 theCUBE's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies, creating technologies that drive human progress. Welcome back to DeFita in Barcelona. You're watching theCUBE's coverage, day two of MWC23. Check out siliconangle.com for all the news. John Furrier is in our Palo Alto studio, breaking that down, but we're here, live Dave Vellante, Dave Nicholson, and Lisa Martin. We're really excited. We're going to talk Cupid's Vanessa Diaz is here. She's CEO of LuxaQuanta, and Antonio Asin is a professor of ICFO. Folks, welcome to theCUBE. We're going to talk quantum. Really excited about that. Thank you guys for... What does quantum have to do with the network? Tell us. Right, so we are actually leaving the second quantum revolution. So the first one actually happened a few years ago. It enabled very much the communications that we have today. So in this second quantum revolution, if in the first one we learn about some very basic properties of quantum physics, now our scientific community is able to actually work with the systems and ask them to do things. So quantum technologies mean right now three main pillars, no areas of exploration. The first one is quantum computing. Everybody knows about that. Antonio knows a lot about that too, so he can explain further. And it's about computers that now can do wonders. So the ability of these computers to compute is amazing, so they'll be able to do amazing things. The other pillar is quantum communications, but in fact it's slightly older than a quantum computer. Nobody knows that. And we are the ones that are coming to actually counteract the superpowers of quantum computers. And last but not least, quantum sensing. That's the application of, again, quantum physics to measure things that were impossible to measure with such level of quality or precision and before. So that's very much where we are right now. Okay, so I think I missed the first wave of quantum computing, right? Okay, but my understanding is, you know, ones and zeros, they can be both, and the qubits aren't that stable, et cetera. But where are we today, Antonio, in terms of actually being able to apply quantum computing? I'm inferring from what Vanessa said that we've actually already applied it, but has it been more educational or is there actual work going on with quantum? Well, at the moment, I mean, typical question is like whether we have a quantum computer or not. I think we do have some quantum computers, some machines that are able to deal with these quantum bits. But of course, this first generation of quantum computers, they have noise, they're imperfect, they don't have many qubits. So we have to understand what we can do with these quantum computers today. Okay, this is science, but also technology, working together to solve relevant problems. So at this moment, it's not clear what we can do with present quantum computers, but we also know what we can do with a perfect quantum computer without noise, with many quantum bits, with many qubits, okay? And for instance, then we can solve problems that are out of reach for our classical computers. So the typical example is the problem of factorization that is very connected to what Vanessa does in her company. So we have identified problems that can be solved more efficiently with a quantum computer, okay? With a very good quantum computer. People are working to have this very good quantum computer. At the moment, we have some imperfect quantum computers. We have to understand what we can do with these imperfect machines. Okay, so the first wave was, okay, we have it working for a little while, so we can see the potential, okay? And we have enough evidence, almost like a little experiment. Okay, so that's, and now it's, apply it to actually do some real work, right? Yeah, so now there is interest by companies, so because they see a potential there, so they are investing, and they are working together with scientists. We have to identify use cases, problems of relevance for all of us, and then once you identify a problem where a quantum computer can help, you try to solve it with existing machines and see if you can get an advantage, okay? So now the community is really obsessed with getting a quantum advantage, okay? So we really hope that we will get a quantum advantage. Okay, this we know we will get it. We eventually have a very good quantum computer, okay? But we want to have it now. And we're working on that. We have some results that were, there were some say, I would say a bit academic situation which a quantum advantage was proven, but to be honest with you, on a really practical problem, this has not happened yet, okay? But I believe that this happens, then I mean it would be really a game in changing. So you mentioned the word efficiency, and you talked about the quantum advantage. Is the quantum advantage a qualitative advantage in that it is fundamentally different? Or is it simply a question of greater efficiency, so therefore a quantitative advantage? The example in the world we're used to, think about a card system where you're writing information on a card and putting it into a filing cabinet, and then you want to retrieve it. Well, the information's all there, you can retrieve it. Computer system accelerates that process. It's not doing something that is fundamentally different unless you accept that the speed with which these things can be done gives it a separate quality. So how would you characterize that, quantum versus non-quantum? Is it just so much horsepower changes the game, or is it fundamentally different? Okay, so from a fundamental perspective, quantum physics is qualitatively different from classical physics. I mean, this year the Nobel Prize was given to three experimentalists who