Israel Steps up Quantum Tech Race Amid Threat of Exclusion From European Research Projects
+ Israel is leveling up to join the race for quantum proficiency as leading countries, including in the European Union, seek to block multi-billion dollar opportunities for collaboration on the pivotal emerging technology.
“My guess is that over the next 12 to 18 months literally dozens of Israeli quantum startups will be coming to market or will be trying to raise money,” ~Medved
+ Israel has embarked on a $375 million national initiative to invest in quantum technology — which promises to exponentially increase the processing speed of computers — and to build up its proficiency by 2025. As part of the initiative, the Israel Innovation Authority together with the Defense Ministry have begun to take requests from multinational companies, Israeli businesses and universities to participate in a $60 million project to build the country’s first quantum computer with 30 to 40 “qubits,” a unit used to encode information.
+ Meanwhile, Israel’s public-private quantum initiative focuses on the development of three different areas, bringing academia and industry together: quantum sensing, including the development of atomic locks by AccuBeat, and magnetic sensing; quantum communication or cryptography, with the involvement of Mellanox-Nvidia as well as startups including QuantLR; and quantum computing.
+ “What is unique about Israel is that it is a very small country with very little resources except for what we have in our minds,” David explained. “We turn that into an advantage because the cycles from a researcher working in his lab on a cool scientific idea and transitioning that into an applied R&D and implementation in the field is a very short cycle with very few agencies [and] bodies involved in the process, and all them working very tightly together in this initiative.”
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