DRDO’s young scientists complete testing of 6-qubit quantum processor


New Delhi, (IANS): Scientists from DRDO's Young Scientists Laboratory for Quantum Technologies (DYSL-QT) have completed end-to-end testing of a 6-qubit quantum processor, the Ministry of Defence said.

“The project executed at TIFR Mumbai’s Colaba campus is a three-way collaboration between DYSL-QT, TIFR and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The DYSL-QT scientists put together the control and measurement apparatus using a combination of commercial off-the-shelf electronics and custom-programmed development boards,” the ministry said.

It added that these qubits were designed and fabricated at TIFR and the quantum processor architecture is based on a novel ring-resonator design invented at TIFR. The cloud-based interface to the quantum hardware is developed by TCS.

“The scientists are now working on optimising various aspects of the system performance before it becomes ready for operation,” the ministry said.

The ministry added that plans are underway to provide wider access to this system for education, and research and eventually as a test bed for testing superconducting quantum devices for analysis.

“The next development target is to scale up the number of qubits and assess the scaling trends to technology challenges, development effort/time and monetary resources required for development, operations and commercialisation of various sizes of quantum computers,” it added.The ministry said that this will involve a holistic view from the quantum theory to engineering to business feasibility. DRDO’s young scientists complete testing of 6-qubit quantum processor | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
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Musk plans largest-ever supercomputer for xAI startup: report

CALIFORNIA - Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk has told investors he plans to build a supercomputer dubbed "gigafactory of compute" to support the development of his artificial intelligence startup xAI, an industry news outlet reported on Saturday.

Musk wants the supercomputer -- which will string together 100,000 Nvidia chips -- operational by fall 2025, and "will hold himself personally responsible for delivering it on time," The Information said.

The planned supercomputer would be "at least four times the size of the biggest GPU clusters that exist today," such as those used by Meta to train its AI models, Musk was quoted as saying during a presentation to investors this month.


Since OpenAi's generative AI tool ChatGPT exploded on the scene in 2022, the technology has been an area of fierce competition between tech giants Microsoft and Google, as well as Meta and start-ups like Anthropic and Stability AI.

Musk is one of the world's few investors with deep enough pockets to compete with OpenAI, Google or Meta on AI.

xAI is developing a chatbot named Grok, which can access social media platform X, the former Twitter which is also owned by Musk, in real time.

Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 but left in 2018, later saying he was uncomfortable with the profit-driven direction the company was taking under the stewardship of CEO Sam Altman.

He filed a lawsuit against the company in March, accusing it of breaking its original non-profit mission to make AI research available to all.OpenAI argues that Musk's lawsuit, as well as his embrace of open source development, is little more than a case of sour grapes after leaving the company. Musk plans largest-ever supercomputer for xAI startup: report
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