CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Mozambique 'tuna bond' case against Credit Suisse can proceed, UK judge rules

Kirstin Ridley
Mon, July 3, 2023 


By Kirstin Ridley

LONDON (Reuters) -Mozambique's blockbuster lawsuit against Credit Suisse and others over the $2 billion "tuna bond" scandal can proceed to trial, a London judge ruled on Monday, despite complaints that the African nation has failed to fully disclose documents.

High Court Judge Robin Knowles said it was not just, proportionate or necessary to strike out the complex case, which encompasses 11 sets of proceedings, three months before a London trial scheduled to start on Oct. 2.

But he warned: "At trial, all alternatives, including to strike out and in whole or in part, remain available."

The tuna bond or "hidden debt" case has triggered litigation from Maputo to New York, but the London case is due to establish whether one of the world's poorest countries can revoke a sovereign guarantee on a loan it alleges was corruptly procured, and secure compensation for other alleged wrongdoing.

The case dates back to 2013 and three deals between state-owned Mozambican companies and shipbuilder Privinvest - funded in part by loans and bonds from Credit Suisse and backed by undisclosed Mozambican government guarantees - ostensibly to develop the fishing industry and for maritime security.

But hundreds of millions of dollars went missing and, when the state loan guarantees became public in 2016, donors such as the International Monetary Fund halted support, triggering a currency collapse and debt crisis.

The judge first raised the prospect of a strike-out in March, when he ordered Mozambique to ensure access to relevant documents in state offices such as the Office of President and SISE, the state security service.

Credit Suisse, UAE-Lebanese Privinvest and others argue that a lack of "adequate" disclosure jeopardised a fair trial.

Under English litigation rules, each party has to disclose documents on which they rely for their case, those that might damage their own case and those that support the case of others.

A spokesperson for Credit Suisse said the bank "continues to defend itself". Privinvest did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Mozambique's Attorney General's Office said: "In rulings of this kind, pronouncements are always issued after a through analysis so we will respond in due course."


The latest judgment comes as Credit Suisse's new parent, UBS, grapples with integrating its cross-town peer - and its inherited legacy - after an emergency rescue in March.

Lawyers for Mozambique have argued that state secrecy prevents some documents from being disclosed but urged the judge to consider that the case concerned "what is said to be an international fraud and corruption of public officials on a massive scale".

Credit Suisse agreed to pay about $475 million to British and U.S. authorities in 2021 to resolve bribery and fraud charges and has pledged to forgive $200 million of Mozambican debt. It has said three former bankers, who pleaded guilty in the U.S. to handling kickbacks, hid their conduct from the bank.

Privinvest has said it delivered on its obligations under the shipping contracts and any payments it made were legal under Mozambican law.

(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; Additional reporting by Rachel Savage, Sam Tobin and Manuel Mucari in Maputo, Editing by Conor Humphries and Mark Potter)

Scientists discover concerning possible reason that seals are losing their fur — the findings may have horrible implications



Jeremiah Budin
Mon, July 3, 2023

The overheating of our planet affects living things everywhere, including seals. Scientists have found that seals are losing their fur, probably as a result of rising temperatures.

Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, a professor at the University of Queretaro in Mexico, conducted a study of 13 Guadalupe fur seals in the San Benito archipelago off the west coast of Mexico between 2017 and 2018.

She and her team found that nine of the 13 seals showed visible signs of alopecia (the scientific term for hair loss) and that all 13 of the seals had unusually brittle hair.

“Structural changes, although less severe, were detected even in samples collected from fur seals that appeared to have normal fur,” she said. “This suggests that the changes are gradual and this alopecia only appears after the fur has undergone extensive structural damage.”

After ruling out other factors, Acevedo-Whitehouse and her team concluded that the hair loss was likely a result of nutritional deficiencies caused by rising sea surface temperatures.

Average sea surface temperatures have been rising steadily for the past century and are at an all-time high. Studies have found that, in warmer conditions, seals feed on a different and less nutritious variety of squid than they usually eat, as their preferred prey begins to disappear. This, according to Acevedo-Whitehouse, probably accounts for the hair loss.

While other seals rely on heavy layers of blubber to keep warm, fur seals do not have these thick layers of fat and rely instead on their thick fur layers for insulation. Losing that fur would pose a clear and obvious danger to fur seals’ ability to continue to survive in the wild.

This is another likely example of the far-reaching consequences of overheating our planet with air pollution and planet-warming gas emissions.

Though all aspects of life are threatened, marine life is particularly damaged by changes to our planet’s climate. And since that damage often happens out of sight of humans, it goes unremarked upon too often. Recently, nearly 200 countries in the United Nations came together to sign a “High Seas Treaty” to protect oceans and their biodiversity.

Chinese hospital ship to visit Pacific to boost 'responsible' image


Chinese hospital ship to visit Pacific to boost 'responsible' image

Reuters
Sun, July 2, 2023 

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is sending a military-run hospital ship to the Pacific to where it will call in at Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and East Timor at a time of growing competition with the United States and its allies for influence in the region.

