The Week in Quantum Computing - November 8th
Issue #61
The Week in Quantum Computing. Brought to you by Sergio Gago (@piratecto). Sponsored by Qapitan Quantum.
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Quick Recap
How much does a Quantum Engineer make? Quantum Futures has prepared an analysis (linked below) and it has created a nice conversation on Twitter. Who should be better paid, hardware or software developers?
My own take with a few decades in the “classical” software industry is that Quantum is still lagging behind from what senior software engineers, DevOps or ML specialists are making with some exceptions. (Very US based analysis)
Incidentally, Multiverse Computing is hiring a quantum developer. Salaries in Spain are lower but very relevant nevertheless.
IBM announces CLOPS KPI to measure circuit operations. A great piece on hack today decode later and several articles for those interested in investing. Good article on IonQ (who just lost their VP of biz dev to Atom Computing). And big milestone by Q-CTRL creating a 25x on today’s algorithms with today’s NISQ computers.
The Quote of the Week
"Since the universal validity of the state function description is asserted, one can regard the state functions themselves as the fundamental entities, and one can even consider the state function of the entire universe. In this sense this theory can be called the theory of the "universal wave function," since all of physics is presumed to follow from this function alone"
Hugh Everett III - physicist.
The Week in Quantum Computing
IBM Qiskit vs Microsoft QDK
Brian N. Siegelwax: I was asked to compare IBM’s Qiskit to Microsoft’s Quantum Development Kit (QDK). Although I’m reasonably familiar with Qiskit, I hadn’t previously looked into QDK. Therefore, I will be comparing what I know of the former to my initial impression of the latter.
Link: https://ift.tt/3vZj1r7
October 31, 2021 at 02:30PM
An Early Investor In Twitch Explains Why He’s Betting Big On Quantum Computing
David Cowan had already been an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners for 20 years when he came across an upstart company that was rapidly building an audience around a novel idea: Watching other people play video games. The company was called Twitch.
Link: https://ift.tt/3mrlcAu
November 01, 2021 at 08:30AM
Paper: NISQ-HHL: Portfolio Optimization for Near-Term Quantum Hardware
Portfolio optimization is an essential use case in Finance, but its computational complexity forces financial institutions to resort to approximated solutions, which are still time consuming. Thus, the scientific community is looking at how Quantum Computing can be used for efficient and accurate portfolio optimization.
Portfolio optimization can be formulated as a quadratic program, with the cost function enforcing risk minimization for a targeted return. Of particular interest is the mean-variance portfolio optimization problem.
Using the method of Lagrange multipliers, the program can be converted into a system of linear equations and potentially benefit from the exponential speedup provided by the HHL quantum algorithm. However, multiple components in HHL are unsuitable for execution on Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) hardware.
This paper introduces NISQ-HHL, the first hybrid formulation of HHL suitable for the end-to-end execution of small-scale portfolio-optimization problems on NISQ devices. NISQ-HHL extends the hybrid HHL variant with newly available quantum-hardware features: mid-circuit measurement, Quantum Conditional Logic (QCL), and qubit reset and reuse. To best of our knowledge, NISQ-HHL is the first algorithm incorporating a QCL-enhanced version of Phase Estimation that was executed on real hardware. In addition, NISQ-HHL includes a novel method for choosing the optimal evolution time for the Hamiltonian simulation. Although this paper focuses on portfolio optimization, the techniques it proposes to make HHL more scalable are generally applicable to any problem that can be solved via HHL in the NISQ era.
We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of NISQ-HHL by presenting the experimental results we obtained on a real quantum device, the trapped-ion Honeywell System Model H1.
Link: https://ift.tt/3GDtltI
November 01, 2021 at 09:30AM
Telefonica, Fortinet and IDQ have jointly demonstrated the first Quantum-Safe IPVPN connection
Telefonica, Fortinet and ID Quantique (IDQ) have jointly demonstrated the first Quantum-Safe IPVPN connection suitable for offering a fully managed datacenter interconnection service.
