Telecom company Vodafone announced it is joining the IBM Quantum Network and that it will cooperate with IMB on quantum-safe cybersecurity. As part of this collaboration, Vodafone will explore how to apply IBM Quantum Safe cryptography technology across its entire and diverse network infrastructure and systems.
IBM and Vodafone are also part of the recently announced GSMA Post-Quantum Telco Network Taskforce, whose aim is to help define policy, regulation, and operator business processes for the enhanced protection of telecommunications in the context of advanced quantum computing.
The German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) has contracted software company QMWare and cloud company IONOS, along with the University of Stuttgart and the Fraunhofer Institute, to design and build a cloud for quantum computing applications. The SeQuenC platform is intended to provide a cloud for quantum software that will enable the monetisation of quantum services and quantum software, while offering potential for research, business, and industry.
The project is the first of its kind in Germany. It will run for three years with a budget €4.5 million and is part of the ‘Digital Technologies Business’ programme.
The UK Institute of Physics (IOP) has published a new report in support of a UK quantum strategy. The report gives 10 recommendations on how to ensure UK quantum sector growth; the recommendations revolve around: the elaboration of roadmaps for the commercialisation of quantum goods and services; the development of a supporting ecosystem and the capacity for scale; the creation of a strong skills base to support quantum industries; and wider enablers including partnerships and communications. According to the IOP, a UK quantum strategy needs to outline forms of support for each stage of the journey towards commercialised quantum-based products and services, through the provision of direct and indirect support, coordination and planning, and aligned policies addressing skills and other enabling factors.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation and the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the field of innovation and emerging technologies. The MoU aims to enable strengthened cooperation between the research and innovation communities in the two countries in areas such as deep science and deep tech, including artificial intelligence and quantum technology. Other envisioned areas of stronger cooperation include the commercialisation of innovative concepts, and science and innovation policy and diplomacy.
The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) has awarded Universal Quantum Deutschland GmbH, a branch of British startup Universal Quantum, with €67 million to build a fully scalable quantum computer based on trapped-ion technology. A trapped-ion quantum computer is one of the proposed approaches to a large-scale quantum computer.
This comes as part of the German Quantum Computing Initiative founded by the German Ministry of Economy, a wider quantum initiative led by the German federal government.
NIST has now announced that it has selected four such algorithms: one for general encryption (to protect information exchanged across a public network) and three for digital signatures (used for identity authentication). All of the algorithms are designed to be quantum-resistant and rely on more complex math problems that ‘both conventional and quantum computers should have difficulty solving’.
The four algorithms will be integrated into NIST’s post-quantum cryptographic standards, and should finalised within the next two years. Four other algorithms are currently undergoing evaluation for potential inclusion.
