David Mitlyng for Xairos

Read - Write - Wait
Imagine you are collaborating with your team on a document.
You ping each for inputs. And then you wait.
This is, at a basic level, how distributed databases work.
The benefits of distributed databases are obvious from the name - it allows distributed resources to act as one computer for better resiliency and efficiency.
But the key disadvantage: the processing overhead associated with synchronizing all the sites.
Better synchronization maintains data consistency, causality, and the correct order of events, which then improves efficiency.
As NVIDIA and Facebook noted: “making the timekeeping 80x more precise (making any time discrepancies 80x smaller) made a distributed database run 3x faster — an incredible performance boost on the same server hardware, just from keeping more accurate and more reliable time.”

Last Week's Theme: Missing Your Connection

• Reviewing new solicitations from NASA, Department of Defense (DoD), and National Science Foundation (NSF), with a focus on quantum and position, navigation, and timing (PNT) topics. Proposal development and developing partnerships for joint proposal submissions will keep the team busy for the near future.
• Preparing for meetings at Photonics West with a scaled back presence.
• Developing a new patent.
• Board of Advisors in work.
• Planning for upcoming Conferences in 2022.

• Hey, look, all the charts are up and to the right. TechCrunch, confirming the PitchBook-NVCA report, released metrics that showed that 2021 was "bonkers" year for startup investment.
• And 2021 was also "a record year of private capital invested in space", with a 60% increase from 2020 to $12.4B, according to Seraphim.
• One of Cisco’s predictions for the top technology trends for 2022 is that “Quantum networking could enable a new type of secure connection between digital devices, making them impenetrable to hacks,” which would “lead to better fraud protection for transactions” and “re-shape the internet we know and use today.”
• Speaking of Quantum Leaps, the cult TV series from the 90’s is coming back.
• The DHS has designated 16 critical and business infrastructures. But surprisingly, space systems aren’t on the list, even though it impacts almost all of these critical infrastructures and the White House acknowledges that "Space activities are essential to our way of life." Now there is legislation to designate space systems, services, and technology as the 17th sector of U.S. critical infrastructure.
• If you drive a Honda, you may have noticed that your clock is stuck in the past. Honda's navigation system did not rollover in 2022, and instead are showing a date and time in 2002.
• There are rumors that Google is looking to spin out its quantum division Sandbox.

The Chinese government published their 14th five year plan to address 11 strategic areas, including quantum information. According to a recent Deloitte report, this includes "satellite quantum networks as a key national research topic" and "a global QKD network by 2030."
The concern is that China has figured out how to work with small, innovative startups, while the US government has not. As such, they are more rapidly bringing in commercial advancements.
But the U.S. is working to overcome this. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, informally known as the China Competition Bill, is winding its way through Congress, and the most recent defense authorization bill has provisions to more effectively engage innovative startups, including:

• $117 billion in funding for new science and technology.
• Several studies on how to better leverage the commercial sector through changes in the DoD acquisition process.
• Expand and streamline the use of Other Transaction Authority (OTAs) to streamline procurement from startups.
• Formalize the Commercial Solutions Openings (CSO) program, which was launched as a pilot program in 2017 to acquire “innovative technologies” through prize competitions and peer review of proposals.
• Establish a pilot program to develop and implement novel acquisition mechanisms related to emerging technologies.

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