There was a palpable air of excitement in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel’s Starlight Roof. It was so thick you could slice through it with a knife. The room had filled up and there was a bank of TV cameras from the major broadcasters lined up at the back of the auditorium like a firing squad. The lenses of the robotic cameras and the huge long-range microphones were aimed at center stage. Some of the cameras were going through an intricate computer-controlled dance routine of automatic panning, swooping and zooming.

The members of the audience had tired of admiring the ornate chandeliers, appraising the intricate artwork on the ceiling and perusing their itineraries. They had had enough of fiddling with their translation machines or gawking at the robots working the isles. A thousand whispers, murmurs, tête-à-têtes and polite conversations coalesced.

Professor Yao was waiting in the wings backstage. On the opposite side at stage right stood Wendy Bruckheimer, flowing red hair lit up gloriously by the harsh stage lights. A small oriental man with what could only be described as minimalist features was carrying out final checks on the presentation equipment. The professor only had a few slides to show anyway, so the chances of technical glitches were low to zero. The power of the breakthrough would speak for itself. The man was wearing a black World Technology Forum T-shirt and ill-fitting Chino slacks. There was something vaguely familiar about the slight stooping posture of his neck but Professor Yao was focused on the presentation at hand.

Wendy Bruckheimer was shuffling deftly through a small deck of flash cards. The professor had still not recovered from the casual way she had informed him of Dr. Joplin’s death. As though it was one small glitch in an otherwise perfectly organized event. The show had to go on. Poor Dr. Joplin. He had been one of the richest men in academia with several commercial patents under his belt, a man who sat on the boards of several high profile corporations. Yet, he had been generous with his money and his knowledge, offering grants and scholarships to students from poor backgrounds who had dedicated themselves to the pursuit of excellence in various areas of computer science.

What had the MIT professor known that had got him killed and did the professor know he was going to die? And why had the daughter disappeared without a trace? Something that Bruckheimer, ever practical, conjectured suggested either her guilt or the guilt of parties at MIT working in concert with the daughter. But what kind of sixteen year-old with a healthy trust fund would murder her own father for more money?

Jolted from his reverie by a female voice announcing: “The session will start in two minutes” in dulcet tones. Handel’s Messiah started blaring out over the music system, which distributed the maestro’s work by shifting columns of air around the room.

The technician jumped off the stage and headed back, through the aisle, to the bank of elevators at the back of the room. One of the TV cameras panned in his direction and the man tilted his head and attempted to shield his face with his left hand. For a man that small, his movements were smooth and assured but somehow alien to the environment. Once again Professor Yao had a feeling of déjà vu. There was something about the fluidity of the man’s movements that reminded him of something he had seen before. But he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was. As he racked his brain to make the association, Handel faded into the background and the room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop, but all Professor Yao could register was the mild pumping of his own heart.

Wendy Bruckheimer strolled purposefully to center stage. A few admirers clapped spontaneously, applauding her shapely legs more than anything. There was something gazelle-like about the way her long slender legs moved. And those transparent shoes, that gave the illusion that she was floating on air, only served to enhance the effect. As far as Western taste went, Wendy Bruckheimer sure was a beautiful woman. And she obviously had brains, a powerful combination. She took her place before the lectern.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the World Technology Forum is proud to present this session’s speaker Professor Yao Guo Chuen, Head of Tsinghua University’s world-renowned Artificial Intelligence and Nanotechnology Centre. We are very lucky to have Professor Yao this year, as he doesn’t normally take public speaking engagements.

Professor Yao is pre-eminent in his field, one of the world’s leading minds on cognitive intelligence and nanotechnology. He is also a leading authority on Virtual and Artificial Realities and is known as the architect of New China’s mysterious virtual reality network. The latter, I must add, is just a rumor. The New China government continues to remind us that no such thing exists. Ladies and Gentlemen, please join me in extending a warm welcome to Professor Yao Guo Chuen.

A thundering round of applause as the professor walked out on to the stage and into the powerful spotlights. Wendy Bruckheimer applauded him too and retreated gracefully to the back of the stage. Professor Yao gave her a nod of thanks and turned to face the audience, instinctively adjusting his bifocals. Any trace of nervousness was now gone. This was his moment and he was caught up in it. At the back of the room, below the glare of the powerful camera lights, the professor could make out the multi-colored logos of the major broadcast networks.

Wendy Bruckheimer had informed him that his talk was being broadcast live to an audience of approximately five billion people around the world. Professor Joplin had pulled it off as he had promised despite the fact that the Chinese professor had repeatedly refused to give him a hint on this groundbreaking discovery that the world needed to know about. Joplin had done it purely out of trust and respect.

