Russia Captures Quantum Breakthrough (October 20, 2022)
Although in this science for more than 100 years. At the same time, the first significant results were obtained in the middle of the last century – these are lasers. Now society has learned to control individual particles, create artificial quantum systems, and so on.
These theses of the plenary section “Digitalization”, which ended today in the suburbs of the “Cifrotech” forum, were voiced by the head of the project office of the State Corporation “Rosatom” for quantum technologies Ruslan Yunusov. By his definition, de facto at the moment the quantum sphere is divided into three sectors: quantum sensors (how we observe the influence of the outside world), quantum communications (information transfer, as well as a fundamentally new way to protect information) and physics. All these areas can and should be developed in Russia.
The chicken and egg question
Many countries are working on an experimental computer, which in the future is likely to gain tremendous superiority in solving the next task, executing them faster than usual in the near future. At the same time, Russia has already been seen next to such a unit. Scientists from the Russian Quantum Center and the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have serious developments here. They used a scheme of 4 qubits, taking advantage of a different scaling of quantum processors using multi-level storage media – qudits. According to Ruslan Yunusov, a system of 16 qubits may also appear this year.
In addition, experts during the session confirmed that the problem of quantum technologies revolves around the “chicken and egg issue”. In other words, the sale of technology is still going badly, as many potential customers do not believe that anything could exist at all. And without state protection, the sphere is unlikely to become an industry in the near future.
In turn, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Vasily Shpak noted that another problem of financing quantum technologies is that the authors of the projects do not bring their ideas to the masses.
“Some of the scientists said: if a physicist in 5 minutes. cannot be more rude to explain to a fifth grader what he is doing, before you is not a physicist, a swindler. You have to deal with people. The idea shot, it needs to be correctly verbalized. We must remember what it gives to a simple person, not to a scientist. Scientists understand themselves. Take Mask. He is certainly a great technology entrepreneur. But in terms of technology, it cannot be said that he has acquired any breakthroughs. “Tesla” from the Soviet trolleybus, in terms of traffic overview, is not much different. However, the way Max sells it allows him to get his company into the automotive market leaders in terms of capitalization. By the way, with a negative emotional return, which is typical. Therefore, we need to talk about what effects they give in general, ”said Vasily Shpak.
He added that quantum technologies should be correctly presented as history, as is usually shown. At the same time, the issue with the component base remains. The deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade uses the fact that at the moment there is a sufficient range of support – from various scientific resources to programs through Skolkovo. For advanced projects, enzyme mixtures are also supported, including by the Industrial Development Fund and other organizations of this kind.
“If the technology is mature enough, then a set of measures will cover all the necessary requests,” Vasily Shpak stated, emphasizing that it is already now necessary to popularize the quantum environment among students for food products.
State secret under protection
Nikolai Trofimov, a representative of QRrate and NUST MISiS, spoke in an exclusive commentary to Expert about innovative equipment — a scientific and educational complex for high-speed quantum key distribution. Investor of this project. By the way, Gazprombank spoke.
According to Nikolai Trofimov, the presented complex is a prototype, although its technological degree of inclination is already reduced to 7 out of 10. “Why a prototype? Due to the fact that no one has certification on the finished product. Nevertheless, we keep up with the times, do not lag behind the recognition by any means. This system is designed mainly for sale in music, comes with lab kits, it can be taken apart to see the “stuffing”. And I note that the transmission speed reaches 5 kbps,” he assured.
The expert recalled that key income is, in principle, not a new thing. To date, the case and other effective methods of encrypting information. For example, symmetrical-asymmetric encryption methods, which, obviously, cannot be cracked if a sufficiently long password is made for them. But computer power is being discovered all the time, and more and more evidence is being found that this method of disclosure has a potential threat in the video emission of computers.
“If someone announces this, then protection methods will immediately appear. That is, the presented object is a protection against hacking from the future. Here we offer a win key. We encode information using photon polarization. The point is that it cannot be used in any way if you do not know the initial conditions. The host here will “catch” an attack even from a quantum computer, and you can immediately switch to a secure communication channel. But even this is not the most important thing. It is important not to constantly be able to develop, but to understand that we have the Yarovaya Law. Data in encrypted form is now accumulating on media. As soon as the quantum computer follows, people will be able to decipher what has been accumulated over 20 years. And if this is a state secret, there will be a real scandal. Such a device saves both from the future and from the existing threat, ”said Nikolai Trofimov.
At the same time, there is a problem with scaling devices – their high price. “There are no problems with components, there are no super-devices here, China can satisfy all our needs. Proportional import works. The plateau of our production, our software, and so on, and where the chip was made is not so important at all. Optical fiber is also in the Russian Federation. But it is not clear whether it is necessary to multiply the “boxes” now, because the demand for them is small. If they were 10 times cheaper, they would have put them everywhere. And, of course, certification slows down this process,” Nikolai Trofimov complained.
Now QRate development is used in various scientific projects and competitions (WorldSkills, AtomSkills). They are also a key part of the quantum communications education program representing the interests of Russian universities. There are also big interests from large companies. Especially those animals need 100% security. As an example, we can cite the mentioned Gazprombank, as well as Russian Railways, Innopolis.
Nikolai Trofimov confirmed that the bill really needs the support of society and publicity. After all, these technologies are already breakthrough for Russia. The future is theirs.