Quantum News Briefs July 11: Quantum Xchange enables enterprises to track progress toward post-quantum standardization with dynamic dashboards • Iberdrola & Multiverse Computing announce pilot project success to optimize battery installation in the grid • QuSecure collaborates with NVIDIA’s revolutionary cuPQC initiative to advance post-quantum cryptography • First full-stack, ion-trap-based quantum computer demonstrator made in Germany commissioned
News Briefs:
Quantum Xchange enables enterprises to track progress toward post-quantum standardization with dynamic dashboards
Quantum Xchange delivering the future of encryption with crypto agility, visibility, and management solutions, announced on July 10 the latest release of CipherInsights, the company’s network monitoring, crypto-discovery and risk assessment tool. Version 11.0 includes several new features to pinpoint any weaknesses in enterprise cryptography and ease an organization’s inevitable migration to quantum-safe cryptography, replacing their legacy encryption with Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standards to be announced by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) summer 2024.
Deployed as a passive listener on the network, CipherInsights continuously monitors dozens of cryptographic risk factors in near real time, including quantum-vulnerable cryptography and where encryption is deficient or outright lacking. The sensor-based tool and on-the-wire analysis differs from network visibility and vulnerability scanners in that it scans and analyzes all traffic – even outbound traffic destined for an external host. For its functionality and practicality, CipherInsights is a discovery tool accepted by NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Migration to PQC Project.
Further efficiencies found in CipherInsights version 11.0 include new Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to ensure seamless integration with established infrastructure and cybersecurity tools, such as Configuration Management Database (CMDB), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), and Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) systems. This version update also adds the ability to produce Cryptographic Bill of Materials (CBOM), which is quickly becoming the industry standard for reporting on cryptography used in an organization.
Iberdrola & Multiverse Computing announce pilot project success to optimize battery installation in the grid
Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest clean energy companies, and Multiverse Computing, a global leader in value-based quantum computing solutions, have successfully delivered a pilot project in northern Spain to optimise the installation of grid-scale batteries, which will become increasingly important as the energy transition progresses according to July 11 news release.
As electricity grids are integrating increasing amounts of renewable generation, electric vehicles, heat pumps and other distributed energy resources, battery storage is providing an increasingly important service to ensure grid stability. Multiverse Computing’s solution uses quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms to select the optimal number, type and locations of batteries on the grid network. This reduces the costs of adding batteries to the grid and increases network performance. Click here to view video illustrating this development.
i-DE, Iberdrola’s distribution company in Spain, oversaw the pilot project, which was focused on Guipuzkoa’s electricity grid (Basque Country, Spain). During the ten-month pilot, quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms matched or outperformed classical benchmarks to maximize grid reliability and voltage control.
QuSecure collaborates with NVIDIA’s revolutionary cuPQC initiative to advance post-quantum cryptography
QuSecure™, Inc. announced July it has joined NVIDIA and a select group of technology leaders in supporting NVIDIA’s cuPQC, a recently launched pioneering library set to redefine cryptography in the quantum era. NVIDIA’s cuPQC leverages the unmatched parallelism of NVIDIA GPUs to meet the rigorous demands of next-generation security algorithms, marking a monumental leap in bringing PQC to environments that stand to benefit most from their protection, including telecommunications, insurance, banking and finance, critical infrastructure, and the public sector, all of which QuSecure currently and actively supports.
In groundbreaking benchmarks, cuPQC has already demonstrated remarkable acceleration of Kyber, a leading candidate for securing quantum-resistant keys, achieving speeds multiple times faster on an NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU than on traditional CPU benchmarks. The forthcoming NVIDIA Blackwell architecture GPUs are optimized for the intricate integer mathematics pivotal in cryptography and aim to amplify this acceleration.
In Other News:
Data Center Dynamics reports on “Quantum computing demonstration system commissioned in Germany“
NXP Semiconductors and quantum computing startups eleQtron and ParityQC, working together in the QSea consortium of the DLR Quantum Computing Initiative (DLR QCI), recently revealed the first full-stack, ion-trap-based quantum computer demonstrator made entirely in Germany, according to author Dan Swinhoe July 8 in Data Center Dynamics.
Located at the DLR QCI innovation center in Hamburg, the 10-qubit QSea I system was commissioned by the DLR QCI, and will be made available to companies and research teams.
The demonstrator includes prototype Magic hardware, the ParityQC architecture, and NXP’s chip design, which will be combined into a more powerful modular and scalable quantum computer in the upcoming QSea II system.
