Well. Not like this is going to affect a huge number of companies in Canada, but one of my colleagues brought to my attention at an internal meeting the fact that the Canadian government has updated its export control list – i.e. the list of things that you can’t ship out of Canada without a permit. A brief release from the gov’t summarizes the additions, which now include quantum cryptography goods and technologies. D-Wave might want to be pay attention to this, though they’re not in the area of quantum cryptography per se. That being said, I’m a bit surprised that its only quantum cryptography that’s on the list. Given the potential impact that quantum computing technology may have on standard cryptographic protections (i.e. being able to render it more or less useless, assuming the predictions on its horsepower come to pass) I would have thought quantum computing would have also been added on in some form.
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Thoughts on Quantum Computing
Interesting article in Wired News where they interview David Deutsch who they refer to as the Father of Quantum Computing. He has a kind of low key but interesting take on the recent demonstration of a real, live 16 qubit quantum computer by D-Wave, a Canadian company based out of Vancouver.
Low key insofar as he doesn’t seem particularly enthused about the potential of quantum computers, other than perhaps their ability to be used to simulate quantum systems and of course encryption:
Deutsch: It’s not anywhere near as big a revolution as, say, the internet, or the introduction of computers in the first place. The practical application, from a ordinary consumer’s point of view, are just quantitative.
One field that will be revolutionized is cryptography. All, or nearly all, existing cryptographic systems will be rendered insecure, and even retrospectively insecure, in that messages sent today, if somebody keeps them, will be possible to decipher … with a quantum computer as soon as one is built.
Most fields won’t be revolutionized in that way.
Fortunately, the already existing technology of quantum cryptography is not only more secure than any existing classical system, but it’s invulnerable to attack by a quantum computer. Anyone who cares sufficiently much about security ought to be instituting quantum cryptography wherever it’s technically feasible.
Apart from that, as I said, mathematical operations will become easier. Algorithmic search is the most important one, I think. Computers will become a little bit faster, especially in certain applications. Simulating quantum systems will become important because quantum technology will become important generally, in the form of nanotechnology.
(my emphasis). Interesting thought about being retrospectively insecure. Particularly given spy agencies have, in the past, been sufficiently bold to transmit encoded messages on easily accessible shortwave frequencies.
I imagine the spook shops already have their purchase orders in for quantum crypto stuff (or have developed it already internally). Was a bit surprised by the statement above regarding existing technology for quantum computing. I had heard of some demos a while back, but didn’t realize that there are actually several companies offering quantum cryptography products.
D-Wave’s Quantum Computing Demo
As I mentioned earlier, there was a Canadian company that announced it would demonstrate a working quantum computer this week. And demonstrate they did. Yesterday. In California. Then they released this press release, which is frustratingly short on details.
There was some other minor press coverage, including a short article in Scientific American. The nub:
For the demonstration, he says D-Wave operators remotely controlled the quantum computer, housed in Burnaby, British Columbia, from a laptop in California. The quantum computer was given three problems to solve: searching for molecular structures that match a target molecule, creating a complicated seating plan, and filling in Sudoku puzzles.
But experts say the announcement may be a bit – er – premature. Even if the computer were to work as advertised, it still would be nearly 1,000 times too small to solve problems that stump ordinary computers. Moreover, researchers do not know whether it will work at bigger sizes.
A similar tone was in most other articles that didn’t parrot the press release – namely, that the demo was not very impressive. That part is rather unfortunate, although not wholly unexpected – the company did indicate (somewhere) that this was intended to be a proof of concept to gain interest.
So I guess at least for the foreseeable future, the cryptography industry will still be around.
A Real Quantum Computer – This Week!
Sorry, been off sick. One very quick entry from Techworld, about a BC company, D-Wave, that will be debuting a real Quantum computer this week!!
Twenty years before most scientists expected it, a commercial company has announceda quantum computer that promises to massively speed up searches and optimisation calculations.
D-Wave of British Columbia has promised to demonstrate a quantum computer next Tuesday, that can carry out 64,000 calculations simultaneously (in parallel “universes”), thanks to a new technique which rethinks the already-uncanny world of quantum computing. But the academic world is taking a wait-and-see approach.
If it turns out to be true, this will be revolutionary news. I mean, truly revolutionary. If it works, well, say goodbye to most of the cryptography industry, as a quantum computer should easily be able to defeat the most sophisticated encryption methods currently known by simple brute strength. Amongst other things. This is nearly unlimited computing power in a box. Stunning. Assuming, of course, it actually works.
