Quantum News Briefs May 18: IBM, Google give $150 Million for computing research at U of Chicago and U of Tokyo; Quantum Machines and ParTec introduce QBridge — a universal integration software solution for HPC and quantum computers; Arqit launches sale of satellite division + MORE

Quantum News Briefs May 18: IBM, Google give $150 Million for computing research at U of Chicago and U of Tokyo; Quantum Machines and ParTec introduce QBridge — a universal integration software solution for HPC and quantum computers; Arqit launches sale of satellite division + MORE.

IBM, Google give $150 Million for computing research at U of Chicago and U of Tokyo

IBM and Google are giving $150 million for quantum-computing research at the University of Chicago and the University of Tokyo as the U.S. and Japan try to stay ahead of a fast-rising China. Quantum News Briefs summarizes May 17 Wall Street Journal by Peter Landers.
A signing ceremony is set for this weekend in Hiroshima, Japan, where President Biden and other leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations are holding their annual summit.
The U.S.-Japan partnership is an example of how scientific research with implications for security and economic growth is increasingly split between China and a U.S.-led camp that includes allies such as Japan and Western European nations.
“We have to count on our allies more for primary research,” said Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan.
Emanuel said the partnership was hatched when the University of Tokyo’s president came over for lunch last July and mentioned the university’s quantum-computing program. As mayor of Chicago, Emanuel had promoted the University of Chicago’s ambitions in the field, so he pitched a joint research program with funds from U.S. companies.
IBM said it would give $100 million to the two universities with the aim of building a quantum-centric supercomputer in a decade that contains 100,000 qubits.
Google is contributing $50 million to the two universities in what Chou said was the first time the Silicon Valley company was sharing its quantum computer with university scientists as part of a long-term research partnership.
Click here for WSJ article in-entirety.

Quantum Machines and ParTec introduce QBridge — a universal integration software solution for HPC and quantum computers

Quantum Machines and ParTec have announced a co-developed universal software solution for the tight integration of quantum computers into high-performance computing (HPC) environments. QBridge is a first-of-its-kind commercially available solution that enables multiple HPC users to seamlessly execute hybrid workflows across HPC-classical and quantum computing resources. This advancement is a key requirement and a major step towards achieving quantum advantage. The first installation of the solution will be at the Israeli Quantum Computing Center (QCC) during the second half of 2023.
QBridge combines ParTec’s vast experience in building best-in-class heterogeneous HPC systems and developing software for their integration with Quantum Machines’ world-leading quantum control solutions. QBridge is a software solution that extends standard HPC schedulers to interface with Quantum Machines’ advanced HPC-ready control platform – OPX. Jointly with OPX, QBridge enables the organic management of quantum computers as yet another resource in the supercomputing center.

Key Features & Benefits of QBridge

• Co-scheduling of HPC-classical and quantum resources
• Enables low-latency and efficient execution of hybrid workflows  on scalable, heterogeneous HPC compute resources
• Dynamic circuit execution on Quantum Machines’ state-of-the-art pulse processor
• QPU virtualization: Maximum utilization of scarce quantum resources through concurrent HPC job execution and classical-quantum workloads
• A flexible stack that caters to various user types from circuit-level for algorithm developers to low-level pulse control for quantum researchers
• Transparency and flexibility of the quantum stack, maximizing usability, and providing insights into the quantum system

Click here to read complete news announcement on PRNewswire.

Arqit launches sale of satellite division

British cybersecurity software developer Arqit has hired financial adviser Silverpeak to sell its space division following interest from potential buyers, according to a source close to the process in a May 16 article by Jason Rainbow in SpaceNews.
The division’s assets include a quantum encryption satellite Redwire is building that is partly funded by the European Space Agency, the person told SpaceNews, along with patents, intellectual property, commercial contracts worth more than $65 million, and a team of around 40 engineers.
Arqit announced plans in December to sell its partially built satellite after pivoting to a terrestrial method for distributing symmetric encryption keys capable of resisting attacks from quantum computers.
Distributing these keys via ground networks would be cheaper and less risky than deploying a space-based platform, although quantum communications using fiber optic cables have a limited range compared with satellites better suited for covering vast distances.
Despite the technology’s infancy, Arqit says it continues to see demand for quantum encryption satellites from government and other customers that prefer not to send traffic across international cables.  Click here to read article in-entirety.

Pawsey and Xanadu form global partnership to create opportunities for Australian quantum scientists

The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre (Pawsey) and Canadian quantum computing company Xanadu have signed a memorandum of understanding to work together and test the capabilities of integrating high-performance computing (HPC) and quantum computing technologies. The teams will leverage their existing hardware and algorithms expertise to improve the integration between Pawsey’s HPC and Xanadu’s quantum computing hardware and provide researchers with state-of-the-art hybrid computing capabilities.
Australia-based Pawsey is home to Setonix, ranked 15^th most powerful supercomputer globally and 4^th most energy efficient in the supercomputer energy efficiency ranking, the Green500. The field of quantum computing is rapidly advancing, as evidenced by the significant strides made in hardware, including Xanadu’s demonstration of quantum computational advantage. These developments lend greater credibility to the potential of quantum computing to solve problems that are currently considered intractable.
Toronto-based Xanadu is a global leader in the quantum computing industry, having built the world’s first photonic quantum computer that has achieved quantum computational advantage. The company also leads the development of PennyLane, an open-source software framework for quantum machine learning, quantum chemistry and quantum computing with the ability to run on all commercially available quantum hardware and simulators.
One of the fundamental principles shared by Pawsey and Xanadu is making cutting-edge technology accessible to research and development teams to enhance existing infrastructure and drive new discoveries. In pursuit of this goal, both teams have joined forces to leverage the power of quantum computers to complement traditional HPC methods while also improving existing algorithms and creating new ones using PennyLane.  Click here to read announcement in-entirety.

 

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.