Quantum computing is still far from practical implementation, but the idea receives very tangible financial support from the US government.
Aaron Rikadella, InformationWeek, from InformationWeek 10 website for May 2004
At a meeting held at the end of January at the Marriott Hotel in Washington, DARPA - the main research arm of the US Department of Defense - presented a proposal designed to speed up efforts to build an innovative computer, which in theory might look like a cup of coffee. The proposal was presented to about a hundred scientists from companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, from the army, the navy, NASA and leading universities.
DARPA (the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency) will invest over 2.8 billion dollars this year in research and development in various fields. In the coming months, it will run a program worth many millions of dollars, designed to help the first research stages of quantum computing in the US. Quantum computing is considered an esoteric field of research, but it is engaged in by many bodies such as government laboratories, universities and commercial companies - including AT&T, HP, IBM and Microsoft. The supercomputers built according to the strange laws of quantum physics usually operate at temperatures close to absolute zero and are housed in what looks more like a glass of liquid than an electronic device case. In theory, they are able to perform in seconds calculations that may take hours on today's computers, and solve in a few hours problems that the most advanced silicon computers would need hundreds of years to find an answer to. The storage and processing of the information is carried out in accordance with the laws of quantum physics that apply to subatomic particles, which Einstein described as "distant activity of ghosts".
If the research efforts turn out well - and there is no guarantee that this will indeed be the case - the quantum computers will create a real revolution in the computer industry. The industry fears that the rate of development of computers, which is currently defined by Moore's Law, which states that computing power will double every year and a half, may decrease in the near future. The quantum computers may solve the problem and revolutionize applications such as encryption, engineering, weather forecasting, space flights and mathematics. Today's public key encryption systems will become worthless. Precise clocks from the atomic clocks will direct satellites and spacecraft with incredible precision. Quantum computers may bring about a robustly measured improvement in the speed of database searches and solve problems that are now almost unsolvable. "If the price is reasonable, Pratt & Whitney will be able to improve the performance of its systems tenfold," says Pete Bradley, a research associate for high-performance computing at the division of United Technologies that manufactures aircraft engines.
The revolution is still far away - it may be more than twenty years before a useful quantum computer can be built - but the potential is huge. The basic idea of quantum computing is that the quantum bits, called qubit, can represent both 1 and 0 at the same time - instead of 1 or 0 in electronic computers. Each quantum bit increases the number of possible calculations exponentially, compared to linear growth in electronic computers. A quantum computer that uses 14 atoms for the purposes of calculations - twice as many as current quantum computers - will be able to perform more simulation calculations at the same time (16,384) than the fastest supercomputer in the US, located in Los Alamos. It is no wonder that the Los Alamos laboratory invested 11 million dollars in the research of quantum computing last year. The road to achieving these results is still long, but the funding under a Ministry of Defense program may speed up the research. Today, the American government invests in the field from 80 million dollars to XNUMX million dollars every year.
The goal of the program offered by DARPA, which is known as Foqus (Focused Quantum Systems), is to build a quantum computer that will be able to generate a 128-bit number, as is customary in the field of online encryption, for 30 seconds and with an accuracy of 99.99 percent. "DARPA has decided to invest large sums of money in the research of quantum computing" says Nabil Amar, director and strategist for information physics at IBM Research. "The effort will be managed in a coordinated manner until a stage where it can be determined whether we can build such a computer or not."
IBM, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory and other research institutions will take part in the Foqus program, with the aim of defining the fundamentals of the design of the quantum computer - how to enter information into it, how to receive input and how to correct inevitable errors. DARPA wants to use quantum mechanics to create a new type of encryption that will be unbreakable even with the most complex algorithms. In a few decades, quantum computers will be able to crack electronic signals received from Boeing's passenger planes and fighter jets - says Gary Fitzmeier, vice president of engineering and information technologies at Boeing's Phantom research and development division. Fitzmeyer attended a conference convened by DARPA and visited the Faculty of Physics of the University of Cambridge to coordinate the development plans. "Quantum computing can improve the security of wirelessly transmitted data from F-18 fighter jets or AWACs equipped with radar," says Fitzmeyer. "We do not want these signals to be disrupted or picked up by hostile parties." DARPA treats Foqus as a possible program only, and will offer scientists to take part in it "in the near future," according to the agency's spokeswoman. The agency is particularly interested in the potential of quantum computing to carry out extremely secure and precise communication.
