Quantum News Briefs July 12: Seven Quantum Computing stocks to buy for the next 10 years, ‘Quantum Advantage’ showdowns have no clear winners, Crypto Quantique’s post-quantum computing IoT security platform compliant with NIST Standards and MORE

Quantum News Briefs opens today with quantum computing stocks “time to buy” assessment from Lango of InvestorPlace, followed by an extensive look at the “quantum advantage” terminology by the venerable Wired magazine’s Sophia Chen. Next is Crypto Quantique’s announcement about its post-quantum computing QuarkLink chip-to-cloud IoT security platform believed to be the first to use post-quantum algorithms recently announced for standardization by NIST and MORE.

Seven Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy for the Next 10 Years

Luke Lango of InvestorPlace writes that quantum computing is starting to hit its stride and the investment implication is that “It’s time to buy quantum computing stocks.” IQT summarizes below.
These are the seven quantum computing stocks Lango recommends buying for the next ten years:
1 The best is probably Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) stock.
2 The other “big dog” that closely rivals Alphabet in the quantum computing space is IBM.
3 Another big tech player in the quantum computing space with promising long-term potential is Microsoft (MSFT).
4 The most interesting, smallest and potentially most explosive quantum computing stock on this list is Quantum Computing (QUBT).
5 Alibaba’s (BABA) focused on creating a robust QCaaS arm to complement its already-huge infrastructure-as-a-service business.
In short, Alibaba is the leading public cloud provider in China. Indeed, Alibaba Cloud owns about 10% of the global IaaS market.
6 The other big Chinese tech company diving head-first into quantum computing is Baidu (BIDU). Thanks to its early research into quantum computing, BIDU stock does have healthy upside.
8 Last — but not least — on this list of quantum computing stocks to buy is Intel (INTC). Intel may be falling behind competitors — namely Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) — on the traditional CPU front. But the semiconductor giant is on the cutting edge of creating potential quantum CPU candidates.
NOTE: This list is the opinion of Luke Lango of InvestorPlace.

Related: Inside Quantum Technology’s Quantum Stocks Zone.

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Quantum Advantage Showdowns Have No Clear Winners

Sophia Chen of Wired takes a long look at the term “quantum advantage” and the Quantum News Briefs summarizes her discussion for our readers. Through interviews and examples, Chen walks us through a series of recent experiments between quantum and classical computers and shows the term’s ever-evolving meaning. In fact, Chen backtracks to relate how the original term “quantum supremacy” was replaced by “quantum advantage,” to avoid echoes of “white supremacy.”
Chen references Xanadu’s announcement about its recent experiment in which it took its Borealis  quantum computer 36 microseconds to generate one set of 216 numbers from a complicated statistical distribution. They estimated it would take Fugaku, the most powerful supercomputer at the time of the experiment, an average of 9,000 years to produce a set of numbers from the same distribution.The experiment is the latest in a series of demonstrations of so-called quantum advantage, where a quantum computer defeats a state-of-the-art supercomputer at a specified task.
So what, exactly, does Xanadu’s claim of quantum advantage mean? As more researchers claim quantum advantage for their machines, the meaning of the achievement has become murkier. For one thing, quantum advantage doesn’t mark the end of a race between quantum and classical computers. It’s the beginning.
Every time a quantum computing team lays their hands on the trophy, their rivals try to yank it back. Because of this dynamic, announcements of quantum advantage have become less like triumphant declarations than invitations for public critique.
The back-and-forth pushes researchers to make better quantum computers, says physicist Jonathan Lavoie of Xanadu: “I think this kind of competition is very healthy.” But the experiments misrepresent the anticipated purpose of quantum computers. “People emphasize too much the competition between classical and quantum,” he continues.
So if claims of quantum advantage can be rapidly leapfrogged, and the tasks themselves have no practical application, perhaps it’s time for more informative ways to evaluate progress. Some physicists have already begun judging quantum computers based on their environmental footprint.
Each claim of quantum advantage has set off other researchers to develop faster classical algorithms to challenge that claim. Click here to read Chen’s complete article.

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Crypto Quantique Announced First Post-Quantum computing IoT Security Platform Compliant with NIST Standards

Crypto Quantique, a specialist in quantum-driven cybersecurity for the internet of things (IoT), has announced a post-quantum computing (PQC) version of its QuarkLink chip-to-cloud IoT security platform. The upgraded platform is believed to be the first to use post-quantum algorithms recently announced for standardisation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), particularly the chosen key encapsulation mechanism (KEM), CRYSTALS-Kyber.
QuarkLink is a comprehensive platform for connecting IoT devices with an embedded root-of-trust to server-based applications. Its functions include device provisioning, automated secure onboarding to applications, and lifetime security management. Via a simple interface, users can achieve firmware encryption, signing and secure updates over-the-air, certificate and key renewal, and device revocation. Click here for complete announcement.
Crypto Quantique worked on the post-quantum version of QuarkLink’s enrolment, relying on a custom, built-in-house variant of the novel KEM-TLS protocol developed with researchers at the Department of Computer science at ETH Zurich. The research was led by led by Professor Kenny Paterson. The resulting variant of the KEM-TLS protocol is particularly suited to the IoT setting, as its reliance on KEMs as opposed to post-quantum digital signatures lowers bandwidth costs and increases efficiency, without compromising security.

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Some Companies Risk Being Late to Quantum

A recent report indicates that there has been an acceleration of activity in quantum computing, with venture capital increasing 50% to more than $1 billion from 2020 to 2021 and estimates of total global investment now reaching $25 billion. The U.S. remains the leading country in quantum computing development, but China is aiming to catch up, with $10 billion of investment claimed in the period to 2030. Quantum News Briefs summarizes, see the complete article from DataCenterKnowledge here.
Albert Meige, one of the report authors and founder of industrial innovation consultancy Presans, now part of the Arthur D. Little Group says, “Despite this, one of our key findings is that the impact will be so important when quantum computing becomes mature, and the topic is so technically complex, that it will be too late for the companies that have not prepared themselves.”
Meige said the language that has developed to explain quantum computing may be one of the barriers to understanding it and the report set out to rectify that.
In Europe, Germany, the U.K., France and the Netherlands are the main players. Outside of China, Japan leads Asia-Pacific with Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia also active.
The report identifies three main use cases for quantum computing: simulation, optimization and machine learning. While some solutions providers suggest practical quantum computing is as little as five to 10 years away, the report concludes that it is possible but unlikely.

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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.