Quantum News Briefs January 3: Japan’s Riken plans quantum link to supercomputer Fugaku; €10m Irish project to focus on quantum tech’s potential to secure data; Best practices for avoiding quantum doomsday + MORE

Quantum News Briefs January 3 is international and begins with Japan’s Riken planning quantum link to supercomputer Fugaku followed by news of €10m Irish project focusing on quantum tech’s potential to secure data; third is USA focused with Best practices for avoiding quantum doomsday + MORE from China Mobile.

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Japan’s Riken plans quantum link to supercomputer Fugaku

Japan’s Riken research institute aims to bring quantum computing technology into real-world use by around 2025 through integration with the Fugaku supercomputer according to Nikkea Asia summarized below by Quantum News Briefs.
Existing quantum machines need to be kept in extremely cold environments, and they can be unstable and prone to errors. Riken will establish a communications link between a quantum computer and Fugaku, the world’s second-fastest supercomputer, to overcome this weakness. Fugaku was developed by the government-backed institute and Fujitsu.
Riken will set up the first prototype in Japan by the end of March in the city of Wako, near Tokyo. Only core calculations will be offloaded to the quantum machine, while Fugaku organizes and reinforces the various outputs to approach the right solution.
Riken also will work with an alliance of companies including Toyota Motor, Hitachi and Sony Group to promote the use of computing infrastructure that melds quantum technology with supercomputers. It will launch a team in fiscal 2023 to study different calculation methods and tools to facilitate data transfers between the quantum computer and Fugaku.  Click here to read complete Nikkei Asia article.

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€10m Irish project to focus on quantum tech’s potential to secure data

Irish quantum tech experts are coming together on a project that aims to future-proof communications infrastructure across Europe. Research from universities and institutes around the country will pool their expertise to examine how infrastructure and the transmission of data in Ireland can be secured using quantum technology. Quantum News Briefs summarizes below.
The €10m IrelandQCI project is part of an EU-wide quantum communications infrastructure programme called EuroQCI, and is being funded by the Irish Government and the EU.
The 30-month-long project will be led by the Waterford-based Walton Institute, which is a part of South East Technological University. Walton Institute director Dr Deirdre Kilbane hailed the project as “the first steps towards building the quantum internet in Ireland”.
Other partners include researchers at Trinity College Dublin and the Tyndall Institute at University College Cork, with support from University College Dublin and Maynooth University. All are member institutions of Connect, the Science Foundation Ireland research centre for future networks and communications.
Other participants in IrelandQCI include the Irish Centre for High-End Computing as well as HEAnet and ESB Telecoms.
Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications Ossian Smyth, TD, said: “We are lucky to have such a high quality and committed community of experts in Ireland in the quantum field. “Developing Ireland’s first quantum communications infrastructure network will bring quantum technologies a step closer, and will help Irish businesses, public agencies and the general public to start building the skills needed to benefit from the quantum internet,” he added. Click here to read complete article in Silicon Republic.

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Best practices for avoiding quantum doomsday

Skip Sanzeri , co-founder and COO of QuSecure, Inc. is the author of a recent Federal News Practices advising large organizations on how to prepare and avoid quantum doomsday.  Quantum News Briefs summarizes below.
For large organizations to start the process of upgrading the PQC, here are some steps they should follow:

1. 1. 1. Educate the board, the executive team, IT and the cyber team on the quantum threat, estimated timelines and various post-quantum cybersecurity solutions.
      2. Begin the assessment process to review your existing cryptography and look for vulnerabilities that need to be upgraded/patched.
      3. Begin talking with PQC companies to understand what solutions are available. Differing viewpoints, when rationalized together, will provide the organization with a more robust representation of their architecture, and illuminate options for better decision making.
      4. Look for solutions that are cryptographically agile, meaning they can use any of the NIST approved algorithms which ensures that your organization will have the optimal quantum protection. So, if one algorithm fails, or causes issues, with crypto agility you can seamlessly switch to another algorithm.
      5. Replace existing pseudo random number generators with quantum random number generators. This step will ensure that the entropy source used to generate keys is at the highest level possible and closes potential loopholes in the cryptographic system.
      6. Be sure to find solutions that are backwards compatible, meaning that they can interoperate with your existing cybersecurity environment. It is difficult for large organizations to rip and replace technology so the quantum resilient solution you choose should be able to create quantum protection while easing into your current cybersecurity environment.
      7. Look for a solution that can create quantum secure channels for all your end devices, as well as your servers. To have a truly post-quantum cybersecurity environment, you will need to protect all nodes including Internet of Things, laptops, phones and more.
      8. Start testing some of these solutions in test environments with IT and cybersecurity teams so they can get used to working with post-quantum cybersecurity in your organization.
      9. After testing, begin upgrading various parts of the network to post-quantum cybersecurity.

   Click here to read Sanzeri’s Federal News Network article in-entirety

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   World’s largest telecom carrier explores quantum computing

   

   China Mobile, the world’s largest telecom carrier by mobile subscribers, started officially exploring how to tap into quantum computing to overcome the computational bottlenecks facing 5G and 6G.
   The research institute of China Mobile, which has now more than 900 million subscribers, inked a deal with Origin Quantum, a Chinese startup focusing on quantum computers and related technologies.
   Under the agreement, Origin Quantum, based in Hefei, Anhui province, will provide quantum communication algorithms based on real machine verification of its superconducting quantum computer called OriginQWuyuan to help overcome the computational bottlenecks facing 5G and 6G.
   Cui Chunfeng, president of the future research institute of China Mobile Research Institute, said “We hope to explore the possibility of applying quantum computing to achieve network optimization, network autonomy, network security and metaverse, and we hope to fundamentally solve the (computational) bottlenecks for the development of a future network.”
   Origin Quantum has made a number of breakthroughs in the field of quantum computing since its establishment in the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone  in 2017. Click here to read the original China Daily article in-entirety.

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   Sandra K. Helsel, Ph.D. has been researching and reporting on frontier technologies since 1990.  She has her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.