Enjoy a nice cup of freshly brewed quantum news ☕️ 

Today’s issue includes:

• Rigetti’s fabrication process has been updated with a new technique — Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing. ABAA improves qubit performance and reduces defects.

• A hybrid quantum deep learning model that combines quantum feature processing with deep learning techniques such as Bi-LSTM and XGBoost to improve rice yield forecasting accuracy.

• The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are collaborating to develop quantum technology as well as provide students with valuable hands-on experience.

And even more research, news, & events within quantum.

🔩 Rigetti’s Updated Fabrication Process Increases Superconducting Qubit Performance

QUICK BYTE: Rigetti’s new technique, "Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing", has been integrated into Rigetti's standard fabrication process and leads to better qubit performance and scalability.

DETAILS: 

• Rigetti has developed a new technique called "Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing" to improve the precision of qubit frequency targeting in superconducting quantum processors.

• ABAA improves qubit performance, reduces defects, enhances addressability, speeds up interactions, and boosts scalability by gently mixing atoms in tunnel junctions using alternating voltages, moving quantum processors closer to solving real-world problems.

• ABAA has been integrated into Rigetti's fabrication process and has shown potential for broad applicability in both quantum and classical circuits.

🔒️ Scope AI Corp. has deployed its QSE Quantum Gateway module globally to support wide adoption of quantum-resilient security for businesses worldwide by bridging privacy and latency gaps between institutional clients and their cloud infrastructure. The QSE Technology suite provides scalable, quantum-resilient entropy and encrypted storage solutions to secure sensitive data across a broad range of applications.

🍃 The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on quantum information science and engineering by developing and evaluating quantum technologies in areas such as computing, networking, and sensing. The collaboration will also provide UTC students with valuable internships and capstone projects alongside ORNL experts.

🗝️ WISeKey International Holding Ltd. has partnered with Venafi to offer its TLS certificate services on the Venafi Marketplace to support organizations in navigating the challenges posed by quantum computing, particularly in the automated rollout of certificates and the implementation of crypto-agility capabilities.

💰️ Quantum Circuits, Inc. secured over $60 million in a Series B investment round led by major investors including ARCH Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital to support the commercialization of their novel quantum systems featuring built-in error detection. The significance of this investment lies in Quantum Circuits' industry-first dual-rail qubit architecture, which promises scalable, high-fidelity quantum computing.

🚨 National Cyber Director Coker delivered remarks at a White House event in Washington, D.C. highlighting the urgency of transitioning to post-quantum cryptography to safeguard national security and privacy. He emphasized the vulnerabilities posed by quantum computing to current encryption methods, which could undermine the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical data while praising NIST's efforts in developing standard post-quantum algorithms. He called for immediate action from both domestic and international partners to implement these new standards.

🍙 A recently published approach for predicting rice yields integrates quantum computing with deep learning techniques through bidirectional long short-term memory for temporal feature extraction, quantum circuits for quantum feature processing, and an XGBoost regressor to enhance prediction accuracy. The study demonstrates an improved precision of rice yield forecasts, with results showing near-perfect accuracy.

🤖 A model for parallelizing quantum circuit executions uses a virtual quantum processing unit framework implemented within the XACC framework to virtualize quantum computing resources by mapping them onto high-performance computing nodes. The approach demonstrates strong scalability in domain-specific problems, particularly in quantum chemistry and quantum machine learning, leveraging both CPU and GPU-accelerated HPC platforms.

LISTEN

On the most recent edition of The Superposition Guy’s Podcast, Yuval Boger, CMO of QuEra, interviews Richard Murray, CEO and co-founder of Orca Computing. They discuss the company's focus on building photonic quantum computers using existing telecom components and optical fibers. Orca differentiates itself by leveraging its origins from a quantum networking research group at the University of Oxford, emphasizing practical near-term applications in machine learning and optimization. Richard highlights the unique challenges of photonic quantum computing, such as manipulating single photons for qubit gates, and the company's efforts in pioneering multiplexing techniques to scale their systems.

PONDER

• Faye Wattleton's previous track record in creating innovative insurance solutions and her recent engagement with quantum computing through EeroQ is a testament to bold decisions as a catalyst for driving innovation. She stresses the critical role of diverse perspectives in shaping emerging technologies, especially in ensuring ethical governance as quantum computing evolves — by valuing a range of voices and experiences, we can more effectively navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by current technologies.

WATCH

Short, but inspirational video from the Director of Quantum Hardware at Intel Labs.

• On Monday, August 19th, TQN is hosting TQN Quantum Safe Transition Working Group, a review of the newly released NIST standards —virtual

• On Tuesday, August 20th, Infleqtion is hosting A Different Kind of Quantum Circuit: Exploring Atomtronics with Oqtant, an explanation and demonstration on creating atomtronic circuits —virtual

• On Thursday, August 22nd, D-Wave is hosting Deeper Dive into the new Fast Anneal Feature, a webinar on how Fast Anneal is assisting in scientific discovery —virtual

• On Saturday, August 24th, Washington DC Quantum Computing Meetup is hosting PiQture - A Quantum Machine Learning Library for Image Processing, a discussion of the open-source Python and Qiskit-based library for QML models —virtual

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