Category Archives: Quantum Computing

Cleveland Clinicand IBM have begundeployment of the first private sector onsite,IBM-managedquantum computer in the United States.The IBM Quantum Systemis to be located on Cleveland Clinics main campus in Cleveland.

The first quantum computer in healthcare, anticipated to be completed in early 2023, is a key part of the two organizations10-year partnership aimed at fundamentally advancing the pace of biomedical research through high-performance computing. Announced in 2021, the Cleveland Clinic-IBM Discovery Accelerator is a joint center that leverages Cleveland Clinics medical expertise with the technology expertise of IBM, including its leadership in quantum computing.

The current pace of scientific discovery is unacceptably slow, while our research needs are growing exponentially, said Lara Jehi, M.D., Cleveland Clinics Chief Research Information Officer. We cannot afford to continue to spend a decade or more going from a research idea in a lab to therapies on the market. Quantum offers a future to transform this pace, particularly in drug discovery and machine learning.

A step change in the way we solve scientific problems is on the horizon, said Ruoyi Zhou, Director, Ph.D., IBM Research Cleveland Clinic Partnership. At IBM, were more motivated than ever to create with Cleveland Clinic and others lasting communities of discovery and harness the power of quantum computing, AI and hybrid cloud to usher in a new era of accelerated discovery in healthcare and life sciences.

The Discovery Accelerator at Cleveland Clinic draws upon a variety of IBMs latest advancements in high performance computing, including:

Lara Jehi, M.D., and Ruoyi Zhou, Ph.D., at the site of the IBM Quantum System One on Cleveland Clinics main campus. (Courtesy: Cleveland Clinic/IBM)

The Discovery Accelerator also serves as the technology foundation for Cleveland Clinics Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, part of the Cleveland Innovation District. The center, supported by a $500 million investment from the State of Ohio, Jobs Ohio and Cleveland Clinic, brings together a team focused on studying, preparing and protecting against emerging pathogens and virus-related diseases. Through Discovery Accelerator, researchers are leveraging advanced computational technology to expedite critical research into treatments and vaccines.

Together, the teams have already begun several collaborative projects that benefit from the new computational power. The Discovery Accelerator projects include a research study developing a quantum computing method to screen and optimize drugs targeted to specific proteins; improving a prediction model for cardiovascular risk following non-cardiac surgery; and using artificial intelligence to search genome sequencing findings and large drug-target databases to find effective, existing drugs that could help patients with Alzheimers and other diseases.

A significant part of the collaboration is a focus on educating the workforce of the future and creating jobs to grow the economy. An innovative educational curriculum has been designed for participants from high school to professional level, offering training and certification programs in data science, machine learning and quantum computing to build the skilled workforce needed for cutting-edge computational research of the future.

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Cleveland Clinic and IBM Begin Installation of IBM Quantum System One - Cleveland Clinic Newsroom

Quantum computing, Ardey added in a release, might trigger a revolution in material science that will feed into the companys in-house battery expertise.

Leaving the bits and bytes of classical computing behind, quantum computers rely on qubits, and are widely seen as having potential to solve complex problems that traditional computers could not work through on reasonable timelines.

The automaker and Toronto-based technology firm have already been collaborating on research into material science, computational chemistry, and quantum algorithms for about a year. That early work set the foundation for the formal partnership, Volkswagen said.

The goal of the research is to develop quantum algorithms that can simulate how a blend of battery materials will interact more quickly than traditional computer models. Computational chemistry, which is traditionally used for such work, Ardey said, is reaching limitations when it comes to battery research.

Juan Miguel Arrazola, head of algorithms at Xanadu, said the partnership is part of the Canadian companys drive to make quantum computers truly useful.

Focusing on batteries is a strategic choice given the demand from industry and the prospects for quantum computing to aid in understanding the complex chemistry inside a battery cell.

Using the quantum algorithms, Volkswagen said it aims to develop battery materials that are safer, lighter and cheaper.

