Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. Pronouns: (show all) Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. It's 2022 and the near billion-dollar quantum computing sector has gone from a passion project for forward-thinking physicists to a thriving B2B industry. Experts predict the market for quantum technologies will quadruple in value by 2029. Simply put there's never been a better time than right now for potential jobseekers to get in on what, arguably, could be the greatest technological revolution since the advent of the internet.

Much of the focus on the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 has centered around strengthening the semiconductor industry, but the lion's share of the funds being allotted in the $280 billion bill targets industry and academic institutions conducting research and development on emerging technologies. The federal government will dole out around $50 billion over the next five years, mainly to chip manufacturers that will come out of the newly established CHIPS for America Fund. That leaves nearly $230 billion for vendors, researchers and developing technologies, and to create programs to educate students and train employees on technologies destined to become mainstream in the years ahead. Two such technologies prominently mentioned are quantum computing and AI. For instance, the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the federal agencies responsible for allocating the funds, will establish a quantum education pilot program to promote a quantum information science workforce across the U.S. The agency also must produce a study on the educational challenges in creating a diverse and sustainable workforce in the quantum industry. NSF will also expand the existing Quantum User Expansion for Science and Technology program, making it easier for researchers to access government quantum computing hardware and clouds.

QuantrolOx, a new startup that was spun out of Oxford University last year, wants to use machine learning to control qubits inside of quantum computers. The company, which was co-founded by Oxford professor Andrew Briggs, tech entrepreneur Vishal Chatrath, the company's chief scientist Natalia Ares and head of quantum technologies Dominic Lennon, today announced that it has raised a £1.4 million (or about $1.9 million) seed funding round led by Nielsen Ventures and Hoxton Ventures. Voima Ventures, Remus Capital, Dr. Hermann Hauser and Laurent Caraffa also invested in the round. The company's technology is technology-agnostic, and could be applied to all of the standard quantum computing technologies. The idea here is that instead of going through a slow manual tuning process, QuantrolOx's system will be able to tune, stabilize and optimize qubits significantly faster.