The chip uses some of the same technology as current networking chips and would help link together smaller quantum computers into larger systems [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Cisco Systems on Tuesday showed a prototype chip for networking quantum computers together and said it is opening a new lab in Santa Monica, California, to further pursue quantum computing.

The chip uses some of the same technology as current networking chips and would help link together smaller quantum computers into larger systems. But Cisco also believes it will have practical applications before those computers become mainstream, such as helping financial firms sync up the timing of trades or helping scientists detect meteorites.

“There are a whole bunch of use cases,” Vijoy Pandey, senior vice president of Cisco’s Outshift innovation incubator, told Reuters. “You need to synchronise clocks and the timestamps on all of these snapshots that are taking place from across the globe.”

Cisco is the latest mainstream tech firm to jump into quantum computing. Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all announced quantum computing chips in recent months, and Nvidia plans to open its own quantum computing lab. Startups such as PsiQuantum are also raising hundreds of millions of dollars to build systems.

While those firms all vie to create more and more “qubits” – the fundamental unit of quantum computers – Cisco is working to link them up.

The company says its chip, which it developed with researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara, works by causing quantum entanglement in pairs of photons, and then sending one of the pair to two separate quantum computers.

For a short time, Cisco says, the quantum computers can use those entangled photons to communicate instantaneously, no matter how far apart they are – a phenomenon of quantum physics that Albert Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance.”

Pandey emphasised that Cisco does not yet have a timeline for when the chip will generate revenue and that the chip is only a prototype.

“To build out that quantum network, the first building block that you need is an entanglement chip,” Pandey said. “Here’s the first building block of that.”

Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman issued a stark warning to his employees, asking them to either adapt to artificial intelligence or risk being replaced by it.The message, which has surfaced across media and tech workers, reads more like a dystopian forecast than a standard corporate update. Before the mail went viral internally, Kaufman himself realised the possibility and posted the mail screenshots on the social media platform X.“Before it gets out somewhere else, this is an email I sent yesterday morning to my team. It applies equally to the freelance community”He began the “wake up call” with a dose of radical candour, rejecting the tendency to sugar-coat harsh realities, “The very basis for radical candor is care. You care enough about your friends and colleagues to tell them the truth because you want them to be able to understand it, grow, and succeed.”In the strikingly blunt internal memo, he wrote, “AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job too.”The CEO, in his message made it clear that AI targets all professions irrespective of being a lawyer, designer, programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, customer support representative, salesperson or someone working in finance.With the advent of AI what was once “considered ‘easy tasks’ will no longer exist; what was considered ‘hard tasks’ will be the new easy, and what was considered ‘impossible tasks’ will be the new hard.”He said, “If you do not become an exceptional talent at what you do, a master, you will face the need for a career change in a matter of months.”He further clarified that he was not referring to his employees’ future at Fiverr, rather their profession in the industry.However, Micha didn’t just raise the alarm but also offered a path forward, giving tips to help “become an exceptional talent in your field.”

The Fiverr CEO cautioned that not all are doomed but those who do not wake up and do not pay attention to the new reality are, “unfortunately doomed.”

Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rhenus Logistics India Private Limited, on May 6, 2025. Image credit: PIB

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In a bid to start barge services for transporting cargo across key national waterways, the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) on Tuesday (May 6, 2025) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with global logistics major Rhenus Logistics India Private Limited.

“As part of the MoU, Rhenus will introduce 100 barges in a phased manner in the national waterways while 20 barges and 6 pushers [are] to be deployed in the first phase, targeting the movement of more than one million tonnes of cargo annually by the end of 2025,” the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said in a statement.

“Inland waterways offer a remarkable opportunity to create a greener, cost-effective, and efficient logistics network,” Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbnanda Sonowal said, speaking at the event.

To begin with, Rhenus will operate on the Ganga, Brahmaputra, and Barak rivers, as well as the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol route, moving bulk and break bulk (non-standardised, individual units of) cargo across the north, east, and northeast India, with gradual expansion to other national waterways.

By leveraging Rhenus’s expertise in European inland navigation, and its global fleet of over 1,100 barges, the partnership aims to bring global best practices to India. “A combination of pushers and barges to suit the low draft navigation will be used to transport both bulk and break bulk cargo,” the Ministry said.

The number of operational national waterways in India grew from three in 2014-15 to 24 by 2023-24, with a target of 29 by 2024-25. Cargo movement has surged from 30 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) in 2014-15 to 133 MMTPA in 2023-24, adding up to the cumulative movement of over 779 MMT in the past decade, according to the Ministry.

Currently, 14,500 km of navigable waterways span 111 declared national waterways, and the sector is poised to play a transformative role in the country’s multimodal logistics framework, the Ministry said.