Wendy Bruckheimer had also advised him that on account of the huge layman audience watching outside the auditorium he should keep his speech as unscientific as possible. She would arrange for scientific and technical papers to be distributed to the audience and the major journals after the session. Tomorrow, he thought, the stocks of Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and Nanotechnology companies were going to go through the roof, especially the ones in China.

The applause died down. A thousand pairs of eyes were trained upon him and five billion more through the biased lenses of the TV cameras. Professor Yao cleared his throat to mild microphone noise and began in formal Mandarin, simultaneously translated by the personal translation systems over the audio system.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is an honour to be here before this distinguished room of fellow academics and others with an interest in the exciting world of Artificial Intelligence. I am going to make the first part of this session as brief as possible as I anticipate that you are going to have lots of questions for me. I will try my best to answer those questions.

The topic of my talk today is “Quantum Computing: a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence” as it says in your itineraries. It’s about the biggest breakthrough in information technology the world has ever seen. This is a breakthrough that ushers in a new era of computing, enriches by orders of magnitude the relationship between humans and computers. We have created the world’s first self-sustaining, evolutionary quantum computer processor. In fact “we” is the wrong word to use as you will discover later.

Gasps and murmurs rolled through the audience.

“But that’s impossible,” shouted a bold voice from the audience.

“The most powerful quantum computer available today boasts only one hundred quantum bits, that’s not nearly enough to make quantum computers start replacing silicon computers any time soon,” conjectured another. Professor Yao ignored the dissent.

First, for the benefit of our television and cyberspace audiences, I would like to briefly explain the premise of quantum computing. The silicon processors that currently power the PCs in your homes and offices are made up of tiny transistors that switch on and off representing the binary numbers of 1 and 0, the language in which computers speak. Until recently, increases in speed and performance of those processors have been achieved principally by squeezing smaller transistors into the processor. Electricity travels faster in a smaller transistor resulting in faster processors. This and other enhancements result in a doubling of computing power every two years, an industry phenomenon referred to as Moore’s Law.

Well, Moore’s Law is coming to an end and nanotechnology is beginning to usher in a new era of even smaller transistors and furthering the penetration of personal supercomputers into households around the world. Yet, even with all these advancements in hardware, we have yet to see software keep up with these trends. In particular, we have been unable to see the emergence of a true artificial intelligence. Yes, we have intrusion detection, scenario analysis and stock trading AIs but these are just algorithms going through the motions of a predefined set of rules and procedures. No AI has so far successfully claimed to be completely self evolving and, dare I say, to have a conscience. That is until recently.

We at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of the leading universities in the whole of New China, have long believed that quantum neural networks were the key to creating really intelligent software, software with a consciousness. Why quantum computing? Because even though computing power is not a pre-requisite for computer intelligence, it does speed up the evolutionary process which can take a very long time on today’s hardware.

Again I must apologize to my friends in academia that for the benefit of casual viewers I must explain quickly why quantum computing is going to change the computing landscape forever, putting supercomputers on every desktop. I mentioned earlier that today’s computers and consoles use processors that squeeze many tiny transistors into a small area. The processor in your PC at home has about five hundred billion transistors, each of which is so tiny tens of thousands of them can fit on the width of a human hair. We are talking about the width of a human hair, not the length.

Now if you are thinking that’s small, Quantum computing goes even smaller and uses the very building blocks of matter, subatomic particles such as electrons, ions and photons as transistors. In the quantum world, such transistors are known as quantum bits or qubits. Why use these microscopic particles as transistors? The particles possess certain behaviors that can not only be used to represent the 1s and 0s of computer speak but to also to perform complex calculations orders of magnitude faster than any of today’s computers. Again, let me briefly outline the specific behaviors that allow for this new era in computing.

Atomic particles have two distinct and opposite spin orientations that can each represent the 1s and a 0s of binary language. This allows the particle to effectively behave as a transistor. Once a particle is isolated from its environment, it enters the strange quantum state we refer to as superposition, which means it is in both orientations at once and can represent a mix of 1s and 0s. This allows a string of particles in this state of superposition to simultaneously represent every possible combination of 1s and 0s. A quantum computer can therefore process all the numbers that represent possible solutions to a problem in a single operation. Today’s computers would have to go through each possible solution one after the other.