Link: https://ift.tt/3BCgMep
November 01, 2021 at 04:30PM
Quantum computers: Eight ways quantum computing is going to change the world
The world's biggest companies are now launching quantum computing programs, and governments are pouring money into quantum research. For systems that have yet prove useful, quantum computers are certainly garnering lots of attention.
Link: https://ift.tt/3GzerVc
November 01, 2021 at 09:30PM
Quantum computing is just getting going. But the hype could bring everything crashing down
The idea that quantum computers will transform business and usher in a new era of unprecedented computing power is increasingly making its way into executive pitches as a marker of forward-thinking and innovation, with the technology often touted as the new must-have that could deliver a competitive
Link: https://ift.tt/3nM9Q9L
November 02, 2021 at 09:30AM
A New Frontier: Quantum Computing in the Power Sector
Digitalization, driven by big data, the industrial internet of things (IIOT), and even artificial intelligence (AI), has made its mark on the power industry, allowing for greater transparency into operations and helping to ramp up efficiency, reliability, and profitability.
Link: https://ift.tt/3GDaNd4
November 02, 2021 at 06:30PM
The big impact of quantum error correction
Our quantum architect, Mark Webber, explains why quantum error correction is key to creating “useful” quantum computers and why we need millions of qubits. Mistakes happen, and in quantum computing, you can’t avoid them.
Link: https://ift.tt/3bAROBB
November 02, 2021 at 10:30PM
Hackers are stealing data today so quantum computers can crack it in a decade
The threat comes from quantum computers, which work very differently from the classical computers we use today. Instead of the traditional bits made of 1s and 0s, they use quantum bits that can represent different values at the same time.
Link: https://ift.tt/3nWemlU
November 03, 2021 at 05:30PM
Driving quantum performance: more qubits, higher Quantum Volume, and now a proper measure of speed
In this arXiv pre-print, we prescribe a procedure for measuring Circuit Layer Operations Per Second (CLOPS) and use it to characterize the performance of some IBM Quantum systems. The IBM Quantum team has accomplished a great deal this past year.
Link: https://ift.tt/2ZRmlIx
November 03, 2021 at 10:30PM
All-in-one quantum key distribution system makes its debut – Physics World
A future in which quantum computers are commonplace might seem like an optimistic fantasy, but it could also involve hackers using those computers to steal important information.
Link: https://ift.tt/3byVALJ
November 03, 2021 at 10:30PM
Q-CTRL boosts quantum algorithms by >25X in benchmarking experiments
New algorithmic benchmarking experiments from Q-CTRL show that replacement quantum logic operations built using quantum control can improve the success of quantum algorithms on real hardware by up >25X with no additional overhead on the part of the user.
Link: https://ift.tt/3GRNso6
November 05, 2021 at 10:30AM
Cooperation in Quantum Information Sciences and Technologies
Joint Statement of the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on Cooperation in Quantum Information Sciences and Technologies Recognizing that quantum information science and technology (QIST) – applying what we know about quantum mechanics to explore
Link: https://ift.tt/3wixyy1
November 05, 2021 at 10:31AM
IonQ is First Quantum Startup to Go Public; Will it be First to Deliver Profits?
On October 1 of this year, IonQ became the first pure-play quantum computing start-up to go public. At this writing, the stock (NYSE: IONQ) was around $15 and its market capitalization was roughly $2.89B.
Link: https://ift.tt/3mGitmU
November 05, 2021 at 10:31AM
A New Quantum Computing Method Is 2,500 Percent More Efficient
We just moved years closer to viable quantum computers. And the new method increased the likelihood of success by an unprecedented 2,500%.
Link: https://ift.tt/3CZfIm8
November 05, 2021 at 11:30PM
QuTech creates a time crystal
Researchers from QuTech created a time crystal, a novel exotic quantum phase of matter, using a quantum computer based on diamond. Together with a simultaneous experiment by Google, the results shed new light on the physics of out-of-equilibrium quantum systems.
Link: https://ift.tt/3o3C283
November 06, 2021 at 11:30AM