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VW teams with Canadian quantum computing company Xanadu on batteries - Automotive News Canada

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Quantum computing can soon address many of the worlds toughest, most urgent problems.

Thats why the semiconductor legislation Congress just passed is part of a $280 billion package that will, among other things, direct federal research dollars toward quantum computing.

Quantum computing will soon be able to:

The economy and the environment are clearly two top federal government agenda items.Congress in July was poised to pass the most ambitious climate bill in U.S. history. The New York Times said that the bill would pump hundreds of billions of dollars into low-carbon energy technologies like wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles and would put the United States on track to slash its greenhouse gas emissions to roughly 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. This could help to further advance and accelerate the adoption of quantum computing.

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Because quantum technology can solve many previously unsolvable problems, a long list of the worlds leading businesses including BMW and Volkswagen, FedEx, Mastercard and Wells Fargo, and Merck and Roche are making significant quantum investments. These businesses understand that transformation via quantum computing, which is quickly advancing with breakthrough technologies, is coming soon. They want to be ready when that happens.

Its wise for businesses to invest in quantum computing because the risk is low and the payoff is going to be huge. As BCG notes: No one can afford to sit on the sidelines as this transformative technology accelerates toward several critical milestones.

The reality is that quantum computing is coming, and its likely not going to be a standalone technology. It will be tied to the rest of the IT infrastructure supercomputers, CPUs and GPUs.

This is why companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise are thinking about how to integrate quantum computing into the fabric of the IT infrastructure. Its also why Terra Quantum AG is building hybrid data centers that combine the power of quantum and classical computing.

Amid these changes, employees should start now to get prepared. There is going to be a tidal wave of need for both quantum Ph.D.s and for other talent such as skilled quantum software developers to contribute to quantum efforts.

Earning a doctorate in a field relevant to quantum computing requires a multi-year commitment. But obtaining valuable quantum computing skills doesnt require a developer to go back to college, take out a student loan or spend years studying.

With modern tools that abstract the complexity of quantum software and circuit creation, developers no longer require Ph.D.-level knowledge to contribute to the quantum revolution, enabling a more diverse workforce to help businesses achieve quantum advantage. Just look at the winners in the coding competition that my company staged. Some of these winners were recent high school graduates, and they delivered highly innovative solutions.

Leading the software stack, quantum algorithm design platforms allow developers to design sophisticated quantum circuits that could not be created otherwise. Rather than defining tedious low-level gate connections, this approach uses high-level functional models and automatically searches millions of circuit configurations to find an implementation that fits resource considerations, designer-supplied constraints and the target hardware platform. New tools like Nvidias QODA also empower developers by making quantum programming similar to how classical programming is done.

Developers will want to familiarize themselves with quantum computing, whichwill be an integral arrow in their metaphorical quiver of engineering skills. People who add quantum skills to their classical programming and data center skills will position themselves to make more money and be more appealing to employers in the long term.

Many companies and countries are experimenting with and adopting quantum computing. They understand that quantum computing is evolving rapidly and is the way of the future.

Whether you are a business leader or a developer, its important to understand that quantum computing is moving forward. The train is leaving the station will you be on board?

Erik Garcell is technical marketing manager at Classiq.

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The world, and todays employees, need quantum computing more than ever - VentureBeat

Spun out from Google last March, SandboxAQ is a fascinating, well-funded start-up targeting the intersection of AI and quantum technology. As the world enters the third quantum revolution, AI + Quantum software will address significant business and scientific challenges, is the companys broad self-described mission. Part software company, part investor, SandboxAQ foresees a blended classical computing-quantum computing landscape with AI infused throughout.

Its developing product portfolio comprises enterprise software for assessing and managing cryptography/data security in the so-called post-quantum era. NIST, of course, released its first official post-quantum algorithms in July and SandboxAQ is one of 12 companies selected to participate in its newproject Migration to Post Quantum Cryptography to build and commercialize tools. SandboxAQs AQ Analyzer product, says the company, is already available and being used by a few marquee customers.

