Charles Lyons-Burt
Quantum computing is one of the most ascendent and sought-after technologies in today’s climate, with broad applications. Prognosticators believe that it will have widespread influence and effects in global citizens’ lives in the coming years. For example, experts have pointed to quantum’s usage in autonomous vehicles that can operationalize its speed of compute to help cars decipher extremely small shifts in gravity and other forces.
Beyond quantum positioning systems, though, quantum could very well have impacts for the United States’ fight in the global power struggle. Chester Kennedy, president of research and security solutions at ColdQuanta, describes the “concerns associated with 5G technology” due to the “crowded radio frequency (RF) spectrum we are constrained to operate within by standard RF components.”
“Quantum-based technologies free us of those constraints, doubling the entire usable RF spectrum in the very near future and opening the path to multiple orders of magnitude more spectrum within a few short years,” Kennedy wrote in a March 2022 Spiceworks article.
Kennedy will be the moderator at the upcoming 2023 Quantum Technologies Forum from ExecutiveBiz. The event will be held on April 5 virtually from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Register here.
Kennedy’s positing of quantum’s RF vitality seems directly linked to the prevalence of electronic warfare — essentially a competition for dominance on the electromagnetic spectrum — in today’s geopolitical conflicts. It could be a major asset in future conflicts, and U.S. innovation scholar Charles Wessner, a professor at Georgetown University, believes Europe could stand to learn from the United States’ embrace of up-and-coming technologies like quantum and artificial intelligence in order to secure and protect itself.
“Europe simply does not spend enough on [defense]. Many major US innovations have emerged from defence [sic] spending. Think of radar, satellites, atomic power, computers, semiconductors, aerospace, and global positioning systems in the Cold War, and now quantum computing, artificial intelligence and vaccines, all of which have been advanced by military spending and needs,” Wessner wrote for Science Business.
Wessner asserts there is a mutual public and private sector gain to be had from developing these technologies: “The goal was not to develop civilian applications but to defend ourselves; but the result was a host of technologies that could be used for commercial applications,” he wrote. Wessner will be among the panelists at the Quantum Technologies Forum.
He encourages Europe to take the United States’ lead and double down on defense research and development investments such as quantum.
A recent American initiative to bolster quantum developments came disguised as something else. The much-publicized CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 was widely discussed for its focus on the semiconductor industry, however only about $50 billion of its $280 billion sum will be doled out to aiding that cause. The remaining $230 billion will go toward vendors, researchers and the inception of new technologies, as well as to educational and training programs to help familiarize personnel with burgeoning tech. Two of the technologies first to program heads’ lips are quantum computing and AI.
The National Science Foundation, which has a role in fund allocation for the CHIPS Act, has taken a particular interest in quantum, establishing and growing multiple advocacy efforts, including the Quantum User Expansion for Science and Technology program.
But Kennedy feels that while the CHIPS Act’s warmth toward quantum is promising, the industry seeing and leveraging the actual results may take time.
“If these are funds giving people access to emerging quantum and AI technologies for scientific research, then there is real value in that… In my experience, this will probably be a two-year process because they have to sort out what they have to work with, evaluate all the competing interests and develop the programs,” Kennedy stated.
If you want to hear more about the state of quantum computing and its place in the U.S. government and military, attend the virtual 2023 Quantum Technologies Forum on April 5. You can register here.
In addition to the insights of Kennedy and Wessner, the forum will feature a keynote address from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Sha-Chelle Manning and panel contributions from former Central Intelligence Agency executive Dawn Meyerriecks. You don’t want to miss this!
