Is China winning race with the US to develop quantum computers?
Chinese funding to research the next generation in computing may be dwarfing American efforts, according to US experts
As the US and China threaten to impose tariffs on goods from aluminium to wine, the two nations are waging a separate economic battle that could determine who owns the next wave of computing.
Chinese universities and US technology companies such as IBM and Microsoft are racing to develop quantum computers, a type of processing that is forecast to be so powerful it can transform how drug makers, agriculture companies and car manufacturers discover compounds and materials.
Quantum computing uses the movement of subatomic particles to process data in amounts that modern computers cannot handle. Mostly theoretical now, the technology is expected to be able to perform calculations that make today’s computers look akin to an abacus.
While overall spending by China is unknown, its government is building a US$10 billion National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences in Hefei, Anhui province, which is due to open in 2020. US-funded research in quantum is about US$200 million a year, according to a July 2016 government report, and some researchers and companies do not believe that is enough.
One “killer app” may be encryption, the code scrambling technology that secures modern global commerce and communications. China, Chinese universities and Western financial institutions are rushing to patent more ways to use quantum technology for encryption, a study by research firm Patinformatics found.