Category Archives: Quantum Computing

Northeastern researchers have used a powerful computer model to probe a puzzling class of copper-based materials that can be turned into superconductors. Their findings offer tantalizing clues for a decades-old mystery, and a step forward for quantum computing.

The ability of a material to let electricity flow comes from the way electrons within their atoms are arranged. Depending on these arrangements, or configurations, all materials out there are either insulators or conductors of electricity.

But cuprates, a class of mysterious materials that are made from copper oxides, are famous in the scientific community for having somewhat of an identity issue that can make them both insulators and conductors.

Under normal conditions, cuprates are insulators: materials that inhibit the flow of electrons. But with tweaks to their composition, they can transform into the worlds best superconductors.

The finding of this kind of superconductivity in 1986 won its discoverers a Nobel Prize in 1987, and fascinated the scientific community with a world of possibilities for improvements to supercomputing and other crucial technologies.

But with fascination came 30 years of bewilderment: Scientists have not been able to fully decipher the arrangement of electrons that encodes for superconductivity in cuprates.

Arun Bansil, University Distinguished Professor of physics and Robert Markiewicz, professor of physics, are part of a team of researchers who are describing the mechanism by which copper-oxide materials turn from insulators to superconductors. Credit: Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Mapping the electronic configuration of these materials is arguably one of the toughest challenges in theoretical physics, says Arun Bansil, University Distinguished Professor of physics at Northeastern. And, he says, because superconductivity is a weird phenomenon that only happens at temperatures as low as -300 F (or about as cold as it gets on Uranus), figuring out the mechanisms that make it possible in the first place could help researchers make superconductors that work at room temperature.

Now, a team of researchers that includes Bansil and Robert Markiewicz, a professor of physics at Northeastern, is presenting a new way to model these strange mechanisms that lead to superconductivity in cuprates.

In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team accurately predicted the behavior of electrons as they move to enable superconductivity in a group of cuprates known as yttrium barium copper oxides.

In these cuprates, the study finds, superconductivity emerges from many types of electron configurations. A whopping 26 of them, to be specific.

During this transition phase, the material will, in essence, become some kind of a soup of different phases, Bansil says. The split personalities of these wonderful materials are being now revealed for the first time.

The physics within cuprate superconductors are intrinsically weird. Markiewicz thinks of that complexity as the classical Indian myth of the blind men and the elephant, which has been a joke for decades among theoretical physicists who study cuprates.

According to the myth, blind men meet an elephant for the first time, and try to understand what the animal is by touching it. But because each of them touches only one part of its bodythe trunk, tail, or legs, for examplethey all have a different (and limited) concept of what an elephant is.

In the beginning, we all looked [at cuprates] in different ways, Markiewicz says. But we knew that, sooner or later, the right way was going to show up.

The mechanisms behind cuprates could also help explain the puzzling physics behind other materials that turn into superconductors at extreme temperatures, Markiewicz says, and revolutionize the way they can be used to enable quantum computing and other technologies that process data at ultra-fast speeds.

Were trying to understand how they come together in the real cuprates that are used in experiments, Markiewicz says.

The challenge of modeling cuprate superconductors comes down to the weird field of quantum mechanics, which studies the behavior and movement of the tiniest bits of matterand the strange physical rules that govern everything at the scale of atoms.

In any given materialsay, the metal in your smartphoneelectrons contained within just the space of a fingertip could amount to the number one followed by 22 zeros, Bansil says. Modeling the physics of such a massive number of electrons has been extremely challenging ever since the field of quantum mechanics was born.

Bansil likes to think of this complexity as butterflies inside a jar flying fast and cleverly to avoid colliding with each other. In a conducting material, electrons also move around. And because of a combination of physical forces, they also avoid each other. Those characteristics are at the core of what makes it hard to model cuprate materials.

The problem with the cuprates is that they are at the border between being a metal and an insulator, and you need a calculation that is so good that it can systematically capture that crossover, Markiewicz says. Our new modeling can capture this behavior.

