Quantum News Briefs July 15: Chinese team uses quantum tech to follow electrons on superconductor trail • Governments across world impose identical export controls on quantum computers & refuse to disclose rationale • Will banks be ready for post-quantum chaos if they’re too focused on a pre-quantum world?
News Briefs:
In Other News:
In other News from South China Morning Post: A Chinese team used quantum tech to follow electrons on the superconductor trail
A Chinese team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has built a quantum computer that can simulate the movement of electrons in a solid-state material, a task that could be a springboard for applications that are so far well beyond the ability of the world’s fastest supercomputers, according to Zhang Tongin in the July 12 South China Morning Post.
Tracking such subatomic particles is central to a number of scientific questions, such as what makes magnets attract each other. Unlocking such fundamental science could help crack the code to creating high-temperature superconducting materials, potentially revolutionising electricity transmission and transport.
“Our achievement demonstrates the capabilities of quantum simulators to exceed those of classical computers, marking a milestone in the second stage of China’s quantum computing research,” team leader Pan Jianwei said in a statement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
PCGamer reports “Governments across world impose identical export controls on quantum computers & refuse to disclose rationale”
Secret international discussions have resulted in governments across the world imposing identical export controls on quantum computers, while refusing to disclose the scientific rationale behind the regulations according to Nick Evanson in PCGamer.
The UK is one of the countries that has prohibited the export of quantum computers with 34 or more quantum bits, or qubits, and error rates below a certain threshold. A New Scientist freedom of information request for a rationale behind these numbers was turned down on the grounds of national security.
What’s particularly unusual about this latest news is that other countries have followed suit, creating export controls that match the UK’s word-for-word, specification-for-specification.Such countries include France, Spain, and the Netherlands and Canada. New Scientist contacted the French embassy, where a spokesperson claimed that the controls were set on the basis of “multilateral negotiations conducted over several years under the Wassenaar Arrangement.”
That’s an agreement to control the sales of arms and goods that have military applications.
In Other News: Retail Banker International asks,”Will banks be ready for post-quantum chaos if they’re too focused on a pre-quantum world?”
The fear of fintech disruption has forced banks to actively discuss and explore a plethora of transformative technologies like artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and the Internet of Things. However, quantum computing, potentially the most disruptive (or even destructive) of them all, receives a relatively small amount of boardroom airtime, according to author Suneet Muru in a July 9 RetailBanker article.
Quantum computers are believed to be able to revolutionize financial modeling, portfolio optimisation, fraud detection, and customer targeting. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are leading the way in exploring quantum computing for finance, focusing on algorithms and applications rather than hardware. JP Morgan has collaborated with Quantinuum on research papers covering topics like option pricing and portfolio optimisation using quantum computers.
In general, quantum computers have the potential to exponentially increase the speed of almost everything banks do from a technological standpoint. For example, they can process digital payments much faster than classical computers, paving the way for near-frictionless capital flow. Risk quantification is a key challenge facing banks, especially concerning cyber risks, which are many and varied. Having a computer that can take unstructured data across multiple risk types and very quickly understand the relationship between different factors could be a game changer for banks in both predicting and understanding the impact of financial market turmoil.
