Microsoft today shared plans to release an open cloud quantum computing service in private preview. A partnership with the startup IonQ announced today will enable developers to use existing Microsoft products -- like Visual Studio or the Quantum Development Kit -- along with quantum computers. The news follows recent breakthroughs in quantum computing from IBM Research and Google, who announced on October 23 that it achieved quantum supremacy with the 54-qubit Sycamore processor. Quantum computing is based on quantum physics. Quantum computers run on quantum bits or qubits, and when qubits are maintained in a cold state they can scale high-performance computation in a way that's hard to achieve today with traditional supercomputers.

With the boom in digital technologies, the world is producing over 2.5 exabytes of data every day. To put that into perspective, it is equivalent to the memory of 5 million laptops or 150 million phones. The deluge of data is forecast to increase with the passing day and with it has increased the need for powerful hardware that can support it. This hardware advancement refers to faster computing or processing speed and larger storage systems. Companies worldwide are investing in powerful computing with the R&Ds constantly in the race for making improved processors.

Maëva Ghonda is a scientist born in Kinshasa, the great capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Maëva is the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Quantum Computing Newsletter, the host of the Quantum AI Series Podcast, and the chair of the Quantum AI Institute. As a research scientist, her work is centered on technological innovations -- i.e. Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning -- to tackle challenges in Pharma and Healthcare (e.g. Maëva Ghonda's passion for quantum computing ignited while working as Joint Quantum Institute Scholar.

The federal government has released a new set of voluntary principles aimed at providing guidance to organisations in how they protect critical technologies from cyber attacks. Labelled the Critical Technology Supply Chain Principles, Minister of Home Affairs Karen Andrews said the voluntary principles were designed to give organisations and consumers the confidence to allocate more resources towards critical emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, and algorithmic automation. "These principles come at a vital time -- both for Australia and for our critical industries. We face unprecedented threats from a range of malicious cyber actors, growing geostrategic uncertainty, and are increasingly reliant on technologies that can be hacked, held to ransom, or otherwise disrupted," Andrews said. The principles were developed in partnership with industry, non-government organisations, state and territory governments, and the community.

It was almost exactly a year ago that IBM unveiled what was then its latest quantum processor, code-named Eagle, boasting an impressive 127 quantum bits (qubits). Fast forward one year and IBM announced earlier this week (11/9/22) its latest quantum processor, code named Osprey, with 433 qubits, more than three times the number of qubits as their Eagle processor. This blog goes into details of what quantum computing is, where IBM is headed in quantum computing, and what it means for the industry. What's almost more impressive than this announcement from IBM is that it predicted this spot-on in the Quantum Development Roadmap it published in 2020 (see below). IBM predicted the Eagle with 127 qubits would be announced in 2021 (check), and that the Osprey with 433 qubits would be announced in 2022 (check).