I just attended the "Quantum Europe" conference in Amsterdam, where the manifesto was announced and where the details were worked out.
While the manifesto is surely geared towards a specific audience (politicians) and contains a lot of buzzwords, the flagship project is very well thought out and supported by some of the largest research institutions inside and outside of Europe (e.g. including Intel, who invested 50 million in the QuTech centre in Delft).
The author tries to convey the impression that the manifesto and flagship project are the result of some undemocratic and misguided funding process, while in fact they are the result of many years of work putting together a proposal for this kind of project. This effort, which was mainly done by the scientific community, dates back to 2009 and earlier and has been a fully transparent and community-led effort.
The ideas behind the flagship project are very sound as well (in my opinion): Get different research groups in Europe to collaborate and share resources, provide a level of funding that allows those researchers to compete with e.g the US / Canada / Australia (which are all investing similar amounts) and get the industry involved to commercialize technologies where possible.
Also, qantum computing is only one of several flagship projects that have been selected for funding, the Human Brain project being another one.
All in all this kind of funding scheme in which scientists rather than politicians play a leading role are highly welcome in my opinion, and I would like to see this model copied around the world.
Concerning the potential overselling of quantum technologies: The limitations and uncertainties of this research were discussed very openly at the conference, and many speakers explicitly warned against promising too much to the public.
All in all I think all actors are aware of the fact that quantum computing / cryptography won't solve all their problems, but they still believe that these technologies might have a deep impact on the European and world economy in the next 20 years.
Why is this money taken from "European Cloud Initiative"? It has nothing to do with it. Is the comission aware of this fact?
Are all those research institutions standing behind claimed security impact of their work? Were security experts and cryptographers involved, or is this just wild speculation from physicists as DJB's Theory 2 assumes.
I'm all for moving more EU money to basic research, but money can be moved to the direction I want with wrong promises.
Still, you don't have to search the Manifesto for the flaws to understand what the writer is criticizing. And I believe the whole context is even more important, and it is explained in the Nature article mentioned by the writer:
"The European Commission says that its goal is to "give Europe a global lead in the data-driven economy" so that everyone reaps "benefits of big data revolution". How could they have thought that this goal justifies putting massive funding (1 billion Euros, 15% of the total European Cloud Initiative funding) into quantum computation? Here are three theories:
- malice "If I tell them that quantum computers won't process big data then they'll take away money for quantum-algorithms research"
- stupidity "people could have been honestly thinking that quantum algorithms are important for big data, because they simply don't know any better."
- marketing "The European Commission actually has only the foggiest idea of what it means by "the Cloud" and "the data-driven economy." "Isn't even the tiniest piece of data part of the big-data revolution that surrounds us all? Join us in relabeling your research with the latest buzzwords!"
and
"Instead of highlighting the security threat of quantum technology and recommending funding for a scientifically justified response, the Manifesto makes the thoroughly deceptive claim that quantum technology improves security."
I could be wrong but I'm sure that once the relevant level (actual calls) is reached research proposals about the security impact of quantum computing will be very welcome. I wouldn't be shocked if a couple of research projects on post-quantum cryptography would be funded. In fact I'll go ahead and say there will be a clause in all calls along the lines of "ethical, security, privacy and legal issues and social impact has to be outlined in the proposal"
The way I read it is: "Other people will research it, EU needs to research it as well" and that's the security benefit (not being behind on what could be a core technology with security and other implications).
European Semantic Web: http://eswc-conferences.org/ "Various automated services, based on reasoning with metadata and ontologies, will help the users to achieve their goals by accessing and processing information in machine-understandable form."
[+] [-] ThePhysicist|10 years ago|reply
While the manifesto is surely geared towards a specific audience (politicians) and contains a lot of buzzwords, the flagship project is very well thought out and supported by some of the largest research institutions inside and outside of Europe (e.g. including Intel, who invested 50 million in the QuTech centre in Delft).
The author tries to convey the impression that the manifesto and flagship project are the result of some undemocratic and misguided funding process, while in fact they are the result of many years of work putting together a proposal for this kind of project. This effort, which was mainly done by the scientific community, dates back to 2009 and earlier and has been a fully transparent and community-led effort.
The ideas behind the flagship project are very sound as well (in my opinion): Get different research groups in Europe to collaborate and share resources, provide a level of funding that allows those researchers to compete with e.g the US / Canada / Australia (which are all investing similar amounts) and get the industry involved to commercialize technologies where possible.
Also, qantum computing is only one of several flagship projects that have been selected for funding, the Human Brain project being another one.
All in all this kind of funding scheme in which scientists rather than politicians play a leading role are highly welcome in my opinion, and I would like to see this model copied around the world.
Concerning the potential overselling of quantum technologies: The limitations and uncertainties of this research were discussed very openly at the conference, and many speakers explicitly warned against promising too much to the public.
All in all I think all actors are aware of the fact that quantum computing / cryptography won't solve all their problems, but they still believe that these technologies might have a deep impact on the European and world economy in the next 20 years.
More background information on the FET flagships within the Horizon 2020 programme: projects:http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/...
[+] [-] nabla9|10 years ago|reply
Are all those research institutions standing behind claimed security impact of their work? Were security experts and cryptographers involved, or is this just wild speculation from physicists as DJB's Theory 2 assumes.
I'm all for moving more EU money to basic research, but money can be moved to the direction I want with wrong promises.
[+] [-] matt4077|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acqq|10 years ago|reply
http://www.nature.com/news/row-hits-flagship-brain-plan-1.15...
and I'd also suggest the example of the other Europe's "big project" mismanagement, also mentioned in the Nature's article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-human-brai...
I agree with the writer's opinions:
"The European Commission says that its goal is to "give Europe a global lead in the data-driven economy" so that everyone reaps "benefits of big data revolution". How could they have thought that this goal justifies putting massive funding (1 billion Euros, 15% of the total European Cloud Initiative funding) into quantum computation? Here are three theories:
- malice "If I tell them that quantum computers won't process big data then they'll take away money for quantum-algorithms research"
- stupidity "people could have been honestly thinking that quantum algorithms are important for big data, because they simply don't know any better."
- marketing "The European Commission actually has only the foggiest idea of what it means by "the Cloud" and "the data-driven economy." "Isn't even the tiniest piece of data part of the big-data revolution that surrounds us all? Join us in relabeling your research with the latest buzzwords!"
and
"Instead of highlighting the security threat of quantum technology and recommending funding for a scientifically justified response, the Manifesto makes the thoroughly deceptive claim that quantum technology improves security."
[+] [-] kriro|10 years ago|reply
The way I read it is: "Other people will research it, EU needs to research it as well" and that's the security benefit (not being behind on what could be a core technology with security and other implications).
[+] [-] djulius|10 years ago|reply
"Semantic Web" did much better by having plenty of millions euros projects funded in FP6/7 and H2020 with absolutely no outcome.
[+] [-] acqq|10 years ago|reply
European Semantic Web: http://eswc-conferences.org/ "Various automated services, based on reasoning with metadata and ontologies, will help the users to achieve their goals by accessing and processing information in machine-understandable form."
FP7: https://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7/index_en.cfm
H2020: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/
[+] [-] yyin|10 years ago|reply
Will we see a surge in quantum_____.com domain regstrations?
How about a .quantum TLD?
Keep the hype machine rolling.