When it comes to practical problems, including things such as the traveling salesman problem, a classic in optimization, the value of quantum is still to be decided, say Richard Moulds, left, head of Amazon's Braket quantum computing service, and Robert Liscouski, head of Quantum Computing Inc., which makes Qatalyst software to do optimization on both classical and quantum machines.

It's easy to imagine a problem for which, if one had a computer that magically leapt across steps of the computation, your life would be much better.

Say, for example, a computer that auto-magically searches through a vast space of possible solutions much faster than you can with a CPU or GPU.

That's the premise of quantum computing, and surprisingly, for all the hype, it's not clear if that premise is true.

"I don't think we've seen any evidence yet that a quantum machine can do anything that's commercially interesting faster or cheaper than a classical machine," Richard Moulds, head of Amazon Braket, the cloud giant's quantum computing service, said in an interview with ZDNet. "The industry is waiting for that to arrive."

It is the question of the "quantum advantage," the notion that the entangled quantum states in a quantum computer will perform better on a given workload than an electronic system.

"We haven't seen it yet," Robert Liscouski, CEO of Quantum Computing Inc, said of the quantum advantage, in the same Zoom interview with Moulds.

That aporia, the as-yet-unproven quantum advantage, is in fact the premise for a partnership announced this month, whereby QCI's Qatalyst software program will run as a cloud service on top of Braket.

QCI's corporate tag line is "ready-to-run quantum software," and the Qatalyst program is meant to dramatically simplify sending a computing task to the qubits of a quantum hardware machine, the quantum processing units, or QPUs, multiple instances of which are offered through Bracket, including D::Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti.

The idea is to get more people working with quantum machines precisely to find out what they might be good for.

"Our platform basically allows the democratization of quantum computing to extend to the user community," said Liscouski.

"If you look back on the quantum industry since it started, it's traditionally been very difficult to get access to quantum hardware," said Moulds, including some machines that are "totally unavailable unless you have a personal relationship with the the physicist that built it."

"We're trying to make it easy for everyone to have access to the same machinery; it shouldn't be those that have and those that have not, it should be everyone on the same flywheel," he said.

The spectrum of users who will be working with quantum comprise "two important communities" today, said Moulds, those that want to twiddle qubits at the hardware level, and those that want to spend time on particular problems in order to see if they actually gain any benefit when exposed to the quantum hardware.

"There's a lot of researchers focused on building better hardware, that is the defining force in this industry," said Moulds. "Those types of researchers need to be in the weeds, playing at the qubit level, tweaking the frequencies of the pulses sent to the chip inside the fridge."

On the other hand, "the other class of users is much more geared to Robert's view of the world: they don't really care how it gets done, they just want to understand how to program their problem so that it can be most easily solved."

That second class of users are "all about abstraction, all about getting away from the technology." As quantum evolves, "maybe it slides under so that customers don't even know it's there," mused Moulds.

When it comes to those practical problems, the value of quantum is still to be decided.

There has been academic work showing quantum can speed up tasks, but "that's not been applied to a problem that anybody cares about," said Moulds.

The entire quantum industry is "still finding its way to what applications are really useful," he said. "You tend to see this list of potential applications, a heralded era of quantum computing, but I don't think we really know," he said.

The Qatalyst software from QCI focuses on the kinds of problems that are of perennial interest, generally in the category of optimization, particularly constrained optimization, where a solution to a given loss function or objective function is made more complicated by having to narrow the solution to a bunch of variables that have a constraint of some sort enforced, such as bounded values.

"They are described at a high level as the traveling salesman problem, where you have multi-variate sort of outcomes," said Liscouski. "But it's supply-chain logistics, it's inventory management, it's scheduling, it's things that businesses do today that quantum can really accelerate the outcomes in the very near future."

Such problems are "a very important use case," said Moulds. Quantum computers are "potentially good at narrowing the field in problem spaces, searching through large potential combinations in a wide variety of optimization problems," he said.

However, "classical will probably give you the better result" at this time, said Liscouski.

One of the reasons quantum advantage is not yet certain is because the deep phenomena at the heart of the discipline, things such as entanglement, make the field much more complex than early digital computing.

"A lot of people draw the analogy between where we are and the emergence of the transistor," said Moulds.

"I think that's not true: this is not just a case of making the computers we have today smaller and faster and cheaper, we're not anywhere near that regime, that Moore's Law notion of just scaling these things up."

"There's fundamental scientific discoveries that have to be made to build machines that can tackle these sorts of problems on the grand scale that we've been talking about."

Beyond the machines' evolution, there is an evolution implicit for programmers. Quantum brings a fundamentally different approach to programming. "These are physics-based machines, they're not just computational engines that add ones and zeros together, it's not just a faster slide rule," said Moulds.

That different way of programming may, in fact, point the way to some near-term payoff for the Qatalyst software, and Braket. Both Liscouski and Moulds expressed enthusiasm for taking lessons learned from quantum and back-loading them into classical computers.

"Typically, access to quantum computing is through toolkits and resources that require some pretty sophisticated capabilities to program to ultimately get to some result that involves a quantum computer," observed Liscouski.

"With Braket, the platform provides both access to QPUs and classical computing at the same time, and the quantum techniques that we use in the platform will get results for both," said Liscouski.

"It isn't necessarily a black and white decision between quantum and classical," said Moulds. "There's an emerging area, particularly in the area of optimization, people use the term quantum-inspired approaches are used."

"What that means is, looking at the ways that quantum computers actually work and applying that as a new class of algorithms that run on classical machines," he said.

"So, there's a sort of a morphing going on," he said.

An advantage to working with QCI, said Moulds, is that "they bring domain expertise that we don't have," things such as the optimization expertise.

"We've coined the phrase, 'Build on Braket'," said Moulds. "We're trying to build a quantum platform, and we look to companies like QCI to bring domain expertise to use that platform and apply it to problems that customers have really got."

Also important is operational stability and reliability, said Moulds. For a first-tier Web service with tons of users, the priority for Amazon is "running a professional service, a platform that is reliable and secure and durable" on which companies can "build businesses and solve problems."

Although there are "experimental" aspects, he said, "this is not intended to be a best-effort showcase."

Although the quantum advantage is not certain, Moulds holds out the possibility someone working with the technology will find it, perhaps even someone working on Braket.

"The only way we can move this industry forward is by pulling the curtains apart and giving folks the chance to actually see what's real," he said.

