2d. Quantum Computing

• Still Early to worry about it?
  • Building a large enough machine is complex
  • Quantum decoherence makes the state degrade rapidly
  • Require the use of semiconductors at very low temperatures
• Big players, who have quantum hardware?
  • Quantum Computing Companies: A Full 2024 List
• Cybersecurity Threats: Breaking Classical Encryption
  • Chinese researchers break RSA encryption with a quantum computer
    • Chinese Scientists use quantum computer to hack military grade encryption
    • Shor’s algorithm → Allows factoring large numbers into prime factors
      • Inability to solve that problem in a reasonable amount of time is the base for widely-used public-key cryptosystems, such as RSA and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC).
  • NIST Releases First 3 Finalized Post-Quantum Encryption Standards
  • Some companies investing on using post-quantom encryption ASAP:
  • Should consider investing in post-quantum encryption?
    • Maybe too early?
    • Browsers and other TLS-based protocols doesn’t fully support post-quantum encryption algorithms yet
      • Post-Quantum Key Agreement at Cloudflare
        • Cloudflare: Experiment with post-quantum cryptography today
      • Chrome recently added support for ML-KEM, but only works when the server also supports it Post-Quantum Cryptography: Standards and Progress
    • Data encrypted on rest needs to be re-encrypted with new algorithms
• Potential applications if a sufficiently large and stable machines are achieved
  • 5 Crucial Quantum Computing Applications & Examples
  • Molecular simulation (i.e. drug discovery)
  • Accelerate Artificial Intelligence
    • Quantum Advantage in Learning from Experiments
• Investments this year:
  Quantum Computing Takes Off With $55 Billion In Global Investments
  • “Global powers, led by China, have invested more than $55 billion in the promising technology”
  • “In Europe, Germany has launched an investment plan of more than $3 billion by 2026, and France has announced an investment of nearly$2 billion, aiming to train 5,000 quantum-ready engineers and create 30,000 jobs. In the United States, the National Quantum Initiative Act has authorized $1.2 billion in funding over five years for quantum computing research and development.”
• You can execute quantum algorithms in a quantum computer in the cloud: Cloud Based Quantum Computing
  • “In 2016, IBM connected a small quantum computer to the cloud and it allows for simple programs to be built and executed on the cloud.[1] In early 2017, researchers from Rigetti Computing demonstrated the first programmable cloud access using the pyQuil Python library.[2] Many people from academic researchers and professors to schoolkids, have already built programs that run many different quantum algorithms using the program tools. Some consumers hoped to use the fast computing to model financial markets or to build more advanced AI systems. These use methods allow people outside a professional lab or institution to experience and learn more about such a phenomenal technology.[3]”
• Quantum - Learn Microsoft