Published on the 16/01/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Advances being made in Australian and New Zealand Universities are beating a path toward information systems which offer orders of magnitude improvements in security…
Scientists working on quantum computing technology at the Australian National University, the University of Otago, and Griffith University have this month all announced breakthroughs that herald the possibility of significant improvements in data security.
ANU and Otago scientists developing a prototype quantum hard drive revealed in an article published in Nature magazine that they have improved storage time by a factor of more than 100 – taking the time that qubits (quantum computing’s equivalent of digital bits) can be stored to six hours. The technology takes advantage of fundamental laws of quantum physics, notably Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, to make data essentially unhackable.
Traditionally computer security has been addressed by encrypting data and providing a key to unlock it. In quantum computing the key is essentially a part of the way information is stored at the atomic level, and because of the Heisenberg principle, impossible to access nefariously.
In the past however it’s only been possible to store qubits for milliseconds before they collapse – again a feature of the way quantum computing works – but making the technology impractical for application. The teams of physicists at ANU and the University of Otago have now managed to store quantum information in atoms of the rare earth element, europium, embedded in a crystal which has permitted much longer storage.
Meanwhile scientists at Griffith University have this month also published their quantum computing research findings in the Nature Communications journal. Again, exploiting Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the team has developed a technique described as “quantum steering” which is being touted as an essential building block for absolutely secure information transfer over long distances.
While these laboratory advances are significant and important, they are not going to offer a security silver bullet any time soon.
In its most recent emerging technology hype cycle IT analyst Gartner forecast that the benefits promised by quantum computing were at least ten years away.
But for the next generation of computer users, quantum computing could provide a secure alternative for critical applications and A/NZ scientists are playing a significant role.