"And, boy, the day we see a quantum computer doing something that is materially advantageous from a commercial point of view, you will not miss that moment, I guarantee."

Originally posted here:

Quantum: It's still not clear what its good for, but Amazon and QCI will help developers find out - ZDNet

zapp2photo - stock.adobe.com

Published: 22 Apr 2021 7:07

Australia and India have joined hands to advance the development of critical and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G networks, the internet of things (IoT) and quantum computing through a research grant programme.

Through the programme, the two countries hope to help shape a global technology environment that meets Australia and Indias shared vision of an open, free, rules-based Indo-Pacific region.

The first three projects in the initial round of the programme, which prioritised proposals focused on strengthening understanding of ethical frameworks and developing technical standards for critical technologies, were recently announced by Australias department of foreign Affairs and trade.

This project, led by the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney and experts such as Rajeshwari Rajagopalan of the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation and quantum physicist Shohini Ghose, aims to develop quantum accords to shape international governance of quantum technologies.

The team will build guiding principles on ethics, best practices and progressive applications of quantum technologies.

But rather than propose a formal set of universal rules, they will seek consensus among key stakeholders on what constitutes ethical or unethical behaviour, good or bad practices, productive or destructive applications for emerging quantum technologies.

The project, spearheaded by La Trobe University and Indian Institute of Technology Kampur, will provide Australian and Indian business with an ethics and policy framework when outsourcing their technology to Indian providers.

It will do by improving the understanding of how they translate being signatories of ethical codes to their actual practice. The project will also analyse the emotions and views of stakeholders expressed in social media on the ethical issues found to be important through business surveys.

In doing so, the project intends to advance knowledge in AI and cyber and critical technology, ethics and sustainability and risk by bringing together disciplines in business management and ethics, computer science and engineering, and AI and business analytics.

The outcomes expected include recommendations on revised ethical codes and practices and a framework for using AI and advanced analytics to review ethical practices of companies.

The explosive growth in wireless network usage and IoT systems is expected to accelerate. While 5G networks offer significant improvements in terms of capacity, data rates, and potential energy efficiency, there is a need to address critical privacy and security challenges.

The work will focus on the issues that arise from wireless tracking systems that rely on detecting variations in the channel state information (CSI) due to the users physical activities and wireless networking.

Based on a series of experiments in Australia and India, the project will develop a comprehensive understanding of the extent of private information and metadata exposed and related inferences. This will be used to engage with standards and regulatory agencies and government bodies to strengthen data protection regimes in Australia, India and globally.

The research will be the basis for a whitepaper detailing the emerging wireless network privacy and security threat landscape. This will be followed up with a workshop in Bangalore with key regulators, standards body officials, policy makers and researchers, with the goal of initiating action to effectively address the emerging threats.

The work will be led the University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, Orbit Australia, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Indian Institute of Technology Madras and Calligo Technologies.

The automation of the financial software that lies at the heart of any business & accountancy, budget management, general ledger, payroll, and so on & is a prize many organisations are eyeing up, with machine learning and robotic process automation close to mind. Find out everything you need to know by downloading this PDF E-Guide.

See original here:

Australia and India team up on critical technology - ComputerWeekly.com

After a year in which scientists raced to understand Covid-19 and to develop treatments and vaccines to stop its spread, Cleveland Clinic is partnering with IBM to use next-generation technologies to advance healthcare research and potentially prevent the next public health crisis.

The two organizations on Tuesday announced the creation of the "Discovery Accelerator," which will apply technologies such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence to pressing life sciences research questions. As part of the partnership, Cleveland Clinic will become the first private-sector institution to buy and operate an on-site IBM quantum computer, called the Q System One. Currently, such machines only exist in IBM labs and data centers.

Quantum computing is expected to expedite the rate of discovery and help tackle problems with which existing computers struggle.

The accelerator is part of Cleveland Clinic's new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, a facility introduced in January on the heels of a $500 million investment by the clinic, the state of Ohio and economic development nonprofit JobsOhio to spur innovation in the Cleveland area.

The new center is dedicated to researching and developing treatments for viruses and other disease-causing organisms. That will include some research on Covid-19, including why it causes ongoing symptoms (also called "long Covid") for some who have been infected.

"Covid-19 is an example" of how the center and its new technologies will be used, said Dr. Lara Jehi, chief research information officer at the Cleveland Clinic.

"But ... what we want is to prevent the next Covid-19," Jehi told CNN Business. "Or if it happens, to be ready for it so that we don't have to, as a country, put everything on hold and put all of our resources into just treating this emergency. We want to be proactive and not reactive."

Quantum computers process information in a fundamentally different way from regular computers, so they will be able to solve problems that today's computers can't. They can, for example, test multiple solutions to a problem at once, making it possible to come up with an answer in a fraction of the time it would take a different machine.

Applied to healthcare research, that capability is expected to be useful for modeling molecules and how they interact, which could accelerate the development of new pharmaceuticals. Quantum computers could also improve genetic sequencing to help with cancer research, and design more efficient, effective clinical trials for new drugs, Jehi said.

Ultimately, Cleveland Clinic and IBM expect that applying quantum and other advanced technologies to healthcare research will speed up the rate of discovery and product development. Currently, the average time from scientific discovery in a lab to getting a drug to a patient is around 17 years, according to the National Institutes of Health.

"We really need to accelerate," Jehi said. "What we learned with the Covid-19 pandemic is that we cannot afford, as a human race, to just drop everything and focus on one emergency at a time."

Part of the problem: It takes a long time to process and analyze the massive amount of data generated by healthcare, research and trials something that AI, quantum computing and high-performance computing (a more powerful version of traditional computing) can help with. Quantum computers do that by "simulating the world," said Dario Gil, director of IBM Research.

"Instead of conducting physical experiments, you're conducting them virtually, and because you're doing them virtually through computers, it's much faster," Gil said.

For IBM, the partnership represents an important proof point for commercial applications of quantum computing. IBM currently offers access to quantum computers via the cloud to 134 institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Daimler, but building a dedicated machine on-site for one organization is a big step forward.

"What we're seeing is the emergency of quantum as a new industry within the world of information technology and computing," Gil said. "What we're seeing here in the context of Cleveland Clinic is ... a partner that says, 'I want the entire capacity of a full quantum computer to be [dedicated] to my research mission."

The partnership also includes a training element that will help educate people on how to use quantum computing for research which is likely to further grow the ecosystem around the new technology.

