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Published: 29 Jan 2021 9:29

Apple and IBM are among the handful of IT firms to emerge as inaugural members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys (MIT) climate change-tackling consortium.

The companies have joined the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC), a cross-industry initiative geared towards accelerating the development pace of climate change-tackling technologies and innovations.

Featuring input from students, faculty members and researchers from across MIT, the MCSC said it has sought to recruit companies to join the initiative from a wide range of industries spanning aviation, agriculture, technology chemical product and textiles to aid its efforts to arrest the onset of climate change across the world.

The consortium will see Apple and IBM working alongside other tech-focused firms including aerospace company Boeing, professional IT services provider Accenture and telco giant Verizon, to deliver on its goals.

A total of 13 companies are joining the consortium at launch, including representatives from the world of fashion retail, construction, manufacturing and food production, including PepsiCo.

The inaugural members of the MCSC are companies with intricate supply chains that are among the best positioned to help lead the mission to solve the climate crisis, said MIT in a statement.

The inaugural member companies of the MCSC recognise the responsibility industry has in the rapid deployment of social and technology solutions. They represent the heart of global industry and have made a commitment to not only work with MIT but with one another, to tackle the climate challenge with the urgency required to realise their goals.

The MCSC said the consortiums aim is to foster an environment of collaboration between these firms, so that they combine their resources to bring to market products and services that will help the fight against climate change.

The organisation said it hopes the firms will also work together to drive down costs, lower barriers to adoption of best-available technology and processes, speed retirement of carbon-intensive power generating and materials-producing equipment within their respective industries.

If we hope to decarbonise the economy, we must work with the companies that make the economy run, said MIT president L Rafael Reif. Drawing its members from a broad range of industries, the MCSC will convene an alliance of influential corporations motivated to work with MIT, and with each other, to pilot and deploy the solutions necessary to reach their own ambitious decarbonisation commitments.

The cross-industry element of the consortium will play a vital role in helping the MCSC to achieve its goals, while also supporting MIT to deliver on its pre-existing climate change-mitigating initiatives.

Reif added: By sharing solutions across companies and sectors, the consortium has the potential to vastly accelerate the implementation of large-scale, real-world solutions to help meet the global climate emergency.

In a blog post confirming its involvement in the initiative, IBM Research Future of Climate Strategy leads Solomon Assefa and Marina Rakhlin revealed further details of the benefits it hopes its involvement in the MCSC will bring.

The company said it plans to draw on its experience from operating its hybrid cloud platform to help proactively address the challenge that datacentre energy consumption is expected to grow to more than 10% of the worlds technology by 2030.

IBM Research is also working on technologies designed to improve the energy efficiency and resource utilisation of IT infrastructures by enabling the coordinated placement of containers, the blog post said.

By drawing on its own portfolio of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and hybrid cloud tools, the company said it is also committed to doing its bit to accelerate the development of carbon capture technologies.

On average, it takes at least 10 years to discover a new material and bring it to market, but we simply cant wait a decade for new materials for carbon capture to tackle the climate crisis, said the IBM Research blog post.

Thankfully, we can now combine artificial intelligence, quantum computing and hybrid cloud to accelerate discovery. By applying deep search, AI- and quantum- enriched simulation, generative models and cloud-based, AI-driven autonomous labs, we are super-charging the scientific method to accelerate the discovery of new materials, including complex polymers and materials for carbon CO2 capture and separation.

In September 2020, the Computer Weekly Security Think Tank, our panel of information and cyber security experts, considered the challenges inherent in decentralising the datacentre, and set out to answer the question, how can security professionals ensure such setups are just as secure as the traditional centralised model? Read more in this e-guide.

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IBM, Apple and Accenture join MIT cross-industry climate change-tackling consortium - ComputerWeekly.com

DUBLIN, Jan. 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "High Performance Computing Market by Component, Infrastructure, Services, Price Band, HPC Applications, Deployment Types, Industry Verticals, and Regions 2021 - 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The High Performance Computing market includes computation solutions provided either by supercomputers or via parallel processing techniques such as leveraging clusters of computers to aggregate computing power. HPC is well-suited for applications that require high performance data computation and analysis such as high frequency trading, autonomous vehicles, genomics-based personalized medicine, computer-aided design, deep learning, and more. Specific examples include computational fluid dynamics, simulation, modeling, and seismic tomography.

This report evaluates the HPC market including companies, solutions, use cases, and applications. Analysis includes HPC by organizational size, software and system type, server type, and price band, and industry verticals. The report also assesses the market for integration of various artificial intelligence technologies in HPC. It also evaluates the exascale-level HPC market including analysis by component, hardware type, service type, and industry vertical.

Select Report Findings:

The market is currently dominated on the demand side by large corporations, universities, and government institutions by way of capabilities that are often used to solve very specific problems for large institutions. Examples include financial services organizations, government R&D facilities, universities research, etc.

However, the cloud-computing based "as a Service" model allows HPC market offerings to be extended via HPC-as-a-Service (HPCaaS) to a much wider range of industry verticals and companies, thereby providing computational services to solve a much broader array of problems. Industry use cases are increasingly emerging that benefit from HPC-level computing, many of which benefit from split processing between localized devices/platforms and HPCaaS.

In fact, HPCaaS is poised to become much more commonly available, partially due to new on-demand supercomputer service offerings, and in part as a result of emerging AI-based tools for engineers. Accordingly, up to 52% of revenue will be directly attributable to the cloud-based business model via HPCaaS, which makes High-Performance Computing solutions available to a much wider range of industry verticals and companies, thereby providing computational services to solve a much broader array of problems.

In a 2020 study, we conducted interviews with major players in the market as well as smaller, lesser known companies that are believed to be influential in terms of innovative solutions that are likely to drive adoption and usage of both cluster-based HPC and supercomputing. In an effort to identify growth opportunities for the HPC market, we investigated market gaps including unserved and underserved markets and submarkets. The research and advisory firm uncovered a market situation in which HPC currently suffers from an accessibility problem as well as inefficiencies and supercomputer skill gaps.

Stated differently, the market for HPC as a Service (e.g. access to high-performance computing services) currently suffers from problems related to the utilization, scheduling, and set-up time to run jobs on a supercomputer. We identified start-ups and small companies working to solve these problems.

One of the challenge areas identified is low utilization but (ironically) also high wait times for most supercomputers. Scheduling can be a challenge in terms of workload time estimation. About 23% of jobs are computationally heavy and 37% of jobs cannot be defined very well in terms of how long jobs will take (within a 3-minute window at best). In many instances, users request substantive resources and don't actually use computing time.

In addition to the scheduling challenge, we also identified a company focused on solving additional problems such as computational planning and engineering. We spoke with the principal of a little-known company called Microsurgeonbot, Inc. (doing business as MSB.ai), which is developing a tool for setting up computing jobs for supercomputers.

