Quantum News

16 Aug 2023: The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System sees a host of emerging technological threats to the financial system — quantum computing’s ability to crack current cybersecurity schemes is one of them.

14 Aug 2023: The Uttar Pradesh Government in India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Innogress and GAN Tech UK to establish the Indraprastha Quantum Data Center (IQDC), a new data center dedicated to quantum computing. The IQDC aims to house a million-qubit-powered quantum computer, although no exact deadline for the project has been given. Innogress and GAN Tech UK are seeking quantum computing technology partners and investors for the project, which is estimated to cost between $300 million and $500 million.

12 Aug 2023: Google is deploying a hybrid key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) in its Chrome browser to protect the sharing of encryption secrets during the establishment of secure network connections. The new system, called X25519Kyber768, combines the X25519 elliptic curve algorithm and Kyber-768, a quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithm. The move is in anticipation of future quantum computers that could potentially break existing encryption schemes. Google’s early deployment of the technology is also practical for network administrators as it adds extra data to TLS ClientHello messages to strengthen security.

08 Aug 2023: wolfSSL has been busy adding support for post-quantum ciphers in all of our products, from TLS to curl to web servers to SSH, we now have solid post-quantum support for users looking to make the move to a higher level of security, or to hedge their way into cryptographic agility with post-quantum.

08 Aug 2023: The Sandwich framework allows developers to build their own protocols and implementations that can be changed and reconfigured in response to new threats and technologies without rewriting code. The solution, currently used by several US government agencies, global banks, telcos, and tech companies, can be embedded into internal applications and commercial software and supports multiple languages, operating systems, and cryptographic libraries. Future plans for the solution include the ability to create smaller and larger “sandwiches” to access basic or broad functionality, as well as multi-layered “sandwiches” with an array of functions, such as enabling access to cryptography at different abstraction levels.

31 Jul 2023: The United States currently lacks the talent required to maintain competitiveness in this field, posing a national security risk. The race to commercialize and deploy quantum systems has become a battleground of U.S.-China competition, with other countries like Australia, Japan, Canada, and the UK also making progress. The United States faces a shortage of quantum talent and a general STEM skills gap. To fill these gaps, international collaboration, initiatives to retain foreign-born workers, and reskilling programs are necessary.

29 Jul 2023: Quantum computing specialist EeroQ has successfully developed a Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) chip named “Wonder Lake” using a CMOS manufacturing approach. The chip is based on helium-electron qubits and has a qubit count of 2,432, making it one of the most densely populated QPU designs. EeroQ’s qubits have a high level of coherence and mobility, leading to greater efficiency and reduced overhead for error correction mechanisms. The company aims to achieve high-quality quantum gates and scalability, positioning itself as a leader in the commercial quantum computing future.

24 Jul 2023: Researchers have made significant progress in improving the accuracy of a technology used to control quantum bits (qubits), which is essential for scaling up quantum computers. The technology uses flux quanta, units of magnetic flux, to control superconducting qubits. By physically separating the qubits from the control circuits, researchers achieved an accuracy above 99%. This development could provide a more scalable and practical pathway to quantum computation. Further refinements could potentially increase the accuracy even more.

17 Jul 2023: Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered a new distinct form of silicon called Q-silicon which, among other interesting properties, is ferromagnetic at room temperature.

12 Jul 2023: A record-breaking number of quantum bits, or qubits, have been proven to be entangled inside a quantum computer. There have been previous attempts to achieve this with a relatively large number of qubits, but none have been able to verify the entanglement.