data science, high performance computing (HPC), and quantum computing for the benefit UK industry and the public sector.

Where NQCCs mission is to enable the UK to solve some of the most complex and challenging problems facing society by harnessing the potential of quantum computing, the Hartree Centre and IBM aim to help UK organizations to develop and adopt innovative solutions from the core technologies and apply them to challenges in areas including engineering, materials development, life sciences, energy and environment.

There are, therefore, many opportunities for both centers, the NQCC and the Hartree Centre, to collaborate and support UK industry at different stages of the adoption and innovation journey to fully prepare and futureproof the UK economy to gain maximum benefit from quantum computing.

About the NQCC

The NQCC is a new research institution funded through UKRI, which is dedicated to accelerating the development of quantum computing by addressing the challenges of scalability. Working with partners across industry, government and the research community, the NQCC is creating the necessary R&D capabilities through co-ordination and delivery of a technical programme, alongside the commissioning and operation of new facilities. The programme will deliver assured quantum computing capability, enabling the UK to remain internationally competitive. The centre will be headquartered in a purpose-built facility at the STFCs Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Campus in Oxfordshire, which is due for completion in 2024.

About IBM

IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

Visit http://www.ibm.com for more information.

Media contact:

Soma DeshprabhuCommunications Managersoma.deshprabhu@stfc.ac.uk

John GalvezIBM CommunicationsJohn.Galvez@uk.ibm.com+44 7734 104275

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The National Quantum Computing Centre Signs Agreement with IBM to Provide Quantum Computing Access to UK ... - IBM Newsroom

New technologies on show at Quantum Showcase as Science … – GOV.UK

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

The Science Minister George Freeman will today (Thursday 2 November) outline the recipients of over 14 million in funding, aimed at benefiting the UKs thriving quantum sector.

At the UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase, taking place in London today, Minister Freeman will set out how the government is continuing with its vision to become a quantum-enabled economy by 2023.

The showcase will present the latest in ground-breaking applications of the technology which will potentially revolutionise many aspects of life in the UK. Quantum technologies could bring enormous benefits to the economy, such as making it possible to solve complex problems impossible to solve with even the most powerful high-performance classical computers, and opening entirely new frontiers in sensing, timing, imaging, and communications.

The event, which last year welcomed over 1,000 delegates, with 67 exhibitors from 34 different countries, is organised by National Quantum Technologies Programme, which was established in 2014 and backed by 1 billion of government funding.

The National Quantum Strategy, published in March 2023, commits a further 2.5 billion to developing quantum technologies in the UK over the 10 years from 2024 which will aim to generate at least an additional 1 billion of private investment into the programme.

The announcements made today will include:

George Freeman MP, Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said:

We have identified Quantum as one of the 5 transformational technologies in which the UK is a global leader, which is why we have set out a 2.5 billion 10 year industrial strategy to support the quantum sector here in the UK. Quantum is set to transform computing, imaging and sensing, cyber security and position, navigation and timing with major industrial applications from drug discovery to defence, fintech, and much more. That is why I am here today at the Quantum Showcase to announce this package of UK funding and programmes.

Our partnership between the National Quantum Computing Centre and IBM will provide cloud quantum computing access for companies, agencies, national labs and other organisations to help boost UK quantum computing infrastructure. Our 30 million quantum testbed programme will build the worlds first quantum computing testbed to assess and benchmark machines. Our funding for collaborative programmes with the Netherlands and Canada is a sign of our commitment to develop global quantum standards and networks.

This is an exciting day for the UK quantum sector.

Quantum technologies one of the governments 5 critical technologies are devices and systems using quantum mechanics to provide capabilities that classical machines like binary computers cannot.

The technology already offers possible solutions to some of our greatest challenges in society and provide future capabilities that are yet to be explored. These technologies hold the potential to tackle intricate problems that currently surpass the capacities of even the most advanced classical computers and will allow us to reach new frontiers in sensing, timing, imaging, and communications. Over the next 10 years, quantum technologies are expected to revolutionise many aspects of life in the UK and bring enormous benefits such as helping to grow our economy and create well-paid jobs across the country one of the Prime Ministers 5 priorities.