Cleveland Clinic and IBM declined to detail the cost of the quantum system being installed on the clinic's campus, but representatives from both organizations called it a "significant investment." Quantum computers are complex machines to build and maintain because they must be stored at extremely cold temperatures (think: 200 times colder than outer space).

The Cleveland Clinic will start by using IBM's quantum computing cloud offering while waiting for its on-premises machine to be built, which is expected to take about a year. IBM plans to later install at the clinic a more advanced version of its quantum computer once it is developed in the coming years.

Jehi, the Cleveland Clinic research lead, acknowledged that quantum computing technology is still nascent, but said the organization wanted to get in on the ground floor.

"It naturally needs nurturing and growing so that we can figure out what are its applications in healthcare," Jehi said. "It was important to us that we design those applications and we learn them ourselves, rather than waiting for others to develop them."

Continue reading here:

Cleveland Clinic and IBM hope their tech partnership could help prevent the next pandemic - WTHITV.com

Synopsys, one of the largest vendors of electronic-design-automation (EDA) software, rolled out a unified suite of simulation software that promises to speed up the design of systems-on-a-chip (SoCs), systems-in-package (SiPs), and memory chips for use in data centers, 5G, automotive, artificial intelligence (AI), and other areas.

Today, the most advanced chips have billions of transistors, but it is impossible for engineers to verify by hand every single facet of the chip before it is manufactured. Failure to accurately test the blueprint of a chip for mistakes can drag out the development process and raise the possibility of a premature failure in the device in the future, which can damage a companys reputation.

"EDA is the unknown soldier of the semiconductor design process," said Hany Elhak, who handles product management and marketing for the custom IC and physical verification group at Synopsys. But as chips have become vastly more complicated in recent years, circuit simulation software has become an indispensable part of every engineer's toolbox (Fig.1).

%{[ data-embed-type="image" data-embed-id="607e0705a6ade9d3368b48e2" data-embed-element="span" data-embed-size="640w" data-embed-alt="Synopsys Spice 1" data-embed-src="https://img.electronicdesign.com/files/base/ebm/electronicdesign/image/2021/04/Synopsys_SPICE_1.607e07043ac08.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440" data-embed-caption="" data-embed-credit="Figure 1. (Image courtesy of Synopsys)." ]}%

Synopsys sells software tools based on the industry-standard SPICE simulation technology. SPICE is used to create a computer model of an analog or other electronic circuit and put it through its paces to test whether it works as intended. SPICE can also be used to identify potential areas for improvement and test planned changes to the design without being forced to prototype it.

But when it comes to SoCs or SiPs consisting of memory, analog, radio frequency (RF), digital, and other blocks of intellectual property (IP) on the same silicon die or package, vendors have had to use differentdesign and verification tools for every part of the IC. But according to Synopsys, these disparate tools are not cut out for huge amount of complexity in modern chips.

The electronic design software giant said that it integrated all its simulation software into a single solution, PrimeSim Continuum, aimed at analog, mixed-signal, RF, and custom digital memory designs. The all-in-one system allows its customers to mix and match different simulation engines (Fig. 2) to simulate different parts of the SoC and run them all from the same environment.

%{[ data-embed-type="image" data-embed-id="607e0705fdc914194c8b48ad" data-embed-element="span" data-embed-size="640w" data-embed-alt="Synopsys Spice 2" data-embed-src="https://img.electronicdesign.com/files/base/ebm/electronicdesign/image/2021/04/Synopsys_SPICE_2.607e0704491ac.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440" data-embed-caption="" data-embed-credit="Figure 2. (Image courtesy of Synopsys)." ]}%

To boost productivity, Synopsys said it enhanced the SPICE and FastSPICE architectures at the heart of the software, giving it the speed and capacity to test semiconductor designs up to 10 times faster than previously without giving up the accuracy of the analysis. Synopsys said PrimeSim Continuum can shorten the time it takes to bring products to market and, in turn, reduce costs.

As the semiconductor industry crams more and more transistors on tiny squares of silicon, Synopsys is trying to keep up with the needs of chip vendors with faster and more accurate simulation software.

Synopsys said more of its customers are bringing power management ICs, radio frequency ICs, and other analog chips previously slapped on the circuit board (PCB) in a smartphone or other device on the same slice of silicon as the CPU, I/O and memory. These increasingly heterogeneous SoCs are also housing larger slices of embedded memory and faster I/O. (Fig. 3).

%{[ data-embed-type="image" data-embed-id="607e07058f14e6da168b45b1" data-embed-element="span" data-embed-size="640w" data-embed-alt="Synopsys Spice 6" data-embed-src="https://img.electronicdesign.com/files/base/ebm/electronicdesign/image/2021/04/Synopsys_SPICE_6.607e07044c9ce.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440" data-embed-caption="" data-embed-credit="Figure 3. (Image courtesy of Synopsys)." ]}%

Another problem on the semiconductor industrys plate is increased parasiticsor unwanted resistance, inductance, or capacitance in electronic circuitsas these types of chips scale to smaller and smaller nodes. The analog parts of the IC are also more vulnerable to variations that occur as a result of the IC production process. These slight aberrations can cause bugs or a complete failure of the IC in the future, adding to the challenges of verification.

Instead of loading all the different components of a smartphone or other device on a single die, other vendors are rolling out chips based on a system-in-package, or SiP, approach. That opens the door for vendors to create many different chips based on different nodes and then seal them all up together to wring out more performance, reduce power, or add new features.

"It is both scale complexity and system complexity that have been increasing," Elhak said. "You need to simulate not only the chip itself but at the same time all its interactions with other chips in the package," he added. The result in more simulations with longer runtimes and higher levels of accuracy to weed out potential weaknesses in the blueprint of the chip.

Synopsys said its latest solution brings together a wide range of different simulation engines in a single environment that is engineered for ease of use and improved productivity (Fig. 4).

%{[ data-embed-type="image" data-embed-id="607e07053903c565168b4598" data-embed-element="span" data-embed-size="640w" data-embed-alt="Synopsys Spice 5" data-embed-src="https://img.electronicdesign.com/files/base/ebm/electronicdesign/image/2021/04/Synopsys_SPICE_5.607e07043bf6e.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440" data-embed-caption="" data-embed-credit="Figure 4. (Image courtesy of Synopsys)." ]}%

The all-in-one solution includes its PrimeSim SPICE technology for analog, radio frequency, and digital verification; PrimeSim HSPICE, its gold-standard signoff software for foundation IP as well as signal and power integrity; PrimeSim XA, a FastSPICE tool for mixed-signal and SRAM designs; and PrimeSim Pro, its latest FastSPICE architecture for DRAM and flash-memory chips. Linking them all together is PrimeWave, its new design environment.

