dougfinke

By Joe Spencer Aegiq and BT, along with other partners successfully demonstrated performance of their Quantum Link Assurance System (QLAS) at Adastral park in Suffolk, England. Funded through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Quantum Link Assurance System solves an important operational obstacle for the commercial adoption of fibre-based QKD, by offering independent link validation. The solution is designed to seamlessly fit into standard optical fibre communications networks. GQI attended the demo at Adastral Park to view the system and get a better understanding of the wider impact of this project.  What Is It? First, it’s important to highlight that QLAS [...]

Quantum error correction (QEC) is a hot topic these days so GQI has created a 21 page document that provides an in-depth analysis of the current state of the art in quantum error correction research. This document cover all the key aspects for understanding the current status of quantum error correction including the following main themes: The "Standard Model" of large-scale FTQC based upon the surface code Recent progress and demonstrations related to the surface code High overheads and the need for innovation Emerging alternative quantum error correcting codes Key challenges for fault-tolerant quantum computing (The "Sputnik Moment") Fundamentals of quantum [...]

By Rob Ford, 5WPR Managing Partner & EVP In the quantum computing sector, an industry moving at breakneck speed with dense, often opaque science, communication is as critical as computation. A press release, when used right, can be powerful. But many companies miss the mark by aiming it at the wrong audience or using it for the wrong purpose. A press release is not catch-all content. It has a job: to inform the press of something newsworthy. If it doesn’t clear that bar, dressing it up in PR format won’t help, it just adds to the noise journalists are trying to [...]

Q-CTRL reports a breakthrough in magnetic anomaly navigation (MagNav) using a quantum-assured navigation system that combines proprietary quantum magnetometers with a novel denoising and map-matching software stack. In extensive airborne and ground-based field trials, the system, named Ironstone Opal, consistently outperformed a strategic-grade inertial navigation system (INS), achieving up to 46× lower positioning error in the most favorable configuration, and at least 11× better accuracy even with internally-mounted sensors in high-noise environments. The best positioning accuracy achieved was 22 meters, or about 0.01% of flight distance, significantly surpassing both INS and active GNSS alternatives like Doppler radar. The trials demonstrated robust [...]

To see a glimpse of how quantum computers will be programmed in the future, do the following: Open ChatGPT on your computer Ask ChatGPT: Write a Qiskit program that learns a 20-bit string encoded in an oracle Repeat, substituting your preferred Quantum SDK language (CIRQ, TKET, Q#, PennyLane, etc.) for Qiskit. A big prediction for the classical world is that most of the classical computer code written in a few years will be created by AI. This was recently expressed by Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and many others. If you think this will [...]

D-Wave recently held its annual Qubits Conference to an audience of a few hundred in-person attendees live and many hundreds more viewing by video. The general mood was upbeat with the company management providing an update on their technical roadmap and also a large number of sessions including talks from over a dozen end users about their projects. We will report on some of the highlights including details they revealed about their development roadmap and additional comments describing some of the other strengths the company has for providing a complete, easy-to-use, offering to their customers. Quantum Annealing Hardware Roadmap D-Wave has [...]

Introduction The quantum technology landscape has evolved rapidly in Q1 2025, with significant developments across major ecosystems worldwide. This analysis integrates key advancements to date with critical watchpoints for the remainder of the year. United States DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) has made substantial progress with Microsoft and PsiQuantum advancing to Stage C validation in February 2025. The program expanded dramatically on April 3, 2025, when DARPA announced 15 new companies selected for Stage A contracts, with three more pending finalization, bringing the total of new awardees to 18. Stage A contracts involve a six-month "sprint" for companies to develop plans [...]

DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), launched in July 2024, aims to identify and verify approaches for building fault-tolerant quantum computers that can achieve utility-scale operation, meaning its computational value exceeds its cost by 2033. Eighteen quantum computing companies have entered Stage A of the program, where they will provide detailed technical concepts over six months to show feasibility for creating utility-scale quantum systems. Funding for Stage A will be up to $1 million per company and the questions that a company will need to answer during Stage A include: How does your company want to build their quantum computer? Why will [...]

Contributed article by Parham Pashaei, Director of Quantum Solutions, Strategy & Partnerships, Quantum Algorithms Institute It’s no secret that the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasing worldwide, but that comes at a cost that not many of us are thinking about: energy consumption and CO2 emissions. For example, each ChatGPT query consumes nearly 10 times as much electricity as a Google search and produces approximately 4.32 grams of CO2. As the AI industry searches for more sustainable and efficient ways to consume energy, quantum computers offer several solutions which the world should consider tomake AI energy consumption more efficient and [...]

As organizations look to upgrade their IT infrastructure to make their communications quantum safe, one of the approaches is to implement a hybrid classical/quantum approach. This combines together both classical algorithms with quantum algorithms to provide added protection against attacks against both the classical and quantum public key encryption. This significantly increases the difficulty for an attacker because they would need to break both the algorithms before they could get access to the encryption key. To this end, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has launched a new post-quantum security standard, Efficient Quantum-Safe Hybrid Key Exchanges with Hidden Access Policies (ETSI TS 104 015), to [...]