Quantum computing

US Department of Energy announces US$9.1 million funding for quantum information science research

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced it is allocating US$9.1 million to 13 projects dedicated to advancing research in quantum information science (QIS) with relevance to nuclear physics. The projects selected for funding cover the development of next-generation materials and architectures for superconducting qubits, solid state quantum simulators, and quantum optomechanical sensors for improving measurements of optical decay, and other areas.

Scientists find way to improve storage time of quantum information

An international team of scientists from the University of Cambridge, the University of Linz, and the University of Sheffield has announced a breakthrough in retaining the quantum coherence of quantum dot spin qubits.

A major challenge in quantum computing is to find a spin-photon interface that is both good at storing quantum information and efficient at converting it into light. The team found out that ‘in a device constructed with semiconductor materials that have the same lattice parameter, the nuclei “felt” the same environment and behaved in unison. As a result, it is now possible to filter out this nuclear noise and achieve a near two-order magnitude improvement in storage time.’

This new method could allow for improvements in information security, the search for novel materials and chemicals, and the measurements of fundamental physical processes requiring exact temporal synchronisation among sensors.

European Patent Office publishes patent insight report on quantum computing

The European Patent Office (EPO) has published a patent insight report on quantum computing. The report provides an overview of quantum computing at large, while also looking at issues such as physical realisations of quantum computing, quantum error correction and mitigation, and technologies related to quantum computing and artificial intelligence/machine learning.

One of the report’s key findings is that the number of inventions in the field of quantum computing has multiplied over the last decade. In addition, quantum computing inventions show a higher growth rate than in all fields of technology in general. The above-average share of international patent applications in quantum computing suggests high economic expectations related to the technology.

Fujitsu assesses vulnerability of RSA encryption to potential quantum computer threats

Japanese ICT company Fujitsu announced that it had conducted successful trials to evaluate the widely-used RSA encryption for possible vulnerability to code-cracking by quantum computers. Fujitsu conducted the trials in January 2023 using its 39 qubit quantum simulator to assess how difficult it would be for quantum computers to crack existing RSA cryptography. Fujitsu researchers discovered that a fault-tolerant quantum computer with a scale of approximately 10,000 qubits and 2.23 trillion quantum gates would be required to crack RSA, which is much higher than current quantum computing capacities.

Canadian quantum computing company receives CAD$40 million from the government’s Strategic Innovation Fund

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a federal investment of CAD$ 40 million to enable quantum computing company Xanadu to build and commercialise a photonic-based, fault-tolerant quantum computer. Supported through the government’s Strategic Innovation Fund, the project is expected to create over 500 new jobs in the high-tech and quantum computing fields. 

The investment is aligned with the goals of the Canadian Quantum Strategy that was published earlier this year.

New quantum computer in Sweden to be made available to industry and researchers

Since 2018, Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology has been running a project to develop a Swedish quantum computer. Currently, the 25 qubits computer is often unavailable, since researchers are working to develop it further. To address this issue, the university will build a copy of the quantum computer, thanks to funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. Swedish companies and researchers will be able to use the new computer – which will also be accompanied by a quantum help desk – as a test bed for their algorithms.

French quantum computing company raises US$5 million to accelerate quantum memory

French company Welinq has raised US$5 million to accelerate the development of its quantum memory technology, described as a key enabling technology for a future quantum internet. Welinq received support from Runa Capital, the Paris Region, the French National Quantum Initiative, the French Banque Publique d’Investissement, and the European Commission.

Quantum memory aims to deploy hardware-agnostic and full-stack quantum links solutions to interconnect multiple quantum processing units (QPU). Quantum memory is based on cold atoms to deploy quantum links regardless of the distance.

ESA will help develop secure quantum communications

The European Space Agency (ESA) supports secure quantum communication by working with satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space to develop highly secure technologies based on the laws of quantum physics. The TeQuantS project aims to develop quantum space-to-Earth communications technologies for cybersecurity applications and future quantum information networks. The work is supported by the French space agency (CNES) and the Austrian space agency (ALR).

New report and research highlight need for quantum-safe cryptography

A new IBM report titled Security in the quantum computing era highlights that quantum computing has the potential to affect encryption. Currently used data encryption mechanisms such as public-key cryptography (PKC) can become vulnerable: using quantum computing protocols, bad actors can easily decrypt data. The report suggests the need to plan for quantum-safe cryptography and crypto-agility.

Meanwhile, Chinese scientists have claimed they are capable of breaking encryption by using ‘a universal quantum algorithm for integer factorization that requires only sublinear quantum resources’. They argue that their method would break the RSA-2048 scheme – a public key cryptosystem used widely by governments, tech companies, the defence sector, and app developers for data security – with the use of a 372-qubit quantum computer. However, several encryption experts are sceptical about this claim.