Canon has developed a material for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels that does not use rare metals, Nikkei reported. From the report: This move comes as the Japanese company aims to reduce its dependence on major rare metal producers such as those in China. Canon plans to commercialize the technology within a few years, paving the way for securing stable production without being affected by geopolitical risks. The new material is quantum dots (QD), tiny semiconductor particles with a diameter of 1 nanometer. When irradiated with light or injected with an electric current, the particles emit vivid colors.

Other quantum dots are already used for high-end OLED televisions. Samsung Electronics mass-produces quantum dots, but it uses the compound indium phosphide. Indium is a rare metal produced in extremely small quantities, with China being the major source. Canon's new material uses lead, which is easily procured from recycled raw materials in "urban mines." Canon aims to commercialize the material in the mid-2020s by establishing technology for mass production. Canon uses lead in some of its compounds as a substitute for indium. Lead usually leads to results that are less durable than with indium, but by leveraging its expertise in compounding materials such as toner and ink for office equipment, the company has devised a compound that is as durable as indium.

Nvidia and MediaTek on Monday said they will collaborate on technology to power advanced vehicle infotainment systems that can stream video or games or interact with drivers using artificial intelligence. From a report: Under the agreement, announced at the Computex technology trade show in Taipei, MediaTek will integrate an Nvidia graphic processing unit chiplet and Nvidia software into the system-on-chips it supplies to automakers for infotainment displays. MediaTek systems using Nvidia software would be compatible with automated driving systems based on Nvidia technology, the companies said. Dashboard displays could show the environment around the vehicle, while cameras would monitor the driver.

"The automotive industry needs strong companies that can work with the industry for decades at a time," Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang told a news conference in Taipei, pointing to a long product cycle for car makers. "The quality, strength and positions of our two companies could give the automotive industry partners that they can build their companies on," he said, adding the partnership would provide chips that can power "every single segment of a car".

"Over the past 13 years, Tim Taylor and Christine Dennison have scoured the ocean floor using autonomous underwater robots," according to a history writer's commentary on CNN, "to discover and document the wrecks of seven US submarines lost in World War II." Taylor and Dennison are ensuring that more families of those lost know where their loved ones' deep-water graves reside. They are racing against time as underwater development threatens many of these wrecks... Budget constraints hinder the Navy from devoting resources to undertaking these kinds of searches, according to Taylor, and his team is showing how private groups can fill the gap.
A philanthropic private investment group funds the expeditions, the article points out, adding that Taylor and Dennison "hope to employ the special autonomous underwater technology they created to help others map the ocean floor for environmental and other purposes."

Their latest find was part of the 82-day battle of Okinawa in 1945: The USS Mannert L. Abele, which the explorers found 4,500 feet under the Pacific Ocean and 81 miles from the nearest landmass, was the first American ship sunk by an unusual type of rocket-powered Japanese kamikaze plane... Though the Abele managed to shoot down two aircraft and damage or fend off others, at six minutes in, a Japanese fighter plunged into the destroyer's engine room and exploded, cutting off all electrical power. Just a minute later, another, much more unusual, plane slammed into the destroyer's hull. The Abele had been struck by a unique rocket-propelled kamikaze plane called the MXY7 Ohka ("Cherry Blossom"), which due to its very short range had to be carried under the belly of a larger bomber until close to US ships, whereupon it was released to soar toward its target at immense speed.

The detonation of this manned missile's 1.3 tons of explosives caused the ship to seemingly break into two and begin sinking. In a matter of minutes, 84 sailors and officers had been killed. Japanese aircraft strafed the surviving crew as they jumped into the oil-slick water, but two smaller landing craft escorting the Abele shot down two more planes and beat off the rest, managing to rescue 255 crew members.

Nearly eight decades later, modern robotics technologies allowed Taylor and Dennison to find the destroyer's submerged hull. In the past, Taylor noted, it would have been practically inconceivable for a small, private team to have undertaken the cumbersome search process that, Taylor estimated, would have taken four to five times as long and cost significantly more money...

It was on their last remaining day of a more-than-month-long search, just before bad weather would force them to conclude the expedition, that they spotted the Abele's wreck.

