quantum

Feb 02 2021

Jeff Bezos steps down: Crypto-curious Andy Jassy to become new Amazon CEO

Amazon has announced today that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is planning to step down as CEO, and Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy — who oversaw Amazon’s crypto product offerings — will replace him.

In his letter to employees, Bezos said that he would be transitioning to the role of executive chair of the Amazon board, where he would “focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives.” The transition is scheduled for later in the year.

Bezos also noted that Jassy “will be an outstanding leader, and has my full confidence.”

The crypto world’s attention now turns to Jassy’s history when it comes to embracing blockchain tech, as it could be an indication of long-term crypto strategy of the world’s third most valuable company by market capitalization.

Jassy offered a mixed review of blockchain tech and its applicability to Amazon business in 2017. In a statement at the Amazon re:Invent conference, he expressed doubt that blockchain could be used for more than a “distributed ledger,” but also said he and his team were personally interested. However, company policy dictated that “build technology [just] because we think it is cool.”

He did leave the door open for future exploration, however, saying “We are very intrigued by what customers are ultimately going to do there.”

In 2018, Jassy did move forward with a “quasi-blockchain” offering, as he oversaw the launch of two blockchain products: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and Amazon Managed Blockchain. As Cointelegraph reported, the products maintained centralized databases, but included cryptographic qualities.

Aside from these forays, Amazon has largely only made crypto headlines as a scapegoat: in November of 2020, Coinbase blamed a AWS outage for one of it’s frequent service interruptions. But as a new CEO steps in, the crypto community is eager to see what, if any, changes Jassy will bring.

Jeff Bezos steps down: Crypto-curious Andy Jassy to become new Amazon CEO

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Dec 14 2020

European Commission Agrees on €7.5 Billion Budget for Digital Europe: Goal is to improve Europe’s Competitiveness in the Global Digital Economy

The European Commission (EC) has come to an agreement on the €7.5 billion budget for the Digital Europe program. The goal is to “improve Europe’s competitiveness in the global digital economy and achieve technological sovereignty.” The EC said it seeks to support the digital transformation that will “guarantee high-quality public services benefiting citizens and businesses.”

The political agreement was reached today (December 14, 2020) with formal approval by the European Parliament and Council anticipated to take place soon with the program starting in January 2021. The budget will span a time period from 2021 to 2o27.

The plan is wide-ranging touching many different sectors of the European economy. A draft “Orientation” for 2021-2022 was previously published outlining potential goals:

Making Europe a top supercomputing region globally through the acquisition of at least one exascale supercomputer by the end of 2021, upgrading existing supercomputers and extending the use of advanced computing to industry, including SMEs;
Setting up and making accessible Europe-wide data spaces and testing and experimentation facilities for artificial intelligence in the areas of health, environment/climate, mobility, manufacturing and energy;
Enhancing cybersecurity by deploying a pan-European quantum communication infrastructure and supporting the set-up of a certification scheme for cybersecurity products;
Addressing the shortages of digital experts in the EU through dedicated Master’s programmes for artificial intelligence, advanced computing and cybersecurity;
Providing SMEs and public administrations access to the latest digital technologies by setting up a network of Digital Innovation Hubs;
Ensuring a successful digital transformation of health and care services with the EU-wide deployment of innovative and cost-effective data-driven tools and services based on technologies like AI and data analytics;
Making ICT products and services sustainable, by prioritising their energy efficiency as well as climate neutrality, reparability, lifespan and recycling;
Deploying open, interoperable, trustworthy urban digital platforms tailored to communities’ needs, offering easy standardised access to new datasets, and the large scale roll-out of AI- driven services in Smart Energy, Smart Mobility, waste and secondary resource management, industry and (re)manufacturing, healthcare and e-government.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacts most sectors of industry including financial services. Other areas of focus overlap with the Fintech realm.

Blockchain is frequently mentioned in the draft. For example:

“Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) should be seen as a crosscutting enabling technology that can support the validation of transactions, the development of data spaces and empowerment of citizens, public services and businesses to control and share access to data in a trusted, distributed, secure, transparent and verifiable way.”

The allocation of the budget has been segregated as follows:

€2.2 billion – Super computing
€2.1 billion – Artificial Intelligence (AI)
€1.7 billion – Cybersecurity
€580 million – Advanced Digital Skills
€1.1 billion – Ensuring wide use of digital tech.

The info sheet may be downloaded or viewed below.

Digital Europe Program factsheet 2020 12 14

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Aug 28 2020

Major South Korean Daegu Bank and SK Telecom, the Nation’s Largest Wireless Carrier, are Working on 5G enabled Quantum Cryptography Tech

South Korea-based DGB Daegu Bank, which is part of the DGB Financial Group (DGBFG), a banking holding company based in Daegu, has partnered with SK Telecom, a South Korean wireless telecommunications operator.

Through the partnership, both organizations aim to enhance Daegu Bank’s IM Bank app’s security by using 5G enabled quantum cryptography technology.

SK Telecom is a key part of the SK Group, which is one of the nation’s largest chaebols (a large conglomerate that’s controlled by an owner or family based in South Korea). SK Telecom is the country’s largest wireless carrier. The company notably leads the domestic market with around a 50% share. Meanwhile, Daegu Bank is one of the largest regional banks in South Korea. It mainly services customers based in the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region.

The IM Bank app will reportedly allow Samsung Galaxy A Quantum owners to use the handset’s quantum random number generator (QRNG) for enabling greater security. The QRNG chipset that has been embedded in the Galaxy A Quantum mobile phones is able to generate “true” random numbers that are not predictable, according to SK Telecom.

The technology will be used to generate one-time passwords at the time when IM Bank clients are sending funds or creating accounts. SK Telekom and Daegu Bank said they’ll be looking into other use cases for the technology.

Quantum tech has also been used by many other financial service providers. As reported, the BBVA continues to work on quantum computing data projects. Last month, the BBVA had shared results of its quantum computing tech proof of concepts for improving currency aribtrage and enhancing porfolio management.

Crypto or blockchain industry participants have also raised concerns about whether the binary model based digital currencies of today, like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), will be ready for the time when quantum computers have matured.

Ethereum (ETH) might not even have quantum resistance on its roadmap, the Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL) team revealed in June 2020.

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