Desi talk

www.desitalkchicago.com – that’s all you need to know 4 VIEWPOINT July 25, 2025 Preparing For The Next Y2K Moment Amaravati Quantum Valley Declaration antici- pates a trillion-dollar opportunity. Rest of India should log in. T he government of Andhra Pradesh issued the Amaravati Quantum Valley Declaration earlier this week, committing to transform the state capital into a global hub for quantum innovation. The plan includes installing an IBM Quantum SystemTwo by early 2026, building India’s largest open quantum testbed (QChipIN), supporting the launch of 100 quantum startups, and training 5,000 specialists annually by 2030. The goal is to test 1,000 quantum algorithms a year and achieve 1,000 effective qubits by 2029. This is a smart move because a trillion-dollar opportunity is opening up. In the late 1990s, a looming crisis galvanized the Indian technology indus- try like nothing before: the Y2K bug. As the world braced for computer systems to fail when the calendar flipped to 2000, companies and governments scrambled to fix outdated software written decades earlier. What followed was a windfall for India. Tens of thousands of young engi- neers, fresh from university or retraining boot camps, stepped in to debug code and modernize systems. Now, a quarter-century later, the world is headed toward another such moment — a problem of breathtaking complexity, urgency, and scale. Only this time, it won’t be about two-digit dates. It will be about quantum computers and their ability to shatter the cryptographic codes that underpin nearly every system we rely on — from banking and e-commerce to mes- saging apps and government databases. This will be the mother of all Y2Ks, made possible by a radically new type of computer. Unlike classical computers, which store data in bits that are either 0 or 1, quantum computers use qubits, which can be 0 and 1 at the same time — a property called superposition. They also take advantage of entanglement, a quantum phenomenon that links particles so the state of one in- stantly affects the other. These properties allow quantummachines to solve certain problems exponentially faster than classi- cal ones, especially those involving com- plex patterns or massive search spaces. At the heart of the current threat lies Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) encryption, a technology that secures online banking, emails, WiFi routers, and even cryptocur- rency wallets. Its security comes from the mathematical difficulty of factoring large prime numbers. Today’s classical computers would take thousands of years to break it. But quantum computers, with their ability to perform parallel calculations at mas- sive scale, could theoretically crack RSA in hours or minutes using an algorithm known as Shor’s algorithm— once they reach sufficient scale and stability. Until recently, this danger seemed comfortably far off. Experts estimated that it would take a quantum computer with 20 million error-corrected qubits to break RSA-2048 encryption. No one had anything close. But a new study this year showed it might be possible with just one million qubits — a number that suddenly feels within reach. Google’s latest 100-qubit “Willow” chip demonstrated exponential error reduction, a crucial step toward fault-tol- erant computing. IBM has already built a 1,121-qubit processor, the Condor, and laid out a roadmap to large-scale, modu- lar quantum systems by 2029. Microsoft is experimenting with topological qubits that could make error correction far more efficient. These are still early days, but the trajec- tory feels eerily familiar when you look at what happened with artificial intelligence (AI). As recently as 2020, most people — outside a handful of research labs — had never heard of large language models. The idea that a machine could generate essays, summarise legal contracts, create lifelike videos, or simulate entire con- versations felt like science fiction. Then came the breakthroughs: GPT-3, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, and more. Sud- denly, AI wasn’t decades away — it was everywhere, trans- forming industries in real time. The same may be true for quantum computing. We may not see it coming until it is already here — and by then, it may be too late to react. When the first organization, whether a corporation, a rogue nation, or a hacker collective, demonstrates the ability to break RSA encryption, the world will be thrown into a frenzy. Every secure system will need to be upgraded, digital certificates replaced, encrypted databases reprotected, and network protocols rewritten. This isn’t just a mega IT project, it is a global infrastructure overhaul that will touch every major company, government, and connected device. In complexity, it will make the Y2K bug look small. To make things worse, most companies are still unaware of what cryptographic algorithms they use, let alone whether they are quantum-safe. In the Y2K era, Indian engineers-built trust by solving hard problems at scale. Now, with millions of trained coders, hundreds of thousands of cybersecurity professionals, and a rising ecosystem of quantum researchers, cryptographers, and startups, India is better prepared than any other nation to take the lead. Imagine what will happen when a global quantum alert is triggered —when banks, telecom companies, and govern- ments race to upgrade their cryptographic systems. They will need trusted partners who can move fast, understand both leg- acy software and next-gen cryptographic libraries, and operate across borders. India needs to have ambulances and fire trucks ready — training a new gen- eration of software developers in post- quantum cryptography, upgrading tools, contributing to open-source frameworks, and preparing global response teams. That is why the Amaravati announcement matters. If the rest of the country follows Andhra Pradesh’s lead — investing in talent, infrastructure, and startups — India can save the world again. Vivek Wadhwa is CEO, Vionix Biosciences. The views expressed are personal. ByVivekWadhwa PHOTO:https://commons.wikimedia.org BM_Quantum_Computer_Demo. By Dev Jadiya – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. US Designates Pahalgam Attackers As Terrorist Organization T he United States has designated The Resis- tance Front as a Foreign Terrorist Organiza- tion (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). The State Department announced the action July 17, saying, “TRF, a Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) front and proxy, claimed responsibility for the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam attack which killed 26 civilians,” adding that, “This was the deadliest attack on civil- ians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks con- ducted by LeT. TRF has also claimed responsibility for several attacks against Indian security forces, including most recently in 2024.” These actions taken by the Department of State “demonstrates the Trump Administration’s commit- ment to protecting our national security interests, countering terrorism, and enforcing President Trump’s call for justice for the Pahalgam attack.” The US House Foreign Affairs Committee Ma- jority on Saturday said President Donald Trump strongly backed the administration’s decision to designate The Resistance Front (TRF) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, calling it a deserved move against those responsible for killing civilians in India, ANI reported. “President Trump calls it like it is. The Resis- tance Front is a foreign terrorist organisation and deserves the designation. When you butcher civilians, you don’t get a pass–you get JUSTICE,” the Committee posted on X. TRF and other associated aliases have been added to LeT’s designation as a FTO and SDGT pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and Executive Order 13224, respectively. The Department of State has also reviewed and maintained the FTO designation of LeT. Amendments to FTO designations go into ef- fect upon publication in the Federal Register. India’s Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishan- kar responded on X, calling the terrorist desig- nation myWashington, “A strong affirmation of India-US counter-terrorism cooperation. Appre- ciate @SecRubio and @StateDept for designating TRF—a Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) proxy—as a For- eign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). It claimed responsibility for the April 22 Pahalgam attack. Zero tolerance for Terrorism. #OpSindoor“ By a StaffWriter PHOTO:X @IndiainNewYork Pictures of those killed in the April 22, 2025 terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, displayed at a Long Island, NY vigil. NATIONAL AFFAIRS PHOTO:CourtesyVivekWadhwa