Quantum News Briefs July 26: Dario Gil’s “Time to Get Quantum-Safe” & What Japan’s Landslide Election Means for Quantum Funding, Europe’s Supply Chain for Diamond Based Technologies & MORE

Quantum News Briefs opens today with a summary Dario Gil’s opinion piece warning the readers of The  Hill that “YQK is Coming and It’s Time To Get Quantum-Safe, followed by an analysis of the effect that Japan’s landslide election will have on the R&D of emerging technologies such as quantum.  An announcement describing Fraunhofer’s development of a supply chain for diamond-based quantum technologies and MORE.

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YQK Is Coming — Time to Get ‘Quantum-Safe’

Dario Gil, senior vice president and director of research at IBM, is the author of this “Time to Get Quantum-Safe” editorial in The Hill that is summarized here by IQT. Gil reminds us of the Y2K panic that consumed the final years of the last millennium. However, disaster was averted 22 years ago thanks to the collective action of software engineers around the world, and the decisive action of Congress, which devoted $3.4 billion to upgrade code and “Y2K proof” critical government and industry systems.
Now we have to dodge another one. Call it “YQK” — except this time, the “Q” stands for “quantum.”
What might YQK — a quantum computing catastrophe — look like in practice?
Imagine that the algorithms that protect corporate and government data are compromised. Financial markets are adversely impacted. Energy grids and defense networks are disrupted. There is a mass wave of identity theft.
However, is the good news: It’s entirely preventable. In Washington, conversations and activities are underway on how to avert YQK. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently announced protocol standards involving these technologies, including the CRYSTALS-Kyber public-key cryptography protocol, which was amongst the final four protocols developed by IBM scientists and collaborators. When adopted, they will safeguard various computing systems from quantum hacking.
Congress can help ensure that these tools are scaled across industry and government before it is too late.
This month the House passed a bill that grasps this reality: the bipartisan Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act. If we want to avert a YQK, the Senate should send this bill to President Biden’s desk as soon as possible.

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What Japan’s Landslide Election Means for Research in Cutting-Edge Technology

Japan’s conservative ruling coalition won a landslide victory in a national election earlier this month. The venerable Nature provides an analysis–summarized here–of what his could mean for research in the country. Researchers say the coalition’s win in the upper house of the National Diet will give it a mandate to continue Abe’s legacy of trying to boost the economy through cutting-edge technologies, including those with possible military applications. Some researchers are troubled by this, saying they do not want their work to be used for acts of warfare. Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has been devoted to pacifism — a position enshrined in its constitution. Researchers are also concerned that programmes that fund ‘dual use’ research will sideline science that does not contribute to economic interests — and that some sensitive research could be classified.
Ahead of the elections, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida committed to increasing investment in science and technology, particularly through tax breaks for private companies that invest in research. They also promised investments in areas of national priority such as quantum technology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and regenerative medicine. But the party has also pledged to double Japan’s defence budget to 2% of gross domestic product.
It’s too early to criticize government funding programmes because of their dual-use potential, says Hideo Ohno, president of Tohoku University in Sendai. Almost all research can be categorized as dual-use, he says, but that doesn’t mean that it will serve military purposes. Quantum technology, biotechnology and artificial intelligence are all areas that Japan needs to invest in, says Ohno.

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Fraunhofer IAF  the Cornerstone of a European Supply Chain for Diamond-Based Quantum Technologies

Fraunhofer IAF is developing innovative processes and equipment in cooperation with five German companies to enable the industrial use of (111)-oriented diamond substrates and the establishment of a European supply chain for quantum devices. The announcement summarized below; read complete announcement here.
To ensure the availability of high-purity as well as large-area diamond wafers for quantum technology applications, the project consortium of GrodiaQ (short for: Large-area diamond substrates for quantum technology) has started its work. The consortium is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF and consists further of five companies with their own expertise in the field of manufacturing, processing and utilization of diamond and diamond-based quantum technologies. Together, the project partners cover the entire value chain. The aim is to develop manufacturing equipment and basic materials for quantum devices that can be commercially exploited by the industrial partners at the end of the project. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the project for three years.
“Large-area high-quality diamond wafers are an irreplaceable basic component in the production of devices for diamond-based quantum technologies, which are expected to reach the market in the next three to ten years,” explains the responsible project coordinator from Fraunhofer IAF, Dr. Peter Knittel. “Material costs can be significantly reduced by using diamond wafers with larger diameters compared to the current state of the art, making the development and production of quantum devices economical. Against this background, GrodiaQ is a great opportunity to establish Germany as a leading location in the research, development and production of advanced diamond-based quantum technologies.”

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Quantum Generation and Plato Collaborate to Deploy a Fully Decentralized Space Base Quantum Network

The first testing node of Quantum Generations’ Qubit Blockchain was launched in low earth orbit in 2018.The timeline for delivering the Plato Quantum Blockchains is in the first quarter of 2023.
Conducting transactions via satellites will provide a high level of security and decentralization to distributed ledger technologies like Plato and QubitBlockchain.
Plato’s robust WEB3 platform and data execution, coupled with Quantum Generations’ quantum communications, data storage technology, and space-based Quantum Internet, will transform the digital economy and open up the last mile.
Additionally, the collaboration will present a chance to advance space technology. Quantum Generations have opened up an exclusive membership program for the QG Community. Every new member will receive a Web3 address from the Plato’s platform and be placed on the priority list for the QPhone and other products and services.  IQT summarized; click here for original article in Fintech News.

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Sandra K. Helsel, Ph.D. has been researching and reporting on frontier technologies since 1990.  She has her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.