Quantum computers, systems that process and store information leveraging quantum mechanical phenomena, could eventually outperform classical computers on numerous tasks. Among other things, these computers could allow researchers to tackle complex optimization problems, speed up drug discovery and better protect users against cyber-security threats.
Despite their advantages, most existing quantum computers are still only accessible to a limited number of people worldwide. Computer scientists have thus been trying to develop approaches that could facilitate their widespread use in the near term, for instance using cloud-based systems that allow remote access to quantum servers.
While cloud-based approaches could broaden people's access to quantum computing, they also pose significant privacy and security risks, as the information and activity of users could be maliciously accessed. In recent years, some studies introduced approaches that could overcome these limitations, allowing servers to conceal a client's algorithms, as well as the information fed or produced by a cloud-based quantum computing system.
Researchers at University of Oxford recently set out to experimentally test a proposed approach for realizing verifiable blind quantum computing. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, validates the promise of this approach for enhancing the safety of cloud-based quantum computing platforms.
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