"All of these engines are combined in a single, unified solution," Elhak said. "We allow you to use the right engine for any of the technologies you are verifying. Synopsys said PrimeSim is one of the cornerstones of its custom design platform, and it is also integrated with its suite of verification software so that customers can resolve problems that turn up in PrimeSim.

Synopsys said the tools are currently being used by Samsung Electronics, NVIDIA, and other early-access customers. The company's major rivals are EDA heavyweights Cadence Design Systems and Siemens EDA.

%{[ data-embed-type="image" data-embed-id="607e0705a6ade973668b4783" data-embed-element="span" data-embed-size="640w" data-embed-alt="Synopsys Spice 3" data-embed-src="https://img.electronicdesign.com/files/base/ebm/electronicdesign/image/2021/04/Synopsys_SPICE_3.607e07044e582.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440" data-embed-caption="" data-embed-credit="Figure 5. (Image courtesy of Synopsys)." ]}%

EDA software uses huge amounts of computational horsepower, and semiconductor giants maintain colossal data centers or rent out computing power over the cloud to run them. But creating computer models of electronic circuits with millions to billions of elements and then testing them all out can take a day or more. SPICE is the bottleneck for signing off any large chip design, Elhak warned.

Today, semiconductor firms run thousands of simulations on the most intricately-designed chips before sending the final blueprint to a foundry to be manufactured. That further drags out the chip design process.

Synopsys is trying to solve the speed bottleneck with its state-of-the-art SPICE architecture. The company said that it delivers up to three times faster performance for analog, memory, RF, and other IC designs byscaling to more CPU cores. Synopsys said it can wring out up to 10 times more performance by taking advantage of accelerated computing on NVIDIA GPUs, without giving up accuracy (Fig. 5).

%{[ data-embed-type="image" data-embed-id="607e0705a6ade97d668b476b" data-embed-element="span" data-embed-size="640w" data-embed-alt="Synopsys Spice 4" data-embed-src="https://img.electronicdesign.com/files/base/ebm/electronicdesign/image/2021/04/Synopsys_SPICE_4.607e070441218.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440" data-embed-caption="" data-embed-credit="Figure 6. (Image courtesy of Synopsys)." ]}%

"As modern compute workloads evolve, the scale and complexity of analog IC designs have moved beyond the capacity of traditional circuit simulators," said Edward Lee, vice president of mixed-signal design at NVIDIA, in a statement. He said that the improvements in PrimeSim SPICE shortens the time it takes to carry out verification on analog ICs from days to hours.

Synopsys said it upgraded its underlying FastSPICE architecture to model more advanced 3D DRAMincluding high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in data centersand flash-memory chip designs. The PrimeSim Pro tool uses advanced partitioning and modeling technologies to split simulations into more manageable parts, promising two to five times the speed of other solutions on the market (Fig. 6).

"Relentless technology scaling and innovations around DRAM architecture have resulted in larger and more complex memory designs requiring higher simulation performance and capacity," said Jung Yun Choi, corporate vice president of memory design technology at Samsung. He added that PrimeSim Pro could "keep pace with the capacity needs of our advanced memory designsand allow us to meet our aggressive time-to-results targets."

Synopsys said PrimeSim XA, PrimeSim HSPICE, PrimeSim SPICE, and PrimeSim Pro are all supported by leading foundries, including TSMC and Samsung, on advanced process nodes.

See the article here:

Synopsys Rolls Out All-in-One Tool to Speed Up IC Simulation - Electronic Design

Quantum Computing Market is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. This analysis provides an examination of various market segments that are relied upon to observe the fastest development amid the estimated forecast frame. The report encompasses market definition, currency and pricing, market segmentation, market overview, premium insights, key insights and company profile of the key market players. The persuasive Quantum Computing market report also helps to know about the types of consumers, their response and views about particular products, and their thoughts for the step up of a product.

Quantum computing is an advanced developing computer technology which is based on the quantum mechanics and quantum theory. The quantum computer has been used for the quantum computing which follows the concepts of quantum physics. The quantum computing is different from the classical computing in terms of speed, bits and the data. The classical computing uses two bits only named as 0 and 1, whereas the quantum computing uses all the states in between the 0 and 1, which helps in better results and high speed. Quantum computing has been used mostly in the research for comparing the numerous solutions and to find an optimum solution for a complex problem and it has been used in the sectors like chemicals, utilities, defence, healthcare & pharmaceuticals and various other sectors. Quantum computing is used for the applications like cryptography, machine learning, algorithms, quantum simulation, quantum parallelism and others on the basis of the technologies of qubits like super conducting qubits, trapped ion qubits and semiconductor qubits. Since the technology is still in its growing phase, there are many research operations conducted by various organizations and universities including study on quantum computing for providing advanced and modified solutions for different applications. For instance, Mercedes Benz has been conducting research over the quantum computing and how it can be used for discovering the new battery materials for advanced batteries which can be used in electric cars. Mercedes Benz has been working in collaboration with the IBM on IBM Q network program, which allows the companies in accessing the IBMs Q network and early stage computing systems over the cloud. Global quantum computing market is projected to register a healthy CAGR of 29.5% in the forecast period of 2019 to 2026.

Download Sample Copy of the Report to understand the structure of the complete report (Including Full TOC, Table & Figures) @https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-quantum-computing-market&Somesh

Quantum Computing Market Scope and Segmentation:

Global quantum computing market is segmented into seven notable segments which are system, qubits, deployment model, component, application, logic gates and vertical.

Quantum Computing Market Country Level Analysis

For detailed insights on Global Quantum Computing Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue Share Analysis (Million USD) by Players, Revenue Market Share (%) by Players and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product differentiation, new entrants are also considered in heat map concentration.

New Business Strategies, Challenges & Policies are mentioned in Table of Content, Request TOC at @https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-quantum-computing-market&Somesh

Leading Key Players Operating in the Quantum Computing Market Includes:

Some of the major players operating in this market are Honeywell International, Inc., Accenture, Fujitsu, Rigetti & Co, Inc., 1QB Information Technologies, Inc., IonQ, Atom Computing, ID Quantique, QuintessenceLabs, Toshiba Research Europe Ltd, Google,Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Xanadu, Magiq Technologies, Inc., QX branch, NEC Corporation, Anyon System,Inc. Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited, QC Ware Corp, Intel Corporation and others.

