Werk Week News Update - Quantum Speed, Green Billions, and Gene Edits

Tech advancements are reshaping our future with unprecedented breakthroughs in quantum computing, renewable energy, and biotechnology. We explore revolutionary developments that promise to transform industries while raising important questions about encryption security, sustainability progress, and ethical gene editing implications.

• Quantum computing breakthrough achieves processing speeds that solve in seconds what would take traditional supercomputers 47 years
• Amazon announces $1 billion commitment to renewable energy projects globally, becoming world's largest corporate buyer of clean energy
• Scientists unveil compact gene editing tool with extreme precision for in-body disease treatments

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Chapters

• 0:15 Episode Introduction
• 0:54 Quantum Computing Breakthrough
• 3:16 Billion-Dollar Renewable Energy Investment
• 4:51 Biotechnology Disease Treatment Advancement
• 9:55 Episode Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Welcome, welcome, welcome back. Architects. This is your work week news update. It is March 19th 2025.

Speaker 1: 0:24

We have three good topics to talk about today. So one is a breakthrough, another breakthrough, in quantum computing. This continues to kind of push the ball forward in technology. We also have a major kind of tech company that made a major billion dollar investment in renewable energy and then, last but not least, biotechnology. So we had a breakthrough in disease treatment in the biotechnology sector. So let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:54

So, first up, there was a breakthrough in quantum computing and we are talking about some unprecedented processing speeds at this point. And we talk about computers A lot of times. We are referring to how fast a computer can do its work, how fast they can complete a task From a consumer perspective. When we think about technology and computers a lot of times we just think of it as I don't know how many applications you can have open at one time, how quickly you can close applications and open them up. So we know when we go to get a new computer, we think about that kind of stuff. But you know we're now talking about some ridiculous unprecedented processing speeds, announced progress in their quantum computing efforts and they were reporting that their new quantum processor was able to solve a complex problem in seconds that would take a classical supercomputer and this is, again a supercomputer, not a classical laptop, not a classical iPhone, your typical supercomputer of today.

Speaker 1: 2:02

It was able to solve a complex problem in seconds. That would take that supercomputer 47 years to solve, all right, so that is a huge leap. That's a huge leap in processing time and this achievement kind of builds on this 2019 quantum supremacy claim that they were trying to have, and now it's demonstrating much greater stability. It's reduced errors. So this is a big, big leap in terms of quantum computing and the ability to do stuff very, very fast. And I don't want to go into too much detail when we talk about a complex problem. Right, we're not talking about an algebra problem here, but these are the ability to go through a lot of different scenarios and solve some very, very difficult math type of equations, prediction type of equations, using quantum computing. So the chip uses what's called 70 qubits right, quibbits and it is really again a leap forward in quantum fidelity. I mean, you're talking about over 99% accuracy with this particular computer and this has a lot of again implications pretty much a potential for advancement and logistics, material sciences, drug discovery, more importantly, ai training. So this is going to really speed things up as soon as this comes online and it starts to become a regular thing, and you know, it could result, honestly, in some of our current encryption protocols and encryption methods to be almost obsolete. You know, when you think about encryption, most of us don't think about this. But the thing that keeps our messages private, that thing that keeps your email private, all of that is ran on a certain type of encryption. That, basically, is like a math problem, so we don't want to get too deep into that today. But all of your encrypted activity that happens online whether it's checking out online with your credit card, buying something from Amazon, whether it's sending a text that you are assuming only you can read and only the person you sent it to can read all of that is based on encryption, and encryption is based on a very, very, very difficult math problem to solve. And so you have this quantum computer now that can essentially solve things that took a supercomputer 47 years. It can solve it in seconds. Now we have an encryption problem, and so this type of computer is going to force some new protocols around encryption and that's going to pretty much prompt a need for, like, quantum safe cryptography, quantum safe encryption, and so that's going to be another challenge as these things start to start to come on board. So the major players in this? Obviously Google, but you have IBM, you have other startups that are racing towards this kind of quantum advantage, microsoft included. So let's you know again, keep an eye on the advancement in quantum computing as this starts to become more and more of the norm.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Next up major investment billion dollar investment in renewable energy. So Amazon announced a one billion dollar commitment to renewable energy projects globally, and this includes new wind and solar farms in North America, in Europe and in Asia. So this is a huge commitment towards these renewable projects and this whole move is part of their goal to power operations with 100% renewable energy. So they are marching towards that goal. Amazon is now the world's largest corporate buyer of renewable energy. They have over 500 wind and solar projects all across the world, and so they are heavily invested in this renewable energy concept and this initiative really supports a lot of. They call it gigawatts, but a lot of gigawatt hours annually to power nearly 3.7 million homes in America. So this initiative will support a lot of homes in America annually with renewable energy projects and products and you know, in terms of a broader context, here you have companies like Apple, google, microsoft all of them are making these kind of parallel clean energy commitments towards running everything off renewable energy and the investments is pushing a lot of these companies and firms to disclose what their current renewable or sustainable energy metrics are right now, and so it's probably a good conversation.

Speaker 1: 6:53

There's a lot of people that's huge into climate change and the impacts of that, and so there's a lot of good news that's coming from that. In my opinion, and the other good part of this that's a potential win, is a potential for job creation Job creation in this green economy and energy grid modernization across the country and across the globe. So for those folks that are into those things, be on the lookout for that, because there's a lot of opportunity and not just jobs but business opportunities as well in this kind of green economy that we're seeing coming. And last but not least, there's been some advancements in biotechnology that has led to what is believed to be a breakthrough in disease treatment. So scientists at the Broad Institute and MIT unveiled a new gene editing tool pretty much a compact version with extreme precision. Apparently that is suitable for inside-the-body treatments. So this would be essentially a gene editing tool that can help prevent diseases and help treat diseases. Early trials in mice have shown some promise in treating genetic disorders such as muscular dystrophy and certain forms of other diseases or blindness. So this energy really builds on a 2020 Nobel winning technology that was already kind of created, but improves on the delivery of that and the safety of that. So it's just critical hurdles for some real world applications, and biotech firms like Beam Therapeutics and others are kind of rapidly commercializing some of these platforms.

Speaker 1: 8:45

And again, you know, gene editing has its ethical debates when it comes to editing and doing gene editing.

Speaker 1: 8:53

I'm not well versed in this space, but I know that it is something that we have to absolutely be educated on as quickly as possible for a lot of different reasons and again, a lot of it can be helpful.

Speaker 1: 9:05

But the ability to do gene editing for the purpose of disease treatment can be a benefit and it can be a danger. And having accessibility to these gene therapies for everybody for everybody is another thing that we need to be mindful of. But the global gene editing market itself and that's the fact that we even have a name for this is a little uncomfortable, but the global gene editing market is projected to reach $21.4 billion by 2030. So over the next couple years, this gene editing market and all the activity that goes along with it, a lot of revenue in that space, and that is why you have some of these big biotech firms that are rushing to commercialize these platforms. So more to come on that, and that is it for this week's Workweek News Update. Please don't forget to follow us and like us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And until next time, keep up the scratch work, keep building, bye.