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Prof. John Preskill announced that he has passed 200,000 followers on Twitter, an increase from 150,000 less than 6 months ago. Beyond the personal significance for him, I invite you to reflect with me on what this means for an ecosystem that is noticeably smaller than that.

This week’s premium content:

• PsiQuantum’s Circuit Designer
• IBM vs Rigetti: Who’s the fool now?
• Norges Bank invested in quantum.
• How many quantum computers have been sold?

In this edition:

• QuTech is rolling out the red QARPET.
• CSIC says it’s “like playing with Lego.”
• Berkeley Lab has a “Robot Pizza Chef.”
• NASA’s got a comic and a coloring sheet.
• That’s probably offensive.
• The QSilver lining is that this online workshop is free.
• Who will be speaking at Q+AI?
• Extending Context Windows for AI & ML With Qubits
• Construction of PsiQuantum’s computer is “frozen.”
• The I Ching (易經, Yìjīng), or “Book of Changes”
• #80: Certified Unpredictability
• “Publish or Perish” meets “AI slop.”
• Quantum computers aren’t expensive enough.
• Qruise’s Quantum Octopus?
• Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a photon joke.
• Steve Suarez has “white paint” solutions.
• What time is it?
• ”…it formed this sort of ultra cold jelly.”

QuTech is rolling out the red QARPET.

The images of the Qubit-Array Research Platform for Engineering and Testing actually use purple, pink and gold, not red, but let’s just call that an opportunity missed. QARPET is intended to make it easier to test and scale up semiconductor spin qubit processors, and it does indeed look woven under a microscope.

CSIC says it’s “like playing with Lego.”

“Majorana qubits become readable as quantum capacitance detects even-odd states,” by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), is a serious piece about Nature-published research, but it invokes LEGO to analogize Kitaev minimal chains and I’m here to encourage analogies.

Berkeley Lab has a “Robot Pizza Chef.”

Inside the DoE’s Molecular Foundry, the quantum information science (QIS) cluster tool has a robotic arm that shuttles an 8-inch wafer from station to surrounding station, adding layers like making a pizza. That analogy alone makes the cut, but kudos to author Lauren Biron for extending the analogy throughout the article.

NASA’s got a comic and a coloring sheet.

Thanks to Jacqueline Minerd for pointing me to “Quantum Communications,” a list of resources for quantum communications technology. I only needed one specific thing on the page to be able to add it here, but The Quantum Dragon is a big ol’ fire-breathing kid, and he demanded I click on most of the links.

That’s probably offensive.

The good news is that more mainstream people are being exposed to Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment and gaining a basic understanding of superposition. The bad news is that I’ve now seen this knowledge applied to a meme that I’m not willing to include in this newsletter.

The QSilver lining is that this online workshop is free.

QPoland, QWorld, and Fundacja Quantum AI are teaming up for “Quantum Computing and Programming Workshop – QSilver 36.” It’s Qiskit-based, which I generally discourage, but it’s introductory, so I’ll allow it. It looks like a mix of recorded lectures and mentor-assisted programming tasks.

Who will be speaking at Q+AI?

I will be awarding 100 admittedly worthless points to anyone who can name them all.

Extending Context Windows for AI & ML With Qubits

Infleqtion’s Dr. Pranav Gokhale talks for 1 minute and 15 seconds about using quantum computers to extend AI context windows, which would allow large language models (LLM) and machine learning (ML) models to process far more information at a time than they currently can.

Construction of PsiQuantum’s computer is “frozen.”

Brittney Levinson missed an opportunity to use this awful pun when she wrote in The Australian Financial Review that “PsiQuantum’s plant in Brisbane will reach -269C,” because she then wrote in the first paragraph that “there are still no signs of movement at the vacant 13-hectare site.”

The I Ching (易經, Yìjīng), or “Book of Changes”

You have never read an introductory tutorial on quantum computing like this. Not even close. Dr. Thomas Ehmer takes a non-traditional approach that results in an article not only with mathematics and code, but also with the far more obvious choice of yin and yang.

#80: Certified Unpredictability

Dr. Walborn and I spoke about the use cases of quantum random number generators (QRNG), self-testing and certification, the underlying mechanism for guaranteeing randomness, API versus on-premises options, and Sequre Quantum’s plans for integrating its QRNG into its own post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and/or quantum key distribution (QKD) solutions. Most importantly, I picked up a new phrase that I am going to use and abuse: “quantum imposter.”

“Publish or Perish” meets “AI slop.”

Quantum Formalism makes the point that “AI slop” has managed to make “publish or perish” even worse. As a naive non-Academic who has been observing complaints about both for a while, I wonder aloud when someone is going to propose a solution. How do you stop the spam, let alone the AI-generated spam?

Quantum computers aren’t expensive enough.

Atom Computing and Microsoft sold a quantum computer to EIFO and the Novo Nordisk Foundation for roughly $92,800,000 after currency conversion. Delta Gold Technologies has come along and wants to use gold. I’m joking about the cost of gold, of course, since it’s only nanoscale, but is it reasonable to think about PsiQuantum (BTO use, specifically) and wonder about the cost of using another novel material?

Qruise’s Quantum Octopus?

I don’t know if the octopus is a thing or is going to become a thing, but The Quantum Dragon is eager to welcome The Quantum Octopus to The Quantum Animal Kingdom. I clicked through the website and it appears to be a feature of the blog, which is a good start, but Qruise needs to release the Kraken and get it out there.

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a photon joke.

It’s more of a photon “dad joke,” but I’ll let you be the judge. This link may require a Facebook account.

Steve Suarez has “white paint” solutions.

Steve Suarez has a problem-solving analogy that’s worth reading. He, of course, applies it to quantum, so it counts. This link may require a LinkedIn account.

What time is it?

Why do we need atomic clocks? What do we use them for? Dstl shared a 1-minute 57-second explainer that includes some marketing content toward the end, but answering these questions is the focus of roughly the first half of it. This link may require a Twitter account.

”…it formed this sort of ultra cold jelly.”

Nobel Laureate Eric Cornell talks for 56 seconds about forming the first Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). This link may require a Twitter account.

Filed under: Quantum Computing • Quantum Hardware • Industry News