Product Launch

The Quantum Computing Market research covers a comprehensive analysis of the following facts:

Table of Content:

PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT

PART 03: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

PART 04: INTRODUCTION

PART 05: MARKET LANDSCAPE

PART 06: MARKET SIZING

PART 07: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

PART 08: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY PRODUCT

PART 09: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL

PART 10: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE

PART 11: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY END-USER

PART 12: REGIONAL LANDSCAPE

PART 13: DECISION FRAMEWORK

PART 14: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

PART 15: MARKET TRENDS

PART 16: COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

PART 17: COMPANY PROFILES

PART 18: APPENDIX

Inquire Before Buying This Research Report:https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/inquire-before-buying/?dbmr=global-quantum-computing-market&Somesh

About Us:

An absolute way to forecast what future holds is to comprehend the trend today!

Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with an unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge Market Research provides appropriate solutions to complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.

Contact:

US: +1 888 387 2818

UK: +44 208 089 1725

Hong Kong: +852 8192 7475

corporatesales@databridgemarketresearch.com

Excerpt from:

Quantum Computing Market Share Current and Future Industry Trends, 2020 to 2027 The Courier - The Courier

A team of scientists and engineers at the University of Sydney and Microsoft Corporation have teamed up to develop a new device that has big implications for quantum computing. The single chip can operate 40 times colder than deep space, and it is capable of controlling signals for thousands of qubits, which are the fundamental building blocks of quantum computers.

The results were published in Nature Electronics.

Professor David Reilly is the one responsible for designing the chip. He has a joint position with the University of Sydney and Microsoft.

To realise the potential of quantum computing, machines will need to operate thousands if not millions of qubits, said Professor Reilly.

The worlds biggest quantum computers currently operate with just 50 or so qubits, he continued. This small scale is partly because of limits to the physical architecture that control the qubits. Our new chip puts an end to those limits.

One of the main requirements of an efficient quantum system is qubits to operate at temperatures around zero, or -273.15 degrees. The reason for this temperature requirement is so that the qubits do not lose their character of matter or light, which is required by quantum computers to perform specialized applications.

One of the reasons quantum systems often involve many wires is that they operate based on instructions, which come in the form of electrical signals sent and received.

Professor Reilly is also the Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS).

Current machines create a beautiful array of wires to control the signals; they look like an inverted gilded birds nest or chandelier. Theyre pretty, but fundamentally impractical. It means we cant scale the machines up to perform useful calculations. There is a real input-output bottleneck, said Professor Reilly.

According to Dr. Kushal Das, Microsoft Senior Hardware Engineer and joint inventor of the device, Our device does away with all those cables. With just two wires carrying information as input, it can generate control signals for thousands of qubits. This changes everything for quantum computing.

The new chip was invented at the Microsoft Quantum Laboratories, which is located at the University of Sydney. The partnership brings together the two different worlds to come up with innovative approaches to engineering challenges.

Building a quantum computer is perhaps the most challenging engineering task of the 21st century. This cant be achieved working with a small team in a university laboratory in a single country but needs the scale afforded by a global tech giant like Microsoft, Professor Reilly said.

Through our partnership with Microsoft, we havent just suggested a theoretical architecture to overcome the input-output bottleneck, weve built it.

We have demonstrated this by designing a custom silicon chip and coupling it to a quantum system, he said. Im confident to say this is the most advanced integrated circuit ever built to operate at deep cryogenic temperatures.

The newly developed chip could play a major role in advancing quantum computers, which are one of the most revolutionary technologies within our grasp. Quantum computers are extremely advanced in their abilities to solve problems that classical computers cannot, such as those within the fields of cryptography, medicine, AI, and more.

More:

Newly Invented Device Controls Thousands of Qubits - Unite.AI

In late 2019, Google, in partnership with NASA, said that its quantum computer performed in 200 seconds a computation that would take the worlds fastest supercomputer thousands of years. Even so, quantum computers need quantum networks to communicate, and todays internet doesnt cut it.

In hot pursuit of a quantum internet is the University of Arizona in Tucson, which the National Science Foundation selected last summer to receive a five-year, $26 million grant to establish the Center for Quantum Networks. CQNs director and principal investigator, Saikat Guha, a professor in the universitys College of Optical Sciences, will lead a team that brings together leading researchers from Howard University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Oregon, Northern Arizona University, the University of Chicago and Brigham Young University.

One of the CQN projects will involve building a test bed in Tucson a quantum network spanning six buildings and 10 laboratory sites on campus. On the East Coast, CQNs partner universities, including Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will build a Boston-area test bed to explore quantum communications in a conceptually simple network setting over metropolitan-scale distances, Guha says.

Whenever it arrives, the quantum internet will not replace the classical internet. Instead, users will see an upgrade with a new service: that of quantum communication. The quantum internet would initially be used for research and targeted applications by government, academia and industry users, including national defense, banking and finance, the cloud computing industry, and pharmaceutical research and development, Guha explains. A biomedical researcher could use the quantum internet to simulate a new synthetic molecule. Eventually, a student could open a quantum cloud computing app on a handheld device to perform computations.

The biggest impact on academia that I foresee is creating a transdisciplinary bridge and collaboration among researchers in disciplines that would not have otherwise worked together, Guha says.

Quantum internet research could spawn a new generation of IT innovation. Source: University of Arizona

Other teams across the globe are similarly exploring quantum networking. The European Quantum Internet Alliance, formed in 2018 from 12 universities in eight countries, announced a major development from the Sorbonne University team in October in achieving the scalability of a quantum internet. And in the U.S., the collaboration between Stony Brook University in New York and Brookhaven National Laboratory recently demonstrated that quantum bits (qubits) from two distant quantum computers can be entangled in a third location.

There will be new apps that use this new service for things we do not know today, Guha says. The quantum internet, when available to the average home, will spawn a whole new generation of IT innovators and app developers who will come up with new ways the powerful new service of quantum communication can be used.

See the rest here:

Universities are Building the Future of Quantum Internet - EdTech Magazine: Focus on Higher Education

Security experts have long worried that advances in quantum computing could eventually make it easier to break encryption that protects the privacy of peoples data. Thats because these sophisticated machines can perform calculations at speeds impossible for conventional computers, potentially enabling them to crack codes previously thought indecipherable.

