Abstract: With the quantum technology maturing – Quantum System One being installed around the world, how can the world get quantum-ready today?

In this session, you’ll hear about the necessary future regulations around this emerging technology. We’ll debate on the need for quantum computing to remain open access, about the necessary infrastructure for this technology to truly flourish, about education and awareness raising – not just when it comes to physics and computer science graduates, but also high schoolers and workers from diverse, very diverse fields.

Abstract: We have developed new quantum algorithms that could enable risk analysis of investment portfolios in nearly real time. Today, such analyses can take many hours to perform, so an immediate reaction on changing circumstances is impossible.

Other applications where quantum algorithms may benefit the financial industry include pricing options and portfolio optimization, as well as the detection of credit card fraud, to just name a few. In this session, we will cover the main use cases and discuss the latest developments from our collaborations with financial institutions.

Abstract: This session is currently under embargo, pending an imminent announcement.

Abstract: This session will dive into the different ways RoboRXN and new quantum software tools such as the Qiskit application modules for chemistry, both developed by IBM researchers mainly at the Zurich Lab, are putting materials discovery on the fast track. These technologies should help us develop better batteries, among other things – improving their storage capacity and addressing sustainability.

Abstract: Move over, Star Wars. Despite what Lucasfilm wants us to believe, light does not interact with light, and one light beam can cross another without affecting it in any way. To force such interaction, we need matter to mediate it.

Such interaction would pave the way to optical computing, replacing electricity with light to greatly speed up our gadgets and lower power consumption. Researchers have been studying it for decades, betting on advances in nanotech, quantum tech, and newly developed materials. And our team has recently reached an important milestone.

Using a new class of optoelectronic materials – perovskite nanocrystals – we've been able to switch a light beam on and off using the smallest possible quantum of energy, a single photon. The electronic switches in today’s gadgets, the transistors, need about 100 times more energy and are still 100 times slower than our light switch.

There is still a long way until this becomes a useful technology though. Our switches need to be supplied with laser power that consumes energy to generate it. We are now investigating the so-called “supercrystals” assembled from tiny perovskite nanocrystals that might help us greatly reduce the energy consumption. The research could lead to the development of new materials and photonic structures able to emit and absorb light extremely efficiently – impacting the development of ever brighter and more efficient light sources and photovoltaics.

Abstract: Accelerated Discovery is only possible when we can weave together very specialized computing technologies and data in a seamless manner, using the hybrid cloud. This supercharged implementation of the scientific discovery method thrives on data. But that works only if data is kept and made available in a timely, cost-effective, and controlled way. It’s crucial – and these upcoming sessions will illustrate why.

Abstract: Currently we produce 2.5 quintillion bytes of data on a daily basis, mainly due to the continuous rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), the emergence of high-definition 4K/8K videos and AI-based big-data analyses. At the rate we’re going, worldwide data is expected to hit 175 zettabytes by 2025, representing 61 percent annual growth. One ZB is equivalent to a trillion gigabytes (GB) – the latest cellphones have 256 GB.

So where is all this data being stored?

Magnetic tape – a technology more than 60 years old – is making a huge comeback among hyperscale cloud companies for data storage due to its low cost, low power consumption, and its excellent future scaling potential compared to HDD. But developing a high-performance tape library system to meet service-level agreements can be challenging and costly.

In this fireside chat, Dr. Mark Lantz will talk about a new paper on tape storage libraries (which won the Best Paper Award at the Mascots conference in Nov. 2021), and the renaissance of tape. He will introduce a novel analytical model that accurately captures the principal aspects of tape library operation to help hyperscalers like OVH and Microsoft better design their tape storage libraries to keep cold data from going dark.

Abstract: The number of connected IoT devices has skyrocketed in recent years and the trend is set to continue at an even faster pace. By 2025, predictions put IoT device ownership at 3 per person worldwide, while the amount of data generated will reach a whopping 80 zettabytes. At IBM, researchers are creating the infrastructure to extract the most value from the growing amount of data in a secure and ethical way. We focus on open tools and a hybrid multi-cloud approach and develop the technology to exploit that infrastructure. In this session we will include discussions of applications in AI-assisted chemical sensing and monitoring of large-scale infrastructure such as bridges, wind turbines and others.