The potential benefits are so great that Microsoft hired award-winning mathematician Michael Friedman to explore the theoretical possibilities of building and programming a quantum computer. "What will you find in thirty years on your desk?" asks Jennifer Chase, director of Microsoft's theoretical research group who hired Friedman - "Or on the wall, or on a bracelet, or on the phone? If it will be the quantum computer then Microsoft wants to be a part of it. We want to influence the way these computers will be built."
The idea of building a computer that would behave according to the laws of quantum physics was born in the early 1994s, when Richard Feynman, a Nobel laureate from the California Institute of Technology, hypothesized that the only way to simulate a system of quantum mechanics - in which the particles can move clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time - is using a computer that will operate by itself using this method. The significant breakthrough came in XNUMX, when Peter Shore, a researcher at AT&T Bell Labs in New Jersey, presented an algorithm that theoretically explains how a quantum computer could quickly factor large numbers. Since the codes used to protect military and financial secrets are based on such numbers, government funds immediately began to flow into quantum computing research. However, according to the people familiar with the Foqus program, the new plan is more ambitious in terms of the amount of funding and freedom of action that will be granted to researchers than the administration's previous plans.
There is no doubt that the engineers will continue to improve the performance produced by the silicon chips, but the computer industry understands that it will not be possible to add and shrink the chips indefinitely. As soon as the components reach the nano level, power leakage and heat start to hurt performance. It is not yet clear whether it is even possible to produce quantum computers of useful dimensions, or whether quantum mechanics and the resulting algorithms are accurate. "We are still in the basic stages, but these are essential stages on the way to building a more complex computer," says Carl Williams, director of the atomic physics division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which sets the measurement and time standards in the US. "It is not yet clear what technology will be used to build the new type of computers."
What is clear to everyone is that quantum computers are not the only potential replacement for silicon computers. HP is researching a branch of nanotechnology that it calls molecular electronics, which deals with the utilization of quantum effects in materials at the nano level to build more efficient computers. Researchers from the University of Southern California already used reactions in DNA molecules to perform certain calculations a decade ago. Israeli scientists recently announced that they have programmed a DNA computer that can detect signs of cancer. Everyone is still looking for the best way to build a quantum computer. Experiments by Isaac Chang and Neil Gerschenfeld of MIT, as well as David Weinland of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, use charged atoms or ions in an electromagnetic trap, while IBM is testing superconducting materials that can create quantum bits. "We put a lot of thought into trying to find different solutions," says Amar. Two weeks ago, IBM and Stanford University presented joint research in a field called spintronics, in an attempt to control the way electrons move, instead of their electrical charges. Among other things, the research will be implemented in the construction of quantum computers.
Another issue is the pace of research progress. The researchers estimate that in order to match the most powerful silicon computers in performing tasks such as creating a 128-bit code for encrypting e-mail and data on the Internet, a quantum computer is needed that performs calculations using a hundred thousand atoms. "At the moment we are having trouble handling one or two atoms" says Stan Williams, director of quantum research and a senior fellow at HP. "Building a large quantum computer today is similar to trying to build a supercomputer before the invention of the transistor. You have to go step by step. First we will harvest the fruits of the initial research, and try to generate income that will finance the continuation of research and development."
One of the applications that HP is testing is the delivery of quantum bits through optical fibers to offices and homes in networked cities. The quantum properties of photons, the HP researchers hope, will be able to simulate scenarios in markets that behave according to game theory, such as financial markets or auctions. "We're trying to find the application of the punch" says Williams. "Instead of banging our heads against the wall trying to create big numbers, we're trying to find something that people will be willing to pay for and that can be implemented with the help of individual qubits." The price of such a service is not yet clear. "One cent per qubit" - Williams jokes, but the companies expect the researchers to focus seriously on applications that may bring in money. "In a laboratory like HP's it is mandatory to focus on a business model" says Williams.