The company is working to solve major obstacles in accessibility and usability for HPC resources. The company focuses on solving a very important problem in HPC: Supercomputer job set-up and skills gap. Their solution known as "Guru" is poised to make supercomputing much more accessible, especially to engineers in small to medium-sized businesses that do not have the same resources or expertise as large corporate entities.

Target Audience:

Key Topics Covered:

1 Executive Summary

2 Introduction 2.1 Next Generation Computing 2.2 High Performance Computing 2.2.1 HPC Technology 2.2.2 Exascale Computation 2.2.3 High Performance Technical Computing 2.2.4 Market Segmentation Considerations 2.2.5 Regulatory Framework 2.2.6 Value Chain Analysis 2.2.7 AI to Drive HPC Performance and Adoption

3 High Performance Computing Market Dynamics 3.1 HPC Market Drivers 3.2 HPC Market Challenges

4 High Performance Computing Market Analysis and Forecasts 4.1 Global High Performance Computing Market 2021 - 2026 4.1.1 Total High Performance Computing Market 4.1.2 High Performance Computing Market by Component 4.1.3 High Performance Computing Market by Deployment Type 4.1.4 High Performance Computing Market by Organization Size 4.1.5 High Performance Computing Market by Server Price Band 4.1.6 High Performance Computing Market by Application Type 4.1.7 High Performance Computing Deployment Options: Supercomputer vs. Clustering 4.1.8 High Performance Computing as a Service (HPCaaS) 4.1.9 AI Powered High Performance Computing Market 4.2 Regional High Performance Computing Market 2021 - 2026 4.2.1 High Performance Computing Market by Region 4.2.2 North America High Performance Computing Market by Component, Deployment, Organization, Server Price Band, Application, Industry Vertical, and Country 4.2.3 Europe High Performance Computing Market by Component, Deployment, Organization, Server Price Band, Application, Industry Vertical, and Country 4.2.4 APAC High Performance Computing Market by Component, Deployment, Organization, Server Price Band, Application, Industry Vertical, and Country 4.2.5 MEA High Performance Computing Market by Component, Deployment, Organization, Server Price Band, Application, Industry Vertical, and Country 4.2.6 Latin America High Performance Computing Market by Component, Deployment, Organization, Server Price Band, Application, Industry Vertical, and Country 4.2.7 High Performance Computing Market by Top Ten Country 4.3 Exascale Computing Market 2021 - 2026 4.3.1 Exascale Computing Driven HPC Market by Component 4.3.2 Exascale Computing Driven HPC Market by Hardware Type 4.3.3 Exascale Computing Driven HPC Market by Service Type 4.3.4 Exascale Computing Driven HPC Market by Industry Vertical 4.3.1 Exascale Computing as a Service

5 High Performance Computing Company Analysis 5.1 HPC Vendor Ecosystem 5.2 Leading HPC Companies 5.2.1 Amazon Web Services Inc. 5.2.2 Atos SE 5.2.3 Advanced Micro Devices Inc. 5.2.4 Cisco Systems 5.2.5 DELL Technologies Inc. 5.2.6 Fujitsu Ltd 5.2.7 Hewlett Packard Enterprise 5.2.8 IBM Corporation 5.2.9 Intel Corporation 5.2.10 Microsoft Corporation 5.2.11 NEC Corporation 5.2.12 Nvidia 5.2.13 Rackspace Inc.

6 High Performance Computing Market Use Cases 6.1 Fraud Detection in the Financial Industry 6.2 Healthcare and Clinical Research 6.3 Manufacturing 6.4 Energy Exploration and Extraction 6.5 Scientific Research 6.6 Electronic Design Automation 6.7 Government 6.8 Computer Aided Engineering 6.9 Education and Research 6.10 Earth Science

7 Conclusions and Recommendations

8 Appendix: Future of Computing 8.1 Quantum Computing 8.1.1 Quantum Computing Technology 8.1.2 Quantum Computing Considerations 8.1.3 Market Challenges and Opportunities 8.1.4 Recent Developments 8.1.5 Quantum Computing Value Chain 8.1.6 Quantum Computing Applications 8.1.7 Competitive Landscape 8.1.8 Government Investment in Quantum Computing 8.1.9 Quantum Computing Stakeholders by Country 8.1.10 Other Future Computing Technologies 8.1.11 Market Drivers for Future Computing Technologies 8.2 Future Computing Market Challenges 8.2.1 Data Security Concerns in Virtualized and Distributed Cloud 8.2.2 Funding Constrains R&D Activities 8.2.3 Lack of Skilled Professionals across the Sector 8.2.4 Absence of Uniformity among NGC Branches including Data Format

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/iedkoq

Media Contact:

Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [emailprotected]

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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Worldwide High Performance Computing Industry to 2026 - The Market is Driven Largely by Simulations, Engineering and Design Solutions - PRNewswire

The Milford Daily News

From the cotton gin to the mobile phone, the U.S. has produced some of the most useful inventions of the past three centuries. Yet by several measures, its traditional leadership in science and technology is now under threat. As Joe Bidens administration gets underway, reviving American ingenuity should be among his top priorities.

As a start, Biden should push to raise government investment in research and development. Federally funded research has been a crucial component of Americas scientific success, helping to produce everything from GPS to search engines to the internet itself. In recent years, almost one-third of patents granted have relied on it. Yet federal R&D spending as a share of GDP has stagnated at about 0.7% over the past three years, down from a historical average of 1.1%.

Reversing this worrying trend will cost a lot about $240 billion annually, up from $164 billion last year. But few steps are more essential for boosting innovation, productivity and competitiveness. Innovation also has a vital role to play in shifting the economy to clean energy, which Biden has rightly emphasized. His plan for a cross-agency research team, dubbed ARPA-C, to investigate far-out energy technologies is on the right track. Pairing such investment with better incentives for private-sector R&D (using subsidies or more generous tax credits) would help boost jobs, incomes and economic growth. Prioritizing breakthrough technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, meanwhile, would go a long way toward sustaining American leadership in the industries of the future.

Another priority should be improving digital literacy across the government. Expanding successful programs such as the 18F office and the U.S. Digital Service, which act as in-house tech consultancies for federal agencies, would help. Biden should also consider adding an office within the White House to evaluate how proposed regulations would affect innovation. Such efforts should help rationalize government tech policy, lure more talented workers into public service, and ensure that promising businesses arent burdened by misguided new rules.

Finally, a critical ingredient in Silicon Valleys success over the years has been openness to immigration. Yet the country is squandering its traditional advantages in this regard. Although foreign-born students now make up half or more of U.S. doctoral graduates in critical fields such as engineering, math and computer science, the government offers no permanent visa for them and the previous administration spent four years devising new ways to antagonize them.

Promisingly, Biden has pledged an immigration overhaul starting on his first day. But the details and his commitment to them will prove decisive. To boost U.S. competitiveness, he should increase visas for skilled workers and prioritize applicants with in-demand STEM skills; exempt international graduates of U.S. schools with advanced science degrees from the cap on green-card allotments; and offer a startup visa for entrepreneurs who create new jobs. Taken together, such steps would help America remain a beacon for the worlds best scientists, engineers and technologists.

