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.
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).
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.
The New South Wales government announced a $7 million Quantum Computing Commercialisation Fund to support companies with quantum computing hardware or software within Technology Readiness Level 3 – 7. This fund will target startups and existing deep-tech companies to ensure that innovative projects are accelerated towards commercialising quantum computing.
Canadian quantum company Xanadu and Rolls-Royce are co-developing new quantum algorithm tooling for PennyLane, a cross-platform Python library for the differentiable programming of quantum computers. This collaboration aims to train a quantum computer similarly to a neural network. The first project will develop quantum software functionality tailored for Quantum Singular Value Transformation to help Rolls-Royce accelerate its research into quantum algorithms for aerospace applications.
UK Research & Innovation buys a second Quantum Learning Machine from the French company Atos. According to a government tender announcement, in December, UK Research & Innovation awarded Atos £385,000 for a ‘Quantum Learning Machine’ (QLM). The system being procured allows the simulation of quantum computers up to 38 qubits and comes with 3-year support and maintenance.
Researchers at Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) have discovered a new way of controlling single electrons in quantum dots (tiny nanodevices in qubits which can trap one or a few electrons). The new method could enable large-scale silicon quantum computers in the future.
Practically, the researchers have come up with a new way of manipulating the quantum state of a single qubit by using electric fields, rather than the magnetic fields that had been used before. Controlling single electrons without disturbing others is key for quantum information processing in silicon, and the engineers have discovered a new method for doing so called ‘intrinsic spin-orbit electric dipole spin resonance’. This solution was presented as being less bulky and requiring fewer parts, thus offering advantages that could contribute to making large-scale silicon quantum computers a reality.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology and Canadian quantum computing company Xanadu have launched a partnership to investigate industrial uses for quantum computers. The partnership will focus on the further development of quantum algorithms for next-generation lithium-ion batteries and optimising quantum computing hardware.
UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and its industry partner PA Consulting have identified opportunities for a new approach to using quantum computing to support human decision-making. The solutions are rooted in a mix of classical and quantum computing techniques applied to defence-related challenges.
In an initiative funded through the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD’s( Defence and Security Accelerator, PA created prototype tools to help make better and faster decisions, while maintaining essential elements of human decision-making. Looking ahead, these tools are expected to evolve in a way that would allow significant improvements in many decision-making processes across the MOD, lowering risks, and optimising resources.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a multimillion-dollar contract with Duality Technologies, a firm specialising in homomorphic encryption designed to withstand quantum computing attacks. It does so through higher dimensions of security and more complex encryption keys compared to classical measures. In addition to being post-quantum, homomorphic encryption can be used to protect data when in use. This is critical because oftentimes, encryption is deployed to protect the material from a storage site to a user while in transit. By serving as an end-to-end encryption style, sensitive information is less vulnerable to attack.
