Page 24 - AT

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Thursday 27 sepTember 2018

AP Explains: The U.S. push to boost 'quantum computing'

By MATT O'BRIEN Today's early quantum
AP Technology Writer computers, however, fall
YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. well short on that front.
(AP) — A race by U.S. WHERE CAN YOU FIND
tech companies to build ONE?
a new generation of pow- While quantum comput-
erful "quantum comput- ers don't really exist yet in
ers" could get a $1.3 billion a useful form, you can find
boost from Congress, fu- some loudly chugging pro-
eled in part by lawmakers' totypes in a windowless
fear of growing competi- lab about 40 miles north of
tion from China. New York City.
Legislation passed earlier Qubits made from super-
in September by the U.S. conducting materials sit in
House of Representatives colder-than-outer-space
would create a 10-year fed- refrigerators at IBM's Thom-
eral program to acceler- as J. Watson Research
ate research and develop- Center. Take off the cylin-
ment of the esoteric tech- drical casing from one of
nology. As the bill moves to the machines and the in-
the Senate, where it also side looks like a chandelier
has bipartisan support, the of hanging gold cables —
White House showed its en- all of it designed to keep 20
thusiasm for the effort by This Feb. 27, 2018, photo shows a seven cubit quantum device is seen at the IBM Thomas J. Watson fragile qubits in an isolated
holding a quantum summit Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. quantum state.
Monday. Associated Press "You need to keep it very
Scientists hope govern- cold to make sure the
ment backing will help the machines process in- or a one in the binary lan- and finding better trans- quantum bits only entan-
attract a broader group formation at the scale of guage of computing. But portation routes or supply gle with each other the
of engineers and entre- elementary particles such quantum bits, known as qu- chains. way you program it, and
preneurs to their nascent as electrons and photons, bits, can register zero and It could also advance an- not with the rest of the uni-
field. The goal is to be less where different laws of one simultaneously. other fast-growing field, verse," said Scott Crowder,
like the cloistered Manhat- physics apply. WHAT CAN IT DO? artificial intelligence, by IBM's vice president of
tan Project physicists who "It's never going to be in- In theory, the special prop- accelerating a computer's quantum computing.
developed the first atomic tuitive," said Seth Lloyd, a erties of qubits would al- ability to find patterns in IBM is competing with
bombs and more like the mechanical engineering low a quantum computer large troves of images and Google and startups like
wave of tinkerers and pro- professor at the Massachu- to perform calculations at other data. Berkeley, California-based
grammers who built thriving setts Institute of Technol- far higher speeds than cur- What worries intelligence Rigetti Computing to get
industries around the per- ogy. "At this microscopic rent supercomputers. That agencies most about the ever-more qubits onto their
sonal computer, the inter- level, things are weird. makes them good tools technology's potential — chips. Microsoft, Intel and a
net and smartphone apps. An electron can be here for understanding what's and one reason for the growing number of venture-
WHAT'S A QUANTUM COM- and there at the same happening in the realms of heightened U.S. interest backed startups are also
PUTER? time, at two places at chemistry, material science — is that a quantum com- making big investments. So
Describing the inner work- once."Conventional com- or particle physics. puter could in several de- are Chinese firms Baidu, Al-
ings of a quantum comput- puters process information That speed could aid in dis- cades be powerful enough ibaba and Tencent, which
er isn't easy, even for top as a stream of bits, each of covering new drugs, opti- to break the codes of to- have close ties to the Chi-
scholars. That's because which can be either a zero mizing financial portfolios day's best cryptography. nese government.q

Uber agrees to $148M settlement

with states over data breach

Illinois Attorney General Lisa panies cannot hide when was "the right thing to do."
Madigan announced the they break the law." "It embodies the principles
settlement Wednesday be- Uber learned in Novem- by which we are running
tween Uber Technologies ber 2016 that hackers had our business today: trans-
Inc. and all 50 states and accessed personal data, parency, integrity, and ac-
the District of Columbia. including driver's license countability," West said.
"Uber completely disre- information, for roughly The hack also took the
garded Illinois' breach noti- 600,000 Uber drivers in the names, email addresses
fication law when it waited U.S. The company ac- and cell phone number of
more than a year to alert knowledged the breach in 57 million riders around the
This March 20, 2018, file photo shows the Uber app on an iPad
in Baltimore. people to a serious data November 2017, saying it world.
Associated Press breach," Madigan said. paid $100,000 in ransom for All 50 states and the Dis-
Madigan said that al- the stolen information to be trict of Columbia sued
CHICAGO (AP) — Uber has hailing company failed for though Uber is now tak- destroyed. Uber, saying the company
agreed to pay $148 million a year to notify drivers that ing appropriate steps, "the Tony West, chief legal offi- violated laws requiring it to
and take steps to tighten hackers had stolen their company's initial response cer for Uber, said the deci- promptly notify people af-
data security, after the ride- personal information. was unacceptable. Com- sion by current managers fected by the breach.q