made experiments that proved that quantum physics is qualitatively different from classical physics. This is established. I mean, there have been experiments proving that. Now when we discuss about quantum computation, it's more a quantitative difference. So we have problems that you can solve with your... In principle, you can solve for the classical computers, but maybe the amount of time you need to solve them is we are talking about centuries. And not with your laptop, even with a classic supercomputer, these machines that are huge where you have a building full of computers, there are some problems for which classical computers take centuries to solve them. So you can say that it's quantitative, but in practice you may even say it's impossible in practice. And it will remain impossible, okay? And now these problems become feasible with a quantum computer. So it's quantitative, but almost qualitative, I would say. Before we get into the problems, because I want to understand some of those examples, but Vanessa, so your role at LuxQuanta is you're applying quantum in the communication sector for security purposes, correct? Correct. Because everybody talks about how quantum is going to ruin our lives in terms of taking all our passwords and figuring everything out. But can quantum help us defend against quantum? And is that what you do? That's what we do. So one of the things that Antonio is explaining, so a quantum computer will be able to solve in a reasonable amount of time, something that today is impossible to solve unless it takes, if you leave a laptop or a supercomputer working for years. So one of those things is cryptography. So at the end when you send a message and you want to preserve its confidentiality, what you do is you destroy it, but following certain rules, which means you're using some kind of key and therefore you can send it through a public network, which is the case for every communication that we have, we go through the internet, and then the receiver is going to be able to reassemble it because they have that private key that nobody else has. So that private key is actually made of computational problems or mathematical problems that are very hard. We're talking about 40 years time for a supercomputer today to be able to hack it. However, we do not have the guarantee that there is already a very smart mind that already have potentially, you know, the capacity also for quantum computer even with enough, no millions, but maybe just a few qubits enough to actually hack this cryptography. And there is also the fear that somebody could actually waiting for quantum computing to finally reach out this amazing capacity, be harvesting now, which means capturing all these confidential information, storage in it. So when we are ready to have the power to unlock it and hack it and see what's behind it. So we're talking about information as delicate as governmental citizens' information related to health, for example, you name it. So what we do is we build a key to encrypt the information that is not relying on a mathematical problem, it's relying on the laws of quantum physics. So I'm going to have a channel that I'm going to pump photons there, light, particles of light, and that quantum channel because of the laws of physics is going to allow to detect somebody trying to sneak in and seeing the key that I'm establishing. If that happens, I will not create a key. If it's clean and nobody was there, I'll give you a super key that nobody today or in the future, regardless of the computational power, will be able to have. So it's like zero, a super zero trust. Super zero trust, that's it. Okay, so quantum can solve really challenging mathematical problems. If you had a quantum computer, could you be a Bitcoin billionaire? No, that I know. I think people are, okay, now you move me a bit of my comfort zone, okay? Because I know people are working on that. I don't think there is a lot of progress, at least not that I am aware of, okay? But I mean, in principle, you have to understand that our society is based on information and computation, okay? Computers are a key element in our society. And if you have a machine that computes better, but much better than our existing machines, this gives you an advantage for many things. I mean, progress is locked by many computational problems we cannot solve. We can want to have better materials, better medicines, better drugs. I mean, you have to solve hard computational problems. If you have a machine that gives you a machine learning, big data. I mean, if you have a machine that gives you an advantage there, this may be a really real challenge. I'm not saying that we know how to do these things with a quantum computer, okay? But if we understand how this machine that has been proven more powerful in some context can be adapted to some other context. I mean, having a much better computer machine is an advantage. When? When are we going to have you? You said we don't really have it today. We want it today. Are we five years away, 10 years away? Who's working on this? There are already quantum computers are there. It's just that the capacity that I have right now is the order of a few hundred qubits. So people are, they are already companies harvesting. They're actually the companies that make these computers, they are already putting them. People can access to them through the cloud and they can actually run certain algorithms that have been tailor made or translated to the language of a quantum computer to see how that performs there. So some people are already working with them. There is billions of investment across the world being put on different flavors of technologies that can reach to that quantum supremacy that we're talking