Tim Serewicz, The Linux Foundation | Open Source Summit Europe 2022

This is texturing TV. All right, guys, we're back live at the open source Foundation Europe event in Dublin. We're here with Tim sirowitz who's the director of training for all things open source, and in particular Quantum Computing is our subject today Tim.

Welcome to show thanks for having me Mike. Appreciate it. What is the state of quantum Computing right now?

I mean we see lots of advances people talking about it all the time. No one's quite sure what the applications are what code to write for it and how it might actually play out. But give us a little update on where we are.

You know, it's it's a good question because there's so many people working on it spending trillions of dollars now and that with the tea. Yeah it all up. There's a lot of people that will talk about what's happened that may not have actually happened recently.

A big company said we've achieved Quantum Advantage meaning we did something a super computer would take 10,000 years to do. Well, it turns out that what it does is a algorithm built for that quantum computer. So it's not realistic.

It's not useful and another research team. Did it in 200 hours? So what was years of where we've done it has now been undone and that's the history of quantum Computing.

We've done something only to have somebody else say not really so where we are now is we can use a real quantum computer. We can entangle qubits. These are quantum particles.

Making use of those entangled qubits. Oh, that's still what we're working on. The researcher just said they were up to 13 entangled qubits, and we would need hundreds perhaps Millions to have a quantum computer and what people would call a quantum computer a useful quantum computer.

So we're at the cusp of it. I my thought is we need to hit the point where the quantum computer can actually help us solve the other issues of quantum computers. I kind of sounded like Dr.

Hill yourself. I'm to some extent. Yes.

As in developer, how much do I need to go into the depths of that or remind just going to be presented with a bunch of apis and sdks some days that I just invoke and and happens to be done by a quantum computer on the other side and I'll be like well, that's nice but I didn't know look ma. No hands. Absolutely.

That is the absolute goal and there are teams working on it. You can today you can get involved with quantum computers and not have to know anything about quantum mechanics. You can just call the library.

The issues are whereas with transistors. We had a 20-year period where hey we have a vacuum tube now, we have a transistor and then let's write a couple libraries and more libraries that's all happening in parallel. And as many things have you try changing 10 different layers simultaneously every time you change one layer and then this layer has to change and that's what's happening is so much is happening that yes, you could go and be a physicist and work on the entanglement of these things on the other hand.

There's there's people who are riding libraries and there's people who writing languages so that you and I wouldn't have to know anything, but just, you know, if config this Do that and it magically works. So all of it's happening simultaneously. As well with the advancements of the cloud.

There's even a further abstraction where I won't even know that my local machine made a call to a quantum computer. So your phone for example for Quantum encryption. You don't need a quantum computer in your hand.

It will just call to one figure out the equation bring it back to you. So all of the above is true simultaneously sort of like Quantum. So you're earlier Point are we not being Innovative enough and exploratory enough because it seems like we're trying to improve that we can take existing workloads and run them faster on a Quantum machine when in reality we should be doing things we couldn't think about doing before that weren't possible and we should expand our Horizons a little bit and there are people who spend time doing that thinking about it.

There's some great organizations that do that to call out one that has been very helpful to me in my learning process is an organization called strange works and they call themselves The Switzerland of quantum. They're not choosing any winners. They're just telling you how it works and they spend time thinking about that probably.

The best explanation of what Quantum will be is imagine that you you want to go someplace so you can run some speed you can take a car some sued 60 miles an hour a bullet train goes 300 miles an hour. And what Quantum is is using a space shuttle that yes, it can go faster but a bullet train doesn't leave the Earth that that rocket ship that got you there in no time at all. You can also go to the Moon with so it's going to be transformational not just faster most people see it as as faster it is that hopefully but it's also different the way that the information is actually gathered in again without getting too deep into the quantum mechanics behind it.

We'll be capable of doing things. We don't understand yet. So for example, there are some some theorists who might be a little bit out there on the leading Leading Edge who say that that we're the answers are coming from we'll ask a question of a Quantum machine.

And will answer what we should have asked. Now a finite machine can't do that. Like you say what's 2 + 2 you get four every time and this would come back with the answer like well, you're really trying to solve this problem.

Here's the answer to what you should have asked me and that's where Quantum will probably be that's going to be the change is that it's going to be like a person that when I say, what's the weather like and the answer back you won't need an umbrella today. Because that's what you really wanted to know, but you asked her one thing you got the answer instead. So is that going to be the ultimate manifestation of what we're looking for?

What artificial intelligence because the issue with AI is you kind of still need to know what questions to ask. Absolutely and if I knew the question to ask in the first place. I probably could figure out where I was gonna get the answer.

Anyway there I think there's a strong argument. I happen to believe this argument that we won't have great AI until we have quantum. The security Community is flipping out about Quantum.

Yes the issue it as I understand it is like the algorithms could be theoretically broken by a Quantum machine or soon will be and then we need to replace all the algorithms with something. That's Quantum ready. Where where are we on that Journey?