The team includes researchers from Tulane University, Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland, and Temple University. The researchers are the first to model the electronic states in the cuprates without adding parameters by hand to their computations, which physicists have had to do in the past.

To do that, the researchers modeled the energy of atoms of yttrium barium copper oxides at their lowest levels. Doing that allows researchers to trace electrons as they excite and move around, which in turn helps describe the mechanisms supporting the critical transition into superconductivity.

That transition, known as the pseudogap phase in the material, could be described simply as a door, Bansil says. In an insulator, the structure of the material is like a closed door that lets no one through. If the door is wide openas it would be for a conductorelectrons pass through easily.

But in materials that experience this pseudogap phase, that door would be slightly open. The dynamics of what transforms that door into a really wide open door (or, superconductor) remains a mystery, but the new model captures 26 electron configurations that could do it.

With our ability to now do this first-principles-parameter-free-type of modeling, we are in a position to actually go further, and hopefully begin to understand this pseudogap phase a bit better, Bansil says.

Reference: Competing stripe and magnetic phases in the cuprates from first principles by Yubo Zhang, Christopher Lane, James W. Furness, Bernardo Barbiellini, John P. Perdew, Robert S. Markiewicz, Arun Bansil, and Jianwei Sun, 8 November 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1910411116

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Superconductor or Not? Exploring the Identity Crisis of This Weird Quantum Material - SciTechDaily

It is eagerly awaited! The "Forteza" report, named after its rapporteur, Paula Forteza, Member of Parliament for La Rpublique en Marche (political party of actual President Emmanuel Macron), should finally be officially revealed on January 9th. The three rapporteurs are Paula Forteza, Member of Parliament for French Latin America and the Caribbean, Jean-Paul Herteman, former CEO of Safran, and Iordanis Kerenidis, researcher at the CNRS. Announced last April, this report was initially due at the end of August, then in November, then... No doubt the complex agenda, between the social movements in France, and the active participation of the MP in the Parisian election campaign of Cdric Villani, mathematician and dissident of La Rpublique en Marche... had to be shaken up. In any case, it is thus finally on January 9th that this report entitled "Quantum: the technological shift that France will not miss", will be unveiled.

"Entrusted by the Prime Minister in April 2019, the mission on quantum technologies ends with the submission of the report by the three rapporteurs Paula Forteza, Jean-Paul Herteman, and Iordanis Kerenidis. Fifty proposals and recommendations are thus detailed in order to strengthen France's role and international position on these complex but highly strategic technologies. The in-depth work carried out over the last few months, fueled by numerous consultations with scientific experts in the field, has led the rapporteurs to the conclusion that France's success in this field will be achieved by making quantum technologies more accessible and more attractive. This is one of the sine qua non conditions for the success of the French strategy", explains the French National Congress in the invitation to the official presentation ceremony of the report.

The presentation, by the three rapporteurs, will be made in the presence of the ministers for the army, the economy and finance, and higher education and research. The presence of the Minister of the Armed Forces, as well as the co-signature of the report by the former president of Safran, already indicates that military applications will be one of the main areas of proposals, and possibly of funding. Just as is the case in the United States, China or Russia.

Of course, the report will go into detail about the role of research, and of the CNRS, in advances in quantum computing and communication. Of course, the excellent work of French researchers, in collaboration with their European peers, will be highlighted. And of course, France's excellence in these fields will be explained. France is a pioneer in this field, but the important questions are precisely what the next steps will be. The National Congress indicates that this report will present 50 "proposals and recommendations". Are we to conclude that it will be just a list of proposals? Or will we know how to move from advice to action?

These are our pending questions:

- The United States is announcing an investment of USD 1.2 billion, China perhaps USD 10 billion, Great Britain about 1 billion euros, while Amazon's R&D budget alone is USD 18 billion... how can a country like France position itself regarding the scale of these investments? To sum up, is the amount of funds allocated to this research and development in line with the ambitions?

