BlockChain and Quantum Computing Warning

Insider Brief

• Quantum computers could potentially break current blockchain encryption, risking billions in cryptocurrency assets, according to a quantum policy expert.
• Quantum-resistant cryptography and quantum random-number generators are emerging as vital solutions to protect blockchain networks from quantum attacks.
• Companies are already developing quantum-secure blockchain technologies to counter these future threats.

Cryptocurrencies are maturing.

Quantum computing is maturing.

Both crypto and quantum are earning attention from Presidential candidates and global policymakers, eager to tap into both the power of these new technologies, as well as the extensive communities of advocates.

Taken separately, practitioners of those fields may be excited about this developments. However, the two deep techs are on a collision course.

Quantum computing is poised to disrupt a wide range of industries, and the world of cryptocurrencies is no exception, points out Arthur Herman in a recent op-ed in the Korea Herald. Herman, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and Director of the Quantum Alliance Initiative, writes that the same technology that could unlock immense computational power might also render existing cryptographic systems, including those that secure blockchain networks, vulnerable to attacks.

This alarming possibility, he argues, should be a wake-up call for the cryptocurrency industry and for anyone relying on blockchain technology.   READ MORE...

72 Qubit Quantum Computer

The third-generation superconducting quantum computer, “Origin Wukong,” was launched on January 6 at Origin Quantum Computing Technology in Hefei, according to Chinese-based media outlet, The Global Times, as reported by the Pakistan Today.

According to the news outlets, the “Origin Wukong” is powered by a 72-qubit superconducting quantum chip, known as the “Wukong chip.” This development marks a new milestone in China’s quantum computing journey as it’s the most advanced programmable and deliverable superconducting quantum computer in China, as per a joint statement from the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center and the Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Computing Chips, shared with the Global Times.

Superconducting quantum computers, such as the “Origin Wukong,” rely on a approach being investigated by several other quantum computer makers, including IBM and Google quantum devices.  READ MORE...

Individual Molecules Entangled

For the first time, a team of Princeton physicists have been able to link together individual molecules into special states that are quantum mechanically "entangled." In these bizarre states, the molecules remain correlated with each other—and can interact simultaneously—even if they are miles apart, or indeed, even if they occupy opposite ends of the universe. This research was recently published in the journal Science.  READ MORE...

A Little Science

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Electron Charge Within Millisecond Coherence Time

Coherence stands as a pillar of effective communication, whether it is in writing, speaking or information processing. This principle extends to quantum bits, or qubits, the building blocks of quantum computing. A quantum computer could one day tackle previously insurmountable challenges in climate prediction, material design, drug discovery and more.  READ MORE...

A team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has achieved a major milestone toward future quantum computing. They have extended the coherence time for their novel type of qubit to an impressive 0.1 milliseconds—nearly a thousand times better than the previous record.

Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient

In the world of quantum error correction, an underdog is coming for the king.

Last week, new simulations from two groups reported that a rising class of quantum error-correcting codes is more efficient by an order of magnitude than the current gold standard, known as the surface code. 

The codes all work by transforming a horde of error-prone qubits into a much smaller band of “protected” qubits that rarely make mistakes. But in the two simulations, low-density parity check — or LDPC — codes could make protected qubits out of 10 to 15 times fewer raw qubits than the surface code. 

Neither group has implemented these simulated leaps in actual hardware, but the experimental blueprints suggest that these codes, or codes like them, could hasten the arrival of more capable quantum devices.

“It really looks like it’s coming to fruition,” said Daniel Gottesman of the University of Maryland, who studies LDPC codes but was not involved in the recent studies. “These [codes] could be practical things that can greatly improve our ability to make quantum computers.”

Classical computers run on bits that rarely misfire. But the particle-like objects — qubits — that power quantum computers lose their quantum mojo when just about anything jostles them out of their delicate state. 

To coax future qubits into usefulness, researchers plan to use quantum error correction, the practice of using extra qubits to redundantly encode information. It’s similar in spirit to protecting a message from static by speaking each word twice, spreading out the information among more characters.

The Canonical King
In 1998, Alexei Kitaev of the California Institute of Technology and Sergey Bravyi, then of the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Russia, introduced the quantum error-correcting surface code. It organizes qubits into a square grid and executes something like a game of Minesweeper: Each qubit connects to four neighbors, so checking designated helper qubits allows you to discreetly snoop on four data-carrying qubits. 

Depending on whether the check returns a 0 or a 1, you can infer whether some of the neighbors have erred. By checking around the board, you can deduce where the errors are and fix them.  READ MORE...

Vibrations Prevent Quantum Computing Loses

Michigan State University researchers have discovered how to utilize vibrations, usually an obstacle in quantum computing, as a tool to stabilize quantum states. Their research provides insights into controlling environmental factors in quantum systems and has implications for the advancement of quantum technology.