Now, a Swiss technology company says it has made a breakthrough by using quantum computers to uncover vulnerabilities in commonly used encryption. The company believes its found a security weakness that could jeopardize the confidentiality of the worlds internet data, banking transactions and emails.

Terra Quantum AG said its discovery upends the current understanding of what constitutes unbreakable encryption and could have major implications for the worlds leading technology companies, such as Alphabet Inc.s Google, Microsoft Corp., and International Business Machines Corp.

Don't miss: ProtonMail, Threema, Tresorit and Tutanota warn EU of risks of weakening encryption

But some other security experts said they arent nearly ready to declare a major breakthrough, at least not until the company publishes the full details of its research. If true, this would be a huge result, said Brent Waters, a computer science professor who specialises in cryptography at the University of Texas at Austin. It seems somewhat unlikely on the face of it. However, it is pretty hard for experts to weigh in on something without it being published.

IBM spokesman Christopher Sciacca said his company has known the risks for 20 years and is working on its own solutions to address the issue of post-quantum security. This is why the National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST) has been hosting a challenge to develop a new quantum safe crypto standard, he said in an email. IBM has several proposals for this new standard in the final round, which is expected in a few years.

Brian LaMacchia, distinguished engineer at Microsoft, said company cryptographers are collaborating with the global cryptographic community to prepare customers and data centers for a quantum future. Preparing for security in a post-quantum world is important not only to protect and secure data in the future but also to ensure that future quantum computers are not a threat to the long-term security of todays information.

Google didnt reply to a message seeking comment.

Terra Quantum AG has a team of about 80 quantum physicists, cryptographers and mathematicians, who are based in Switzerland, Russia, Finland and the US What currently is viewed as being post-quantum secure is not post-quantum secure, said Markus Pflitsch, chief executive officer and founder of Terra Quantum, in an interview. We can show and have proven that it isnt secure and is hackable.

Also read: Heres how an encrypted, locked Android and Apple phone gets bypassed

Pflitsch founded the company in 2019. Hes a former finance executive who began his career as a research scientist at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Terra Quantums research is led by two chief technology officers Gordey Lesovik, head of the Laboratory of Quantum Information Technology at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and Valerii Vinokur, a Chicago-based physicist who in 2020 won the Fritz London Memorial Prize for his work in condensed matter and theoretical physics.

The company said that its research found vulnerabilities that affect symmetric encryption ciphers, including the Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES, which is widely used to secure data transmitted over the internet and to encrypt files. Using a method known as quantum annealing, the company said its research found that even the strongest versions of AES encryption may be decipherable by quantum computers that could be available in a few years from now.

Vinokur said in an interview that Terra Quantums team made the discovery after figuring out how to invert whats called a hash function, a mathematical algorithm that converts a message or portion of data into a numerical value. The research will show that what was once believed unbreakable doesnt exist anymore, Vinokur said, adding that the finding means a thousand other ways can be found soon.

Read more: Chinese scientists make world's first light-based quantum computer: Report

The company, which is backed by the Zurich-based venture capital firm Lakestar LP, has developed a new encryption protocol that it says cant be broken by quantum computers. Vinokur said the new protocol utilizes a method known as quantum key distribution.

Terra Quantum is currently pursuing a patent for the new protocol. But the company will make it available for free, according to Pflitsch. We will open up access to our protocol to make sure we have a safe and secure environment, said Pflitsch. We feel obliged to share it with the world and the quantum community.

The US government, like China, has made research in quantum computing research an economic and national security priority, saying that the world is on the cusp of what it calls a new quantum revolution. In addition, technology companies including Google, Microsoft, and IBM have made large investments in quantum computing in recent years.

More:

A Swiss company claims it used quantum computers to find weakness in encryption - HT Tech

Scientists and engineers at the University of Sydney and Microsoft Corporation have developed a device that can handle thousands of qubits. To put things in perspective, the current state-of-the-art quantum computer can control only 50 qubits at a time.

Scaled-up quantum computers require control interfaces to manipulate or readout a large number of qubits, which usually operate at temperatures close to absolute zero (1 Kelvin or -273 degrees celsius).

The complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology has its limitations due to high thermodynamic dissipation, leading to heating of the fragile quantum bits. Overheating of quantum bits compromises its quantumness, the property of being in two states at the same time (also called superposition).

The current architecture uses multiple connections as every qubit is controlled by external circuitry with a separate electrical connection, generating a lot of heat.

The scientists from the University of Sydney built a CMOS interface between the qubits and the external circuitry, in such a way that the CMOS chip can generate control pulses for multiple qubits, with just four low-bandwidth wires, at 0.1 Kelvin, a temperature 30 times colder than deep space, with ultralow power dissipation.

The interface consists of four low-bandwidth wires at room temperature to provide input signals to the chip, which then configures 32 analogue circuit blocks to control the qubits that use dynamic voltage signals.

Analogue circuit boards use the low leakage of the transistors to generate dynamic voltage signals for manipulating qubits, consuming significantly less power.

Quantum computers are at a similar stage that classical computers were in their 40s when machines needed control rooms to function.

However, this chip, according to the scientists, is the most advanced integrated circuit ever built to operate at deep cryogenic temperatures.

The quantum computers that we have now are still lab prototypes and are not commercially relevant yet. Hence, this is definitely a big step towards building practical and commercially relevant quantum computers, said Mr Viraj Kulkarni, But I think that we are still far away from it.

This is because of the Error Correction. Any computing device always has errors in it and no electronic device can be completely perfect. There are various techniques that computers use to correct those errors.

Now the problem with quantum computing is that qubits are very fragile. Even a slight increase in temperature, vibrations, or even cosmic rays can make qubits lose their quantumness, and this introduces errors. So the key question of whether we can really control these errors is still relevant.

Nivedita Dey, research coordinator at Quantum Research and Development Labs, said the qubit noise is still a roadblock in developing quantum computers.

One of the biggest challenges in implementing a quantum circuit in this Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) era is qubit noise, which causes hindrance in commercial availability of fault-tolerant full-scale quantum computers, said Ms Dey.

This approach can be well suited for practical quantum applications and might reduce the number of error-correcting qubits to be associated with noisy qubits, she added.

If quantum computing does prove to be commercially viable, it will open up completely new avenues.