"Beginning next Thursday, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell plans to start enforcing the state's automotive right-to-repair law," reports the Boston Globe. "But this week, the world's top automakers asked a federal judge to stop her." The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a car industry trade group, sued to block enforcement of the law almost from the moment it was passed by voter referendum in 2020. Ever since, the law has been tied up in the courtroom of US District Judge Douglas Woodlock. Now the alliance has asked Woodlock to grant a temporary injunction that would stop Campbell from enforcing the law until he issues a final ruling in the case.

Campbell's predecessor, now-Governor Maura Healey, repeatedly refrained from enforcing the law, pending Woodlock's decision. But Healey always reserved the right to reverse this policy if a ruling took too long. In March, Campbell said she would start enforcing the law effective June 1. "The people of Massachusetts deserve the benefit of the law they approved more than two years ago," she said in a document filed with the court.

But the carmakers say that only the federal government has the authority to enact such a law. They claim the law is so poorly drafted that they can't comply with it, and even if they could, compliance would weaken vehicle security, making it easier for cyber criminals to steal digital data about vehicles and their owners. Two carmakers, Kia and Subaru, have tried to comply with the law by switching off the telematic services in their cars. But the carmakers argue that this deprives consumers of the right to use these features, which include emergency roadside assistance that could potentially save lives.

Reuters reports: China's cyberspace regulator said 1.4 million social media posts have been deleted following a two-month probe into alleged misinformation, illegal profiteering, and impersonation of state officials, among other "pronounced problems"...

Beijing frequently arrests citizens and censors accounts for publishing or sharing factual information considered sensitive or critical of the Communist Party, the government or the military, especially when such information goes viral. Of the 67,000 accounts that were permanently closed, almost 8,000 were taken down for "spreading fake news, rumours, and harmful information," according to The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). Around 930,000 other accounts received less severe punishments, from being removed of all followers to the suspension or cancellation of profit-making privileges.

In a separate campaign, the regulator recently closed over 100,000 accounts that allegedly misrepresented news anchors and media agencies to counter the rise of online fake news coverage aided by AI technologies.

A CBS News video reports the U.S. military "is now testing an autonomous F-16 fighter jet, and in simulated dogfighting, the AI already crushes trained human pilots." And that's just one of several automated systems being developed — raising questions as to just how far this technology should go: "The people we met developing these systems say they aren't trying to replace humans, just make their jobs safer. But a shift to robot soldiers could change war in profound ways, as we found on a visit to Sikorsky Aircraft, the military contractor that makes the Blackhawk helicopter... Flying the experimental Blackhawk is as easy as moving a map." [The experimental helicopter is literally controlled by taps on a tablet computer, says a representative from Sikorsky. "We call it operating, because you're making suggestions. The machine really decides how to do it."]
The Sikorsky representative suggests it could avoid a "Blackhawk down" scenario where more human soldiers have to be sent into harm's way to try rescuing their comrades. But CBS also calls it "part of a larger effort to change how wars are fought, being led by DARPA, the Defense Department's innovative lab. They've also developed autonomous offroad buggies, unmanned undersea vehicles, and swarms and swarms of drones."

The CBS reporter then asks DARPA program manager Stuart Young if we're head for the future with Terminator-like fighting machines. His answer? "There's always those dilemmas that we have, but clearly our adversaries are thinking about that thing. And part of what DARPA does is to try to prevent technologial surprise." CBS also spoke to former Army Ranger Paul Scharre, who later worked for the Defense Department on autonomous weapons, who says already-available comercial technologies could create autonomous weapons today. "All it takes is a few lines of code to simply take the human out of the loop." "Scharre is not all doom and gloom. He points out in combat between nations, robot soldiers will legally need to follow the law of war, and might do so better than emotional or fatigued humans... But yes, Scharre does worry about the eventual marriage of advanced robots and military AI that becomes smarter and faster than we are."

Q: So at that point humans just would be out of the decision-making. You'd just have to trust the machines and that you'd programmed them well.

A: Yes...

Q: Do you think militaries should commit to keeping humans in the loop?

A: I don't think that's viable. If you could wave a magic wand and say, 'We're going to stop the growth of the technology', there's probably benefits in that. But I don't think it's viable today... A human looking at a target, saying 'Yep, that's a viable target,' pressing a button every single time? That would be ideal. I'm not sure that's going to be the case.

Microsoft's annual developer event Build 2023 unveiled ChatGPT's integration into Bing and an AI 'personal assistant' for Windows 11.