When quantum systems, such as those used in quantum computers, operate in the real world, they can lose information to mechanical vibrations.

New research led by Michigan State University, however, shows that a better understanding of the coupling between the quantum system and these vibrations can be used to mitigate loss.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, could help improve the design of quantum computers that companies such as IBM and Google are currently developing.

The Challenge of Isolation in Quantum Computing
Nothing exists in a vacuum, but physicists often wish this weren’t the case. Because if the systems that scientists study could be completely isolated from the outside world, things would be a lot easier.

Take quantum computing. It’s a field that’s already drawing billions of dollars in support from tech investors and industry heavyweights including IBM, Google, and Microsoft. But if the tiniest vibrations creep in from the outside world, they can cause a quantum system to lose information.

For instance, even light can cause information leaks if it has enough energy to jiggle the atoms within a quantum processor chip.

The Problem of Vibrations
“Everyone is really excited about building quantum computers to answer really hard and important questions,” said Joe Kitzman, a doctoral student at Michigan State University. “But vibrational excitations can really mess up a quantum processor.”

However, with new research published in the journal Nature Communications, Kitzman and his colleagues are showing that these vibrations need not be a hindrance. In fact, they could benefit quantum technology.     READ MORE...

Quantum AI Braids Non-Abelian Anyons

Researchers were able to observe the curious effects of braiding non-Abelian anyons for the first time. Credit: Google Quantum AI

Google Quantum AI has observed non-Abelian anyons for the first time, a breakthrough that could revolutionize quantum computing by making it more robust to noise and leading to topological quantum computation.

Our intuition tells us that it should be impossible to see whether two identical objects have been swapped back and forth, and for all particles observed to date, that has been the case. Until now.


Non-Abelian anyons — the only particles that have been predicted to break this rule — have been sought for their fascinating features and their potential to revolutionize quantum computing by making the operations more robust to noise. Microsoft and others have chosen this approach for their quantum computing effort. But after decades of efforts by researchers in the field, observing non-Abelian anyons and their strange behavior has proven challenging, to say the least.

In a paper published in the journal Nature on May 11, researchers at Google Quantum AI announced that they had used one of their superconducting quantum processors to observe the peculiar behavior of non-Abelian anyons for the first time ever. They also demonstrated how this phenomenon could be used to perform quantum computations. 

Earlier this week the quantum computing company Quantinuum released another study on the topic, complementing Google’s initial discovery. These new results open a new path toward topological quantum computation, in which operations are achieved by winding non-Abelian anyons around each other like strings in a braid.

Google Quantum AI team member and first author of the manuscript, Trond I. Andersen says, “Observing the bizarre behavior of non-Abelian anyons for the first time really highlights the type of exciting phenomena we can now access with quantum computers.”  READ MORE...

Manipulating Quantum LIght

Scientists stand ready to manipulate quantum light, just as Albert Einstein envisioned in 1916.

Researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Basel successfully managed to manipulate and identify small numbers of interacting photons—packets of light energy. 

According to the team, this work represents an unprecedented landmark development for quantum technologies.

Stimulated light emission—a theory first proposed by Einstein in 1916 that helps explain how photons can trigger atoms to emit other photons—laid the basis for the invention of the laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). 

It’s long been understood for large numbers of photons, but this new research has allowed scientists to both observe and effect stimulated emission for single photons for the first time. Researchers measured the direct time delay between one photon and a pair of bound photons scattering off a single quantum dot, a type of artificially created atom.

“This opens the door to the manipulation of what we can call ‘quantum light,’” Sahand Mahmoodian, of the University of Sydney School of Physics and joint lead author of a research paper published in Nature Physics, says in a news release. 

“This fundamental science opens the pathway for advances in quantum-enhanced measurement techniques and photonic quantum computing.  READ MORE...

Quantum Information Between Technologies

A niobium superconducting cavity. The holes lead to tunnels which intersect to trap light and atoms. Credit: Aishwarya Kumar

Researchers have discovered a way to "translate" quantum information between different kinds of quantum technologies, with significant implications for quantum computing, communication, and networking.

The research was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. It represents a new way to convert quantum information from the format used by quantum computers to the format needed for quantum communication.

Photons—particles of light—are essential for quantum information technologies, but different technologies use them at different frequencies. For example, some of the most common quantum computing technology is based on superconducting qubits, such as those used by tech giants Google and IBM; these qubits store quantum information in photons that move at microwave frequencies.

But if you want to build a quantum network, or connect quantum computers, you can't send around microwave photons because their grip on their quantum information is too weak to survive the trip.

"A lot of the technologies that we use for classical communication—cell phones, Wi-Fi, GPS and things like that—all use microwave frequencies of light," said Aishwarya Kumar, a postdoc at the James Franck Institute at University of Chicago and lead author on the paper. "But you can't do that for quantum communication because the quantum information you need is in a single photon. And at microwave frequencies, that information will get buried in thermal noise."