- Mastering quantum technologies are becoming a geopolitical issue between the United States and China. Should Europe master its own technologies so as not to depend on these two major powers? On the other hand, is this not the return of a quantum "Plan calcul from the 60s? How can we avoid repeating the same mistakes?

- Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Managing Director of DigitalEurope recently wrote that Europe risks being deprived of the use of quantum technologies if it does not develop them itself. Christophe Jurzcak, the head of Quantonation, stated that it is not certain that France will have access to quantum technologies if it does not develop them itself. Is this realistic? Do we have the ressources?

- French companies currently invest very little in research in the field of quantum computing. With the exception of Airbus, the main feedback that we know of is in Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany, etc. Should we also help companies to embrace these technologies, or should we only finance research and development on the part of universities and business creators? Is there a support component for companies? So that technologies are not simply developed in France and sold elsewhere, but that France is the leading market for local developments.

See you on January 9th on Decideo for more details and our objective analysis of the content of this document.

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January 9th: France will unveil its quantum strategy. What can we expect from this report? - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

In the prominent headlines we keep reading about the attempts to keep the world fragmented by imposing tariffs and constraining the exchange of ideas in many ways, but information keeps spreading and with the continued spread of information the world progresses. John Thornhill writes in the Financial Times about how China is completely redesigning finance

Yes, the United States is working through the FinTech era where efforts are being made to use evolving finance and technology to deliver familiar services more efficiently, but the Chinese effort writes Mr. Thornhill, is trying to do something entirely different.

China wants to change the platform.

In the past, I have written about how the United States banking industry has lagged behind the rest of the world is moving toward a more electronic and integrated finance platform. Even in some less developed countries, payment systems have been evolving at a faster pace than in the United States because of the need to reduce the impact of geographical distances.

Only in the past year or two have some of the larger US banks moved forward, trying to develop a more advanced system.

Commercial banks in the United States have been the biggest and most important banks in the world and have concentrated upon the more sophisticated areas of finance, rather than the basic payments systems that are the foundation of the whole financial system. And, although there have been efforts to advance the financial platforms of the American banks, it is somewhat ironic that several of the largest banks have moved toward quantum computers to revolutionize activities like risk management and trading.

Richard Waters writes about how JPMorgan, Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs and Citigroup have entered this space in the last couple of years.

For example, Mr. Waters quotes Paul Burchard, as a senior researcher at Goldman Sachs: We think theres a possibility this becomes a critical technology.

And, Despite the challenges, advances in quantum hardware have persuaded the banks the time has come to leap.

One can smile at this leap, but what about the basics of banking?

Here Mr. Thornhill writes that The speed at which China has moved from a cash to a digital-payments economy is staggering: some $17 trillion of transactions were conducted online in 2017. Chinas mobile payment volumes are more than 50 times those in the US.

The growth has come from two corporate sources, Alibaba and Tencent. The number of users is staggering.

However, the biggest potential lies ahead. As Mr. Thornhill states, the most enticing opportunities lie abroad. About 1.7 billion people in the world remain unbanked. When they come online they will be looking for cheap, convenient, integrated digital financial services, such as China has pioneered.

China has the chance to rewire 21st-century finance.

The implication here is that United States banks will have to adjust to this payment system that China is spreading to the rest of the world.

In other words, information spreads and even though the spread of information may be constrained in certain parts of the world, it will expand in the areas where there are fewer constraints. This is the way it has always worked throughout history. Quantum computing is currently not the answer for the US banking system.

Oh, yes, it will be fun to design new types of algorithms for quantum computers as Mr. Waters writes, and the first of these involves a class of optimization problems that take advantage of the probabilistic nature of quantum computing to analyze a large number of possible outcomes and pick the most desirable.

But, who is going to own the payments platform?

Mr. Thornhill believes that the trend in finance over the next decade will be led by the Chinese and the payments system that is being developed within China.

This has all sorts of implications for the US banking system, the US economy, and the US political system. A question coming from this conclusion concerns whether or not the US dollar can maintain its position within the world financial system.

When we start trying to insulate ourselves from the world and try and control little pieces of it for ourselves, we tend to lose our place in the bigger picture. This is just another one of the unintended consequences we find in the field of economics.

