dougfinke

The BioInnovation Institute (BII), is an international non-profit foundation in Denmark that incubates and accelerates world-class life science research. They have just announced that twelve companies have been selected to join their 12 month Venture Lab acceleration program which supports startup companies with business acceleration, scientific, and team development. The program also provides each startup with a €500 thousand ($541K USD) convertible loan and access to BII's labs and offices in Copenhagen. Of the twelve companies, three of them work in quantum technology including Alea Quantum Technologies, a company developing quantum random number generators, DiaSense, a company working on diamond-magnetic microscopes for [...]

IonQ announced their Q4 and full year 2023 financial results showing strong growth from the previous year. For Q4'2023 they recorded revenue of $6.1 million versus $6.1 million in Q3'2023 and $3.8 million in Q4'2022. For the full year of 2023 they achieved revenue of $22 million almost double the full year 2022 amount of $11.1 million. The 2023 revenues were at the high end of the forecast they made during their Q3 report last November. However, the company's Net Loss also increased from the previous year. The Q4'2023 Net Loss was $41.9 million versus $18.6 in Q4'2022 and for the [...]

Picture of ORNL's Summit Supercomputer Riverlane and Rigetti Computing are collaborating on a project led by the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to explore the integration of quantum computers with large-scale supercomputing centers. The project will build the first-ever benchmarking suite, ‘QStone’, to measure the performance of a joint High-Performance Computing (HPC) + Quantum system. This suite will be run on ORNL’s Summit, the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world. The quantum components will use simulated hardware based on key elements of Riverlane’s ‘Quantum Error Correction Stack’ and real remote hardware located at Rigetti’s headquarters in California. [...]

In October 2023 the Biden Administration announced the designation of 31 Tech Hubs as part Phase 1 of a program that was previously authorized in the 2022 Chips and Science Act. The purpose of the Tech Hubs program is to invest an amount of approximately $500 million over a five year period in a few U.S. regions that are focused on creating critical technology ecosystems across a few key technology focus areas and create good jobs for American workers. Quantum technology was deemed one of those key technologies and among the 31 designees, the Elevate Quantum Colorado group and The Bloch [...]

At the recent Quantum Australia conference in Sydney, Professor Chris Ferrie announced his new company called Eigensystems focused on providing quantum educational tools along with its first product, a device called Quokka Quantum. The Quokka device is a personal quantum computer emulator that plugs into a laptop to help develop quantum literacy. It will come with four difference programming levels ranging from Quokka Basic to Quokka Advanced to provided a comprehensive library of content and lessons. targeted for high school students and provides support for algorithms using up to 30 qubits. The device fits in the palm of one hand and [...]

The Government of Canada, through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), has provided a repayable contribution of $3.75M CAD to Xanadu, a leading company in photonic quantum computing. This funding is part of the Regional Quantum Initiative (RQI) which will have $23 million ($17M USD) available for funding over a six year period. The Xanadu funding will be used to accelerate the development of PennyLane, Xanadu’s open-source, cloud-based software framework for quantum machine learning, quantum chemistry, and quantum computing. The investment aims to advance Canada’s position in quantum technology, boost economic growth, and create jobs. It will [...]

Apple Computer has implemented Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) support within the iMessage app of its next operating system updates iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, and watchOS 10.4 scheduled to be released in early March. Apple calls this feature PQ3 and it has several interesting features. In this implementation they are taking a conservative approach by implementing a hybrid cryptography protocol that includes both their current elliptic curve algorithms along with the ML-KEM (Kyber) being standardized by NIST. This will ensure that even if an issue were to be found in the future in ML-KEM, the encryption would still be at [...]

IQM has announced a co-CEO leadership management structure with Jan Goetz responsible for external relations and fundraising and Mikko Välimäki responsible for commercial operations. Previously Dr. Goetz had been the sole CEO of IQM and was a cofounder of the company which started in 2018. Dr. Välimäki has served on the IQM Board of Directors since 2018 and now steps into his new role. He has founded, led, and served on the board of several technology companies in Finland and has both a has a PhD in software business from Aalto University and a Master's in law from the University of [...]

Don't Expect Quantum to Bring Us Anything Like the Teleportation Fantasies We See in Science Fiction By Doug Finke I was at a recent quantum conference and a woman stood up and asked the following question: "I have a ten year old daughter. Will quantum technology bring a dramatic change to her daily life in much the same way that technology has made big changes since I was ten years old? When I was a kid, our family didn't have cell phones, social media, video streaming, GPS navigation and other things. Can my daughter expect to see similar big changes happen [...]