The solution is to transfer the quantum information to a higher-frequency photon, called an optical photon, which is much more resilient against ambient noise. 

But the information can't be transferred directly from photon to photon; instead, we need intermediary matter. Some experiments design solid state devices for this purpose, but Kumar's experiment aimed for something more fundamental: atoms.  READ MORE...

Quantum Phononic Processor

Quantum computing systems have the potential to outperform classical computers on some tasks, helping to solve complex real-world problems in shorter times. Research teams worldwide have thus been trying to realize this quantum advantage over traditional computers, by creating and testing different quantum systems.

Researchers at Tsinghua University recently developed a new programmable quantum phononic processor with trapped ions. This processor, introduced in a paper in Nature Physics, could be easier to scale up in size than other previously proposed photonic quantum processors, which could ultimately enable better performances on complex problems.

"Originally, we were interested in the proposal of Scott Aaronson and others about Boson sampling, which might show the quantum advantages of simple linear optics and photons," Kihwan Kim, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "We were wondering if it is possible to realize it with the phonons in a trapped ion system."

The use of phonons (i.e., sound waves or elementary vibrations) to create quantum computing systems was theoretically explored for some time. In recent years, however, physicists created trapped-ion systems created the technology necessary to use phonons as a quantum information processing resource, rather than mere mediators for entangling qubits.

"It has been shown that phonons at a harmonic potential can coherently transfer to the other harmonic potential and these phonons can interfere with each other," Kihwan Kim explained. "When we learned that a modified boson sampling (Gaussian boson sampling) can also be applied to a chemical problem (i.e., vibrational sampling) we demonstrated the sampling of SO2 molecules and developed a method to create a highly entangled phononic state; yet this was limited to a single ion. In this work, we finally implemented the phononic network in a scalable way, overcoming the limits of single ions."

The system created by Kihwan Kim and his colleagues is a programmable bosonic network, a network consisting of a set of bosonic modes, connected to each other via controllable beam splitters. They realized this network using phonons, excitations of collective vibrational modes that are also bosons.  READ MORE...

Quantum Computing Chips

Australian engineers have discovered a new way of precisely controlling single electrons nestled in quantum dots that run logic gates. What’s more, the new mechanism is less bulky and requires fewer parts, which could prove essential to making large-scale silicon quantum computers a reality.

The serendipitous discovery, made by engineers at the quantum computing start-up Diraq and UNSW Sydney, is detailed on January 12 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

“This was a completely new effect we’d never seen before, which we didn’t quite understand at first,” said lead author Dr. Will Gilbert, a quantum processor engineer at Diraq, a UNSW spin-off company based at its Sydney campus. “But it quickly became clear that this was a powerful new way of controlling spins in a quantum dot. And that was super exciting.”

Logic gates are the basic building block of all computation; they allow ‘bits’ – or binary digits (0s and 1s) – to work together to process information. However, a quantum bit (or qubit) exists in both of these states at once, a condition known as a ‘superposition’. This allows a multitude of computation strategies – some exponentially faster, some operating simultaneously – that are beyond classical computers. Qubits themselves are made up of ‘quantum dots’, tiny nanodevices which can trap one or a few electrons. Precise control of the electrons is necessary for computation to occur.  READ MORE...

Discovering an Invisible Phenomenon

It may be possible to develop superconductors that operate at room temperature with further knowledge of the relationship between spin liquids and superconductivity, which would transform our daily lives.

Superconductors offer enormous technical and economic promise for applications such as high-speed hovertrains, MRI machines, efficient power lines, quantum computing, and other technologies. 

However, their usefulness is limited since superconductivity requires extremely low temperatures. It is highly challenging to integrate them with modern technology because of this demanding and costly requirement.

The electrical resistance of a superconductor has a specific critical temperature beyond which it drops suddenly to zero, unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance declines gradually as temperature is reduced, even down to near absolute zero.  READ MORE...

New programming Language

While the nascent field of quantum computing can feel flashy and futuristic, quantum computers have the potential for computational breakthroughs in classically unsolvable tasks, like cryptographic and communication protocols, search, and computational physics and chemistry. Photo: Graham Carlow/IBM


Programming quantum computers require awareness of entanglement, the phenomenon in which measurement outcomes of qubits are correlated. Entanglement can determine the correctness of algorithms and the suitability of programming patterns.

Entangled qubits give rise to Einstein’s characterization of “spooky action at a distance.” But that potency is equal parts a source of weakness. While programming, discarding one qubit without being aware of its entanglement with one more qubit can obliterate the information put away in the other, endangering the accuracy of the program.