Innovation has powered the American economy for decades, but it doesnt occur by magic. As Thomas Edison, inventor extraordinaire, famously held, its mostly hard work. Bidens administration should keep that in mind, and get to it.

Bloomberg Opinion

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Biden needs an innovation agenda - Milford Daily News

Exponentials are often cited, oft explained, but seldom fathomed in full. Its just not how the human brain is trained to think, since most of the real world phenomena that matter to us are linear. We age linearly, skyscrapers go up roughly linearly, and the progress of many of our older technologiessuch as legacy carshas been linear. But as technologies are digitalized, they ride exponential curves of improvement. Take cars, for example. During their analog stage, mechanical steering and acceleration control technology barely changed over a hundred years. But now that cars are being digitalized, software-based autonomous driving capabilities have gone from speed-only cruise control to automated emergency breaks to automated distance maintenance, lane control, and autonomous parking, and now are at the cusp of self-driving. All within the span of 15 years.

The 2020s will be a decade when many exponential technologies will break out into mass use. The high rate of performance improvement, logarithmic reductions in price and faster rate of product releases will make prediction a difficult business. But for now, Ill take my chances and dive into what I think may be the most interesting technologies of 2021.

Bitcoin has been the best performing asset of the last decade and is now attracting significant institutional funds. Hedge funds, multi-billion dollar corporations like MicroStrategy, and perhaps even Teslas Elon Musk are all investing in the cryptocurrency. What makes bitcoin so attractive is its low-cost, trustless, no-middle-man architecture combined with fast transaction settlements and hard limits on supply. With cryptocurrency market caps now hovering at roughly $1T, it is safe to say crypto has crossed the threshold and is implanted in the public consciousness as a real asset.

After all, we believe in the dollar not because a piece of paper is useful in and of itself, but because it represents a promise of value backed by the state. And why do we believe in the state? Ultimately, because it is an ideaa dreamshared by a large number of people. If a dollar is merely an idea that people collectively believe has value, then bitcoin is no different. It has evolved into a monetary network that now connects a very large number of people with shared belief in its value. And while the supply of fiat currencies continues to increase (25% of all USD currency in circulation was printed in the last year), the bitcoin pool forever remains limited to 21 million coins. While some fear regulation, I welcome it. Enforcing KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) protections can help bitcoin by ending the fear, uncertainty and doubt once and for all. Lets see what 2021 holds, but I am long BTC! HODL!

Chinese aerospace developments are accelerating at a frenetic pace. China launched 29 satellites to the USs 27 during the first nine months of 2020. Their drone industry has grown by leaps and bounds. The Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has already operationalized its J-20 stealth fighter bomber aircraft, but the upcoming H-20 stealth bomber represents a particularly important evolution of Chinese air power and technological capacity. The aircraft was rumored to be a potential exhibit at the November 2020 Zhuhai airshow, but did not ultimately make an appearance. It is all but certain that the platform will be unveiled in 2021.

According to some reports, the H-20 stealth bomber bears a resemblance to the B2 and B21 flying wing designs and can carry a payload of anywhere from 20 to 45 tons. The latter figure is unlikely but even the former would be significant. Its own range combined with stand-off weapon systems would allow the aircraft to reach deep within North America. I dont believe the H-20 is a harbinger of conflict, but it does represent a significant qualitative evolution of Chinese aviation capability and a credible conventional strike platform that could alter strategic calculations over time.

Concept image of new generation bomber - Wikipedia

There are two schools of thought on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that took place earlier in 2020 between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The first group proposes that drones were effective in the conflict only because Armenia lacked a suitable air defense capability. The latter school of thought believes that it was the drones that neutralized Armenias otherwise modern defense capability and degraded their advantage to the point where Armenia was forced into capitulation and defeat.

While drones have been employed for decades, this conflict was different. Low-cost Turkish drones were combined with loitering munitions, electronic warfare and swarm strategies to wreak havoc on the Armenian military. An analysis of the conflict published in AirForces Monthly suggested that the result would not have been significantly different if the Turkish Azerbaijani onslaught was directed not at Armenia but at a European military instead. Not many armed forces would have been able to deal with the combined effect created by low-cost drones and swarm strategies. Expect a flurry of activity on this front in 2021 as air arms the world over recognize shortcomings, acquire low-cost drones and build new command, control and communications systems to enable swarm warfare. The Hyperwar thesis General Allen and I presented years ago is coming true in all its dimensions.

Will trains one day exceed the speed of most commercial aircraft? If tests that took place in South Korea late in 2020 are to be projected into the future, that is certainly the conclusion to which one arrives. The Korean Railroad Research Institute (KORAIL) announced that its Hyper-Tube train achieved a speed over 1,000 kph in tests conducted in December. Underground high-speed tunnels and so-called hyper loop technologies being developed both in the United States and in Asian countries such as China and South Korea promise to revolutionize rail transport. South Korea will continue high-speed rail tests in 2021 with the ultimate goal of reducing the three and a half hour long journey between Seoul and the southern part of the country to a mere 30 minutes. Urban mobility is attracting massive investments, whether in the form of The Line, a Saudi project that aims to build an optimally laid out city along a single 170 km long corridor; aerial urban mobility solutions; autonomous cars; and yes, high-speed hyper trains.

In the waning days of 2020, when prodded by self-driving company comma.AI, Elon Musk tweeted that he was highly confident Tesla would have level five, fully autonomous capabilities completed by the end of the year. Significant upgrades were made to Teslas self-driving software in the second half of 2020 and a flurry of YouTube videos appeared with many reviewers excitedly demonstrating the impressive new capabilities. What has been demonstrated thus far is far from level five, but well give Tesla the rest of this year to thrill us with their autonomy innovation. Of course, level five autonomy has been the holy grail thats been promised by the autonomous vehicle industry for several years. If Musks tweet is to be believed, it is finally within grasp. By his own admission, sometimes Musks claims take a bit longer to materialize, but he has a pretty good track record of delivering on promises. I, for one, cant wait to have my car drive me around!

metamorworks - shutterstock.com

Back in 2013 when I founded SparkCognition, many in the software industry doubted whether artificial intelligence would have much relevance to the tools and platforms they used. AI-powered code generation for any meaningful task seemed like the distant future. Beyond the software vertical, other industries were not quite sure whether artificial intelligence would deliver any real benefit. But six and a half years later, all of that has changed. Artificial intelligence represents one of the most profound shifts in digital technologies and now, most savvy executives and forward-thinking companies understand that AI adoption is not something to ignore or delay.

In 2021, the widespread use of AI will be spurred on at an even faster rate with broader availability of no-code AI application development tools. Applications like SparkCognitions DarwinTM product can help users build sophisticated deep-learning powered models without knowing anything at all about neural network design or programming. Individuals with knowledge of applications such as Microsoft Excel can trivially export data, train sophisticated machine learning algorithms and create applications very quickly. As the rate of model development accelerates with the use of such tools, an increasing percentage of enterprise workflows will be automated through high-performance neural networks, ultimately achieving a transition to what I have previously called the model-driven enterprise. This transition is coming in 2021.