The National Quantum Strategy sets out a bold and ambitious approach to supporting quantum technologies in the UK across the broad spectrum of quantum computing, sensing, timing, imaging and communications. It shows how the UK will develop its strengths across different hardware platforms, software and components, and reinforce our capabilities throughout the supply chains.

Just last month, Secretary of State Michelle Donelan opened PsiQuantums new state-of-the-art research and development (R&D) facility at Sci-Tech Daresbury, which is supported with 9 million from the government. In June, Minister Freeman announced 45 million in funding to support universities and businesses working in the UKs quantum technologies sector.

As part of the Innovate UK led Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition, 6 projects have been awarded 10.6 million to accelerate the development of components and systems for quantum network technologies.

These technologies will transform the way in which we distribute, secure, and process our information to meet the challenges of a communication network that is growing in capacity and complexity as our economy becomes increasingly underpinned by data. The funding will assist in the delivery of deployable prototypes into the hands of customers, building the UKs leadership in this emerging global market.

The projects chosen to receive funding include delivering modular systems for connecting quantum processors into networks at scale and developing high-bandwidth quantum-secure communications between satellite and ground networks, they are set to conclude in 2025.

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in collaboration with government and industry partners, will launch a UK Quantum Standards Network Pilot. This pilot network builds on the commitments made in the National Quantum Strategy which recognises the importance of technical standards to support the global commercialisation of quantum technology. The pilot network will ensure the UK is at the forefront of establishing global standards for quantum. It will provide a focal point on standards for UK industry and develop initial plans for industry outreach, standard development road mapping and international engagement, helping overcome barriers to the realisation of the potential of quantum technologies.

The aim of the pilot network is to evolve into a centre that coordinates the UKs engagement with global standards, ensuring that the UK continues to be at the forefront of the quantum revolution. NPL will collaborate with the British Standards Institution (BSI), the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), UKQuantum, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) on the pilot network.

The UK has signed two new quantum agreements with Australia and the Netherlands to help harness the constant creation of new knowledge, understanding and insights from our innovation ecosystems. International partnerships will play a crucial role in delivering the UKs ambitions for quantum technologies as set out within the National Quantum Strategy. The UK has already signed agreements with the US and Canada which set out areas for closer cooperation covering research and development, commercialisation, investment and skills.

Australia is a key partner and agreeing to closer working on quantum will also build on opportunities presented through the Free Trade Agreement and existing science and technology links, such as the Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership.

The Netherlands have a strong history and culture of technology and the agreement will see a deepening of the collaboration on science and innovation between the 2 countries. It will also support efforts in both countries to develop ethical and governance principles for the responsible use of quantum technology, for the benefit of society as a whole.

Collaboration between key international partners will be essential to build mutual capabilities and to grow industrial opportunities within quantum technologies. Alongside the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), Innovate UK is investing 4.2 million in 11 projects to strengthen collaborative research and development through Canada-UK partnerships.

This funding will help to develop real-world quantum technologies for commercial use in networking, sensing, and scalable solutions to quantum computing, alongside developing the supply chain.

The NQCC will provide assured quantum computing access to UK-based organisations to drive the research and development work that may benefit from the technology. This reflects the NQCCs vision to enable the UK to solve some of the most complex and challenging problems facing society by harnessing the potential of quantum computing. To deliver this, the NQCC will have multiple quantum service providers to enable the growth of the UKs quantum computing user community, with access to a wide range of state-of-the-art quantum machines.

The objective is to drive new research horizons and serve the UK research community to enable proof-of-concept projects, feasibility studies and discovery-led science. As a part of the initiative, the NQCC will engage with IBM Corporation to provide UK-based quantum computing users priority access to the full fleet of IBMs quantum machines. Aligned with the recently published National Quantum Strategy, and the commitment of 2.5 billion of investment, the NQCC remains committed to working with organisations across government, industry and the research community, to support the delivery of assured quantum computing capabilities for the UK and build the user community for quantum computing.