MIT scientists have created their programming language for quantum computing. This new language, called Twist, can describe and verify which pieces of data are entangled in a quantum program.

To create this new language, scientists used a concept called Purity. It enforces the absence of entanglement and results in more intuitive programs, with ideally fewer bugs.

Charles Yuan, an MIT Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer science and the lead author of a new paper about Twist, said, “Our language Twist allows a developer to write safer quantum programs by explicitly stating when a qubit must not be entangled with another. Because understanding quantum programs requires understanding entanglement, we hope that Twist paves the way to languages that make the unique challenges of quantum computing more accessible to programmers.”  READ MORE...

Quantum Computing in less than 5 Minutes

 

Cryptocurrency's Computing Problem

Cryptocurrencies hold the potential to change finance, eliminating middlemen and bringing accounts to millions of unbanked people around the world. Quantum computers could upend the way pharmaceuticals and materials are designed by bringing their extraordinary power to the process.

Here's the problem: The blockchain accounting technology that powers cryptocurrencies could be vulnerable to sophisticated attacks and forged transactions if quantum computing matures faster than efforts to future-proof digital money.

Cryptocurrencies are secured by a technology called public key cryptography. The system is ubiquitous, protecting your online purchases and scrambling your communications for anyone other than the intended recipient. The technology works by combining a public key, one that anyone can see, with a private key that's for your eyes only.

If current progress continues, quantum computers will be able to crack public key cryptography, potentially creating a serious threat to the crypto world, where some currencies are valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. If encryption is broken, attackers can impersonate the legitimate owners of cryptocurrency, NFTs or other such digital assets.

"Once quantum computing becomes powerful enough, then essentially all the security guarantees will go out of the window," Dawn Song, a computer security entrepreneur and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Collective[i] Forecast forum in October. "When public key cryptography is broken, users could be losing their funds and the whole system will break."

Quantum computers get their power by manipulating data stored on qubits, elements like charged atoms that are subject to the peculiar physics governing the ultrasmall. To crack encryption, quantum computers will need to harness thousands of qubits, vastly more than the dozens corralled by today's machines. The machines will also need persistent qubits that can perform calculations much longer than the fleeting moments possible right now.

But makers of quantum computers are working hard to address those shortcomings. They're stuffing ever more qubits into machines and working on quantum error correction methods to help qubits perform more-sophisticated and longer calculations.

"We expect that within a few years, sufficiently powerful computers will be available" for cracking blockchains open, said Nir Minerbi, CEO of quantum software maker Classiq Technologies.  READ MORE...

Quantum Computing Primacy

The Pan team’s optical quantum computer uses a 144-mode interferometer to solve a Gaussian boson sampling problem with a factor-of-1024 speedup in computational time relative to a classical computer. Credit: Chao-Yang Lu/University of Science and Technology of China, via Physics.

Two teams in China are claiming that they have reached primacy with their individual quantum computers. Both have published the details of their work in the journal Physical Review Letters.

In the computer world, quantum primacy is the performance of calculations that are not feasible on conventional computers—others use the term "quantum advantage."

Over the past several years, several teams working with quantum computers have claimed to have reached primacy, but thus far have been met with skepticism due to questions about whether the algorithm used was the best choice possible, including the one used by Google. In this new effort, both teams are claiming that their computers leave no room for doubt.

Both of the teams in these new efforts were working at the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the University of Science and Technology of China, and both were led by physicist Jian-Wei Pan, who has become well known for his work with quantum entanglement.

In both efforts, the goal was to build a quantum computer capable of calculating the output probabilities of quantum circuits—a task that is relatively simple for a conventional computer to perform when there are just a few inputs and outputs. It grows increasingly difficult as the numbers rise until it becomes unfeasible.  READ MORE...

Triple Qubit Entanglement Achieved

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Researchers with the Riken Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan have demonstrated a triple-qubit, silicon-based quantum computing mechanism - opening up the road for increased scalability beyond a mere increment in total qubits on a given system. Previously, qubits had only been shown working in entangled pairs -- and this research demonstrates that entanglement (and thus computation) can actually be divided between three qubits.

Quantum computing rests atop qubits - the quantum equivalent of the modern transistor. But while typical transistors can only represent one value at any point in time (with that value being either zero or one), qubits benefit from the superposition mechanic of quantum physics, meaning that they can represent both states at the same time.

Until now, quantum computing systems worked by entangling two distinct qubits, which allowed them work in tandem in solving any complex workload (entanglement meaning that the qubits perfectly mirror each other, and any changes to one qubit's state are instantly replicated in the other). 

If you think of each qubit as a single core, the research now increases the maximum amount of qubits ("cores") that can work in synchrony to be three, from its previous two-qubit maximum. Theoretically, you can now build multiple triple-core quantum computing subdivisions, instead of dual-core ones.  READ MORE