But, it has huge implications for American banks and the United States banking system. Consequently, this has huge implications for investors in the commercial banking industry. And, it should be put within the context of what is just happening in the United States.

I guess that banking in 2030 will not look at all like what is going on right now.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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The World Keeps Growing Smaller: The Reinvention Of Finance - Seeking Alpha

Honeywell published an online post of what it sees to be the Top 11 breakthrough technologies that will shape the future, with a primary emphasis on aviation as well as the manufacturing and processes helping to drive the industry forward. The following Top 11 list was produced by Honeywell, with the company first describing What the innovation is and then Why it will be impactful. Honeywell notes many of these technologies already had a major influence over the past year.

1. Power for air taxisWhat: This was a major year for advancements in Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and soon air taxis will be a future mode of transportation. This means the airspace will be more crowded than ever. A new Compact Fly-By-Wire system, used in traditional aircraft, has been redesigned for air taxis. It is about the size of a paperback book.

Why its innovative: The compact computer system packs the brains of an aircrafts flight controls into one system. Operating as though the autopilot is always on, it brings agility, stability and safety to future electronic virtual takeoffs and landings.

2. Surveillance cameras forsee buyer behaviorWhat: Security cameras, which traditionally monitor for theft, can now be used to help retailers make decisions about product displays, operating hours and staffing.

Why its innovative: Surveillance systems can predict future trends by monitoring buyer behavior and store patterns. This comes in handy for retailers who can analyze that data and influence how shoppers experience stores, ultimately boosting sales.

3. Access to Quantum ComputingWhat: This long-awaited technology goes from theory to impact with a new partnership with Microsofts Azure Quantum that will give organizations around the world access to quantum computing through an open cloud system.

Why its innovative: Quantum computing is a step closer to becoming a more common reality. Businesses and organizations will be able to use it to tackle problems they never would have attempted before.

4. Intelligent hearing protectionWhat: The VeriShield headset and cloud-based technology monitor noise levels that workers are exposed to, providing real-time alerts when noise exceeds safe levels.

Why its innovative: Managers can remotely monitor sounds affecting workers with a smartphone or mobile computer and alert employees to potential issues. The first-of-its-kind headset collects data on noise patterns and gives insights into long-term exposure. That helps companies develop an effective noise conservation program to protect workers hearing.

5. Robotic cargo unloadingWhat: Robots now can unload tractor trailers full of inventory at distribution centers. The Robotic Unloader eliminates the need for people to work inside the heat of a tractor trailer that can be strenuous and unsafe.

Why its innovative: Artificial intelligence gets the job done without an operator. That improves safety, offsets shortages in staffing and minimizes damage to goods.

6. Predictive airplane maintenanceWhat: With Honeywell Forge for Airlines, software combines individual aircraft and overall airline data into one dashboard, airlines can predict aircraft maintenance to fix parts before they break.

Why its innovative: Because its predictive and not just preventative, the technology helps reduce flight delays caused by unexpected repairs. That helps airlines maximize profits, improve efficiency and safety and protect passengers.

7. Real-time data makes work more efficientWhat: Most of todays global workforce do not work at a desk. These deskless workers in airports, hospitals and other industries often rely on clipboard methods to do their jobs. With Honeywell Forge technology, pen and paper methods can be replaced with mobile computers to input data immediately. Software analyzes that data and gives immediate insight.

Why its innovative: Reducing inefficient steps of inputting data from paper save time and money. It also gives visibility to worker productivity and the ability to harness institutional knowledgea key priority as workforces get older.

8. Digital twins get smart about maintenanceWhat: Businesses that depend on equipment can use digital twin technology to mirror physical assets of a company. The digital version can use data from the physical equipment to predict machine availability, inefficient operations and maintenance needs.

Why its innovative: The ability to predict maintenance can optimize efficiency. Now, instead of having to stop operations or shut down for maintenance, plants can protect uptime and save money.

