ZapataAI releases a paper on improving Montercarlos for Finance by 8000x. Pasqal promises 10.000 qubits for 2026. Meanwhile two groups of researchers contradict each other on the uses of QML for real problems vs finding finally problems to be tackled by quantum computers. Etherenum founder starts thinking how to make its chain quantum secure. Rolls-Royce, Riverlane and Xanadu work together on engines. Quantistry raises €3M funding round. QMWare, Nvidia and Oracle announce collaboration for QPU-GPU powered datacenters in Oracle cloud. Meanwhle Nvidia pushes on QPU leveraged datacenter on what they call “Quantum Accelerated Supercomputing”.Lastly, OpenAI has hired a researcher from PsiQuantum. Sure, I may be off and time will tell, but this was my message on LinkedIn:
Interesting roundup of last week, even though it certainly was a slow down from the whiplash inducing pace of the prior week.
One point about investments in QC for '23: in my opinion the low investment volume last year was due to the confluence of two factors last year, rising interest rates and AI mania. Elevated interest rates have now been priced in at the markets, since they've been steady for several months now and the AI mania also shows early signs of slowing, with reduced lead times for chips (down to 2 to 3 months from 11), competition muscling into the AI chip market, and the realization that AI costs a ton of money without clear pathways towards profitability as yet (economic value nonwithstanding). That should mean VC funding would return, wouldn't it? Lo and behold, it did. Quantinuum raised jaw dropping 200M, Maybell and Multiverse 25M each, OQC signed Chevron as investor, and those are just the highlights among a myriad of investments in the not yet finished Q1 of '24.
On to China: the withdrawal of both Baydu and Alibaba shouldn't be taken at face value in my opinion, as there's more going on behind the scenes in CCP China. The CCP is exerting increasing control over both the economy and academia on mainland China. Additionally, Alibaba and Baydu had main CCP sponsors from a now waning CCP faction of technocrats of the likes of Hu Jintao, who are struggling immensely to hold onto any shred of power and influence. The labs of these two companies haven't been shuttered after all, they were sold to universities that are under increasingly centralized control. The withdrawal of these companies is not because they couldn't cope with QC, it was a powerplay of intra CCP factional politics.
Interesting roundup of last week, even though it certainly was a slow down from the whiplash inducing pace of the prior week.
One point about investments in QC for '23: in my opinion the low investment volume last year was due to the confluence of two factors last year, rising interest rates and AI mania. Elevated interest rates have now been priced in at the markets, since they've been steady for several months now and the AI mania also shows early signs of slowing, with reduced lead times for chips (down to 2 to 3 months from 11), competition muscling into the AI chip market, and the realization that AI costs a ton of money without clear pathways towards profitability as yet (economic value nonwithstanding). That should mean VC funding would return, wouldn't it? Lo and behold, it did. Quantinuum raised jaw dropping 200M, Maybell and Multiverse 25M each, OQC signed Chevron as investor, and those are just the highlights among a myriad of investments in the not yet finished Q1 of '24.
On to China: the withdrawal of both Baydu and Alibaba shouldn't be taken at face value in my opinion, as there's more going on behind the scenes in CCP China. The CCP is exerting increasing control over both the economy and academia on mainland China. Additionally, Alibaba and Baydu had main CCP sponsors from a now waning CCP faction of technocrats of the likes of Hu Jintao, who are struggling immensely to hold onto any shred of power and influence. The labs of these two companies haven't been shuttered after all, they were sold to universities that are under increasingly centralized control. The withdrawal of these companies is not because they couldn't cope with QC, it was a powerplay of intra CCP factional politics.
Thank you for the shout-out regarding my paper!
For your readers who are interested, I wrote an article over at "The Quantum Stack" about the paper: https://travislscholten.substack.com/p/assessing-the-benefits-and-risks