What’s this hype about quantum computing? Is it really the fact, is it this the next technological revolution that will just enable the human race to the next dimension?.

Image credit: Fortune

The "Fourth Industrial Revolution" is being dubbed quantum computing, and it will transform the way we use and perceive technology. Traditional computers cannot match the computing capacity of these ultrafast machines. Quantum physics underpins its technology. It has the potential to disrupt a wide range of sectors, as well as have a direct influence on cybersecurity and privacy. Large technological firms including IBM, Google, Intel, and Microsoft have put major money towards the project. In truth, IBM Quantum is an organization-wide endeavor to develop universal quantum computers for use with its supercomputers to solve complicated problems. Once a result, as this type of technology becomes more common, other manufacturers will follow suit. But unfortunately, India is still far off the race of quantum computing where China is leading the race. 

Quantum Computing in a box:

Qubits, or quantum bits, are at the heart of quantum computing. Quantum computers employ them as the fundamental units of data. Unlike normal bits, which store data as either 1s or 0s, qubits use the quantum phenomena of superposition to store data. This means they exist as both 1s and 0s at the same time.

In computers, this has the advantage of exponentially increasing the amount of data that can be processed. A pair of qubits that can be either 1s or 0s can represent four different states. Eight qubits can be represented by three qubits. However, 300 qubits can hold more states than the number of atoms in the universe.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) unveiled the 'Quantum Computer Simulator (QSim) Toolkit' in September 2021 to provide academicians, industry experts, students, and the scientific community in India with the first quantum development environment. This is the result of an INR 8,000 crore budgeted investment to support quantum technology development and adoption in India. A few private companies and startups have started to develop these critical quantum components, but most hardware is still imported.

Quantum computing's power, like that of many other revolutionary technologies, has some worrying legal implications. Because quantum computers are so far ahead of ordinary computers, it may result in an unfair power balance in society. An individual or organization using a quantum computer might simply get beyond a normal device's defenses.

Some of the most prevalent concerns here are privacy and data security. An organization with a quantum computer, such as Google, might decrypt any modern encryption standard that an ordinary user has, putting their privacy at risk. This could jeopardize whistleblower protection, as whistleblowers are responsible for 70% of collected fraud damages. And it's quite risky to wield this much power without sufficient legal and ethical guidelines and organization.

Legal Principle Prospect :

At this time in February 2022, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 provides a roadmap for these emerging opportunities across public and private sectors. The principles have been co-designed by a global multistakeholder community composed of quantum experts, emerging technology ethics and law experts, decision-makers and policymakers, social scientists, and academics.

"At the start of this historic transition, the important opportunity is to address ethical, societal, and legal concerns well before commercialization," said Kay Firth-Butterfield, World Economic Forum's Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. "This study is an early intervention and the start of a multidisciplinary, global discourse that will steer quantum computing development for the benefit of all society."

In adapting to the coming hybrid model of classical, multi-cloud, and soon quantum computing, the Forum’s framework establishes best-practice principles and core values. These guidelines set the foundation and give rise to a new information-processing paradigm while ensuring stakeholder equity, risk mitigation, and consumer benefit.

The governance principles are grouped into nine themes and underpinned by a set of seven core values. Themes and respective goals defining the principles:

1. Transformative capabilities: Harness the transformative capabilities of this technology and the applications for the good of humanity while managing the risks appropriately.

2. Access to hardware infrastructure: Ensure wide access to quantum computing hardware.

3. Open innovation: Encourage collaboration and a pre-competitive environment, enabling faster development of the technology and the realization of its applications.

4. Creating awareness: Ensure the general population and quantum computing stakeholders are aware, engaged, and sufficiently informed to enable ongoing responsible dialogue and communication; stakeholders with oversight and authority should be able to make informed decisions about quantum computing in their respective domains.

5. Workforce development and capability-building: Build and sustain a quantum-ready workforce.

6. Cybersecurity: Ensure the transition to a quantum-secure digital world.

7. Privacy: Mitigate potential data-privacy violations through theft and processing by quantum computers.

8. Standardization: Promote standards and road-mapping mechanisms to accelerate the development of the technology.

9. Sustainability: Develop a sustainable future with and for quantum computing technology

Quantum computing core values that hold across the themes and principles:

Common good: The transformative capabilities of quantum computing and its applications are harnessed to ensure they will be used to benefit humanity.