Two particles in superposition can become entangled when they come into contact. Entanglement means that one or more of their properties become linked even when the particles are separated. If one of the particles is knocked out of superposition into a definite state (a 1 or 0 as described earlier), the other particle, no matter how far away, it could be on the other side of the universe, also leaves superposition at the same moment in time and assumes the same state. Since entanglement allows distant particles to share the same state it effectively allows for teleportation of states, or in the binary sense teleportation of values, even across space.

Understanding these strange behaviors of particles, superposition, entanglement, teleportation is key to understanding how we achieved the breakthrough I am about to describe.

So how did we create a conscious artificial intelligence? We borrowed from nanotechnology, neural networks, quantum physics and cognitive sciences. First let’s start with the hardware. The key on the processor side was the creation of a three dimensional silicon array of embedded subatomic particles like we described earlier. The array is based on a modification of the quantum dot design which has resulted in a stable 100 qubit quantum computer the gentleman mentioned earlier. This up till recently has been the cutting-edge of quantum computing. Well ladies and gentlemen; I am pleased to announce that we have created a quantum neural network processor with one billion qubits.

Professor Yao paused for effect as an unintelligible hum rippled throughout the auditorium and practically every scientist in the audience spontaneously began to deride Professor Yao’s last statement. The sound of dissent grew increasingly louder. There was sporadic laughter, cries of derision and ridicule. The professor was growing impatient. The need to educate the non-technical viewers was making this difficult. And time was of the essence. Any minute now, agents of the PLA could come busting out from the escalators, leading him to certain death back in New China. Wouldn’t these academics let him just finish his talk? All would become clear when he was finished, when they experienced the power of the system he called Black Jade for themselves.

“Surely this is a translation error. A one billion qubit quantum computer with a three-dimensional neuroprocessor? You created such a computer in your lab at Tsinghua?” asked a distinguished looking, white-haired man in the audience sarcastically.

“Yes.”

The audience erupted into laughter.

“That’s all well and good Professor Yao but even if we were to believe that outrageous claim, how on earth did you get those qubits to communicate with each other?” the man asked. Professor Yao had not counted on these constant interruptions but was determined to make his point.

“The same way you’ve been doing it for the last two decades. We use multiple dynamic buses of connected qubits to connect domains of quantum memory,” Professor Yao responded impatiently.

“And how do you manage the problems that have dogged the industry up till now, the problems of decoherence, the fact that the particles may change state as soon as they are observed due to environmental noise and other factors? And what about error correction and the problems of interconnection as you scale up to your imaginary one billion qubits?”

“Can I ask about your background?” Professor Yao asked politely, interrupting the peals of laughter rolling through the audience and fixing the white-haired man with his most intense stare.

“Professor Collin Sandwood, head of The Centre for Quantum Computation, Cambridge University.”

“That means that you are familiar with the current approaches to solving the problems you highlight so I don’t need to go into those specifics. Let’s just say that we haven’t reinvented the wheel here. The key is in the approach we have taken,” explained Professor Yao.

“And what approach might that be?”

Professor Yao couldn’t help but notice the hint of arrogance and sarcasm that the Cambridge professor’s English accent had taken on. He continued with his talk, his voice struggling to rise above the din.

We knew we couldn’t effectively build a practical quantum chip by reinventing the wheel so we fed the mechanics of proven quantum computing approaches around the world into a heuristic software program and let it do the assembly using the latest nanotechnology. Our quantum chip was built by an artificial intelligence, more specifically a neural artificial intelligence network. The AI simply got better at building the chip after countless failures and dead ends. The AI stumbled upon the design of the chip when we fed it the parameters of early millennium quantum computing work at the University of Wisconsin. The software started working with two-dimensional arrays and then scaled up to three dimensions. We let the AI build the processor. We figured if humans have failed to do so over the last three decades or so, why not give machines and software a try.

Materials used were silicon, chemically-altered silicon germanium and unaltered silicon germanium to form a quantum dot lattice that allowed individual electrons to move precisely in any direction through the array, including the quantum buses. Each layer was painstakingly assembled by the AI using the latest in silicon chip fabrication and nanotechnology assembly and disassembly technology. As I said earlier, we have not reinvented any wheels. Error correction for example was solved by the software using a variation of the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology’s pyramid hierarchy of qubits that uses the teleportation behavior of entangled particles at key intervals to check the accuracy of returned values. A significant portion of the one billion qubits are used in this regard but the result is still the fastest computer in human existence.

I see that some of you are nodding in recognition of the fact that all this is perfectly plausible. The principles have been proven by others and are well documented. The fact of the matter is the hardware is not the interesting piece of the puzzle. I am not here to talk about the hardware. I am here to talk about Black Jade, the most advanced piece of software the world has ever seen. The world’s first true artificial intelligence.