Then theres SandboxAQs Strategic Investment Program, announced in August, which acquires or invests in technology companies of interest. So far, it has acquired one company (Cryptosense) and invested in two others (evolutionQ, and Qunnect).

Last week, HPCwire talked with SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary about the companys products and strategy. One has the sense that SandboxAQs aspirations are broad, and with nine figure funding, it has the wherewithal to pivot or expand. The A in the name stands for AI and the Q stands for quantum. One area not on the current agenda: building a quantum computer.

We want to sit above that layer. All these [qubit] technologies ion trap, and NV center (nitrogen vacancy center), neutral atoms, superconducting, photonic are very interesting and we encourage and mentor a lot of these companies who are quantum computing hardware companies. But we are not going to be building one because we really see our value as a layer on top of those computing [blocks], said Hidary. Google, of course, has another group working on quantum hardware.

Hidary joined Google in 2016 as Sandbox group director. A self-described serial entrepreneur, Hidarys varied experience includes founding EarthWeb, being a trustee of the XPrize Foundation, and running for Mayor in New York City in 2013. While at Google Sandbox, he wrote a textbook Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach.

I was recruited in to start a new division to focus on the use of AI and ultimately also quantum in solving really hard problems in the world. We realized that we needed to be multi-platform and focus on all the clouds and to do [other] kinds of stuff so we ended up spinning out earlier this year, said Hidary.

Eric Schmidt joined us about three and a half years ago as he wrapped up his chairmanship at Alphabet (Google parent company). He got really into what were doing, looking at the impact that scaled computation can have both on the AI side and the quantum side. He became chairman of SandboxAQ. I became CEO. Weve other backers like Marc Benioff from Salesforce and T. Rowe Price and Guggenheim, who are very long-term investors. What youll notice here thats interesting is we dont have short-term VCs. Wehave really long term investors who are here for 10 to 15 years.

The immediate focus is on post quantum cryptography tools delivered mostly by a SaaS model. By now were all familiar with the threat that fault-tolerant quantum computers will be able to crack conventionally encrypted (RSA) data using Shors algorithm. While fault-tolerant quantum computers are still many years away, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and others, including SandboxAQ, have warned against Store Now/Decrypt Later attacks. (See HPCwire article, The Race to Ensure Post Quantum Data Security).

What adversaries are doing now is siphoning off information over VPNs. Theyre not cracking into your network. Theyre just doing it over VPNs, siphoning that information. They cant read it today, because its RSA protected, but theyll store it and read it in a number of years when they can, he said. The good news is you dont have to scrap your hardware. You could just upgrade the software. But thats still a monumental challenge. As you can imagine, for all the datacenters and the high-performance computing centers this is a non-trivial operation to do all that.

A big part of the problem is simply finding where encryption code is in existing infrastructure. That, in turn, has prompted calls for what is being called crypto-agility a comprehensive yet modular approach that allows easy swapping in-and-out cryptography code.

We want crypto-agility, and what we find is large corporations, large organizations, and large governments dont have crypto-agility. What were hoping is to develop tools to implement this idea. For example, as a first step to crypto-agility, were trying to see if people even have an MRI (discovery metaphor) machine for use on their own cybersecurity, and they really dont when it comes to encryption. Theres no diagnostic tools that these companies are using to find where their [encryption] footprint is or if they are encrypting everything appropriately. Maybe some stuff is not even being encrypted, said Hidary, who favors the MRI metaphor for a discovery tool.

No doubt, the need to modernize encryption/decryption methods and tools represents a huge problem and a huge market.

Without getting into technical details, Hidary said SandboxAQ is leveraging technology from its recent Cryptosense acquisition and internally developed technologies to develop a product portfolio planned to broadly encompass cryptography assessment, deployment and management. Its core current product is AQ Analyzer.

The idea, says Hidary returning to the MRI metaphor, is to take an MRI scan of inside the organization on-premise, cloud, private cloud, and so forth and this feeds into compliance vulnerabilities and post-quantum analysis. Its not just a quantum thing. Its about your general vulnerabilities on encryption. Overall, it happens to be that post quantum is helped by this, but this is a bigger issue. Then that feeds into your general sysops, network ops, and management tools that youre using.

