A selection of the most important recent news, articles, and papers about Quantum.
General News, Articles, and Analyses
Gov. Pritzker Announces Investments in EeroQ Quantum Hardware Headquarters in Chicago
(Wednesday, September 25, 2024) “Today, Governor JB Pritzker joined the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) and EeroQ Corporation leadership to announce new investments in the company’s quantum headquarters in Chicago’s Humboldt Park community. EeroQ’s $1.1 million investment in capital expenditures, bolstered by an Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) for Startups agreement and Illinois Innovation Venture Fund (INVENT) investments, will enable the company to develop the team and tools needed to build a quantum computer and revolutionize various fields.”
Quantum Tech Promises to Support UN Sustainability Goals | Enter Quantum
https://www.iotworldtoday.com/quantum/quantum-tech-promises-to-support-un-sustainability-goals
Author: Heidi Vella
(Wednesday, September 25, 2024) “Quantum technologies could turbocharge the race to meet the United Nation’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), a new report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Accenture has found.”
IBM Develops New Quantum Benchmarking Tool — Benchpress
https://www.hpcwire.com/2024/09/26/ibm-develops-new-quantum-benchmarking-tool-benchpress/
Author: John Russell
(Thursday, September 26, 2024) “Benchmarking is an important topic in quantum computing. There’s consensus it’s needed but opinions vary widely on how to go about it. Last week, IBM introduced a new tool — Benchpress — intended to help evaluate various quantum computer SDKs and stacks. IBM issued a paper (Benchmarking the performance of quantum computing software) describing the new tool.”
IBM Expands Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York to Advance Algorithm Discovery Globally | IBM Newsroom
(Thursday, September 26, 2024) “Latest IBM Quantum system, powered by an IBM Quantum Heron processor, achieves reduced error rates at 16 times better performance, and 25-fold increase in speed over 2022 IBM Quantum systems. IBM completes installation of second IBM Heron, its most performant quantum processor to date, now available to clients globally. Company announces all quantum systems in Poughkeepsie and globally can operate at utility-scale, beyond brute-force simulation capabilities of classical computers.”
The UAE’s quest to establish quantum computing | CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/27/world/video/decoded-quantum-dubai-spc
Author: Mark Tutton
(Friday, September 27, 2024) “The country hopes to become a regional player in the industry.”
IonQ Announces Largest 2024 U.S. Quantum Contract Award of $54.5M with United States Air Force Research Lab | IonQ
“IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), a leader in the quantum computing industry, today announced that it has signed a $54.5 million contract with the United States Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). With a quarter remaining in the fiscal year, IonQ has announced $72.8 million in bookings year-to-date and reiterated its confidence in meeting or exceeding its bookings guidance of $75-95 million for the year.”
Articles Related to Other News
TII Quantum Technology Symposium, 27–29 January 2025 – Hilton Abu Dhabi Yas Island
“The TII Quantum Technology Symposium celebrates the UNESCO International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, marking 100 years since the advent of quantum mechanics. This milestone highlights quantum science’s profound impact on technology, culture, and our understanding of the natural world.”
AFRL Quantum Information Science Research Center
https://afresearchlab.com/technology/quantum/
“Quantum information science applies the best understanding of the sub-atomic world—quantum theory—to generate new knowledge and technologies. Quantum will revolutionize Air and Space Force operations.”
Technical Papers, Articles, and Preprints
[2409.17595] Magic state cultivation: growing T states as cheap as CNOT gates
https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.17595
Authors: Gidney, Craig; Shutty, Noah; and Jones, Cody
(Thursday, September 26, 2024) “We refine ideas from Knill 1996, Jones 2016, Chamberland 2020, Gidney 2023+2024, Bombin 2024, and Hirano 2024 to efficiently prepare good |T〉 states. We call our construction “magic state cultivation” because it gradually grows the size and reliability of one state. Cultivation fits inside a surface code patch and uses roughly the same number of physical gates as a lattice surgery CNOT gate of equivalent reliability. We estimate the infidelity of cultivation (from injection to idling at distance 15) using a mix of state vector simulation, stabilizer simulation, error enumeration, and Monte Carlo sampling. Compared to prior work, cultivation uses an order of magnitude fewer qubit-rounds to reach logical error rates as low as 2 · 2-9 when subjected to 2-3 uniform depolarizing circuit noise. Halving the circuit noise to 5 · 2-4 improves the achievable logical error rate to 4 · 2-11. Cultivation’s efficiency and strong response to improvements in physical noise suggest that further magic state distillation may never be needed in practice.”