about. The question though that you're asking is Q-Day. It sounds like June's Day, Q-Day. So depending on who you talk to, they will give you a different estimation. So some people say, well, 2030 for example, but perhaps we could even think that it could be my more aggressive day, maybe 2027. So it is yet to be the final, let's say, not that hard deadline. But I think that the risk that it can actually bring is big enough for us to pay attention to this and start preparing for it. So at the end in terms of cryptography, that's what L'Expanta is doing because we have a system here that can actually prevent all your communications from being hacked. So if you think also about Q-Day and you go all the way back, so whatever tools you need to protect yourself from it, you need to deploy them. You need to see how they fit in your organization, evaluate the benefits, learn about it so that how long, how close in time does that bring us because I believe that it's time to start thinking about this now. And it's likely it'll be some type of hybrid that will get us there, a hybrid between existing applications because you have to rewrite or write new applications and that's going to take some time, but it sounds like you feel like this decade, we will see Q-Day. What probability would you give that? Is it better than 50-50 that, but by 2030 we'll see Q-Day? Well, I'm optimistic by nature, so yes, I think it's much higher than 50. Like how much are you? 80, I would say, yes, I'm pretty confident. I mean, but what I want to say also, usually when I think there is a message here, so you have your laptop, okay? In the past I had a spectrum, I don't know if you, this is very small computer. It was more or less the same size, but this machine is much more powerful. Why? Because we put information on smaller scales. So we always put information in smaller scale, this white here you have for the same size, you have much more information because you put on smaller scales, okay? So if you go small and small and small, you find the quantum world. So this is unavoidable. So our information devices are going to meet the quantum world and they are going to exploit it. I'm fully convinced about this. For maybe not for the quantum computer we're imagining now, but they will find it and they will use quantum effects and also for cryptography. For me, this is unavoidable. And you brought the point, there are several companies working on that. I mean, I can get quantum computers in the cloud and Amazon and other suppliers. IBM, of course. The underlying technology is not, there are competing versions of how you actually create these qubits, spins of electrons and all sorts of different things. Does it need to be super cooled or not? At a fundamental stage where to be getting ground. But what does chat GPT look like when it can leverage the quantum realm? Are we all out of jobs at that point? Should we all just be planning for? No, I don't. But not you. Yeah, I think all of us. Real estate in Portugal, should we all be looking? No, actually, one of the things, I mean, in machine learning, there are some hopes about quantum computation because usually you have to deal with lots of data and we know that in quantum pieces you have a concept that is called superposition. So we, there are some hopes, nothing concrete yet, but we have some hopes that these superpositions may allow you to explore this big data in a more efficient way. One has to see if this can be confirmed, okay? But one of the hopes creating these lots of qubits in these superpositions that you will have better artificial intelligence machines. But okay, this is quite a science feature, what I'm saying now, okay? At this point, and when you say superposition, that's in contrast to the ones and zeros that we're used to. So when someone says it can be a one or zero or a one and a zero, that's referencing the concept of superposition. And so if this is great for encryption, doesn't that necessarily mean that bad actors can leverage it in a way that is now unhackable? I mean, our technology is, again, it's impossible to hack because it's the laws of physics what are allowing me to detect an intruder. So that's the beauty of it. It's not something that you're going to have to replace in the future because there will be a triple quantum computer, you know? It's not going to affect us in any way. But definitely the more capacity, the more computational capacity that we see out there in quantum computers in particular, but in any other technologies in general, I mean, when we were coming to talk to you guys, Antonio and I, he was the one saying, we do not know whether somebody has reached some relevant computational power already with the technologies that we have and they've been able to hack already cooler cryptography and then they're not telling us. So it's a bit of a, the message is a little bit like a paranoid message, but if you think about security, the amount of millions that that means for a private institution, when there is a data breach, we see it every day, and also the amount of information that is relevant for the well-being of a country, can you really put a reasonable amount of parallel to that, you know? Because I believe that it's worth exploring whatever tool is going to prevent you from putting any of those pieces of information at risk. Super interesting topic guys, I know you're going to run, thanks for stopping by theCUBE, it was great to have you on. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. All right, so this is the SiliconANGLE CUBE's coverage of Mobile World Congress, MWC now 23, we're live at the theater, check out siliconangle.com and thecube.net for all the videos. We're right back, right after this short break.