But Windows Central also notes two more big (non-AI) announcements: Windows 11 is getting cloud-powered OS backup and restore Smartphone owners have long enjoyed a similar functionality, where you could buy a new device and upon the first start, simply log in to your platform account and select "Restore my apps" from the cloud backup. And now Windows will be able to do the same. ["If the user chooses yes, Windows will automatically apply the old wallpaper and settings and even begin preloading apps you had installed on your old PC. Once the user hits the desktop, they'll see all their previously pinned apps already in the Taskbar, and clicking on them will initiate an automatic download from the Microsoft Store."]

Windows 11 on ARM devices gets a big boost [B]ecause Microsoft has no intention of dropping x86 support, they have been slow in adopting ARM architecture to make it a viable alternative for Windows users. With Build 2023, this is moving ahead...
Elsewhere Windows Central argues that "should result in a better experience on devices like the Surface Pro 9 (ARM), Surface Pro X, and the new Dell Inspiron 14 with a Snapdragon 8cx 2 processor.

On the gaming side of things, Unity with native Windows on ARM support will become available in early June. Once launched, the tool will let developers target Windows on ARM devices for current and future games, resulting in better performance. Unity is a very popular development platform for games, and native support for Windows on ARM is a welcome addition...

Visual Studio having Multi-platform App UI (MAUI) support for Arm will give developers another way to target Windows on ARM PCs.
Even Node.js v20.0.0 now officially supports ARM64 Windows, "allowing for native execution on the platform. The MSI, zip/7z packages, and executable are available from the Node.js download site along with all other platforms."

And in addition, Visual Studio 17.71 Preview 1 now ships with support for Linux development with C++.

Slashdot reader Zapotek brings an update from the Ecsypno skunkworks, where they've been busy with R&D for distributed computing systems: Armed with Cuboid, Qmap was built, which tackled the handling of nmap in a distributed environment, with great results. Afterwards, an iterative clean-up process led to a template of sorts, for scheduling most applications in such environments.

With that, Peplum was born, which allows for OS applications, Ruby code and C/C++/Rust code (via Ruby extensions) to be distributed across machines and tackle the processing of neatly grouped objects.

In essence, Peplum:

- Is a distributed computing solution backed by Cuboid.
- Its basic function is to distribute workloads and deliver payloads across multiple machines and thus parallelize otherwise time consuming tasks.
- Allows you to combine several machines and built a cluster/supercomputer of sorts with great ease.

After that was dealt with, it was time to port Qmap over to Peplum for easier long-term maintenance, thus renamed Peplum::Nmap.

We have high hopes for Peplum as it basically means easy, simple and joyful cloud/clustering/super-computing at home, on-premise, anywhere really. Along with the capability to turn a lot of security oriented apps into super versions of themselves, it is quite the infrastructure.
Yes, this means there's a new solution if you're using multiple machines for "running simulations, to network mapping/security scans, to password cracking/recovery or just encoding your collection of music and video" -- or anything else: Peplum is a F/OSS (MIT licensed) project aimed at making clustering/super-computing affordable and accessible, by making it simple to setup a distributed parallel computing environment for abstract applications... TLDR: You no longer have to only imagine a Beowulf cluster of those, you can now easily build one yourself with Peplum.
Some technical specs: It is written in the Ruby programming language, thus coming with an entire ecosystem of libraries and the capability to run abstract Ruby code, execute external utilities, run OS commands, call C/C++/Rust routines and more...

Peplum is powered by Cuboid, a F/OSS (MIT licensed) abstract framework for distributed computing — both of them are funded by Ecsypno Single Member P.C., a new R&D and Consulting company.

Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared this report from CBS News: Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, over 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News... [Senate Sergeant at Arms] Gibson said satellite communication is being deployed "to ensure a redundant and secure means of communication during a disruptive event." Gibson said the phones are a security backstop in the case of an emergency that "takes out communications" in part of America.

Google has been ordered to pay Sonos $32.5 million after a jury verdict found that Google's smart speakers and media players infringed on one of Sonos' patents. The Verge reports: The legal battle started in 2020 when Sonos accused Google of copying its patented multiroom audio technology after the companies partnered in 2013. Sonos went on to win its case at the US International Trade Commission, resulting in a limited import ban on some of the Google devices in question. Google has also had to pull some features from its lineup of smart speakers and smart displays.