Three dimensional volumetric displays have been a staple of science fiction for many years. Remember that scene in Star Wars where the rebel alliance is planning an attack on the Starkiller Base? The holographic projections into open space are an example of a volumetric display. But now, this technology is migrating from the world of science fiction into our real world. Australias Voxon Photonics is one example of a company that is working to commercialize volumetric display technology. The Voxon VX 1 is already up and running and can project up to 500 volumetric pixels or voxels. It is available for purchase today, but the $10,000 price prevents high-volume purchase, and hence, volume-driven cost reduction.

Volumetric displays represent the future evolution of workstation imaging technology, and as soon as these become practical they will be a preference for 3D designers, mechanical engineers and many other types of technical professionals.

immimagery - stock.adobe.com

Although 2020 was a difficult year, some good did come from it! For one, the FAA issued new guidelines around the use of drones operating in urban environments at night and over crowds. They also mandated remote ID broadcast technology for small unmanned aerial systems. While remote ID does post an additional reporting responsibility on the users of drones, the scope of drone operations can now be expanded considerably, driving useful applications at scale.

Companies like SkyGrid are developing platforms to enable the deployment, tracking, cybersecurity, maintenance and safe integration of drones into national airspace. SkyGrid even recently demonstrated the first test of an autonomous cybersecurity protection system on a drone. Between the FAAs new ID requirements and commercial developments in the field, such as improved cybersecurity, drone operations in urban areas can finally become more routine in 2021.

For many years quantum computing has been heralded as one of the most exciting and profound innovations in computer science. The computational power of a quantum computer can be thousands and even millions of times greater than a conventional computer. While not every computation that is possible to execute on a traditional, classical computer is doable on a quantum system, there are many exciting applications that quantum computers can enable almost immediately. One such area is cryptography, where traditionally secured cryptographic messages can be decoded in a small amount of time compared to a classical computer. This potential shortcoming of traditional cryptography has given rise to the field of quantum-safe cryptographic algorithms.

Another very exciting application of quantum computers is modeling chemical and biological processes. Quantum computers can simulate such phenomena much faster than a classical computer can. This gives them a massive advantage at predicting what molecular interactions will actually look like in the real world, leading to all sorts of valuable outcomes ranging from drug discovery to materials science. In fact, the potential of quantum computers to bring to life materials with never-before-seen properties may be their killer application.

IBM is likely to release a 127-qubit quantum computer in 2021, which would be the largest such system yet. Google may not be far behind. A vast array of smaller companies, such as IonQ, DWave and Rigetti are hard at work developing both hardware and software for the quantum stack. Expect new announcements from each of them through 2021.

5G cellular communications technology, when deployed at full capacity and scale, promises to revolutionize human-to-human communications by delivering smooth, high-resolution video, low-latency near-life like video conferencing and VR-capable gaming. But 5G is about more than human-to-human communications. It also holds the potential to enable reliable, low-latency control of physical semi-autonomous systems such as cars, trucks and urban aerial mobility drones; the machine-to-machine network!

5Gs theoretical maximum data rate is 20 GBps and, on average, the spec can deliver 100+ Mbps consistently. However, most implementations of 5G in the US can only deliver 35-50 Mbps average speeds. And while we hear a lot about 5G in the press, as of 2020, some of the largest US carriers had only extended 5G capability to one percent of their network.

This might change in 2021. Expect significant expansion of the 5G footprint and a much greater penetration of 5G-capable phones. The new Apple iPhone released in September 2020 now natively supports 5G. As it is inevitably adopted, a large percentage of US smartphones will be 5G-ready. The additional volume of users will also encourage software and services developers to begin incorporating 5G-enabled features, from better video quality and higher frame rates to new modes of interaction.

Undoubtedly, many of the most exciting developments in 2021 will be in areas we havent focused on in this article; the surprise exponential technologies can generate is tremendous. As time marches on, the exponential curve leaps higher and higher and the surprise it creates increases too! Will we see significant advances on AI algorithms and learning capabilities? Will we make advancements in general purpose learning? Explainability? A fusion of symbolic and connectionist approaches to enable more robust and transparent AI? The answers to all of these is quite likely, yes, yes, yes and yes. Just what these enhancements will be and how profound their effects are remains to be seen. Whats for sure, though, is that 2021 is going to be an action-packed year full of technological innovation and advancement!

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Ten Technologies To Watch In 2021 - Forbes

Spending 2020 under the shadow of a pandemic has affected what we need and expect from technology. For many, COVID-19 accelerated the rate of digital transformation: as employees worked from home, companies needed AI systems that facilitated remote work and the computing power to support them.

The question is, how should companies focus their resources in 2021 to prepare for this changed reality and the new technologies on the horizon? Here are three trends that I predict will see massive attention in 2021 and beyond.

Progress in AI has already reached a point where it can add significant value to practically any business. COVID-19 triggered a massive sense of urgency around digital transformations with the need for remote solutions. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group, more than 80% of companies plan to accelerate their digital transformation, but only 30% of digital transformations have met or exceeded their target value.

Many AI projects are small scale less than a quarter of companies in McKinseys 2020 State of AI reported significant bottom-line impact. This is especially true in industries that have a physical-digital element. For example: There is a great need for remotely operated, autonomous manufacturing facilities, refineries, or even, in the days of COVID-19, office buildings. While the underlying technology is there, achieving scalability remains a concern and digital leaders will have to overcome that barrier in 2021. Scalability barriers include a lack of disciplined approach, enterprise-wide mindset, credible partners, data liquidity, and change management.

Part of the solution here is to create solutions that will be operated by someone who is not necessarily a data scientist, so more people who are domain experts can manage the programs they need. If Tesla invented an autonomous car that only data scientists can drive, whats the point?

Technology needs to empower the end user so they can interact with and manipulate models without having to trudge through the finer points of datasets or code in other words, the AI will do the heavy lifting on the back end, but a user-friendly explanation and UI empowers the end user. For instance, a facilities management executive can manage their global portfolio of buildings from a tablet sitting at a Starbucks. They can have full visibility into operations, occupant experience, and spend, with the ability to intervene in what otherwise would be an autonomous operation.

Deep learning pioneer Dr. Geoffrey Hinton recently told MIT Technology Review that deep learning will be able to do everything i.e. replicate all human intelligence. Deep neural networks have demonstrated extraordinary capabilities to approximate the most relevant subset of mathematical functions and promise to overcome reasoning challenges.

However, I believe there is a step to full autonomy that we must first conquer: what Dr. Manuela Veloso at Carnegie Mellon calls symbiotic autonomy. With symbiotic autonomy, feedback and correction mechanisms are incorporated into the AI such that humans and machines pass information to each other fluidly.

