Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have broken a longstanding barrier by managing to send single photons—that can’t be copied or split and thus are secure—in the network of optical fibers we already have. This opens up a broad range of applications relying on secure quantum information. The research is published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Quantum dots are unsurpassed in their ability to generate coherent single photons—single particles of light which cannot be split or copied and therefore are secure for quantum communication. So far, the problem was that the best quantum dots only worked around 930 nm wavelengths, which is far short of the telecommunication-compatible wavelengths starting at 1,260 nm. Only these longer wavelengths can be used to distribute the information-carrying photons and it has so far been restricted to sub-optimal platforms.
Now, scientists have managed to create a new type of quantum dot, which exploits the best of both worlds.
The new lab expands its scope to include quantum computing, alongside foundational artificial intelligence research, with the goal of unlocking new computational approaches that go beyond the limits of today’s classical systems.
PRESS RELEASE — Groove Quantum today announced it has raised €16 million in combined funding and demonstrated an 18-qubit semiconductor spin-qubit processor, the largest of its kind ever built. The result marks a step beyond small-scale laboratory prototypes toward a quantum processor architecture designed for large-scale integration. The combined funding consists of €10 million in equity and €6 million in grants. The equity seed round is co-led by Innovation Industries, a leading European deep tech fund, and 55 North, the world’s largest pure-play quantum fund, with participation from Verve Ventures and the European Innovation Council Fund. Additional funding is provided by grants from the EIC Accelerator programme and JU Chips Act funding programme further underscores institutional confidence in Groove’s approach.
Groove will use the capital to scale qubit count exponentially and to begin manufacturing its processors at established semiconductor foundries.
Quantum computers create a fundamentally new way of computing. This opens the door to solving complex challenges that would take today’s most powerful supercomputers impractically long to address, like the discovery of new medicines, and the design of advanced materials for renewable energy – challenges that are highly important and have a profoundly positive impact on humanity.
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Reality has cracks in it. Universe-spanning filaments of ancient Big Bang energy, formed from topological defects in the quantum fields, aka cosmic strings. They have subatomic thickness but prodigious mass and they lash through space at a close to the speed of light. They could be the most bizarre undiscovered entities that actually exist.
This is exactly why the benchmarks I propose in the book matter so much. Defining AGI and ASI is not semantics; it determines which architectures we are trying to align, how long top-down control mechanisms remain useful, and when we must shift our focus toward developmental and integrative approaches such as the AGI Naturalization Protocol and merge-based alignment.
In SUPERALIGNMENT, I argue that no single strategy is sufficient. Today’s control-based alignment is indispensable, but only as an early scaffold. Ethical-emotional development is necessary, but only as a middle phase. Merge-based alignment becomes increasingly relevant as humans and artificial minds begin to co-evolve within shared cognitive ecosystems. The triadic structure matters because each phase corresponds to a distinct level of intelligence maturity: constraint, cultivation, and convergence.
In my framework, AGI is not a static point but a continuum of cognitive emergence: from embodied agency to disembodied abstraction, from classical computation to quantum cognition, and from reactive behavior to phenomenological self-awareness. The benchmarks provide the conceptual anchors for intervention. They tell us when control may still be enough, when cultivation becomes necessary, and when convergence between human and synthetic minds becomes the more realistic path to Superalignment.
🚨 The Biggest Problem in Physics (Cosmological Constant) https://lnkd.in/gt7tEpJw ❓ Problem: Why is the Universe accelerating… and why is the value so unbelievably small? Observations (supernovae, CMB, BAO) show: 👉 The expansion is accelerating 👉 This requires a cosmological constant Λ From Einstein’s equation: Λ = 8πG ρ_Λ 😳 But here’s the crisis: Quantum physics predicts vacuum energy: ρ_vac ≈ M_Pl⁴ But observations give: ρ_Λ ≈ 10⁻¹²⁰ M_Pl⁴ 💥 That’s a mismatch of 120 orders of magnitude This is called the cosmological constant problem 🧠 Standard thinking fails because: We assume: 👉 Energy fills space uniformly 👉 Λ comes from summing quantum fluctuations ρ_vac = (1/V) Σ (½ ℏωₖ) But this diverges → way too large ❌ 💡 A different perspective (EWOG insight): Instead of asking: 👉 “What is the energy of empty space?” Ask: 👉 “What is the geometry of the Universe?
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The gauge bosons of the standard model of particle physics are responsible for 3 of the 4 known forces in the universe. A force is conferred is through the exchange of virtual bosons. So for example in electromagnetism, an exchange of virtual photons results in an exchange of momentum which results in two like charges repelling each other.
Gravity is missing from this picture because in General relativity, gravity is not a force, but is a curvature of space-time. The problem is that stars and planets are made of molecules, atoms and radiation. And the forces that hold the atoms together are due to discrete units of virtual particles. It is the exchange or swapping of these virtual bosons that holds or breaks up atoms and molecules.
Quantum mechanics conflicts with general relativity, because QM treats every thing as being discrete, and GR treats everything as being continuous. We need a theory that combines the two because we live in one reality, not two different realities.
This is why most physicists believe General relativity is incomplete. Why can’t quantum mechanics be the one that is incomplete? Of the 4 fundamental forces, 3 have very robust quantum mechanical theories. Only gravity lacks a quantum description. Quantum mechanics also has almost all of classical physics within in its limits. Classical physics like general relativity, does not have quantum effects. We have learned is that Quantum physics is the fundamental language of reality.
One way to quantize gravity is to quantize space-time itself. This is what loop quantum gravity or LQG does. It shows that the fabric of space-time is not continuous, but is made up of discrete quanta, like the pixels on a TV screen. This is different than string theory, because in string theory, space is the background or the canvas, on which strings vibrate.
The transitions of hydrogen molecules embedded in a crystal depend on the surroundings—a behavior that could be used to tailor molecular quantum dynamics.
In quantum physics, we often learn that the rules governing a system are set by its symmetry. These rules—known as selection rules—determine which transitions between quantum states are allowed and which are forbidden. For example, rotational symmetry constrains how an atom’s angular momentum can change. But what if those rules are not fixed? A recent study of hydrogen (H2)—one of the simplest molecules in nature—showed that the allowed pathways between quantum states are determined not solely by the molecule’s internal symmetry but also by its surroundings. By embedding hydrogen molecules in different crystalline environments, Nathan McLane and colleagues from the University of Maryland, College Park, have demonstrated that the symmetry of the host material can selectively enable or suppress nuclear-spin transitions [1]. In doing so, the team revealed that quantum dynamics is not just an intrinsic property—it can be shaped by the environment.
H2 is one of the simplest systems for exploring quantum behavior. Its two identical protons can align their spins in two different ways: In so-called orthohydrogen the nuclear spins are parallel, whereas in parahydrogen they are antiparallel. Although this difference is subtle, it leads to markedly different physical properties for the two forms. Crucially, transitions between them are highly constrained: In an isolated hydrogen molecule, the overall wave function is symmetric under exchange of the two protons, and this exchange symmetry forbids direct conversion between ortho and para states [2]. This restriction makes H2 a textbook example of how symmetry governs quantum dynamics.