What's going on? Well, you should worry and this is something that's been a lot of time talking about so anybody slows down near me I jump on them. We should all Embrace security agility right now to a large extent organizations with the security software.

They do have some security mandated. This is a good thing but they'll call out. Let's say 128 billion, which is good for today and a lot of organizations like well worry about it when it happens.

It might never happen. The problem is is there's there's Bad actors in the world and those Bad actors can collect your encrypted data now, And then decrypt it later. So you can't actually wait until Quantum is useful because maybe it's two years.

Maybe it's five years, but would as an organization. Would you want to give a bad actor all of your information that's five years old and most places would say absolutely not. So two things really need to happen is we need to start today.

We need to start yesterday and nist just came out with four new encryption protocols. There's trying to standardize it because everybody's running in their own area and trying to hurt cats. There's now four new and they're working in a whole another set of standards for encryption that are quantum resistant and this is part of that.

Like I'm going to answer the question you meant to ask we don't know how good Quantum will be that yes on a mathematical perspect, you know, 256-bit or 5 or 12 bed encryption should still take Quantum a very long time to decrypt unless we can achieve that otherworldly that does something we don't even know yet that figures out 512 1024 bait encryption got it. So we don't know. So not only should we double triple our current encryption.

What we should do is plan for swapping out aren't interested in standards themselves. So don't hard code anything have it be like a library call go use security tool and plan for that to be swapped out. Almost Nobody Does that which means governments Fortune 500 companies.

They're looking at a decade or more to change their encryption if they even know what they're using. So it's systemically culturally. This is a huge issue.

It's it's you can see the waveforming and nobody's looking at the ocean. Right and there's a guy named Murphy who says that for sure. This is all going to go the wrong way.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you know, it's it's a rule.

Yes, absolutely. You guys have launched these training programs. What are they consist of what can people tap into and you know, what should they expect and how do they get started?

Well, we we do have a course I happen to have written the course and it's Quantum 101. The course was written in conjunction with the World Bank and several different people in the industry. I interview these various people on Quantum Computing.

It was the course was written for leaders of developing countries of large organizations of people who aren't looking at the ocean and it was to educate them. This is the wave that's coming because in order to meet this need we should really be educating our kids and we should know it shouldn't be just here's your iPad. It's like here's an iPad and here's what an entangled bid is.

This is what a cubit is because we're gonna have to have a cultural change just like the transistor. We didn't see you holding a cell phone and having a self-driving car. We didn't see that when the transistor was invented.

That's what's gonna happen to us. And our technology needs are going to be like that. So this course is meant is a very basic overview primarily for non-technical people.

And the idea is you take this three or four hour course and you should be looking at the way you may not know what caused it or what's going to happen. But at least you've turned said, oh now I get it and it's freely available. org.

And it's it's Quantum Computing 101 and sign up for it and take it. How long before our kids look at us like we're archaic because we were using these conventional programs back in the day and they'll pass on our head as they're going to work. It will actually have my you know, my 11 year old is going to to do the same things.

I did when my parents VCR was blinking 12 all the time. Like it's not that hard. He's hold these three buttons and you keep tapping this fourth one.

Obviously, it's gonna be like that and it's going to be one of those things like I mentioned your cell phone. We'll just have a call to a Quantum machine someplace and do something for us that we won't even realize and you and I may not understand it. But absolutely a 10 year old today will use it when at least by the time there are age.

We see a lot of announcements from various countries and agencies and companies talking about you know, how many qubits they put together and what level of performance are we involved in some sort of quantum Computing arms race without knowing about it. Absolutely. There are people who don't want you to know what they're doing.

And those are for the same security reasons. I just mentioned all so if you think about it, if I'm if I'm a bad actor, I wouldn't want you to know that I can read your stuff yet and there's an argument to be made that with a functional quantum computer I could get through whatever your security is and then basically move your research backwards. And and it's sort of like the first person to invent time travel is gonna, you know be able to go back in time and do whatever they want.

We could be there with Quantum machines already. It's there's different organizations. They announced a Quantum machine that it kind of disappeared Suddenly It's not available anymore, but they have a simulator those kinds of things always make me wonder.

What did they discover either did it fail and they don't want to be no or did they make such a huge advancement that they're capitalizing it right now and they're gonna wait until it leaks and people figure it out before they actually come forward and say we did it. There's there's two driving factors one Bad actors trying to take advantage of it and then people who want to continue funding maybe they've gone down the wrong path, but they're not going to talk about that. I mean that that's not the way to further funding, you know, and it's it's tough to know what's real and what is aspiration.

All right, guys, you heard the Paradox here. If this doesn't work out as planned. It's because somebody from the future came back and just messed it all up.

Anyway. Hey, thanks for being on the show. Thanks Mike.

I appreciate it. All right guys. Thanks for watching and we'll be back in a minute.