AQ Analyzer, he says, is enterprise software that starts the process for organizations to become crypto-agile. Its now being used at large banks and telcos, and also by Mount Sinai Hospital. Healthcare replete with sensitive information is another early target for SandboxAQ. Long-term the idea is for Sandbox software tools to be able to automate much of the crypto management process from assessment to deployment through ongoing monitoring and management.

Thats the whole crypto-agility ballgame, says Hidary.

The business model, says Hidary, is carbon copy of Salesforce.coms SaaS model. Broadly, SandboxAQ uses a three-prong go-to-market via direct sales, global systems integrators in May it began programs with Ernst & Young (EY) and Deloitte and strategic partners/resellers. Vodafone and SoftBank are among the latter. Even though these are still early days for SandboxAQ as an independent entity, its moving fast, having benefitted from years of development inside Google. AQ Analyzer, said Hidary, is in general availability.

Were doing extremely well in banks and financial institutions. Theyre typically early adopters of cybersecurity because of the regulatory and compliance environment, and the trust they have with their customers, said Hidary.

Looking at near-term milestones, he said, Wed like to see a more global footprint of banks. Well be back in Europe soon now that we have Cryptosense (UK and Paris-based), and we have a local strong team in Europe. Weve had a lot of traction in the U.S. and the Canadian markets. So thats one key milestone over the next 18 months or so. Second, wed like to see [more adoption] into healthcare and telcos. We have Vodafone and Softbank mobile, on the telco side. We have Mount Sinai, wed like to see if that can be extended into additional players in those two spaces. The fourth vertical well probably go into is the energy grid. These are all critical infrastructure pieces of our society the financial structure of our society, energy, healthcare and the medical centers, the telecommunications grid.

While SandboxAQs AQ Analyzer is the companys first offering, its worth noting that the company aggressively looking for niches it can serve. For example, the company is keeping close tab on efforts to build a quantum internet.

Theres going to be a parallel quantum coherent internet to connect for distributed quantum computing, said Hidary. So nothing to do with cyber at all.

Our vision of the future that we share with I think everyone in the industry is that quantum does not take over classical, said Hidary. Its a mesh, a hybridization of CPU, GPU and quantum processing units. And the program, the code, in Python for example: part of it runs on CPUs, part of it on GPUs, and then yes, part of it will run on a QPU. In that mesh, youd want to have access both to the traditional Internet TCP IP today, but you also want to be able to connect over a quantum coherence intranet. So thats Qunnect.

Qunnect, of course, is one of the companies SandboxAQ has invested in and it is working on hardware (quantum memory and repeaters) to enable a quantum internet. Like dealing with post quantum cryptography, outfitting the quantum internet is likely to be as huge business. Looking at SandboxAQ, just seven months after being spun out from Google, the scope of its ambitions is hard to pin down.

Stay tuned.

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CEO Jack Hidary on SandboxAQ's Ambitions and Near-term Milestones - HPCwire

Replete with tunneling particles, electron wells, charmed quarks and zombie cats, quantum mechanics takes everything Sir Isaac Newton taught about physics and throws it out the window.

Every day, researchers discover new details about the laws that govern the tiniest building blocks of the universe. These details not only increase scientific understanding of quantum physics, but they also hold the potential to unlock a host of technologies, from quantum computers to lasers to next-generation solar cells.

But theres one area that remains a mystery even in this most mysterious of sciences: the quantum mechanics of nuclear fuels.

Until now, most fundamental scientific research of quantum mechanics has focused on elements such as silicon because these materials are relatively inexpensive, easy to obtain and easy to work with.

Now, Idaho National Laboratory researchers are planning to explore the frontiers of quantum mechanics with a new synthesis laboratory that can work with radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium.

An announcement about the new laboratory appears online in the journalNature Communications.