A plane is not just faster than a car, it can also fly, said Mr Kulkarni, drawing an analogy between quantum computers and conventional computers. The idea is that quantum computers are not just faster, but at the same time will provide us with solutions that are better, especially in AI.

Hence, many applications in AI including complex mathematical equations, drug discovery by enabling chemical simulations, or building financial applications to come up with a better strategy will be solved in a faster and efficient way.

In the end its a tool, so any function a conventional computer can achieve, quantum computers will be able to do it faster and better.

Original post:

Microsoft Scientists Build Chip That Can Handle Thousands Of Qubits - Analytics India Magazine

In the past, investment control law has been continuously tightened (see the Amendments to the Foreign Trade an Payments Act (AWG-Novelle) as well as the 15th and 16th Amendment Ordinance of the AWV. The draft of the 17th Amendment Ordinance to the AWV has been eagerly awaited, as publication has been repeatedly postponed due to the intensive and lengthy process of interdepartmental coordination.

The 17th Amendment Ordinance to the AWV, which is now available in draft form, completes the adaptation to the amendment made to the AWG (Foreign Trade and Payments Act) and the EU Screening Regulation 2019/452 (EU Screening Regulation), which was adopted in March 2019. The amendment particularly massively expands the catalogue of critical sectors and technologies. Further amendments are derived from the inspection practice of the authorities and serve to strengthen the effectiveness of the investment inspection. In the following, the amendments are presented in more detail, as well as where ambiguities exist and what further effects on practice are to be expected.

Highlights of the changes:

The new Section 55a AWV-E

For the sake of clarity, the sectors and technologies previously listed in Section 55 (1) sentence 2 AWV and the newly added sectors and technologies relevant to the audit are now presented in a new Section 55a AWV-E (Section 55a (1) nos. 1-27 AWV-E). If the activity of a target company is listed there, an impairment of public order or security is particularly obvious. In such cases, the draft bill speaks of an indication of special security relevance of the target company. For the listed areas, restrictive orders (conclusion of a contract under public law up to a prohibition) can be considered.

Expansion of audit-relevant companies Section 55a (1) No. 13 27 AWV-E

The new areas introduced by the German legislator, which are largely based on the list in Art. 4(1) of the EU Screening Regulation, can be divided into different categories.

Artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors (Section 55a (1) nos. 13, 15, 16 lit. a AWV-E)

As a new category of companies with special relevance for public security or order, the areas of artificial intelligence, robotics and semiconductors find their way into the new catalogue. Thus, goods are to be subject to the investment protection regime that solve concrete application problems by means of artificial intelligence processes and are capable of independently optimising their algorithms and can be used for certain abusive purposes. The abusive purposes are:

It should be emphasised that the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has restricted the scope of application of the use of AI to the extent that it must be possible to use AI for misuse purposes. Against the background that a large number of companies use AI in their software programmes, the restriction makes sense. Nevertheless, the possibility of misuse for the purposes mentioned above is sufficient. According to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, an obligation to report already applies if the overall circumstances make misuse as a result of the acquisition appear possible (draft bill, p. 27).

Nos. 15 and 16 lit. a) serve to particularly protect industrial robots and integrated circuits. Not only since the purchase of the industrial robot manufacturer Kuka has this field been one of the key technologies worth protecting. In addition to the developers and manufacturers of such robots, there is a particular audit relevance with regard to the companies that provide specific IT services for the aforementioned companies.

The legislator understands the generic term semiconductor to mean integrated circuits on a substrate as well as discrete semiconductors, i.e. circuit elements located in their own housing with their own external connections. The circuit element is a single active or passive functional unit of an electronic circuit, e.g. a diode, a transistor, a resistor or a capacitor (draft bill, p. 27). Practice will show whether the companies that are particularly relevant to the audit can be sufficiently delimited on the basis of the definition given.

Cyber security, aerospace, quantum and nuclear technology (Section 55a (1) Nos. 17-20 AWV-E)

Explicit protection is also afforded to the IT security and forensics sector if companies manufacture or develop IT security products. This serves to concretise the cyber security mentioned in the EU Screening Regulation. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy points out that products for the physical protection of IT systems (such as server room doors or on-board protection foils) are not covered. Applications that have IT security functions in addition to their main purpose are also not covered. However, virus protection programmes or firewalls, for example, are covered.

Furthermore, Nos. 18 to 20 protect dual-use goods from aerospace and nuclear and quantum technology. With regard to aerospace, in addition to aviation companies, companies whose product portfolio includes dual-use goods from the field of aviation electronics and navigation (subcategory 7A, 7B, 7D or 7E of Annex I to the Dual-Use Regulation) or aviation, space and propulsion (subcategory 9A, 9B, 9D or 9E of the Dual-Use Regulation) are also covered. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy defines nanotechnology as goods of category 0 or of list items 1B225, 1B226, 1B228, 1B231, 1B232, 1B233 or 1B235 of Annex I to the Dual-Use Regulation. Quantum technology includes quantum computing, quantum computer, quantum sensing, quantum metrology, quantum cryptography, quantum communication and quantum simulation.

Autmated driving or fyling, optoelectronics and additive manufacturing (Section 55a (1) No. 14, 16 lit. b), 21 AWV)

The areas of automated driving and flying are not explicitly mentioned in the EU screening regulations catalogue of examples. However, in view of the highly dynamic technical progress, the German legislator sees a considerable risk to public safety in these areas. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has already focused on products that can be used for autonomous driving in the past. The protection of additive manufacturing must also be understood in the context of technological progress.

Colloquially, this area is known as 3D printing. The possibilities offered by the 3D printing process can also be used for military product development or for the production of spare parts for sensitive goods. In this respect, the legislator has deemed this area worthy of protection.

Supply-relevant key infrastructures (Section 55a (1) Nos. 22-24 AWV-E)

The new case group number 22 is intended to protect network technologies to strengthen the security and defence industry. The case group serves to implement the German governments strategy paper on strengthening the security and defence industry from February 2020 as well as the EU Commissions 5G Toolbox, which has explicitly pointed out that investment control is one of the means to ensure a safer 5G roll-out in Europe. Network technologies are security-relevant IT and communication technologies that are to be used, for example, in the expansion of 5G technology. Intelligent metering systems (smart meters) are also protected in number 23. In the wrong hands, control over smart meters could endanger data security and the energy supply as a whole.