The centre seeks to enable the UK to become a quantum-ready nation and take full advantage of the benefits that quantum computing can offer, by supporting the UK-based organisations.

The NQCCs first facility, the NQCC Innovation Hub, is now ready to start hosting the development and operation of quantum computing testbeds.

The NQCC is investing 30 million in projects that will deliver a series of quantum computing testbeds, based on different hardware architectures by March 2025. The prototypes that come from the competition, which is being delivered by Innovate UK, will accelerate the development of scalable quantum computers by enabling detailed characterisation and benchmarking of early-stage machines.

In establishing these quantum testbeds, the NQCC is aiming to fill a gap between lab-based experimentation in academia and the growing number of commercial quantum computers that have been built around proprietary technologies. The availability of testbeds will provide an experimental framework for ongoing efforts to develop methodologies for testing, and validating, the performance of quantum computers, which so far have largely relied on theoretical approaches. The initial response to the expression-of-interest call has shown that developers can see the value in opening up their platforms within the protected environment offered by the NQCC. The competition results will be announced in early 2024.

Small Business Research Initiative competition - Quantum Networks, Enabling Components & Systems list of projects:

Canada - UK Commercialising Quantum Technology Programme list of projects:

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New technologies on show at Quantum Showcase as Science ... - GOV.UK

Is quantum computing the future of drug discovery? – Labiotech.eu

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

In this episode, we explore the synergy of quantum computing and drug discovery with the chief scientific officer and co-founder of Qubit Pharmaceuticals, Jean-Philip Piquemal.

Qubit Pharmaceuticals was founded in 2020 with the vision of co-developing, with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, new, more effective, and safer drugs. The company uses its Atlas platform to discover new drugs through simulation and molecular modeling.

The company uses a supercomputer, Gaia, created in collaboration with artificial intelligence provider Nvidia.

Piquemal said the company is a digital pharma, meaning it doesnt have wet labs and instead uses computers to predict new drugs. By doing this, Piquemal said the company hopes to discover new drugs for various diseases more quickly.

Piquemal said Atlas is the companys computational platform that is capable of doing many different types of computation.

We dont have a lab where people are doing some synthesis, but they are performing computation on their screens, Piquemal said.

They can visualize the molecules. They can modify the molecules. And they can compute a lot of properties towards the idea that we will see in the computer the drug interacting with its target. So, its like a Swiss knife with hundreds of different methods and very strong computational capabilities to be able to handle the largest supercomputers.

Piquemal said the dilemma for pharma companies is that, while they find a lot of drugs, there may be difficulties synthesizing them, or the cost may be too high. They may show toxicity, or have side effects, but rarely is this known until the end of the process.

We have a lot of candidates. But with the idea that probably 99.9% of initial ideas will be already validated as failures. So thats exactly what we want to do. We want to fail as much as possible in the computer in order to not fail when we come to the real world.

This computational revolution will really unleash the power of pharma to help a lot more people.

A digital twin, according to Piquemal, is the idea that you will have a computational model that will be as good as the real object.

So, in pharma, usually what we are trying to digitalize as a twin is the target of the drug. And the target of a drug in pharma is a protein. A protein has a 3D structure that you can get from experiments. You need to find a drug and to find its location into this target, Piquemal explained.

When you look at that in terms of surface, its a little bit like the surface of the Moon or the surface of a planet like Mars. There are a lot of different locations. And so the digital twins purpose is to reproduce that in the computer. You can explore the surface of this target to find the best location for the drug. Thats a tough problem, and thats why you need a lot of computation to do this.

The company recently partnered with Pasqal, a quantum computing company, and their project was chosen as one of 12 alongside NASA and Harvard University for the Quantum for Bio program, an offshoot of the Wellcome Trust, which aims to accelerate the use of quantum computing in drug discovery and healthcare by developing applications that will benefit from the arrival of quantum computers within three to five years.