9. Fast communication during emergenciesWhat: Every second counts in a crisis. Traditional emergency communications may include relatively slow paging or color code signaling. Now, staff at hospitals, schools, airports and other high density buildings can use the Command and Control Suite to customize communications between specific teams, based on the severity of the situation.

Why its innovative: The command and control suite provides enhanced facility visualization, enhanced map navigation and broader editing capabilities.

10. Virtual engineering and controlWhat: A new generation of control system technology which is the hardware and software that operate industrial plants no longer relies on sequential project flows. With Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) Highly Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) the virtualization approach unchains controllers and control applications from physical equipment and shifts day-to-day management of servers to a centralized data center. This allows operators to make late changes without their traditionally inherent risks and re-work.

Why its innovative: The technology simplifies control system design, implementation and lifecycle management. That enables plants to execute projects in less time, at lower cost and lower risk, while improving throughput, quality and operational reliability.

11. Machine learning to fight cyberattacksWhat: In an industrial environment, algorithms that detect anomalies immediately identify risks to systems in industrial controls environments.

Why its innovative: Detecting risk adds an additional layer of protection against cyberattacks. The algorithms analyze for risk that can be missed by common cybersecurity threat detectors. That includes threats like polymorphic malware, which changes constantly to avoid detection, and emerging types of threats. It operates on real-time data to immediately identify new and emerging dangers to industrial control systems and the Industrial Internet of Things.

Read the rest here:
Honeywell names Top 11 Innovations of 2019 - wingsmagazine.com

In his 2013 book, Schrdingers Killer App, Louisiana State University theoretical physicist Jonathan Dowling predicted what he called super exponential growth. He was right. Back in May, during Googles Quantum Spring Symposium, computer engineer Hartmut Neven reported the companys quantum computing chip had been gaining power at breakneck speed.

The subtext: We are venturing into an age of quantum supremacy the point at which quantum computers outperform the best classical supercomputers in solving a well-defined problem.

Engineers test the accuracy of quantum computing chips by using them to solve a problem, and then verifying the work with a classical machine. But in early 2019, that process became problematic, reported Neven, who runs Googles Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab. Googles quantum chip was improving so quickly that his group had to commandeer increasingly large computers and then clusters of computers to check its work. Its become clear that eventually, theyll run out of machines.

Case in point: Google announced in October that its 53-qubit quantum processor had needed only 200 seconds to complete a problem that would have required 10,000 years on a supercomputer.

Nevens group observed a double exponential growth rate in the chips computing power over a few months. Plain old exponential growth is already really fast: It means that from one step to the next, the value of something multiplies. Bacterial growth can be exponential if the number of organisms doubles during an observed time interval. So can computing power of classical computers under Moores Law, the idea that it doubles roughly every year or two. But under double exponential growth, the exponents have exponents. That makes a world of difference: Instead of a progression from 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 bacteria, for example, a double-exponentially growing colony in the same time would grow from 2 to 4 to 16 to 256 to 65,536.

Neven credits the growth rate to two factors: the predicted way that quantum computers improve on the computational power of classical ones, and quick improvement of quantum chips themselves. Some began referring to this growth rate as Nevens Law. Some theorists say such growth was unavoidable.

We talked to Dowling (who suggests a more fitting moniker: the Dowling-Neven Law) about double exponential growth, his prediction and his underappreciated Beer Theory of Quantum Mechanics.

Q: You saw double exponential growth on the horizon long before it showed up in a lab. How?

A: Anytime theres a new technology, if it is worthwhile, eventually it kicks into exponential growth in something. We see this with the internet, we saw this with classical computers. You eventually hit a point where all of the engineers figure out how to make this work, miniaturize it and then you suddenly run into exponential growth in terms of the hardware. If it doesnt happen, that hardware falls off the face of the Earth as a nonviable technology.

Q: So you werent surprised to see Googles chip improving so quickly?

A: Im only surprised that it happened earlier than I expected. In my book, I said within the next 50 to 80 years. I guessed a little too conservatively.

Q: Youre a theoretical physicist. Are you typically conservative in your predictions?

