One of this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics warned that China is rapidly narrowing the gap with the US in quantum computing. “China is definitely very competitive in this,” John Martinis said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Tel Aviv. “People should be concerned that there’s a real race.” The US, Europe and China are all vying to build quantum computers with practical applications, a development which Martinis said is five to 10 years away. The strategically important technology promises to create a new kind of computer that vastly increases processing power, potentially able to decrypt military communications and help hack into critical infrastructure. Governments around the world, companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Google and International Business Machines Corp., and numerous startups are all working on the technology, which remains in a research phase.

Full report : Nobel Winner Warns China Is ‘Nanoseconds’ Behind in Quantum Race.