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Finland-based startup secures EUR 11.45M in seed funding from international investors. ESPOO, Finland, July 9, 2019 – With a vision to drive disruptive advancements in quantum computing, a team of innovators has launched IQM Finland Oy (IQM). The startup—a spinout from Aalto University (Aalto) and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)—is developing hardware systems to enable the world’s first scalable quantum computing solution. 

In the quest to accurately simulate the behavior of chemical entities, quantum computers are expected to offer a significant advantage over their classical counterparts. But to that end, algorithms and the hardware architectures themselves need to be tailored to the specific task at hand. In a collaboration with a co-author affiliated with both Forschungszentrum Juelich and RWTH Aachen University, our team at IBM Research-Zurich now lays out how exchange-type two-qubit gates constitute a very promising avenue to calculate molecular properties.

The quantum computing effort at Honeywell appears to be heating up. Over the last several months, the company has announced a series of new developments in its trapped ion quantum computer research. Until recently, the tech giant had been rather tight-lipped about its plans in this area.

University of Copenhagen physicists, as part of the University and Microsoft collaboration focused on topological quantum computing, may have unloosed a Gordian knot in quantum computer development. 

This “Digital Military Magazine” discusses what it sees as China’s goal of achieving cyberspace dominion. In 2017, Beijing started quantum Internet experiments with a network of satellites and computers that could share information worldwide at an unprecedented high speed.

IBM today announced the expansion of the IBM Q Network to include a number of global universities with the intent to partner with IBM to accelerate joint research in quantum computing, and develop curricula to help prepare students for careers that will be influenced by this next era of computing, across science and business.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, Maryland, have developed a new device for controlling and measuring qubits inside the low-temperature environment of quantum computers; the new device can be manipulated at lower frequency, without the need for microwave lines, thus reducing cost and complexity.

The Microsoft Quantum Network made its official debut this week at Microsoft’s Redmond campus; representatives laid out the company’s vision for quantum computing and introduced network partners to Microsoft’s tools of the quantum trade at the event.

The race is on to quantum computing. Some of the technology industry’s biggest companies, such as IBM, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and China’s Alibaba, along with upstarts like California-based Rigetti, are in a race to build  cutting-edge quantum computing machines, which promise to revolutionize industries including energy, health, and finance by letting them crunch data faster than ever before. Governments understand the geopolitical implications too. China is building a $10 billion national lab for quantum computing.

Scientists are working on accelerator-based techniques for developing new materials that could speed up development of quantum technologies. A coordinated research project funded by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has brought together leading scientists from Australia, China, Croatia, Finland, Italy, India, Israel, Singapore, Spain and the USA. The main aim of the project is to develop novel, accelerator-based ion beam techniques for creating and characterizing modified material required for new quantum technologies.

An explanation of the need for both fiber and satellites for quantum communications to be scaled globally.  Both can transmit qubits, but for now in the world of the “Quantum Internet”, fiber and satellites serve two different markets and represent two different opportunities.  Read more in the in-depth, information-dense companion blog to your ITQ newsletter.

Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have launched a new Quantum Fundamentals, ARchitecture and Machines (Q-FARM) initiative to leverage and expand the university’s strengths in quantum science and engineering and to train the field’s next generation of scientists.

Scientists are building computers that use entangled quantum bits (called, “qubits”) to complete calculations that were once thought impossible and at speeds never imagined.

Field tests are solving the challenges of counting photons and measuring their quantum states in quantum key distribution (QKD)-based optical transmission networks to ensure communications security.

Archer Exploration Limited’s Dr Mohammad Choucair, has invented the first material known to overcome a known quantum technology limitation by allowing quantum information (quibits) to be processed at room temperatures. Archer is now developing the licensed University of Sydney (USyd) technology which can hold quantum information and allow it to process the quibits at ordinary room temperatures.

The ability to track and control quantum processors in real time is a difficult task, according to Finland’s Aalto University researchers Antti Vepsäläinen, Sergey Danilin, and Sorin Paraoanu. The group of researchers recently described their latest work in approaching the quantum computing speed limit with accuracy.

Microsoft shared in late 2018 that they are expanding collaborations to include startups that are driving the quantum industry forward. Microsoft had previously been collaborating with organizations such as Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), and Pacific Northwest National Labs (PNNL), and strategic research partnerships with institutions including Purdue University, UC Santa Barbara, the University of Copenhagen, TU Delft, and the University of Sydney.

Rivada Networks has joined with 17 other members of the Quantum Alliance Initiative to submit the first global Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) recommendations to the International Telecommunications Union—Telecommunication Standardization Section (ITU-T) meeting in Geneva, scheduled for January 22-30, 2019.

A study by the Quantum Technologies for Information Science (QUTIS) group of the University of the Basque Country’s Department of Physical Chemistry, has produced a series of protocols for quantum sensors that could allow images to be obtained by means of the nuclear magnetic resonance of single biomolecules using a minimal amount of radiation.

Airbus has announced that it is creating a global competition to encourage developers to find ways quantum computing can be applied to aircraft design. Airbus is already exploring the use of quantum computing in areas such as “route optimization and satellite imagery.”

Quantum computing (QC) for smart cities may be the best business use of QC technology according to this INSEAD blog posting. The author says quantum computing is best suited for cases that involve massive data processing, but don’t require 100 percent precision in computations. Future smart cities represent a context in which those kind of problems will abound.