Other companies, for example Intel, are not yet jumping into the new field. A deviation from Moore's Law could threaten Intel's business, but quantum computing technology is "far from the things that a mass-market manufacturer like Intel is interested in," says Pat Gelsinger, Intel's chief technology officer. The company funds certain research at universities, but no Intel researcher is directly involved in this. "I don't believe that this will have any consequences before 2020," Gelsinger estimates. Even among the users of supercomputers there are skeptics. A Wall Street technologist says it will take a lot of work to successfully bring quantum computing into the private sector. Every line of code in every application will need to be adapted.
As with any technology, the question arises when is the right time to invest money and attention. It is particularly difficult to find the answer in relation to quantum computing, since practical applications are still very far away. Williams from the National Institute of Standards and Technology admits that most companies still do not benefit from quantum computing, "but once the ship sails everyone will want to be on it - otherwise their very existence will be in danger."
For information on the InformationWeek website
Scientists: We teleported encrypted information
A group of researchers from the University of Canberra in Australia have succeeded, according to their claim, in sending encrypted information in a process that provides perfect security through quantum physics
News agencies
Launching objects in space seems quite simple in the TV series "Star Trek". Captain Kirk muttered into the Star Tech device the immortal call "Beam me up, Scotty" (Beam me up, Scotty), and he and a friend of his flock turned into glittering particles against the cheap backdrop of an alien-infested planet, only to materialize again aboard the spaceship Enterprise.
Teleportation is a name invented by science fiction writers for the phenomenon of sending a person or an object from one place to another. The process is based on the processing, disassembly and reassembly of quanta. The original object is scanned in a way that reads all the information from it and is then launched to a location in space where it is re-created, not necessarily from the original material but from similar atoms, arranged in the same way as the original.
XNUMXD fax
A teleportation machine, if invented, would be similar to the fax machine, with one difference: it would operate on three-dimensional objects, and produce a copy identical to the original, while destroying the original, unlike a fax. Some science fiction writers even described a teleportation process that preserves the original, complicating the plot, when the original and duplicated object met. A "pure" teleportation machine is supposed to be a kind of super transportation vehicle, and not a means of duplicating humans.
Until a few years ago, scientists doubted the idea of teleportation, since they believed that it violated the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, which prevents measuring or scanning all the information in an atom or other object. According to the principle, scanning the bone affects its condition and changes it, and does not allow creating an exact copy of it. However, an international group of scientists managed to find in 1993 a way around this logic based on a property of quantum mechanics called the Einstein-Podolsky effect. They found a way to scan part of object A, create a copy of it (object B), scan what was left, and recreate an identical copy (object C).
Since then, other scientists have begun developing experiments aimed at proving that microscopic objects such as atoms or photons can be teleported, but sci-fi fans will be disappointed to learn that dropping large objects and humans will not be realized in the near future.
Perfect encryption using quantum physics
A group of researchers from the University of Canberra in Australia did not, of course, try to send animals or objects to a distance, but according to them, they succeeded for the first time, at least on this particular planet, in sending encrypted information in a process that provides perfect security through quantum physics.
who cares? For many large businesses, government organizations and others, who may benefit from encrypted communication. Simply put, the team of researchers found that with a laser beam, they could send a signal to a network of receivers that could be assembled by most receivers. Less than that, the message cannot be read.
Details of the study are published in the latest issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, by Ping Kui Lam and his team. The head of the team of researchers, born in China with the somewhat symbolic name Ping Kui Lam, based his research on a breakthrough recorded at the university in 2002, when researchers managed to send information over a distance using a laser beam. Ping describes the latest achievement as a more complex implementation of teleportation, in a way that allows the transmission to be decoded only if a majority of the recipients have received it.
Why bother sending information via teleportation when you can use secure e-mail? Cui Lam explained that quantum communication provides 100 percent security, it cannot be copied or eavesdropped.
"Secure communication based on quantum physics can be used to protect information, a procedure called quantum state sharing," he wrote in a statement he published, "the advantage of our technology lies in the fact that the encrypted message can be deciphered by most recipients. If the message is sent to a network of 15 agents, at least eight of them need to read the message to decipher it. This way, the chances of the message being changed or deleted by a double agent will be greatly reduced."
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