Pasqal and Qubit Pharmaceuticals are the only French consortium to be awarded a prize in this global call for projects. Together with the Unitary Fund, they will receive $4.5 million of the total $40 million awarded.

To delve deeper into this subject, here are some articles to further explore related to this podcast:

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Is quantum computing the future of drug discovery? - Labiotech.eu

Nu Quantum secures 7m to build the networking infrastructure for … – Amadeus Capital Partners

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

The new funding will accelerate Nu Quantums mission to build the entanglement fabric essential to scale quantum computers.

CAMBRIDGE, 2nd NOVEMBER, 2023: Nu Quantum, the Cambridge-based quantum networking company, today announces that it has raised 7m in a pre-series A round. The round is led by Amadeus Capital Partners, Expeditions Fund, and IQ Capital, with increased commitment from Seed investors Ahren Capital; Seraphim Capital; University of Cambridge and Martlet. New investors joining the round include Presidio Ventures backed by Sumitomo Corporation, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), and Deeptech Labs.

Nu Quantum is pioneering the development of scalable quantum networking, essential to delivering useful quantum computing and unlocking the full spectrum of applications that will have a transformative impact on society. Todays quantum computers have limited capabilities because their fundamental building blocks, qubits, are extremely hard to assemble in numbers large enough (~100,000 to ~1M) to solve truly valuable problems.

Rather than try to create a single large core, a more efficient way to proceed is to interconnect many smaller cores, each containing 10s to 1000s of qubits, using a scalable quantum network. Nu Quantums product is a Quantum Networking Unit (QNU) capable of efficiently scaling discrete Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) to form a larger and more useful quantum computer. Nu Quantums technology is interoperable with, and can be applied to, different qubit modalities, and will accelerate the time to market of transformative quantum computing.

This new funding follows a 2.1M seed round completed in September 2020, which jump-started the companys significant expansion and ongoing recruitment activity. It will also deepen key partnerships with academia and corporations and accelerate the availability of robust and deployable systems.

Commenting on the fundraise, Dr. Carmen Palacios, Founder and CEO of Nu Quantum, said:Large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing will bring about the technological revolution of our generation. We have built an exceptional team dedicated to the mission of building the quantum networking infrastructure necessary to make this a reality. We are grateful to the investors who share our vision for their support as we scale and commercialise our solution.

Dr. Manjari Chandran-Ramesh, Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners said:The ability to apply quantum computing at scale is whats needed to unlock the potential of this revolutionary advancement in processing power. Nu Quantums systems architecture approach, driven by quantum entanglement, is unique in the market today and has great commercial potential. Further, its product solution is poised to be able to adapt to any type of qubit technology, which makes the impact far-reaching. We are delighted to grow this partnership and work with new and existing investors on this next exciting chapter of Nu Quantums journey.

Kerry Baldwin, Managing Partner at IQ Capital, said:The important part that networking will play in future quantum systems is clear and Nu Quantum is one of the most technologically advanced quantum networking companies in the world today. We are proud to continue supporting them in realising their vision of a qubit modality-agnostic quantum networking platform. This new funding will allow them to ramp-up work on existing projects and engage with a broad range of commercial partners in the quantum computing ecosystem.

Richard Crosfield, Investment Director at Presidio Ventures Europe, said:Quantum computers are expected to significantly impact many industries, from pharma to financial services, if they can overcome the limitations that arise when increasing the logical qubit count. We believe that the quantum optical networking technology that Nu Quantums fantastic team is building is the most practical solution to address these critical scalability limits, which all manufacturers of quantum computers will be facing very soon.

Mikolaj Firlej, Managing Partner at Expeditions Fund, said:This funding marks an important step for Nu Quantum to build quantum-based networks that transmits quantum bits [qubits] from quantum servers at high-speeds to handle various commercial-grade applications. We were looking for various quantum networking companies, but we believe that Nu Quantum represents the most advanced effort in this space globally. We believe that Carmen and team have the potential to do what Cisco once did for classical computers that is, to build the interconnectivity layer for a new generation of computers.