Accountability: The use of quantum computing in any context has mechanisms in place to ensure human accountability, both in its design and in its uses and outcomes. All stakeholders in the quantum computing community are responsible for ensuring that the intentional misuse of quantum computing for harmful purposes is not accepted or inadvertently positively sanctioned.

Inclusiveness: In the development of quantum computing, insofar as possible, a broad and truly diverse range of stakeholder perspectives are engaged in meaningful dialogue to avoid narrow definitions of what may be considered a harmful or beneficial use of the technology.

Equitability: Quantum computing developers and users ensure that the technology is equitable by design, and that quantum computing-based technologies are fairly and evenly distributed insofar as possible. Particular consideration is given to any specific needs of vulnerable populations to ensure equitability.

Non-maleficence: All stakeholders use quantum computing in a safe, ethical and responsible manner. Furthermore, all stakeholders ensure quantum computing does not put humans at risk of harm, either in the intended or unintended outcomes of its use, and that it is not used for nefarious purposes.

Accessibility: Quantum computing technology and knowledge are actively made widely accessible. This includes the development, deployment, and use of the technology. The aim is to cultivate a general ability among the population, societal actors, corporations, and governments to understand the main principles of quantum computing, the ways in which it differs from classical computing and the potential it brings.

Transparency: Users, developers, and regulators are transparent about their purpose and intentions with regard to quantum computing.

The Quantum Computing Governance Principles is an initiative of the World Economic Forum’s Quantum Computing Network, a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on accelerating responsible quantum computing. Quantum computing will need new law of Quantum.

The next steps for the Quantum Computing Governance Initiative will be to work with wider stakeholder groups to adopt these principles as part of broader governance frameworks and policy approaches. With this framework, business and investment communities along with policymakers and academia will be better equipped to adapt to the coming paradigm shift. Ultimately, everyone will be better prepared to harness the transformative capabilities of quantum sciences – perhaps the most exciting emergent technologies of the 21st Century.

What’s this hype about quantum computing? Is it really the fact, is it this the next technological revolution that will just enable the human race to the next dimension?.

Image credit: Fortune

The "Fourth Industrial Revolution" is being dubbed quantum computing, and it will transform the way we use and perceive technology. Traditional computers cannot match the computing capacity of these ultrafast machines. Quantum physics underpins its technology. It has the potential to disrupt a wide range of sectors, as well as have a direct influence on cybersecurity and privacy. Large technological firms including IBM, Google, Intel, and Microsoft have put major money towards the project. In truth, IBM Quantum is an organization-wide endeavor to develop universal quantum computers for use with its supercomputers to solve complicated problems. Once a result, as this type of technology becomes more common, other manufacturers will follow suit. But unfortunately, India is still far off the race of quantum computing where China is leading the race. 

Quantum Computing in a box:

Qubits, or quantum bits, are at the heart of quantum computing. Quantum computers employ them as the fundamental units of data. Unlike normal bits, which store data as either 1s or 0s, qubits use the quantum phenomena of superposition to store data. This means they exist as both 1s and 0s at the same time.

In computers, this has the advantage of exponentially increasing the amount of data that can be processed. A pair of qubits that can be either 1s or 0s can represent four different states. Eight qubits can be represented by three qubits. However, 300 qubits can hold more states than the number of atoms in the universe.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) unveiled the 'Quantum Computer Simulator (QSim) Toolkit' in September 2021 to provide academicians, industry experts, students, and the scientific community in India with the first quantum development environment. This is the result of an INR 8,000 crore budgeted investment to support quantum technology development and adoption in India. A few private companies and startups have started to develop these critical quantum components, but most hardware is still imported.

Quantum computing's power, like that of many other revolutionary technologies, has some worrying legal implications. Because quantum computers are so far ahead of ordinary computers, it may result in an unfair power balance in society. An individual or organization using a quantum computer might simply get beyond a normal device's defenses.

