Quantum News Briefs September 8:
Infleqtion appoints Alok Gupta as CFO as company accelerates global momentum
Gupta brings a wealth of public and private company experience to the role, previously serving as Chief Financial Officer of Hyperfine, a medical equipment manufacturing company. At Infleqtion, Gupta will oversee strategic financial initiatives as the company enters its next phase of growth following last year’s $110 million< fundraise.
Gupta’s arrival is momentous for Infleqtion as the company continues commercializing cutting-edge quantum-enabled solutions. These products and AI-powered offerings are poised to transform critical sectors such as precision navigation and timing (PNT), global communication security and efficiency, resilient energy distribution, and accelerated quantum computing.
Gupta joins Infleqtion with over 20 years of financial and banking experience from companies including Citi, Honeywell, Northrup Grumman, DENSO, Halio, and Mizuho. He has deep experience in mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, public equity and private capital markets, SEC and financial reporting, investor relations, and financial and strategic planning.
“At Infleqtion, we are dedicated to building a world-class executive team and Board with a deep understanding of both public and private global technology companies. Alok’s extensive experience in finance will be pivotal in shaping our financial strategies and driving our expansion,” said Scott Faris, CEO of Infleqtion. “His expertise in strategic planning and fostering growth will serve as an invaluable asset to Infleqtion as we bring our quantum technologies to the commercial forefront and expedite our expansion across international markets.” Click here to read the complete announcement.
Quantum Computing Inc. and European-based Assured Cyber Protection Ltd enter into sales and teaming agreement
The key objective of the strategic sales and teaming agreement between QCi and Recyber is to coordinate efforts to market and deliver both companies’ proprietary cyber security technologies and products. This initiative is a key step in the product roadmap to achieve a Zero-Trust (as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology) network environment using quantum authentication and Post Quantum Cryptography solutions. The companies believe that these solutions will have a near immediate global impact on the state-of-play in cyber security.
The companies believe that the novel and innovative technologies they each offer are complementary and provide opportunities to deliver cutting-edge solutions in a growth area, ahead of the curve. To launch the relationship, the companies have initially identified 13 sales opportunities with large, well-known international organizations within the healthcare, education, government, and banking sectors, and have advanced cross-sector discussions with several longstanding relationships. The terms of the teaming agreement require that the party initiating a client engagement receives 10% of the gross revenue generated on the engagement, over the term of the teaming agreement, with the remaining revenue to be divided up based on the tasks and technology solutions implemented. The length of the agreement is for one year with automatic renewable terms of one-year periods.
Recyber, based in London and Geneva, is a privately held cybersecurity company that combines automation, artificial intelligence, and advanced technology to reduce a business’ cybersecurity risk by analyzing and modifying organizational and human behavior patterns and processes. Its endpoint, agent-based software platform accurately monitors, evaluates, detects, and mitigates cyber risk, resulting in a scalable and easy-to-use solution. Click here to read the announcement in-entirety.
Riken: Machine learning contributes to better quantum error correction
The main challenge towards putting quantum computers into practice stems from the extremely fragile nature of quantum superpositions. Indeed, tiny perturbations induced, for instance, by the ubiquitous presence of an environment give rise to errors that rapidly destroy quantum superpositions and, as a consequence, quantum computers lose their edge.
To overcome this obstacle, sophisticated methods for quantum error correction have been developed. While they can, in theory, successfully neutralize the effect of errors, they often come with a massive overhead in device complexity, which itself is error-prone and thus potentially even increases the exposure to errors. As a consequence, full-fledged error correction has remained elusive.
Yexiong Zeng, the first author of the cited research paper, says, “Our work not only demonstrates the potential for deploying machine learning towards quantum error correction, but it may also bring us a step closer to the successful implementation of quantum error correction in experiments.”
According to Franco Nori, “Machine learning can play a pivotal role in addressing large-scale quantum computation and optimization challenges. Currently, we are actively involved in a number of projects that integrate machine learning, artificial neural networks, quantum error correction, and quantum fault tolerance.” Click here to read about this research in-entirety on Riken website.
QuSecure named Commercial Capabilities Showcase Winner by Air Force Global Strike Command & Small Business Consulting Corporation
QuSecure™, Inc. announced on August 30 it has been named a winner in the annual Commercial Capabilities Showcase award competition by the Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) and the Small Business Consulting Corporation (SBCC). Quantum News Briefs summarizes.
Earning recognition and a signed Phase I Letter of Support from the AFGSC, the win gives QuSecure a competitive advantage for future business, including important Department of Defense (DoD) contracts and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) opportunities. Additionally, the award grants QuSecure access to strategic networking consultations with SBCC and relevant government stakeholders across the DoD. SBCC’s continued support will help QuSecure get its technology in the hands of the operators as well as navigate requirements, contracts, government acquisitions, and operations to help align all the critical players and find continued success in the defense market.
QuSecure was selected as the winner from a field of 57 different companies. AFGSC evaluators noted about QuSecure’s submission: “Overall, a compelling proposal. Qualified technical and business teams with good commercialization groundwork. Clear understanding of DoD security approval processes.”
The competition included a white paper round as well as live pitch presentations to the AFGSC, SBCC, AFGSC Commercial Capabilities Integration & Transitioning Division (CCIT), the Entrepreneurial Accelerator Program (EAP), and the Innovation Enterprise at Louisiana Tech University. As an additional showcase perk, QuSecure has the ability to work with EAP for consultation and advisement on its commercial goals.
AFGSC has a critical mission to provide strategic deterrence, global strike, and combat support.
The Commercial Capabilities Showcase is an opportunity for companies to debut their technology and connect with AFGSC decision makers. All applicants receive feedback from AFGSC evaluators, comprised of a combination of technical subject matter experts and real operators. Selected finalists pitch their innovation to a panel of AFGSC and SBCC leaders at the showcase event, with the option to pitch virtually or in person in Shreveport, La. SBCC supports companies and technologies of interest to AFSGC by helping them identify funding and transition pathways to enable the fielding of valuable commercial solutions, and enhancing their ability to achieve recurring revenue in the defense marketplace. Click here to read complete announcement in QuSecure newsroom.
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.