Last August, Google sued Sonos over allegations that the audio company infringed on Google's smart speakers and voice control technology. This most recent trial started earlier this month, with Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda telling Reuters at the time that the case pertains to "some very specific features that are not commonly used" and that Sonos "mischaracterized our partnership and technology." Neither Google nor Sonos immediately responded to The Verge's request for comment.

Sonos didn't come out of the case completely victorious, however, as the jury decided that Google's Home app didn't infringe on a separate patent filed by Sonos. The judge also told jurors to "disregard a $90 million damages estimate from a Sonos expert witness, saying he had decided that some of the evidence provided was inadmissible," Law360 reports.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The number of phishing websites tied to domain name registrar Freenom dropped precipitously in the months surrounding a recent lawsuit from social networking giant Meta, which alleged the free domain name provider has a long history of ignoring abuse complaints about phishing websites while monetizing traffic to those abusive domains. Freenom is the domain name registry service provider for five so-called "country code top level domains" (ccTLDs), including .cf for the Central African Republic; .ga for Gabon; .gq for Equatorial Guinea; .ml for Mali; and .tk for Tokelau. Freenom has always waived the registration fees for domains in these country-code domains, but the registrar also reserves the right to take back free domains at any time, and to divert traffic to other sites -- including adult websites. And there are countless reports from Freenom users who've seen free domains removed from their control and forwarded to other websites.

By the time Meta initially filed its lawsuit in December 2022, Freenom was the source of well more than half of all new phishing domains coming from country-code top-level domains. Meta initially asked a court to seal its case against Freenom, but that request was denied. Meta withdrew its December 2022 lawsuit and re-filed it in March 2023. "The five ccTLDs to which Freenom provides its services are the TLDs of choice for cybercriminals because Freenom provides free domain name registration services and shields its customers' identity, even after being presented with evidence that the domain names are being used for illegal purposes," Meta's complaint charged. "Even after receiving notices of infringement or phishing by its customers, Freenom continues to license new infringing domain names to those same customers." Meta pointed to research from Interisle Consulting Group, which discovered in 2021 and again last year that the five ccTLDs operated by Freenom made up half of the Top Ten TLDs most abused by phishers.

Interisle partner Dave Piscitello said something remarkable has happened in the months since the Meta lawsuit. "We've observed a significant decline in phishing domains reported in the Freenom commercialized ccTLDs in months surrounding the lawsuit," Piscitello wrote on Mastodon. "Responsible for over 60% of phishing domains reported in November 2022, Freenom's percentage has dropped to under 15%." Piscitello said it's too soon to tell the full impact of the Freenom lawsuit, noting that Interisle's sources of spam and phishing data all have different policies about when domains are removed from their block lists.

Delaware's low elevation mixed with crowded beaches and limited exit routes make the state particularly vulnerable to massive flooding, but officials hope an influx of federal infrastructure money will trigger future evacuation plans automatically via artificial intelligence. From a report: The Biden administration was set to announce a total of $53 million in grants Thursday to Delaware and seven other states aimed at high-tech solutions to traffic congestion problems. Although the money comes from the infrastructure law the president signed in 2021, many of the programs -- including the $5 million for flood response efforts in Biden's home state -- have evolved since then.

"What's new is the predictive analysis; the machine learning," U.S. Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt, Delaware's former transportation secretary, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Because now we have access to all this data, it's hard for us as humans to figure out what is data and what is actionable information." Delaware officials pull off evacuation-type procedures every week during the tourism season, with long lines of cars headed to the beaches on weekend mornings and back at night. But flooding presents a unique problem -- including standing water on roads that can make the most direct routes out of town even more treacherous than simply sheltering in place.

The two Koreas are elevating a space race aimed at modernizing how each country monitors the other's improving military firepower. From a report: As hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough have dimmed in recent years, North and South Korea have grown more antagonistic toward one another and upped their displays of military might. They have traded missile tests. Pyongyang has sent drones that flew over downtown Seoul. South Korea has sharpened security and defense ties with the U.S. and Japan. The rise in tensions has elevated the importance -- and need -- for spy-satellite technology that neither country now has. South Korea cleared a significant technological marker on Thursday, launching multiple commercial satellites aboard a homegrown rocket for the first time. North Korea's Kim Jong Un regime stands poised to soon fly its first military reconnaissance satellite.