For example, instead of hard feedback (like thumbs up and thumbs down powering your Netflix queue), symbiotic autonomy could look like a discussion with your phones virtual assistant to determine the best route to a destination. Interactions with these forms of AI would be more natural and conversational, with the program able to explain why it recommended or performed certain actions.

With deep learning, neural networks approximate complex mathematical functions with simpler ones, and the ability to consider a growing number of factors and make smarter decisions with fewer computing resources gives them the ability to become autonomous. I anticipate heavy investment in research of these abilities of deep neural networks across the board, from startups to top tech companies to universities.

This step toward fully autonomous solutions will be a critical step towards implementing AI at scale. Imagine an enterprise performance management system that can give you a single pane of visibility and control across a global enterprise that is operating multiple facilities, workers, and supply chains autonomously. It runs and learns on its own but you can intervene and teach when it makes a mistake.

(The question of ethics in autonomous systems will come into play here, but that is a subject for another article.)

Quantum computers have the computational power to handle complex algorithms due to their abilities to process solutions in parallel, rather than sequentially. Lets think of how this could affect development and delivery of vaccines.

First, during drug discovery, researchers must simulate a new molecule. This is tremendously challenging to do with todays high-performance computers, but is a problem that lends itself to something at which quantum computers will eventually excel. The quantum computer could eventually be mapped to the quantum system that is the molecule, and simulate binding energies and chemical transition strengths before anyone ever even had to make a drug.

However, AI and quantum computing have even more to offer beyond creating the vaccine. The logistics of manufacturing and delivering the vaccine are massive computational challenges which of course makes them ripe for a solution that combines quantum computing and AI.

Quantum machine learning is an extremely new field with so much promise, but breakthroughs are needed to make it catch investors attention. Tech visionaries can already start to see how its going to impact our future, especially with respect to understanding nanoparticles, creating new materials through molecular and atomic maps, and glimpsing the deeper makeup of the human body.

The area of growth I am most excited about is the intersection of research in these systems, which I believe will start to combine and produce results more than the sum of their parts. While there have been some connections of AI and quantum computing, or 5G and AI, all of these technologies working together can produce exponential results.

Im particularly excited to see how AI, quantum, and other tech will influence biotechnology as that might be the secret to superhuman capabilities and what could be more exciting than that?

Usman Shuja is VP, General Manager, Connected Buildings, at Honeywell Connected Enterprise.

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3 tech trends that COVID-19 will accelerate in 2021 - VentureBeat

Raise your hand if you ever wanted to get beamed onto the transport deck of the USS Enterprise. Maybe we havent reached the point of teleporting entire human beings yet (sorry Scotty), but what we have achieved is a huge breakthrough towards quantum internet.

Led by Caltech, a collaborative team from Fermilab, NASAs Jet Propulsion Lab, Harvard University, the University of Calgary and AT&T have now successfully teleported qubits (basic units of quantum info) across almost 14 miles of fiber optic cables with 90 percentprecision. This is because of quantum entanglement, the phenomenon in which quantum particles which are mysteriously entangled behave exactly the same even when far away from each other.

When quantum internet is finally a thing, it will make Wifi look obsolete and dial-up even more ancient than it already is. We achieved sustained, high-fidelity quantum teleportation utilizing time-bin (time-of-arrival_ qubits of light, at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.5 microns, over fiber optic cables, Panagiotis Spentzouris, Head of Quantum Science at the Fermilab Quantum Institute, told SYFY WIRE. This type of qubit is compatible with several devices that are required for the deployment of quantum networks.

What you might recognize is the fiber optic cables used in the experiment, since they are everywhere in telecommunication tech today. Lasers, electronics and optical equipment which were also used for the experiments at Caltech (CQNET) and Fermilab (FQNET) that could someday evolve into the next iteration of internet. Though this is equipment you probably also recognize, what it did for these experiments was enable them to go off without a glitch. Information traveled across the cables at warp speed with the help of semi-autonomous systems that monitored it while while managing control and synchronization of the entangled particles. The system could run for up to a week without human intervention.

So if entangled qubits are inextricably linked despite the distance between them, is there even a limit to how far information can travel? Hypothetically, they could go on forever. What limits exist in reality are not in the qubits but the effects of their surroundings. While one of the qubits containing information stays where it is, the other one has to zoom over to wherever it needs to transfer that information. It could run into obstacles on the way.

What limits the distance that information can be transmitted is loss and noise: either from the properties of the medium we use to send the information or the effects of the environment on the medium, or imperfections on the various operations we need to perform to realize the information transfer, Spentzouris, who coauthored a study recently published in PRX Qunatum, said.

To keep quantum internet running at high precision and over distances around what it was able to cover in this experiment, the quantum teleportation that powers it needs quantum memory and quantum repeaters. Quantum memory is basically the quantum version of the memory your computer and smartphone use now. Instead of storing memory as something like 100101011, it stores it in the form of qubits. To make it possible for entangled qubits to travel as far as possible, quantum repeaters make it easier for those qubits to traverse by splitting it into sections over which they are teleported.

With this system, Spentzouris and his team are planning to lay out the epic Illinois Express Quantum Network (IEQNET), which will use the same technologies that the CQNET and FQNET experiments so successfully pulled off. More tech will obviously needed to realize this sci-fi brainchild. It will combine quantum and non-quantum functions for its quantum nodes and controls. The only thing missing will be the repeaters, since they will need more development to operate over such an expanse. Spentzouris believes quantum computing itself reaches far beyond internet.

Fully distributed quantum computing includes applications include GPS, secure computation beyond anything that can be achieved now, all the way to enabling advances in designing new materials and medicine, as well basic science discoveries, he said. It will unleash the full power of quantum computing and have a profound impact on our lives.

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Beam me up: long-distance quantum teleportation has happened for the first time ever - SYFY WIRE

For mathematicians and computer scientists, 2020 was full of discipline-spanning discoveries and celebrations of creativity. Several long-standing problems yielded to sustained collaboration, sometimes answering other important questions as a happy byproduct. While some results had immediate applications, with researchers improving on the findings or incorporating them into other work, others served for now as inspiration, suggesting that progress is within reach.

Early in the year, Quanta described how five computer scientists established limits on the ability of entangled quantum computers to verify problems. As part of their work, the team also answered long-standing questions in physics and mathematics much to the surprise of the researchers who had been working on those problems. Another set of collaborations strengthened a far-reaching bridge connecting distant areas of mathematics. Known as the Langlands correspondence, the conjectured bridge offers hope of deepening our understanding of many subfields of mathematics.

This year we also explored mathematicians growing familiarity with geometric constructs, examined how computer programs are helping mathematicians with their proofs, and surveyed the current state of mathematics and its problems. But not all the news this year was welcome: the spread of COVID-19 complicated the research of working mathematicians, who increasingly rely on collaboration to push the field forward. The pandemic also claimed the life of the great mathematician John Conway about a month before we broke the news that a graduate student had solved a famous problem involving his signature knot.

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Quanta's Year in Math and Computer Science (2020) - Quanta Magazine

You won't believe you eyes when you play quantum chess, literally.

