Israel's first quantum computer launched

The Netherlands Quantum Application Laboratory officially launched

The Netherlands Quantum Applications Laboratory (QAL) is a new public-private R&D partnership offering a unique team of scientists, researchers, engineers, application developers and software and hardware experts on a leading platform, to explore the benefits of quantum computing and bring it to market.

QAL will initially focus on optimization, simulation and machine learning applications. Therefore, it is fully aligned with the roadmap of the Quantum Delta NL Foundation (QDNL). The Dutch government is investing heavily in quantum computing to increase the scale of innovation and development, as are other governments in Europe and elsewhere around the world.

IonQ joins Azure Quantum

IonQ, a leader in ion trap quantum computing, announced an agreement with Microsoft to bring IonQ Aria to the Azure Quantum platform. The collaboration will add IonQ's latest quantum system, the IonQ Aria, to the cloud platform, which already features IonQ's previous-generation systems. Through this partnership, anyone with an internet connection will be able to leverage the capabilities of the IonQ Aria to further democratize quantum computing.

Peter Chapman, President and CEO of IonQ, said: "We are excited to bring the leading capabilities of IonQ Aria to more customers through Microsoft Azure and our extended beta program. We believe the future of quantum computing depends on getting it within the grasp of as many people as possible. The capabilities of today's systems, building on our existing partnership with Microsoft is an important step on that path."

Earlier this quarter, IonQ announced a partnership with Hyundai to design quantum algorithms to simulate battery chemistry in electric vehicles. IonQ previously announced a partnership with GE Research to address risk mitigation and Goldman Sachs on Monte Carlo simulations for financial applications such as priced options.

Business dynamics

Sandbox split from Google parent company Alphabet has completed hundreds of millions of dollars in financing

Sandbox, the quantum technology division of Google’s parent company Alphabet, officially announced that it will be spun off from Alphabet to form an independent company.

Focused on the development of quantum computing software and experimental quantum projects, Sandbox was founded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and led by Jack Hidary. After the split, Hidary will continue to serve as CEO of the company, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt will serve as chairman of the board.

At the same time, along with the independent news, there was news that Sandbox had completed a financing of hundreds of millions of dollars. Investors in this round include Schmidt himself, as well as Breyer Capital, TIME Ventures and T. Rowe Price.

Xanadu partners with NVIDIA to accelerate quantum computing research and development

Xanadu is collaborating with NVIDIA to provide native GPU support and high-performance computing capabilities to quantum computing researchers and developers using the Xanadu open-source software framework PennyLane.

PennyLane seamlessly integrates classical machine learning libraries with quantum hardware and simulators, enabling users to train quantum computers in the same way as neural networks; NVIDIA cuQuantum is a software development kit consisting of optimized libraries and tools designed to accelerate Quantum computing workflow.

The quantum computing community can now take advantage of cuQuantum through PennyLane: The collaboration provides PennyLane users with HPC-grade performance, enabling them to solve a wide variety of problems on cloud platforms and supercomputers in a simple, efficient and fast manner.

Nvidia announces more tools for quantum computing development

NVIDIA announced at GTC 2022 that its software development kit (SDK) for accelerating quantum computing, NVIDIA cuQuantum, is now generally available.

cuQuantum uses tensor networks and state vector libraries to run complex quantum circuit simulations. Researchers are already using these products to address real-world challenges. For example, quantum software company QC Ware is using cuQuantum to run quantum chemistry and quantum machine learning algorithms on the Perlmutter supercomputer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States.

R & D trends

Single-photon source lays the groundwork for practical quantum encryption

Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney, the University of New South Wales, and Macquarie University in Australia have developed a new high-purity single-photon source that can operate at room temperature. The new single-photon source uniquely combines a two-dimensional material called hexagonal boron nitride with an optical component called a hemispherical solid immersion lens, which increases the efficiency of the light source by a factor of six, i.e. at room temperature More than 10 million single photons can be generated every second. The source is an important step toward practical applications of quantum technology, such as highly secure communications based on quantum key distribution (QKD).

Small, cheap solution for quantum-safe encryption

The Washington University lab in St. Louis has proposed a security system that is not only resistant to quantum attacks, but also inexpensive, easily scalable, and has simple equipment requirements. The research will be published in IEEE Transactions of Information Forensics Science.

A new protocol for symmetric key distribution, SPoTKD, does not require lasers or satellites or kilometers of new cables. Relying on tiny chips embedded with smaller clocks: These clocks are actually electronic and run without batteries. The quantum nature of electronic transport adds some extra layers of security, if you measure them, the clock will collapse and it will be gone forever, making the information inaccessible to both spies and recipients.