Nuri, South Korea's three-stage liquid-fuel rocket, blasted off at 6:24 p.m. local time Thursday from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, a city on the country's southern coast. The 200-ton rocket launched into space and deployed eight satellites into orbit about 342 miles above Earth, about 13 minutes after liftoff. Seoul has the clear technological advantage, weapons analysts say, though Pyongyang has been quick to advance its sanctioned missile program to develop long-range rockets that can carry satellites. Both nations remain years away from having a full-fledged network of spy satellites. But attaining the technology would allow the countries to identify military targets to precisely launch strikes during potential conflict without relying on their allies' satellite technology for information. In North Korea's case, space-based satellite technology is essential for its nuclear strategy. Having eyes in the sky would serve as an additional asset to launching nuclear strikes with better accuracy, said Yang Uk, a military expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank in Seoul. Should the technology progress enough, North Korea could potentially identify nuclear strike targets in the U.S., he added.

Firefox users have been complaining about very intrusive full-screen advertisements promoting Mozilla VPN displayed in the web browser when navigating an unrelated page. From a report: The ads popping in Firefox disable the web browser's functionality, denying users access to the interface and graying out everything in the background until they close them. Some users reported on Reddit that the annoying full-screen ads even cause Firefox to become unresponsive for up to 30 seconds, forcing them to terminate the browser's process. [...] BleepingComputer has contacted Mozilla about the matter and received the following statement following the barrage of complaints from Firefox users: "We're continuously working to understand the best ways to communicate with people who use Firefox. Ultimately, we accomplished the exact opposite of what we intended in this experiment and quickly rolled the experience back. We apologize for any confusion or concern."

Ford CEO Jim Farley said Tesla's Superchargers may become the standard for EV charging in the U.S., a day after the Michigan-based company struck a deal allowing Ford owners to gain access to the rival charging stations in North America. From a report: "I think there's a chance you know," Farley said on Friday in response to a question on CNBC on whether Tesla Superchargers will become the standard for EV charging. Farley told CNBC that General Motors and other automakers are going to "have a big choice to make" in selecting between Tesla's EV chargers and the Combined Charging System (CCS). CCS is one of several competing charging plug standards for DC fast charging. "The CCS standard plays a crucial role in establishing an extensive network of fast charging stations across North America," General Motors said. Since 2012, Tesla has developed and deployed its own high-speed vehicle charger, called Supercharger, which can add up to 322 miles (518 km) of range in just 15 minutes. Farley told CNBC on Friday that Ford had about 10,000 fast chargers and the agreement with Tesla will "double that."

Liam Proven, reporting for The Register: Over 21 years after it first came out, the Microsoft operating system that will not die is receiving another lease of life. It's possible to activate new installations, safely and securely, without a crack, off line. A blog post on tinyapps has revealed the hot news that nobody sane has been waiting for: the algorithm that Microsoft uses to validate Windows XP product keys has been cracked and reimplemented. As a result it's now possible to generate valid activation codes for Windows XP, without an internet connection, even though Microsoft has turned off all the activation servers.

This is not a recommendation But first, a word of caution and restraint. Please don't take this article as a recommendation to run Windows XP. It wasn't the most secure of operating systems back in 2001, and you really should not be running it in 2023 -- especially not on anything that is connected to the internet. However, saying that, the problem is that sometimes people need to. There is, for example, hardware out there that only works with Windows XP and won't work with anything newer... and some of it might be very expensive hardware, which is still perfectly functional -- but which requires a long-obsolete version of Windows to operate it. If you are lumbered with such a device, or you have got some single specific and very particular piece of software that you need to run and which doesn't work properly on any newer version of Windows, then you may be forced to use XP. If so, one of the problems is that Microsoft has turned off the activation servers, so even if you install clean fresh copy, you can no longer activate it over the Internet. (Allegedly, the telephone activation service still works, if that's an option for you.)

Portugal has banned companies from 'high-risk' countries and jurisdictions from supplying equipment for its fifth-generation phone network, becoming the latest western nation to effectively block China's Huawei from its market. From a report: The country will prohibit the use of equipment in its 5G wireless network from suppliers based outside the European Union or from states that don't belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to a government statement posted online Thursday.

