How is it different in China? Engineers don’t get paid as much as software developers, lawyers, etc.
News on China's scientific and technological development.
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How is it different in China? Engineers don’t get paid as much as software developers, lawyers, etc.
The development of quantum technology has been a key focus of China in recent years. Characterized by its no-cloning theorem and uncertainty, the technology plays an important role in ensuring network information security.
On April 1, Xiongan New Area in north China's Hebei Province, which has been designed to become a smart city, celebrated its fifth anniversary since establishment.
CGTN sat down with Wang Ti, director of Quantum Communication Technology and Application Research Laboratory (Application Demonstration Center) of Xiongan, and CTO of China Unicom Smart City Research Institute, talking about how quantum technology can ensure communication safety in the city and the rest of China.
Edited for clarity and brevity, here are some excerpts from the interview with Wang.
CGTN: Quantum technology is a fairly abstract concept. Can you explain what it is and how we can use it?
Wang: The reason people are having a hard time understanding quantum technology is because "quantum" describes the micro-world. It's characterized by its no-cloning theorem and especially by its uncertainty. In our macro-world, most things are fixed and certain. Quantum research has been developing rapidly in recent years, and has derived three fields of application: quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum measurement.
CGTN: The quantum lab in the Xiongan New Area focuses on quantum communication research. What are the features of this field?
Wang: The most significant feature of quantum communication is confidentiality. We proposed a plan for a smart city that combines cyberspace and physical space with quantum security to promote quantum secure communication. Following this route, we developed and deployed a quantum key cloud platform to expand the cloud service of quantum cryptography, and to provide a solution for smart city application scenarios with real security.
CGTN: What are the application scenarios for quantum communication?
Wang: Quantum communication has a wide range of application scenarios. The most commonly used one is quantum cryptography. It can be used in every subdivision of communication. For example, we used video calls a lot during the epidemic. Some virtual government meetings or individuals require confidentiality. If the call is quantum-encrypted, there will be two scenarios when it's monitored. First, the meeting will break off, allowing both sides to notice, and second, even if the information is intercepted, it can't be cracked.
CGTN: What are the current and future application plans of quantum communication in the Xiongan New Area?
Wang: Based on the existing foundation of Xiongan, we first built a quantum key cloud platform, and on top of that, we developed applications like encryption of voice calls and control information of UAVs. In the future, we will add quantum cryptography to the applications of driver less vehicles and inter phones. In the same way as when we first exploring 5G plus and internet plus, we need to go through the adapting and probing process with each vertical industry. We also hope to promote some of the quantum application achievements in Xiongan to the rest of China. In this way, we can boost the technological innovation in Xiongan, as well as assist the application and industrialization of quantum communication in China.
- Researchers in Shanghai say they have developed a chiller using a plentiful isotope to create super-cold temperatures
- But more work needs to be done before it can be used in mass applications
in BeijingPublished: 10:00pm, 2 Apr, 2022
Updated: 10:00pm, 2 Apr, 2022
Researchers in Shanghai say they have developed a device to create extremely low temperatures that would make cutting-edge technology such as quantum computers more widely available.
The core components of most quantum machines – from computers to satellites – detect and manipulate subatomic particles that are easily disturbed by heat so must operate in conditions near absolute zero.
Cooling the most advanced quantum hardware requires helium-3, an isotope of helium that can carry heat away with unmatched efficiency.
But helium-3 is extremely rare on Earth and the main supply is from ageing nuclear warheads.
The demand for helium-3 in quantum research and other disruptive technology has soared. In less than two decades its price has risen more than 40-fold to over US$5,000 per litre in gas form.
But even then not just anybody can buy it. In the United States, for instance, helium-3 is one of the few commodities that is subject to strict government production and distribution controls on military grounds.
In a paper published in domestic peer-reviewed Science Bulletin on Wednesday, Professor Dang Haizheng and his colleagues with the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said they had built a powerful chiller for some of the most demanding quantum machines without using any helium-3 at all.
The new cooling device uses helium-4, another helium isotope as its coolant.
When approaching temperatures as low as 2 kelvin (-271 degrees Celsius), helium-4 turns into a superfluid, climbing walls regardless to gravity and becoming much more difficult to control.
Dang’s team developed a theoretical model that could, to some extent, predict the behaviour of helium-4 flow in a superfluid state.
The chiller they built works in principle similar to a household fridge but has few moving parts. It is driven by a pulse energy source and operates in high frequency to increase heat-transfer efficiency.
To tame the helium-4’s erratic behaviour, the chiller has a special component to stop the antigravity climb.
Part of the device must also be built with extremely high quality components with precision twice as high as mainstream products today, according to the researchers.
In their experiment, the new cooling device kept a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector, an optical sensor commonly used in quantum machines, at a temperature of 1.8 kelvin for more than two weeks (15 days).
The results suggested that the helium-4 had potential to completely replace helium-3 even in some most demanding applications such as a space mission, said the researchers.
“This is great news,” said a quantum physicist in Hefei, Anhui province, who declined to be named.
Finding a helium-3 substitute could reduce the cost of quantum technology in radars by at least 10 per cent, according to the researcher’s rough estimate.
Using helium-4 would help remove a major constraint to the mass application of quantum technology, but the reliability of the new cooling device remains a question because the experiment was conducted in a laboratory.
“A good product must work for years without a flaw in harsh environments,” he said.
China has made a significant contribution to the development of quantum technology in recent years.
With government funding, Chinese researchers have built the world’s first quantum satellite, longest quantum communication network, farthest-ranging quantum radar and fastest quantum computers.
All these developments were using sensors cooled by helium-3. But the real-life application of these technologies remains limited.
Some Chinese researchers, including Dang’s team, have launched their own start-ups to speed up the commercialisation of the technology with a mix of government and private funding.
I'll be honest. I thought it was a real shark until I saw the side fins
China's next generation Sunway supercomputer has at least 39,000,000 cores. In comparison, the has 10,649,600 cores.
This graph shows that the computer was able to retain parallelization efficiency of 76.2% with 39,000,000 processor cores (in 600,000 processors).
This graph shows that the computer was able to retain parallelization efficiency of 76.2% with 39,000,000 processor cores (in 600,000 processors).
Wonder if it'll overtake fugaku