Uranium and thorium, which are part of a larger group of elements called actinides, are used as fuels in nuclear power reactors because they can undergo nuclear fission under certain conditions.

However, the unique properties of these elements, especially the arrangement of their electrons, also means they could exhibit interesting quantum mechanical properties.

In particular, the behavior of particles in special, extremely thin materials made from actinides could increase our understanding of phenomena such as quantum wells and quantum tunneling (see sidebar).

To study these properties, a team of researchers has built a laboratory around molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a process that creates ultra-thin layers of materials with a high degree of purity and control.

The MBE technique itself is not new, said Krzysztof Gofryk, a scientist at INL. Its widely used. Whats new is that were applying this method to actinide materials uranium and thorium. Right now, this capability doesnt exist anywhere else in the world that we know of.

The INL team is conducting fundamental research science for the sake of knowledge but the practical applications of these materials could make for some important technological breakthroughs.

At this point, we are not interested in building a new qubit [the basis of quantum computing], but we are thinking about which materials might be useful for that, Gofryk said. Some of these materials could be potentially interesting for new memory banks and spin-based transistors, for instance.

Memory banks and transistors are both important components of computers.

To understand how researchers make these very thin materials, imagine an empty ball pit at a fast-food restaurant. Blue and red balls are thrown in the pit one at a time until they make a single layer on the floor. But that layer isnt a random assortment of balls. Instead, they arrange themselves into a pattern.

During the MBE process, the empty ball pit is a vacuum chamber, and the balls are highly pure elements, such as nitrogen and uranium, that are heated until individual atoms can escape into the chamber.

The floor of our imaginary ball pit is, in reality, a charged substrate that attracts the individual atoms. On the substrate, atoms order themselves to create a wafer of very thin material in this case, uranium nitride.

Back in the ball pit, weve created layer of blue and red balls arranged in a pattern. Now we make another layer of green and orange balls on top of the first layer.

To study the quantum properties of these materials, Gofryk and his team will join two dissimilar wafers of material into a sandwich called a heterostructure. For instance, the thin layer of uranium nitride might be joined to a thin layer of another material such as gallium arsenide, a semiconductor. At the junction between the two different materials, interesting quantum mechanical properties can be observed.

We can make sandwiches of these materials from a variety of elements, Gofryk said. We have lots of flexibility. We are trying to think about the novel structures we can create with maybe some predicted quantum properties.

We want to look at electronic properties, structural properties, thermal properties and how electrons are transported through the layers, he continued. What will happen if you lower the temperature and apply a magnetic field? Will it cause electrons to behave in certain way?

INL is one of the few places where researchers can work with uranium and thorium for this type of science. The amounts of the radioactive materials and the consequent safety concerns will be comparable to the radioactivity found in an everyday smoke alarm.

INL is the perfect place for this research because were interested in this kind of physics and chemistry, Gofryk said.

In the end, Gofryk hopes the laboratory will result in breakthroughs that help attract attention from potential collaborators as well as recruit new employees to the laboratory.

These actinides have such special properties, he said. Were hoping we can discover some new phenomena or new physics that hasnt been found before.

In 1900, German physicist Max Planck first described how light emitted from heated objects, such as the filament in a light bulb, behaved like particles.

Since then, numerous scientists including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr have explored and expanded upon Plancks discovery to develop the field of physics known as quantum mechanics. In short, quantum mechanics describes the behavior of atoms and subatomic particles.

Quantum mechanics is different than regular physics, in part, because subatomic particles simultaneously have characteristics of both particles and waves, and their energy and movement occur in discrete amounts called quanta.

More than 120 years later, quantum mechanics plays a key role in numerous practical applications, especially lasers and transistors a key component of modern electronic devices. Quantum mechanics also promises to serve as the basis for the next generation of computers, known as quantum computers, which will be much more powerful at solving certain types of calculations.

Uranium, thorium and the other actinides have something in common that makes them interesting for quantum mechanics: the arrangement of their electrons.

