Google's former sister company Sandbox AQ raises $500 million
Sandbox AQ, which spun off from Google parent Alphabet last year, is a company that provides artificial intelligence and quantum technology (AQ.) On December 14, Sandbox AQ said it had closed a new $500 million round of funding; the round will be used for cybersecurity and other quantum work [1].
Breyer Capital, T. Rowe Price Fund and Salesforce Inc. founder Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures all participated in the round, as did, among others, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Sandbox AQ: Artificial intelligence + quantum technology will change the business ecology
Quantum computers, with processors that run on quantum physics, will one day be able to perform certain calculations faster than supercomputers, yet it will still take years for them to make significant changes, such as cracking encryption. But because hackers can collect data today and wait for quantum computer technology to be perfected before decrypting it, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, last year chose new cryptography standards that could better defend against quantum computer attacks.
This shows that the U.S. government has defined quantum computing as one of the key technologies that are very important to national security.
Sandbox AQ's software scans the company's systems to determine which parts use old cryptography, which need to be replaced urgently, and to strengthen the enterprise's encryption system. CEO Jack Hidary said, "There are a lot of banks, pharmaceutical companies and governments still using these old protocols, and it will take the average bank five to seven years to migrate over: now, hopefully, they will use quantum technology to protect important private customer information first."
Sandbox AQ also has a business in simulation software to accelerate the development of drugs and materials.
Such simulations currently do not require quantum computers to work, Hidary said. In the past 18 months, he said, the chips that do the artificial intelligence work have become powerful enough to run some of the mathematical operations of quantum physics. That work will be further accelerated when quantum computers are ready.
Sandbox AQ is also using sensors based on quantum physics. For example, the company has newly developed a prototype machine to monitor the heart (similar to an MRI machine); it can also be used to monitor slight local variations in the Earth's magnetic field, which could make navigation systems more accurate.
In January 2023, Sandbox AQ said [2] that it won a contract with the U.S. Air Force to study quantum navigation technology. Currently, Sandbox AQ has signed up more than 15 corporate and government customers and is working with 30 universities to train PhDs and other needed talent.
Sandbox AQ's technology application scenarios
Sandbox AQ says [3] that any business or industry that relies on computing power will be transformed by artificial intelligence + quantum technology. For the past five years, the Sandbox AQ team has been developing practical AI and quantum technology solutions to solve real-world business, scientific, and computational challenges. In the future, companies will be able to use Sandbox AQ's technologies and solutions to gain a clear advantage over their business competition.
Reference links:
[1]https://www.reuters.com/technology/alphabet-spinoff-sandbox-aq-raises-500-mln-cyber-security-other-work-2023-02-14/
[2]https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/usstock/c/2023-02-15/doc-imyftpqz2356537.shtml[3]https://www.sandboxaq.com/who-we-serve
