Quantum computing update 1
It’s been a busy couple of months in the Quantum Computing world! Our updates will help you to keep up.
ICYMI - It’s been a busy couple of months in the Quantum Computing world!
Photonic Xanadu
On the 22nd January 2025 Xanadu (a Canadian company) built the first universal photonic quantum computer. While this machine is only 12 qubits the four server racks were 13km apart and mostly operating at room temperature.
You can see the Xanadu press release here with links to the article in the Nature publication.
Quantum Safe Europol
On the 7th February 2025 Europol hosted the Quantum Safe Financial Forum (QSFF) pushing for policy makers and financial institutions to transition to Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC). It stresses the need for firms to think about the threat of ‘store now, decrypt later’.
You can see the Europol press release here.
Topological Microsoft
On the 19th February 2025 Microsoft announced their own breakthrough in Nature based on ‘topological’ quantum computing technology. This technology has the potential to scale better with fewer errors than current technologies.
You can see the Nature article on Microsoft here.
Getting a PQC game plan
What should we make of these events? Some estimates place practical Quantum Computing to be with us in the next 10 years. Given these announcements we suspect it’s closer to 5 years. The announcements from Xanadu and Microsoft may not be ‘game changers’ but they are significant as they show the direction of travel and how engineering limitations may be eliminated or simply by-passed.
Don't forget about IBM, Google and their Chinese competitors. We expect more announcements from them in the coming months as the race is most definitely on!
If you are a Chief Operating Officer or Chief Information Officer concerned about Quantum Computing please get in touch to put the foundations in place and start addressing this issue. A Post Quantum Computing world is going to be here sooner than you think!
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