Britain's competition watchdog on Friday said social media giant Meta had offered to limit its use of other businesses' advertising data for its Facebook Marketplace service to address the regulator's competition concerns. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was minded to accept the commitments, which include advertisers being able to opt out of allowing their data to be used to improve the Facebook Marketplace classified ads platform. CMA executive director of enforcement Michael Grenfell said: "Reducing the risk of Meta unfairly exploiting the data of businesses who advertise on its platform for its own competitive advantage could help many UK businesses who advertise there. We are now consulting on these commitments which we believe, at this stage, will address our concerns."

The Tesla Model Y has become the world's best-selling car in the first quarter of 2023, according to industry analyst JATO Dynamics, making it the first time an electric vehicle (EV) has achieved this milestone. Electrek reports: The Model Y has dethroned the Toyota Corolla as the world's best-selling car in Q1 and looks like it may well maintain this position for the full year. JATO Dynamics analyst Felipe Munoz compiled the data for Motor1, showing that the Model Y had 267,200 sales in Q1, according to data from 53 markets and projections/estimates for the rest of the world. This put it ahead of the Corolla at 256,400 sales for the same period and significantly ahead of the other top-five cars, the Hilux, RAV4, and Camry, all from Toyota.

While we don't know if this placing will continue for the rest of the year, Model Y sales have been continually growing, whereas Corolla sales are trending slightly downward. One model is new and based on new technology, and the other is an old standard -- though the current iteration of both models came out in a similar time frame, 2018 for the Corolla and 2019 for Model Y. And given Tesla's massive price cuts this year on Model Y, this will surely make the car accessible to more people compared to 2022.

Indeed, Model Y sales are already growing compared to last year. In 2022, Tesla had two of the top ten cars in the world, with Model Y achieving 759k sales. That gives it an average quarterly run rate of 189k, and this year's Q1 number is a significant increase from that. If Model Y continues at this rate or sales continue to grow at all for the rest of this year, it will exit 2023 with over 1 million sales. The only other vehicle in the world to sell 1 million units last year was the Toyota Corolla, at 1.12 million. So it might be close at year's end, but we think it's likely that Model Y will maintain its position. "The achievement is even more impressive given Model Y's pricing and availability," adds Electrek. "While the Model Y does have broad availability in the world's largest markets, the Corolla is available everywhere. And despite recent price cuts, the Model Y at ~$40k (after credits) is still significantly more expensive than a base-model Corolla at $21k."

In other EV news, Ford and Tesla announced a partnership that will allow Ford owners access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada starting early next year. "And, Ford's next-generation of EVs -- expected by mid-decade -- will include Tesla's charging plug, allowing owners of Ford vehicles to charge at Tesla Superchargers without an adapter, making Ford among the first automakers to explicitly tie into the network," reports CNBC.

IBM has announced its goal to build a 100,000-qubit quantum computing machine within the next 10 years in collaboration with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago. MIT Technology Review reports: Late last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor that contained 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum information processing. Now, the company has set its sights on a much bigger target: a 100,000-qubit machine that it aims to build within 10 years. IBM made the announcement on May 22 at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. The company will partner with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago in a $100 million dollar initiative to push quantum computing into the realm of full-scale operation, where the technology could potentially tackle pressing problems that no standard supercomputer can solve.

Or at least it can't solve them alone. The idea is that the 100,000 qubits will work alongside the best "classical" supercomputers to achieve new breakthroughs in drug discovery, fertilizer production, battery performance, and a host of other applications. "I call this quantum-centric supercomputing," IBM's VP of quantum, Jay Gambetta, told MIT Technology Review in an in-person interview in London last week. [...] IBM has already done proof-of-principle experiments (PDF) showing that integrated circuits based on "complementary metal oxide semiconductor" (CMOS) technology can be installed next to the cold qubits to control them with just tens of milliwatts. Beyond that, he admits, the technology required for quantum-centric supercomputing does not yet exist: that is why academic research is a vital part of the project.

The qubits will exist on a type of modular chip that is only just beginning to take shape in IBM labs. Modularity, essential when it will be impossible to put enough qubits on a single chip, requires interconnects that transfer quantum information between modules. IBM's "Kookaburra," a 1,386-qubit multichip processor with a quantum communication link, is under development and slated for release in 2025. Other necessary innovations are where the universities come in. Researchers at Tokyo and Chicago have already made significant strides in areas such as components and communication innovations that could be vital parts of the final product, Gambetta says. He thinks there will likely be many more industry-academic collaborations to come over the next decade. "We have to help the universities do what they do best," he says.