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Clarke urges other companies to also get ready now by investing in developing a quantum-ready workforce. “Quantum computing requires a specialized workforce, expertise that is pretty rare today,” he says. Clarke also advises companies to work with government agencies that are sponsoring quantum computing experiments and to fund quantum research in universities. He also supports nation-wide initiatives to spread the word all the way down the education system, even to high-school students, “so people aren’t scared or intimidated by the word quantum.”


Intel aims to achieve quantum practicality—commercially-viable quantum computing—by the end of this decade.

For the first time, researchers have designed a fully connected 32-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer register operating at cryogenic temperatures. The new system represents an important step toward developing practical quantum computers.

Junki Kim from Duke University will present the new hardware design at the inaugural OSA Quantum 2.0 conference to be co-located as an all-virtual event with OSA Frontiers in Optics and Laser Science APS/DLS (FiO + LS) conference 14—17 September.

Instead of using traditional bits that can only be a zero or a one, quantum computers use qubits that can be in a superposition of computational states. This allows quantum computers to solve problems that are too complex for traditional computers.

Nov 2019 NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND

—In a handful of cities around the world, mosquitoes have been armed with a microscopic weapon against disease. The bacterium Wolbachia pipientis blocks the insects’ ability to spread fearsome viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. Since 2011, researchers have been injecting Wolbachia into the eggs of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and releasing the hatched insects, which spread this protection to their offspring. But the field has been waiting for evidence that this approach actually reduces disease in people.

Field trials suggest public health benefit to spreading Wolbachia.