Abstract: IBM Research’s new tool, IBM Pathfinder, uses AI to crawl through distributed data processing activities of an enterprise – and extracts metadata to updates a map of the company’s activities in real time. It can be used to give a wide variety of views of an observed space, such as the storage locations of the data and the relationships between data assets. In this session, you will see a demo of the Pathfinder system – and learn what it can do for a company and how it can simplify everyone’s life.

Abstract: Today, machines translate languages, recognize objects and spoken speech. But ask a smartphone assistant something more complex than a basic command, and it will struggle.

Machines with common sense, which rely on an emerging AI technique known as neurosymbolic AI, could greatly increase the value of AI for businesses and society. It learns like human infants, and combines the original, symbolic, AI with deep neural networks that have helped revolutionize the AI field over the past few decades. Deep learning has achieved outstanding success in many AI tasks – resulting in human-like performance at a much higher power than the ~20 watts required by the human brain.

But the lack of common sense isn’t all. In addition to neurosymbolic AI, we are also looking into biologically-inspired computing aspects for the next generation AI systems – what's known as neuromorphic computing. We’ve developed spiking neural units (SNUs) that add biologically-inspired neural dynamics into deep learning – drastically cutting computational cost and the inference time of the speech-to-text transcription. It’s the first successful attempt at demonstrating biologically-inspired deep learning for a fairly involved task – and could greatly improve today’s speech recognition products. This is what this session is about – the ongoing, mind-blowing progress in making AI truly ‘smart’.

Abstract: In this panel discussion, Dr. Teodoro Laino will tell the story of IBM RoboRXN, a cloud-based AI-automated chemistry lab that can cut the discovery and production time of a material in half.

Dr. Laino will show you how he and his team are revolutionizing the art of making materials. He will demonstrate how a chemist can create a molecule remotely from anywhere in the world. But most importantly, he will highlight the vast application potential of IBM RoboRXN by introducing you to an array of industries partners who are currently adopting the technology into their workflows to accelerate more efficient molecular discoveries.

By the end of this session, you will not only understand how IBM RoboRXN can boost a range of initiatives across drug, chemical and molecule discovery; you will also learn about new technical features that support proprietary datasets and allow chemists to predict the most effective and sustainable enzymatic reactions that are critical for greener chemical processes; most importantly, you will also see how a budding technology is making its way from research to commercialization, building a community of chemists and R&D specialists along the way.

IMPORTANT: There will be an EMRARGOED announcement in regard to RoboRXN - taking this technology to exciting new heights!

Abstract: With the COP26 summit just a few weeks behind us, the discussions around how to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are still fresh in our minds. IBM Research believes that using the latest tech and science to accelerate the discovery and development of new materials and techniques is the way forward. This panel will focus on scientific breakthroughs aimed at helping the world deal with the negative impacts of climate change and improving sustainability.

We have just introduced you to IBM RoboRXN for Chemistry. Now we are going to show you how this cloud-based AI-driven autonomous lab along with other AI tools such as Deep Search and generative machine learning models are accelerating the discovery of new materials, including complex polymers and materials for carbon CO2 capture and separation. We will show you how AI is playing a key role in helping researchers identify more biodegradable materials whose byproducts will be kinder to the environment if they end up in the ocean or accumulate in the tissue of living things. Our panelists of IBM researchers will talk passionately about how they are combining materials science, cloud computing and AI to accelerate the discovery of climate change solutions.

Abstract: AI and data are the motors of economic and societal progress today and in the coming decades. It is essential that this technological revolution puts trust front and center. In this session we will discuss the very latest technological developments out of IBM Research to build trustworthy AI that is robust against adversarial attacks and preserves the privacy of sensitive information in training data sets. These techniques are essential for compliance with data protection and AI regulations such as the EU’s GDPR and new upcoming legal frameworks on AI.

Abstract: Cryptocurrency is one of the hottest topics in fintech. But it’s not just about Bitcoin, Ethereum and so on - central banks are also entering the market and exploring digital currencies. In this session, IBM researchers will reveal how they are working with Euroclear, the Central Bank of France, and other institutions in an experiment to make decentralised Central Bank Digital Currencies a reality.

Abstract: IBM cryptography researchers will report in this session on their latest achievements in using cryptographic techniques to improve trust in everything from password privacy to email encryption and analytics of sensitive data. The discussions will touch on new login protocols that do not require revealing users' passwords, vulnerabilities found in widely used email encryption tools and an advanced technique that allows encrypted data to be processed without having to be decrypted.