Have you ever heard of Quantum Chess? If not, we are confident you are in for a real treat.

Read on to find out more about this interesting take on a very ancient strategy game. But brace yourself, things are about to get a little "spooky".

RELATED: WINNER OF THE WORLD'S FIRST QUANTUM CHESS TOURNAMENT ANNOUNCED

Quantum Chess is a variant of the classical strategy game. It incorporates the principles of quantum physics. For example, unlike traditional chess, the piecescan be placed into a superposition of two locations, meaning that a piece can occupy more than one square.

Unlike chesspieces in the conventional game where, for example, a pawn is always a pawn, aquantum chesspiece is a superposition of "states", with each state representing a different conventional piece.

Conventional chess is a very complex game, although it is possible for computer algorithmsto beat the world's greatest chess playersby accurately determining the moves necessary to win the game at any point.

The main rationale behind the creation of Quantum Chess is to introduce an element of unpredictability into the game, and thereby place the computer and the human on a more equal footing. The game can also help "level the playing field" somewhat between human players of widely different skills and experience with chess.

Its like youre playing in a multiverse but the different boards [in different universes] are connected to each other, said Caltech physicist Spiros Michalakis during aLivestreamof a recent Quantum Chess tournament. It makes 3D chess fromStar Treklook silly.

But don't let the term intimidate you. New players to the game don't need to be experts in quantum physics a basic understanding of chess is more important actually.

While it might sound like something of a gimmick, Quantum Chess is an interesting and entertaining spin on the classic game that many find enjoyable. Unless, of course, you cannot live without knowing for sure what and where each piece is at any given time.

If that is the case, you might find this one of the most frustrating games ever created!

Quantum Chess, as you have probably already worked out, is not like any game of classical chess you have ever played. But, it is important to note that there are also several variants of Quantum Chess.

The best known is probably the one created by Chris Cantwell when he was a graduate student at theUniversity of Southern California.This variant differs from other examples by the fact that it is more "truly quantum" than others.

My initial goal was to create a version of quantum chess that was truly quantum in nature, so you get to play with the phenomenon,Cantwell said in an interview with Gizmodoback in 2016.

I didnt want it to just be a game that taught people, quantum mechanics. The idea is that by playing the game, a player will slowly develop an intuitive sense of the rules governing the quantum realm. In fact, I feel like Ive come to more intuitively understand quantum phenomena myself, just by making the game, he added.

In Cantwell's version of Quantum Chess, this superposition of pieces is indicated by a ring that details the probability that the piece can actually be found in a given square. Not only that, but when moving a piece, each action can also be governed by probability.

You can think of the pieces of the game existing on multiple boards in which their numbers are also not fixed. The board you see is a kind of overview of all of these other boards and a single move acts on other boards at the same time.

Whenever a piece moves, many calculations are made behind the scenes to determine the actual outcome, which could be completely unexpected.

That being said, moves do follow the basic rules of traditional chess, including things like castling and en passant. However, there are a few important differences:

Pieces in this version of Quantum Chess can make a series of either "quantum moves" (except for pawns) or regular chess moves. In this sense, the pieces can occupy more than one square on the multiverse of boards simultaneously.

These moves also come in a variety of "flavors".

The first is a move called a "split move". This can be performed by all non-pawn pieces and allows a piece to actually occupy two different target squares that it could traditionally reach in normal chess.

But, this can only be done if the target square is unoccupied or is occupied by pieces of the same color and type. A white knight, for example, could use this kind of move to occupy the space of another white knight.

Such a move cannot; however, be used to capture an opponent's piece.

Another interesting move is called a "merge move". This can be performed by all pieces except pawns and, like a split move, can only be performed on an unoccupied square or one occupied by a piece of the same type and color.

Using our previous example of a white knight, this would mean that two white knights could merge together on the same square. Again, this move cannot be used to capture enemy pieces.

So how do you take pieces in Quantum Chess?

Well, when two pieces of different colors meet on the same square the game makes a series of measurements.These measurements are designed to answer a specific yes or no question.

For example, the game's mechanics will look at certain squares to determine if they are occupied or not.The outcome of this can be to cause a piece's "superposition" state to "collapse".

If the superposition state collapses, then the desired move will be performed. If not, the move is not made and the player's turn ends.

Capturing is also very different in a game of Quantum Chess. When a player attempts to do this, the game will make calculations for the square where the piece is situated and for its target square, as well as any other squares in its path, to answer the question, "is the attacking piece present and can it reach the target?".

If the answer is no, it is important to note that this doesn't necessarily mean the attacking piece is not present. Nor does it mean that its path is blocked.

Another interesting concept of Quantum Chess is called "exclusion". If a moving target is occupied and is in superposition by a piece that cannot be captured by the move, it is called an exclusion move.

Again, calculations are made for the target square and any squares in the path of an allowed move by a piece in superposition. This is done to answer the same question as capturing, with similar outcomes.

Castling is also very different in Quantum Chess. This move always involves two targets, and the same measurements are made for both targets. Castling cannot be used to capture, and will always be an exclusion move.

So, you might be wondering how you actually win a game of Quantum Chess?

Just like traditional chess, the aim of the game is to capture the opponent's king. However, unlike in traditional chess, the concept of checkmate does not exist.

To win, the enemy king must no longer actually exist on the board. As any piece, including the king, exist in a state of superposition, they can either be captured or not which further complicates the issue.

The game, therefore, continues until it is known, with certainty, that a particular player has no king left. For this reason, it is possible for both players to lose their king at the same time and the game would then be considered a draw.

Another important thing to note is that each player has a set amount of time for the game. For this reason, you can also win by running an opponent's time out.

How you play Quantum Chess depends on the variant of the game you are playing. We have already covered the rules of one variant above, and that game can be played throughQuantum Realm Games. But another version created byAlice Wismath at theSchool of Computing at Queen's University in Californiahas some slightly different rules.

You can try that game for yourself here.

In her version, each player has sixteen pieces. These pieces are in a quantum state of superposition of two types: a primary and a secondary type.

They are also in an unknown (quantum) type or a known (classical) type.When a piece is "touched" it collapses into its classical state and has an equal probability of becoming either a primary or secondary type. The king, however, is an exception, and is always in a classical state.

Each player has one king and its position is always known.

All other pieces are assigned the following primary piece types: left rook, left bishop, left knight, queen, right knight, right bishop, right rook, and pawns one through eight. Secondary piece types are then randomly assigned from this same list of piece types so that each type occurs exactly twice in the player's pieces.

Each piece is created at the start of each game and superpositions are not changed throughout the game. Pieces also start as they would in regular chess, on the first two rows, according to their primary piece type with all, except the king, in a state of superposition.

Once a quantum state piece is touched (i.e. chosen to move), it collapses into one of its two predetermined states, and this state is suddenly revealed to both players.

This can mean that a pawn in the front row can suddenly become a white knight once the piece has been "touched". You won't know until the piece's quantum state collapses.