People say Im fracking nuts when I publish this stuff. I like to think that Im the crazy guy that always makes the least conservative prediction. I thought this was far-out wacky stuff, and I was making the most outrageous prediction. Thats why its taking everybody by surprise. Nobody expected double exponential growth in processing power to happen this soon.

Q: Given that quantum chips are getting so fast, can I buy my own quantum computer now?

A: Most of the people think the quantum computer is a solved problem. That we can just wait, and Google will sell you one that can do whatever you want. But no. Were in the [prototype] era. The number of qubits is doubling every six months, but the qubits are not perfect. They fail a lot and have imperfections and so forth. But Intel and Google and IBM arent going to wait for perfect qubits. The people who made the [first computers] didnt say, Were going to stop making bigger computers until we figure out how to make perfect vacuum tubes.

Q: Whats the big deal about doing problems with quantum mechanics instead of classical physics?

A: If you have 32 qubits, its like you have 232 parallel universes that are working on parts of your computation. Or like you have a parallel processor with 232 processors. But you only pay the electric bill in our universe.

Q: Quantum mechanics gets really difficult, really fast. How do you deal with that?

A: Everybody has their own interpretation of quantum mechanics. Mine is the Many Beers Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. With no beer, quantum mechanics doesnt make any sense. After one, two or three beers, it makes perfect sense. But once you get to six or 10, it doesnt make any sense again. Im on my first bottle, so Im in the zone.

[This story originally appeared in print as "The Rules of the Road to Quantum Supremacy."]

Read more from the original source:

Quantum Computers Finally Beat Supercomputers in 2019 - Discover Magazine

Weather forecasting today is good. Can it get better? Sure, it can, if computers can be better. This is where quantum computers come into the picture. They possess computing capacity beyond anything that todays classical computers can ever achieve. This is because quantum computers can run calculations exponentially faster than todays conventional binary computers. That makes them powerful enough to bridge gaps which exist in todays weather forecasting, drug discovery, financial modelling and many other complex areas.

Classical computing has been the backbone of modern society. It gave us satellite TV, the internet and digital commerce. It put robots on Mars and smartphones in our pockets.

But many of the worlds biggest mysteries and potentially greatest opportunities remain beyond the grasp of classical computers, says Stefan Filipp, quantum scientist at IBM Research. To continue the pace of progress, we need to augment the classical approach with a new platform, one that follows its own set of rules. That is quantum computing.

Classical computing is based on the binary system, where the fundamental carriers of information bits can take on a value of either 0 or 1.

All information is stored and read as a sequence of 0s and 1s. A state of 0 is off (or false) and a state of 1 is on (or true). Unlike bits, quantum bits or qubits can have multiple values or states between 0 and 1, enabling them to store different types of information.

Superposition and entanglement are two fundamental properties of quantum objects. The ability to manipulate these properties is what makes quantum algorithms fundamentally different from classical algorithms.

Quantum computers working with classical systems have the potential to solve complex real-world problems such as simulating chemistry, modelling financial risk and optimising supply chains.

For example, Exxon Mobil plans to use quantum computing to better understand catalytic and molecular interactions that are too difficult to calculate with classical computers. Potential applications include more predictive environmental models and highly accurate quantum chemistry calculations to enable the discovery of new materials for more efficient carbon capture.

JP Morgan Chase is focusing on use cases for quantum computing in the financial industry, including trading strategies, portfolio optimisation, asset pricing and risk analysis.

In India, the government has launched two initiatives in the emerging field a networked programme on Quantum Information Science and Technology (QuST) and the National Mission on Quantum Technologies & Applications (NMQTA).

Despite all the progress, practical and working quantum systems might take most of the 2020s. And you wont see or need a quantum machine on your desk. These will be used by governments and large enterprises, unless you want to find aliens or figure out and execute ways to boil the ocean while sitting at home.

This story is part of the 'Tech that can change your life in the next decade' package

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Quantum computing : Solving problems beyond the power of classical computing - Economic Times