Some of the most prevalent concerns here are privacy and data security. An organization with a quantum computer, such as Google, might decrypt any modern encryption standard that an ordinary user has, putting their privacy at risk. This could jeopardize whistleblower protection, as whistleblowers are responsible for 70% of collected fraud damages. And it's quite risky to wield this much power without sufficient legal and ethical guidelines and organization.

Legal Principle Prospect :

At this time in February 2022, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 provides a roadmap for these emerging opportunities across public and private sectors. The principles have been co-designed by a global multistakeholder community composed of quantum experts, emerging technology ethics and law experts, decision-makers and policymakers, social scientists, and academics.

"At the start of this historic transition, the important opportunity is to address ethical, societal, and legal concerns well before commercialization," said Kay Firth-Butterfield, World Economic Forum's Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. "This study is an early intervention and the start of a multidisciplinary, global discourse that will steer quantum computing development for the benefit of all society."

In adapting to the coming hybrid model of classical, multi-cloud, and soon quantum computing, the Forum’s framework establishes best-practice principles and core values. These guidelines set the foundation and give rise to a new information-processing paradigm while ensuring stakeholder equity, risk mitigation, and consumer benefit.

The governance principles are grouped into nine themes and underpinned by a set of seven core values. Themes and respective goals defining the principles:

1. Transformative capabilities: Harness the transformative capabilities of this technology and the applications for the good of humanity while managing the risks appropriately.

2. Access to hardware infrastructure: Ensure wide access to quantum computing hardware.

3. Open innovation: Encourage collaboration and a pre-competitive environment, enabling faster development of the technology and the realization of its applications.

4. Creating awareness: Ensure the general population and quantum computing stakeholders are aware, engaged, and sufficiently informed to enable ongoing responsible dialogue and communication; stakeholders with oversight and authority should be able to make informed decisions about quantum computing in their respective domains.

5. Workforce development and capability-building: Build and sustain a quantum-ready workforce.

6. Cybersecurity: Ensure the transition to a quantum-secure digital world.

7. Privacy: Mitigate potential data-privacy violations through theft and processing by quantum computers.

8. Standardization: Promote standards and road-mapping mechanisms to accelerate the development of the technology.

9. Sustainability: Develop a sustainable future with and for quantum computing technology

Quantum computing core values that hold across the themes and principles:

Common good: The transformative capabilities of quantum computing and its applications are harnessed to ensure they will be used to benefit humanity.

Accountability: The use of quantum computing in any context has mechanisms in place to ensure human accountability, both in its design and in its uses and outcomes. All stakeholders in the quantum computing community are responsible for ensuring that the intentional misuse of quantum computing for harmful purposes is not accepted or inadvertently positively sanctioned.

Inclusiveness: In the development of quantum computing, insofar as possible, a broad and truly diverse range of stakeholder perspectives are engaged in meaningful dialogue to avoid narrow definitions of what may be considered a harmful or beneficial use of the technology.

Equitability: Quantum computing developers and users ensure that the technology is equitable by design, and that quantum computing-based technologies are fairly and evenly distributed insofar as possible. Particular consideration is given to any specific needs of vulnerable populations to ensure equitability.

Non-maleficence: All stakeholders use quantum computing in a safe, ethical and responsible manner. Furthermore, all stakeholders ensure quantum computing does not put humans at risk of harm, either in the intended or unintended outcomes of its use, and that it is not used for nefarious purposes.

Accessibility: Quantum computing technology and knowledge are actively made widely accessible. This includes the development, deployment, and use of the technology. The aim is to cultivate a general ability among the population, societal actors, corporations, and governments to understand the main principles of quantum computing, the ways in which it differs from classical computing and the potential it brings.

Transparency: Users, developers, and regulators are transparent about their purpose and intentions with regard to quantum computing.

The Quantum Computing Governance Principles is an initiative of the World Economic Forum’s Quantum Computing Network, a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on accelerating responsible quantum computing. Quantum computing will need new law of Quantum.

The next steps for the Quantum Computing Governance Initiative will be to work with wider stakeholder groups to adopt these principles as part of broader governance frameworks and policy approaches. With this framework, business and investment communities along with policymakers and academia will be better equipped to adapt to the coming paradigm shift. Ultimately, everyone will be better prepared to harness the transformative capabilities of quantum sciences – perhaps the most exciting emergent technologies of the 21st Century.