In No. 24, the legislator also provides special protection for companies that provide services in the field of information and communication technology for the Federal Republic of Germany. The inclusion of the regulation is to be seen against the background of the establishment and operation of digital radio.

Critical raw materials, secret patents or utility models and agriculture and food industry (Section 55a (1) Nos. 25-27 AWV-E)

In addition, the catalogue also covers companies that extract or produce goods or substances of particular relevance. Therefore, companies that extract critical raw materials or ores as well as companies that are of fundamental importance for food security and cultivate an agricultural area of more than 10,000 hectares were included in the catalogue. Critical resources and strategic assets are thus to receive special protection and the food supply is to be ensured. Also, the protection of goods to which the scope of protection of a secret patent or utility model extends is to be included in order to protect sensitive information.

Legal consequences for the acquisition of shareholdings in target companies

The legal consequences remain essentially unchanged if the target company is named in the catalogue of Section 55a (1) AWV-E. The obligation to report the conclusion of a contract under the law of obligations for the acquisition of a domestic enterprise specified in the catalogue is now found in Section 55a (4) AWV-E. The report must be made immediately. Until the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy issues the release, enforcement is prohibited (section 15 (4) sentence 1 AWG). A violation constitutes a criminal offence or, in the case of negligence, a administrative offence.

Clarifications from the practice of the authorities

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is using the amendment to include clarifications for partial questions that have arisen in the practice of the authorities in recent years.

h2. Circumvention transactions and additional purchases of shares

The circumvention transactions regulated in Section 55 (2) AWV are expanded in the new Section 55 (2) AWV-E. Such transactions now also explicitly include acquisitions of shareholdings in the same domestic company that are coordinated in such a way that, when considered separately, none of the acquisitions constitute a reportable shareholding.

Notifiable voting rights are specified in the new paragraphs 2 and 3 of section 56 AWV-E. Any further acquisition of shareholdings above the limit of 10 per cent of the voting rights in an enterprise within the meaning of Section 55a (1) AWV-E or 25 per cent of the voting rights of another enterprise are also subject to the notification requirement. This was already the practice of the authorities and has now been clarified by the inclusion in the AWV.

The acquisition of an effective participation in any other way in the management or control of the domestic company also triggers the reporting obligation under the new Section 56 (3) AWV-E. Since the filling of strategic positions in companies can go hand in hand with rights to information with regard to knowledge worthy of protection, such constellations are equated with an acquisition of voting rights. With this adjustment, the legislator is rounding off the reporting obligation and wants to exclude circumvention constellations as far as possible.

The addition of the voting rights of third parties can now be found in section 56 (4) AWV-E. The obligation to report is already triggered if it can be assumed that voting rights are exercised jointly due to the other circumstances of the acquisition. This also applies if the agreement on the joint exercise of voting rights is only concluded after the acquisition of the shareholding. Other circumstances are presumed if the acquirer and at least one third party from the same third country directly or indirectly hold an interest in the domestic company.

h2. Release of acquisition

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has clarified that in the case of the existence of a notification obligation pursuant to Section 55a (1), an application for clearance is excluded (Section 58 (3) AWV-E). In cases of doubt regarding the obligation to report, the acquirer may combine the report with an alternative application for a clearance certificate.

Extension of the sector-specific examination to all military equipment within the meaning of Part I Section A of the Export List

For the sector-specific assessment, the previous notion of risk is replaced by the assessment criterion of probable impairment in accordance with the new legal situation for the cross-sectoral investment assessment. However, the essential security interests remain the criterion for assessment. According to the newly formulated case group number 1, such interests are already probably impaired if the enterprise develops, manufactures or modifies goods within the meaning of Part I Section A of the Export List or has actual control over such goods. A company that at least also has contact points with goods from Part I Section A of the Export List is therefore to be covered by the new Section 60 (1) No. 1 AWV-E. Previously, only certain sub-sectors of the Export List were covered by the sector-specific examination. Its scope of application is thus considerably expanded.

Control of orders and the obligations regulated in a public law contract

Within the framework of the amendment to the AWG, the possibility has been introduced to commission third parties to monitor the obligations assumed by a public law contract or imposed by orders (Section 23 (6b) AWG). This procedure allows the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy to use personnel resources for inspection activities and to outsource monitoring. The ordinance regulates who may perform this monitoring activity as a third party. These are persons who are competent, reliable and independent of the obligated parties and the other parties involved in the acquisition (Section 59 (4) AWV-E).

Change of procedure in the examination procedure pursuant to Section 62a AWV-E

Section 62a AWV-E is to be inserted in a new subsection. If it becomes apparent in a cross-sectoral review procedure or a sector-specific review procedure that the requirements for a prohibition or the issuing of orders via the respective other procedure are met, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy may continue the respective review procedure on the basis of the requirements of the provisions of the other procedure. Consequently, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy can react flexibly to new findings in the ongoing procedure.

Conclusion

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energys attempt to concretise the scope of application of companies relevant to public order or security is to be welcomed in principle. However, the new Section 55a AWV-E leaves many questions of detail open. It must therefore be assumed that in practice, in case of doubt, a report must be made in order to avoid committing an administrative offence or even a criminal offence. The amendment of the AWV will therefore lead to a considerable expansion of the number of cases subject to reporting and auditing. This will be accompanied by a significant increase in the workload for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The expanded sector-specific audit will also contribute to an increase in audit cases. Furthermore, the additional workload caused by the EU cooperation mechanism is hardly foreseeable. According to the explanatory memorandum, Germanys previous practice of only reporting cases for which an in-depth examination was carried out is no longer valid. Within the framework of the cooperation mechanism, cases that are to be decided within the two-month period must therefore also be reported. Due to the new extension of the scope of application of investment control, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy assumes at least 180 new reportable acquisitions per year. These would be in addition to the 159 cases examined by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in 2020. Furthermore, the EU cooperation mechanism will conservatively estimate that a further 140 cases will have to be examined. Overall, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy therefore expects about 500 cases next year. Consequently, 30 additional civil servants are to be recruited across departments.

On the whole, however, the new AWV shows a distrust of foreign direct investment. It is therefore likely to be of considerable importance that the application of the new AWV does not lead to an excessive restriction of free trade in order to keep Germany attractive as an investment location. Restrictions or prohibitions should therefore remain the exception and not degenerate into a political instrument.

More here:

The draft bill of the 17th Amendment Ordinance of the AWV (Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance) - a first analysis - Lexology