Far East supercomputing: Singapore to take "quantum leap"

WE'VE seen China, Japan and Korea race toward their petaflop-class systems over the next few years.

However, the small hyper-developed city-state of Singapore, one-third the size of Greater London area, has to look for alternative ways & means to fight for the top place in supercomputing.

Today, under a bold statement "The world's fastest computer may be invented in Singapore in the next 10 to 20 years" the government here launched the Research Centre of Excellence on Quantum Information Science and Technology, or QIST.

The dosh to be pumped in for the tropical quantum supercomputing institute amounts to SG$ 150 million - or US$100 million today, probably more tomorrow if US$ continues its collapse.

Singapore's choice of quantum computing is not that unique in the region. China and Japan also have research in the area, but the potential for much higher performance for a given size is attractive to the city-state, where, as always, the land is at a premium.

Professor Artur Ekert, the new centre's director, emphasised future more sophisticated kinds of super-secure quantum cryptography as one of the product targets, or in his words, "so secure that you don't even have to trust equipment that you could buy from a vendor." I guess that's just the tip of the iceberg, as word "security" carries many meanings these days. µ