Electrons do not orbit around the nucleus the way the earth orbits the sun. Rather, they zip around somewhat randomly. But we can define areas where there is a high probability of finding electrons. These clouds of probability are called orbitals.

For the smallest atoms, these orbitals are simple spheres surrounding the nucleus. However, as the atoms get larger and contain more electrons, orbitals begin to take on strange and complex shapes.

In very large atoms like uranium and thorium (92 and 90 electrons respectively), the outermost orbitals are a complex assortment of party balloon, jelly bean, dumbbell and hula hoop shapes. The electrons in these orbitals are high energy. While scientists can guess at their quantum properties, nobody knows for sure how they will behave in the real world.

Quantum tunneling is a key part of any number of phenomena, including nuclear fusion in stars, mutations in DNA and diodes in electronic devices.

To understand quantum tunneling, imagine a toddler rolling a ball at a mountain. In this analogy, the ball is a particle. The mountain is a barrier, most likely a semiconductor material. In classical physics, theres no chance the ball has enough energy to pass over the mountain.

But in the quantum realm, subatomic particles have properties of both particles and waves. The waves peak represents the highest probability of finding the particle. Thanks to a quirk of quantum mechanics, while most of the wave bounces off the barrier, a small part of that wave travels through if the barrier is thin enough.

For a single particle, the small amplitude of this wave means there is a very small chance of the particle making it to the other side of the barrier.

However, when large numbers of waves are travelling at a barrier, the probability increases, and sometimes a particle makes it through. This is quantum tunneling.

Quantum wells are also important, especially for devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.

Like quantum tunneling, to build quantum wells, you need alternating layers of very thin (10 nanometers) material where one layer is a barrier.

While electrons normally travel in three dimensions, quantum wells trap electrons in two dimensions within a barrier that is, for practical purposes, impossible to overcome. These electrons exist at specific energies say the precise energies needed to generate specific wavelengths of light.

About Idaho National LaboratoryBattelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nations center for nuclear energy research and development,and alsoperforms research in each of DOEs strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visitwww.inl.gov.Follow us on social media:Twitter,Facebook,InstagramandLinkedIn.

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New laboratory to explore the quantum mysteries of nuclear materials - EurekAlert

DUBAI, United Arab of Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Breakthroughs in quantum computing will enable humans to cure diseases like cancer, Alzheimers, and Parkinsons as easily as we treat the common cold.

That was one of the major insights to emerge from the Dubai Future Forum, with renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku telling the worlds largest gathering of futurists that humanity should brace itself for major transformations in healthcare.

The forum concluded with a call for governments to institutionalize foresight and engrain it within decision making.

Taking place in Dubai, UAE at the Museum of the Future, Amy Webb, CEO of Future Today Institute, criticized nations for being too pre-occupied with the present and too focused on creating white papers, reports and policy recommendations instead of action.

Nowism is a virus. Corporations and governments are infected, she said.

One panel session heard how humans could be ready to test life on the Moon in just 15 years and be ready for life on Mars in another decade. Sharing his predictions for the future, Dr. Kaku also said there is a very good chance humans will pick up a signal from another intelligent life form this century.

Dr. Jamie Metzl, Founder and Chair, OneShared.World, urged people to eat more lab-grown meat to combat global warming and food insecurity.

If we are treating them like a means to an end of our nutrition, wouldnt it be better instead of growing the animal, to grow the meat? he said.

Among the 70 speakers participating in sessions were several UAE ministers. HE Mohammad Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Vice Chairman, Board of Trustees and Managing Director of the Dubai Future Foundation, said ministers around the world should think of themselves as designers of the future. Our stakeholders are 7.98 billion people around the world, he noted.

Dubais approach to foresight was lauded by delegates, including HE Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, who said: What makes our city and nation successful is not natural resources, but a unique ability to embrace all ideas and individuals.

More than 30 sessions covered topics including immortality, AI sentience, climate change, terraforming, genome sequencing, legislation, and the energy transition.

*Source: AETOSWire

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Cancer to Be Treated as Easily as Common Cold When Humans Crack Quantum Computing - Business Wire