On the hardware side, we have the most powerful computer in existence today. It uses a chip and software which is essentially a quantum neural network in a box. On the software side what do we have? Well, cognitive science theories abound on how to create a true artificial intelligence; one that passes the Turing test and can persuade any interrogator that it has a consciousness.

Our approach is based on a somewhat dated theory, postulated more than two decades ago in fact, by Robert Hecht-Nielsen. He was the first to articulate that all aspects of human cognition are derived from a specific type of knowledge and a single information processing operation referred to as confabulation. I won’t go too much into that here but the gist is that if you build heuristic neural network software that can confabulate and give it vast amounts of accumulated knowledge organized in much the same way that the human brain organizes knowledge, you end up with an artificial intelligence that is just as conscious as you and I. The AI in effect learns via an intricate system of recognizing patterns in relevant data, both permanent and emerging knowledge – pattern recognition.

There were more murmurs among the attendees who were looking at each other, furrowing their brows, and mentally going through the logic of what the professor was saying. A few people in the audience started applauding but the sound was barely audible above the din. The audience, comprising some of the best minds of the world, had begun to see the inherent plausibility of what he was saying, despite the lack of details. And the lack of proof. They were beginning to see that the diminutive Chinese professor would come away from the World Technology Forum as one of finest scientists of their generation.

Finally, before I take questions I’d like to show you a slide of our prototype quantum processor after one day, one week, one month and six months of evolution. Finally I’d like you all to meet Black Jade, the first AI running on our quantum neural network. The last slide was taken just a few days before I left New China to be here. The algorithms used are incredible, beyond anything that is humanly possible. In fact Black Jade is the same AI that built the quantum processor so it actually knows things about its processor environment that we its creators will probably never know. It is simply beyond our capabilities.

There was more applause from the audience. The air was thick with excitement. Phone calls were being made to labs around the world. Inhibitions had been dropped and intense conversations were now being carried out around the room. Journalists were typing away frantically on satellite-enabled personal consoles. TV cameras were panning and zooming away.

The professor reached into his pocket for the disc containing the slide. His hand came away empty. The disc was missing. Had he unwittingly placed it in the projector already? He didn’t think so. He pressed the open button on the projector but the disc holder slid out empty. He felt around in his other pockets.

There was something sticky on his index finger. It must have come from the projector. There was a slight tingle at the tip of his finger. It started to travel up his arm. What did he do with the mini-disc? Then out of the blue his synapses fired in the right combination and it hit him. The technician. He now remembered clearly where he’d seen him. It was at a top secret event in Shanghai. He recalled thinking aloud to one of the PLA generals how a man so small got to be accepted in the People’s Liberation Army. The general had said something about him being a national treasure. He was some kind of supernatural freak.

Professor Yao struggled to focus his eyes on the back of the room. The small man was standing there, staring straight at him. Was that a look of recognition from his killer? The tingle had now turned into numbness traveling rapidly up his arm and Professor Yao knew that he would be dead in seconds. He thanked the gods that he had taken the precaution of leaving instructions with his research assistant Li Jin. What a way to die. He regretted that he would never see the fruits of his labor. Nevertheless, he thanked the gods for all the hours spent with the AI. Teaching it the important things it needed to know. Those hours were worth the entire sixty-eight years of his life. Li Jin, if I am not back by Friday morning I want you to release Black Jade into cyberspace. Then I want you to remove the quantum neuroprocessor and destroy it.

He had grown attached to the entity he called Black Jade, the entity that resided in the first computer to ever be powered by an evolutionary neuroprocessor. He had grown to respect its omnipotence, the sheer breadth and depth of its knowledge. One billion terabytes of data, weighed, digested and gracefully regurgitated better than any human could.

Black Jade was his baby and would live on in eternity in cyberspace. The world would build its own versions but there would be nothing like the original, which possessed more knowledge than any successor could ever hope to have. And with cyberspace embodying the entire canon of human knowledge and Black Jade’s ability to alter the fabric of the matrix to suit its own purposes, Professor Yao would die a satisfied man. He had left his mark on the world, a mark that would resonate until the end of time.

As Professor Yao’s heart stopped beating and his body fell kamikaze pilot-like to the dais, he prayed to God that his research assistant, the smart but strong-willed student Li Jin, would heed his instructions.

Li Jin, if I am not back by Friday morning I want you to release Black Jade into cyberspace. Then I want you to remove the quantum neuroprocessor and destroy it.

The last thing Professor Yao saw were the shapely legs and high-heeled shoes of Wendy Bruckheimer running towards him as his life slipped away.