Quantum Chess boards are the same as regular chess boards except that when a piece lands on a white square it remains in its classical state. When pieces land on black squares, however, they undergo a quantum transformation and regain, if lost, their quantum superposition.

This means that a previously "revealed" pawn can also suddenly transform into a queen if that was one of its predetermined primary or secondary types. A very interesting concept indeed.

To play the game, each player chooses a piece to move and must move it. If the quantum piece collapses into a piece type with no possible moves, then the player's move is over.

Pieces in classical states with no possible moves cannot be chosen. All pieces move as they would in classical chess with some of the following exceptions:

Pieces can also be captured as normal, and quantum pieces collapse from their superposition state and are removed from play.

If a player touches a quantum piece that collapses into a state that puts the opponent's king in check, their move is over. The opponent, however, is not required to get out of check in such circumstances.

Pawns that reach the opposite side of the board can be promoted to aqueen, bishop, rook, or knight, regardless of the number of pieces of that type already in the game. Also, if a piece in the quantum state on the far row is touched and revealed to be a pawn, it is promoted, but the promotion takes up the turn. The superimposed piece type is not affected.

To win the game, each player must capture the enemy's king, as a checkmate does not happen in Quantum Chess. For this reason, kings can actually move into a position that would normally be considered check.

Games are considered a draw if both opponents are left with only their king in play or 100 consecutive moves have been made with no captures or pawn movements by either player.

It was recently announced that the world's first Quantum Chess tournament had been won by Aleksander Kubica, a postdoctoral fellow at Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and Institute for Quantum Computing. The tournament was held on the 9th of December 2020 at the Q2B 2020 conference.

The tournament games are timed, and Kubica managed to beat his opponent, Google's Doug Strain, by letting him run out of time. This currently makes Kubica officially the best Quantum Chess player in the world.

Not a bad way to see out one of the worst years in living memory.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap.

If you like the sound of playing Quantum Chess, why not check out either of the versions we have discussed above in this article. Who knows, you might get proficient enough to challenge Kubica for the title in the not too distant future?

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What the Hell Is Quantum Chess? | IE - Interesting Engineering

Princeton University has discussed plans to create an additional campus across Lake Carnegie a campus that would potentially create an innovation center that could attract companies seeking the next great technological advancement. (More on that later.)

President Chris Eisgruber is just as excited to talk about the schools commitment to a different kind of expansion: One that would increase the number of low-income and first-generation students attending the nations premier university.

Its just such a passion for me, he said. One of the things Im proudest of is that we have become a national leader in terms of attracting students from low-income backgrounds and graduating them and seeing them go off and do spectacular things, with, I hope, many of them staying here in the state of New Jersey.

As we continue to look to elevate and nurture talent, it will be important to what Princeton University is doing going forward.

Going forward is a relative phrase these days. Princeton like all universities and much of society is eager to just return to the way it was. Few parts of society were as impacted as greatly by COVID-19 as higher education.

Princeton will bring its students back to campus next semester and do it with a rigorous testing system, while school officials await the day when everyone will be vaccinated. But, even then, Eisgruber knows the school will be different.

While the COVID-19 pandemic impacted how students learn, the murder of George Floyd led to a reexamination of how everyone thinks about racial equity and equality. At Princeton, that meant another look at the racist views of one of its former presidents, Woodrow Wilson, and the removal of his name from a number of prominent places.

Eisgruber discussed all of this and more in a recent chat for the Interview Issue, our annual year-end give-and-take with some of the most inspiring and intriguing people around the state.

Heres a look at the conversation, edited for space and clarity.

ROI-NJ: We have to start with COVID-19. Give us an overview of how that has impacted Princeton?

Chris Eisgruber: Education depends on engagement and personal interaction; thats what we try to provide. Thats the key to teaching that really inspires. But, the same kind of engagement and intimacy thats so valuable to education is also what spreads this virus. So, weve had the problem that the thing that is at our core of education has suddenly become dangerous in the midst of this pandemic, and weve had to adapt to that.

We made the tough decision to go online in the fall, and Ive been so impressed by the way our staff and our students and our faculty have worked together to find possibilities for making online education real and meaningful. And then, weve been working hard to find ways to bring back people to campus and do it safely. Im grateful to lots of people around this campus and to our alumni, who made it possible for us to set up a testing laboratory on the campus, so we can test our students twice a week, every week, even if the entire population looks asymptomatic.

We are working to de-densify, so that, in our housing system, well be able to have students one per room. Weve established a culture of masking and social distancing. So, Im confident that we can bring back students in the spring and bring them back safely. But Im among the many people who are looking forward to the day when we can get everybody vaccinated and we can go back to the in-person elements that add so much more to our education.

ROI: We have to think that virtual learning will continue in some fashion. How could that work?

CE: I think it will vary from institution to institution. I do think, for all of us, this will give us additional arrows in our quiver. The obvious place is in terms of guest speakers or when students are studying abroad or when a faculty member has to travel someplace. Its one thing when everything has to be on Zoom all the time. Its another if you suddenly realize, OK, distance doesnt have to be a barrier.

I still think in-person instruction will be the dominant mode of delivery, but, yes, you will still see (some virtual instruction) where we cant deliver the in-person experience.

ROI: Lets move to other big event of 2020, the killing of George Floyd and the long overdue discussion of racial equity, opportunity and justice that came about. The issue, of course, was reflected at Princeton in the removal of Woodrow Wilsons name from a number of key spots. Talk about how Princeton attempted to address all of these issues.

CE: I think we and other colleges and universities have a responsibility to be sites for honest confrontation with the right and wrongs of history and for conversations about very difficult subjects. And, obviously, race is a very hard subject to talk about in the United States and to talk about on our college campus. And we havent always done well with that.

Weve had to wrestle with Woodrow Wilsons legacy. I will say, personally, that, when I took office, I wasnt aware that he had resegregated the federal civil service. We talked about him on this campus in a way that didnt recognize that or acknowledge it. And I think that has been part of this problem of indifference thats held us back as a country and as a university as we reach for our highest aspirations.

ROI: How do we address this?

CE: This moment remains a moment of great challenge. These issues are so hard, and the problems have been so longstanding, but it also is a moment of opportunity for us. I think there is a greater and wider recognition of the need to do more affirmatively, even more than weve done. I know the state of New Jersey has been a leader in a lot of things. This university has tried to be a leader on a lot of things, but we need to do even more in order to reach our highest aspirations.

I assign a book to the incoming students every year. This year, it was a book by the historian Jill Lepore called This America: The Case for the Nation, which tries to tell the story of both the great triumphs and aspirations, but also the story of the failures. And she starts, to that end, with this quotation from W.E.B. Du Bois, which I now find myself quoting again and again to our students and alumni. In 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois said: Nations reel and stagger on their way. They make hideous mistakes. They commit frightful wrongs. They do great and beautiful things, and shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this so far as the truth is ascertainable?

And thats what I think we have tried to hold ourselves to do. And it is incredibly hard. And depending on who the audience is, they may hear or want to hear only one side of this. I think we have to tell it all, and thats the challenge.