About Nu QuantumNu Quantum is building the quantum networking infrastructure essential to scaling quantum computers. Quantum computers must go from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of qubits in order to achieve transformational impacts. Our approach is to interconnect many smaller cores using a Quantum Networking Unit (QNU) capable of efficiently scaling discrete Quantum Processing Units (QPU) to form a larger and more useful quantum computer. We are creating full hardware solutions to create entangled qubit networks, including a unique high-speed computer network interface, photonic switching fabric, and control systems to accelerate the roadmap towards multi-core quantum supercomputers and quantum data centres. Partnering with leading QC companies, governments and research groups, we are bringing quantum out of the lab and into real world use.

Media contact for Nu Quantumcomms@nu-quantum.com+44 07840559199

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Nu Quantum secures 7m to build the networking infrastructure for ... - Amadeus Capital Partners

PASQAL Contributes $500,000 CAD ($366K USD) to Create a Research Chair in Quantum Computing at the Universit de Sherbrooke – Quantum Computing Report

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

PASQAL, a global leader in neutral atom quantum computing, is supporting the Faculty of Engineering, Universit de Sherbrooke (UdeS), a leader in education and applied research in Canada, to create a research chair in applied quantum computing. The chair holder will develop quantum software solutions for industry, using PASQALs hardware and technology. PASQAL is setting up a facility to manufacture quantum processors at Espace Quantique 1 of DistriQ Quantum Innovation Zone in Sherbrooke, Canada. This will help accelerate the adoption of neutral atom quantum computing in the North American market. The research chair is part of PASQALs strategy to deliver real-world applications and quantum advantage in the short term. PASQAL is contributing $500,000 CAD to the position, which will be matched by Canadian federal and/or provincial granting agencies. The Faculty of Engineering, UdeS, is known for its collaborative research, technology transfer, and student training. It has several research centers and institutes, including the Interdisciplinary Institute for Technological Innovation (3IT), the Institut quantique (IQ), and the Centre de collaboration MiQro Innovation (C2MI). A press release from PASQAL announcing this support can be viewed here.

November 3, 2023

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PASQAL Contributes $500,000 CAD ($366K USD) to Create a Research Chair in Quantum Computing at the Universit de Sherbrooke - Quantum Computing Report

ParityQC Awarded Contract from DLR to Develop New QC Methods of Molecular Simulation – Quantum Computing Report

November 5, 2023 | Author: admin

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has created a project called QuantiCom (Quantum Computing for Materials Science and Engineering) to research the use of quantum computers for rapid development of new materials. One of the subprojects of this endeavor is called QuantiCom Q2H which is intended to demonstrate the use of quantum computing for performing atomic level simulations of molecules. ParityQC has won a three year contract that goes through 2026 to develop quantum algorithms for performing these simulations and will start with two small molecules, hydrogen and water. Once they have developed a quantum based simulation algorithm, they will then compare the results with current classicalal HPC (high performance computing) methods to determine if the quantum approach can provide better results. It is hoped that the new algorithms resulting from this research can be then applied in the future to the more complex types of materials used in aircraft and spacecraft that are of high interest at DLR. Advances that help development of lighter, stronger, and more durable materials are always welcome in the aerospace industry, particularly if they can also be produced at a lower cost. A press release from ParityQC announcing receipt of the award is available here.

November 3, 2023

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ParityQC Awarded Contract from DLR to Develop New QC Methods of Molecular Simulation - Quantum Computing Report

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Nu Quantum secures 7m to build the networking infrastructure for … – Amadeus Capital Partners

PASQAL Contributes $500,000 CAD ($366K USD) to Create a Research Chair in Quantum Computing at the Universit de Sherbrooke – Quantum Computing Report

ParityQC Awarded Contract from DLR to Develop New QC Methods of Molecular Simulation – Quantum Computing Report

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