dougfinke

Bringing Quantum Science to Life On Stage Overview In this episode of The Quantum Spin by HKA, host Veronica Combs interviews Nancy Kawalek, a Professor and Distinguished Fellow in the Arts, Science, and Technology at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. Nancy shares her journey from a theater performer in New York to a professor integrating arts and science at UC Santa Barbara and the University of Chicago. They discuss the inception and evolution of STAGE, an initiative that combines arts and science to produce theater, films, and games. Highlighting projects such as “Curiosity” and the Quantum Casino, [...]

Figure 1 - Microsoft's Eight Qubit Majorana 1 Device. Credit: Microsoft Introduction After almost 20 years of development, Microsoft has developed a controllable topological qubit module design that they intend on scaling up very quickly to produce a 1 million qubit error corrected quantum computer within a few years. In theory, a topological qubit could provide the optimal type of qubit because it combines three desirable properties together without requiring tradeoffs: Reliability, Speed, and Size. In practice, the topological qubit has been very difficult to build because it depends on leveraging Majorana zero modes (MZMs) which hitherto was only a theoretical [...]

U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Steve Daines (R-MT) have introduced this bill in the 119th U.S. Congress to advance the funding for quantum technology research, development, workforce development, demonstration, and commercialization in the United States. Additional cosponsors of this bipartisan bill include U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Todd Young (R-IN). The proposed funding would exceed $2.5 billion for U.S. fiscal years 2026-2030. Key provisions of the bill would include the following: Key Provisions: Funding Authorization: Proposes over $2.5 billion in funding for quantum research and development over the next five years, significantly exceeding [...]

Topology of Rigetti's Ankaa-3 Processor In December we reported that Rigetti had made available its latest 82 qubit processor called Ankaa-3 on its own Quantum Cloud Services Platform (QCS). Now AWS has announced this processor is also now available through its Amazon Braket service. The Ankaa-3 provides improved qate fidelity, fast operation, and other features compared to Rigetti's previous machines. Additional information about Rigetti's processor availability on Braket is available here. February 15, 2025

Recent news items published within the last 6 months on quantum computing developments are listed below. Click on the hyperlinked item to go to the press release or news article for more details. For older news items published in 2024 click here, for 2023 click here, for 2022 click here, for 2021 click here, for 2020 click here, for 2019 click here, for 2018 click here, and for items published in 2015-2017, click here. February 22, 2025Who’s News: Management Updates at Quantum Brilliance, Riverlane, QAI Ventures, Quantum Computing Inc., and QuSecureQuantum Brilliance has appointed a new Chief Operating Officer. Riverlane has recruited a new Vice President of QEC Community. [...]

Memory and Circuit Simulations of a [[49,9,4]] SHYPS Code Photonic Inc. has announced a significant breakthrough in quantum computing with the introduction of a new error correction code set in the Quantum Low Density Parity Check (QLDPC) family. These new codes, called SHYPS codes, can efficiently perform both quantum computation and error correction, using significantly fewer quantum bits (qubits) compared to traditional surface code approaches. This advancement could greatly accelerate the timeline to practical quantum computing. QLDPC codes, introduced 20 years ago, offered a promising alternative to surface codes but required a breakthrough to perform quantum logic efficiently. Photonic's new paper, [...]

by Doug Finke A few weeks ago, the Chinese organization known as DeepSeek surprised the AI community by releasing its first free chatbot app, based on the DeepSeek-R1 model with capabilities that are in the same ballpark as those of ChatGPT and other chatbots with a training cost that was a fraction of the cost it has taken to train other AI models at a claimed $5.8 million. The team used fewer and less advanced NVIDIA chips than the other models but compensated for this by using innovative techniques such as using 8 bit instead of 32 bit tokens, a mixture-of-experts architecture, reinforcement [...]

Following a comprehensive technical analysis and validation, The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Microsoft and PsiQuantum for the Validation and Co-Design stage of the Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program, part of DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI). This initiative aims to determine if a utility-scale quantum computer can be built faster than current predictions, achieving cost-effective operation by 2033. The US2QC program, originally announced in January 2023, was defined to progress in three stages. PsiQuantum and Microsoft have made it through the first two stages and are now entering the final stage. See our previous articles [...]

A recent paper published in Nature by a team from Google Quantum AI titled Thermalization and Criticality on an Analogue–Digital Quantum Simulator presents a groundbreaking approach that combines both analog and digital quantum techniques to simulate physical phenomena like the Kibble–Zurek mechanism. This dual approach allowed the researchers to identify a breakdown in the Kibble–Zurek scaling predictions, a result that had previously been thought to be accurate. This marks the first known instance of both analog and digital processing being performed on the same quantum computer in rapid sequence. While some quantum computers, like the D-Wave quantum annealer and certain neutral [...]

By André König, David Shaw, and Doug Finke The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and technology. This gives us all a chance to reflect on the many great individuals who have made contributions to the development of this remarkable field over the last 100 years. Global Quantum Intelligence celebrates its own heroes. Global Quantum Intelligence follows the wider quantum technology sector globally. In looking at the commercial potential of this great technology we are constantly reminded of the many capabilities required to bring it to market. Whether in quantum computing, quantum communications or quantum sensing, [...]