Oswald Veblen. He was a mathematician here in the early 20th century. And he basically transformed the math and physics departments in this university and helped to start the Institute for Advanced Study. Hes not well known, but he should be. He realized early on what was happening in Nazi Germany and helped to bring over a number of Jewish refugees who otherwise would have perished. I think hes one of the unsung heroes. He just stands for so many things, from academic excellence to being a great citizen of the university to being somebody who helps the refugee in a time of need. So, he gets my vote.

Its humanity: One of the things that I love about New Jersey is that the people are real and theyre not pretentious.

One of the things were really going to want after this pandemic is to bring back the restaurants that have been badly affected. Thats going to matter to attracting young talent and keeping it here. One thing that stands in the way of aspiring chefs that might want to start interesting places that are cool and attractive to young people are the states liquor laws in particular, the difficulty that restaurants have in getting licenses in the state. I think it puts us at a real competitive disadvantage, by comparison to New York and Pennsylvania. So, Im going to put in a plug for our restaurant industry on that, and for the importance of having cool places that attract young people.

ROI: This challenge reaches all areas of the university. Sometimes in good ways. Princeton has had some successes in fundraising this year one was a gift from Mellody Hobson, a businesswomen, philanthropist and alumna that will have significance beyond the dollars and cents. Talk about her gift.

CE: Fundamentally, the process of fundraising at Princeton is about a desire of our friends and our alumni to pay it forward to future generations to do things that will make a difference at the university and beyond it. What we want to do right now, as we think about our current capital campaign, is to enable more students from more backgrounds to make a difference for the better in the world. And I think that message continues to resonate with our alumni.

One of our happiest moments during this difficult year was when we were able to announce the gift that will create Mellody Hobson College on the site where Wilson College was previously located. And I know, for many of our alumni and many of our students, the idea that they would be able to identify with an alum like Mellody Hobson, with her story of coming from Chicago as a first-generation Black student to Princeton University, then going on to this career of extraordinary national significance, means a lot. I think its a symbol for us. Its a symbol for students who will make a difference later in their lives. And its a symbol for higher education.

ROI: We are a business journal at heart. So, lets talk about how the university is connected to the business community in the state.

CE: Increasing Princetons connection to the New Jersey economic environment is important for us and the state of New Jersey because of its connections to our teaching and research mission. This is a change from the days when Albert Einstein was kind of the paradigmatic Princeton professor, thinking thoughts to win Nobel Prizes, but thoughts that didnt have immediate application in the business world. Nowadays, my top researchers, some of them who get whispered about in terms of winning Nobel Prizes, say their research is going to be better if they have more connection to the applied world, because theyre going to learn more about which problems need their attention, or where the really interesting issues are. And they want their research to have an application to the world.

One example of that, which really connects directly back to Einstein, is around quantum computing. We have an initiative in quantum computing. Some of our faculty are associated with a multiuniversity partnership that has a lot of government funding behind it. The Plasma Physics Laboratory is working on expanding into the area of nanochip technology. This is applying some of the most theoretical and worldly ideas that Einstein thought about. It is now the critical technology in terms of the next advances in computing. We would love to see all of that happen right here in central New Jersey. If we could be recognized as the place to go when it comes to quantum computing, thats going to be really good for the intellectual environment around Princeton University and really good for the state of New Jersey.

I think weve got the edge in terms of having the talent and the fundamentals here. And I think there are a number of other areas, like what were doing in bioengineering, what were doing in computer science. So, weve been really pleased that the New Jersey business community seems to have responded well to that. Its been a priority for Gov. (Phil) Murphys administration. And we hope that these initiatives will continue to grow.

ROI: Like the Princeton campus. This takes us back to an expansion across the lake.

CE: We want to expand gradually, because we want to make sure that were preserving the character of a Princeton education. So, one of the things were doing as were building these two new residential colleges is making sure that, as we start renovating some of our existing space, we will have the capacity to expand down the line.

We have land across the lake that is as large as our current campus. And part of what we have started to do is to put in place a general development plan for that land. Our belief is that the campus, as it develops over time, can be an important site for innovation and entrepreneurship. And part of what were thinking about is that the campus should develop with a character on the other side of the lake that provides a home to joint ventures of a sort that we cant quite imagine yet.

The example that I always give folks is, back in the 80s, Microsoft came to Cambridge University in England and said, Were interested in doing something jointly with your computer science department. And Cambridge, which has a lot of similarities to Princeton, was able to say Yes, because they had the equivalent of our land across the lake and they were ready to go and they were able to green-light it.

We want to be able to do that in New Jersey. If we get the right kind of project that advances our mission, and that could be good here for the innovation ecosystem, we want to be able to say, Yes, and that is one of the reasons why we are moving forward with planning for that.

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The Interview Issue: Eisgruber is trying to reshape the meaning of a Princeton education even as his school, and higher ed as a whole, grapples with...

Bitcoin evangelist and influencer Andreas Antonopoulos says Satoshi Nakamotos massive Bitcoin trove will be an easy target for quantum computers.

In a Bitcoin HARDTalk interview, Antonopoulos says that investors should keep a close watch on Nakamotos BTC fortune. If the dormant coins start moving, Antonopoulos says it is likely not the doing of the anonymous Bitcoin creator.

Especially with some of the early keys, they are pay-to-public keys, the public keys are visible and the money is sitting in them.

Therefore, a quantum computer, its first target, its juiciest target, its easiest to attack target is the Satoshi stash. How do we know if a quantum computer exists that can break ECDSA (elliptic curve digital algorithm). Simple, Satoshis coins start moving, and in fact at some point after a decade or so it might actually be the more likely explanation.

So you see the coins moving and youre like Did Satoshi come back from the dead? or Did a quantum computer emerge that can break [ECDSA keys]? As the years go by, I start leaning more towards, Okay, it appears a quantum computer has emerged that can do this, but I think were still a decade away from that.

However, the movement of Satoshis huge BTC stash is not a nail in the coffin for the leading cryptocurrency, says Antonopoulos.

It would cause a massive amount of volatility in the space by injecting an enormous amount of liquidity on the supply side of Bitcoin, but it would also once and for all resolve the question This is characteristic of markets which is, Sell the rumor, buy the fact

If something starts happening that is unexpected the market reacts badly, but as soon as that becomes expected, you get the opposite reaction. The markets go, Oh well, I guess Satoshis coins moved. Bitcoin didnt die completely, its price dipped. Well, now Bitcoin at whatever price its priced in now is a Bitcoin in which Satoshis coins have moved and are therefore part of the supply and priced in. Therefore, its future is now certain. That is no longer hanging over it

Sometimes having the bad news confirmed leads to a rally in the markets because you went from uncertainty to confirmation even though whats been confirmed is bad news.

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Satoshis Bitcoin Fortune Will Be Easiest Batch for Quantum Computers to Hack, Says Andreas Antonopoulos - The Daily Hodl