The 14,300 metric ton "Peace Ark", which is bigger than a typical Chinese destroyer, will offer medical aid to Chinese citizens and residents of the countries it visits on its ninth humanitarian "Harmony Mission", the defence ministry said in a statement late on Sunday.

"It is to present our image as a responsible big country", navy spokesperson Liu Wensheng said in a statement.

The ship, painted white with red crosses on its sides, was commissioned in 2008 and has sailed to more than 40 countries.

China has been building ties in the Pacific in recent years to the consternation of the United States and allies Australia and New Zealand, that have long seen the region as their sphere of influence.

China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands last year and hopes to build similar ties with other Pacific countries. Its foreign minister has said relations with the Solomon Islands can serve as a model.

The United States has pledged to triple funding for the region and it opened an embassy in the Solomon Islands in February after a 30-year absence. It is also planning an embassy in Vanuatu.

In May, the U.S. opened an embassy in Tonga and signed a defence pact with Papua New Guinea.

(Reporting by Albee Zhang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Capitalism as we know it has failed. Not even the Tories can defend it

Nick Timothy
Sun, July 2, 2023 

Canary Wharf

Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, once explained why he thought inequality had risen. “One of the reasons,” he said, “is that people are being treated closer to the way that they’re supposed to be treated.”

That story is recounted in Hell to Pay, a brilliant new book by Michael Lind about how the suppression of wages is driving economic, social and political crises in America. The idea that we are paid what we deserve – and that the decline in mid-skilled, mid-paid jobs simply reflects the high-tech, globalised economy in which we live – derives from free market theory. But it is, Lind argues, utter nonsense.

In Britain, like in America, the labour market has bifurcated because of political choices and corporate behaviour. Businesses have reduced employment costs by offshoring production to countries with lower labour standards and wages, or by using immigration to import cheaper workers. They have replaced full-time employees with rights and pensions with part-time contractors and gig economy workers. The post-war militancy and overreach of trade unions, and the restrictive laws that followed, has given employers monopsony power: that is, the ability to lower the price of labour because of their relative power over workers.

At the heart of all these changes is a model of globalisation that has caused the economic elites of the West to get richer, and which has allowed millions of people in Asia to escape poverty, but which has also relentlessly and systematically damaged the interests of the Western working – and increasingly middle – class.

Our model of globalisation was not, as Tony Blair put it, as inevitable as summer giving way to autumn. Trade agreements were struck, international institutions created, and when the likes of China broke the rules, dumped goods, stole industrial secrets, and used the system the West had created against us, reality was ignored. In as much as anybody noticed the effects on British workers, the reaction was to subsidise low pay, through tax credits, or – better, but not enough – increase it through minimum wages.

Regardless of the model of globalisation, there always remained choices for domestic policies. We can see this, for example, in how the breakdown between improvements in productivity and increases in pay have differed from country to country. In the US, it is longstanding and chronic. In Britain, more recent yet acute. In Denmark and Sweden, recent and mild.

A recent academic study showed that, contrary to popular perception, Britain and America have tax systems more progressive than in Europe – based on the difference between the taxes paid by the top decile to the bottom half of earners – and redistribute a greater proportion of national income to the bottom half. The reason Europe is less unequal than Britain and America is that wages themselves are more equal.

But wages are not the only way in which capitalism is in crisis. In Britain, everything seems to be in the red: we have a trade deficit, a budget deficit, and a house-building deficit. Personal debt stands at around 130 per cent of household income. The only surplus we seem to run is in net migration: millions have been added to our population in recent years, and 606,000 in the last year alone. Since the financial crash, we have had anaemic growth and stagnant pay. Stuck in a rut of low investment, poor productivity and low pay, we earn no more in real terms, on average, than we did in 2005.

Globalisation is part of the story, but so too is the quality of British economic policy. George Osborne used to describe himself as a strict fiscal conservative but a “monetary policy radical”. But while a fiscal correction was necessary after the financial crash, austerity went too far and for too long. According to Andy Haldane, former chief economist at the Bank of England, “this ruptured growth and was self-defeating for debt”.

Radical monetary policy poisoned the well, inflating asset prices, keeping zombie companies alive, discouraging bank lending to businesses and slowing the circulation of money through the economy. The government and the country became addicted to cheap credit, and left us exposed now the music has finally stopped. It was regressive, hurting households with less, helping those with more, and making it harder for young people to get on to the property ladder. And it caused an orgy of financial restructuring, through share buybacks and leveraged debt.

This is part of the shameful story of the water companies – regulated monopolies that have racked up £65 billion in debt, even as they paid executives multi-million pound remuneration packages and their foreign owners large dividends, all while failing to modernise our creaking infrastructure.

As with the energy companies, this is not just a symptom of monetary policy, but a failure of regulation – which encourages systematic over-reward for investors.

We know capitalism, untempered, can be rapacious: brilliant, innovative and wealth-creating, but also exploitative and careless about the externalities of doing business. Think for example of those tech firms that profit from and care little about the algorithms that send inappropriate content to children. Our economic pain is sometimes caused by a failure to regulate – but when we do regulate we often get it horribly wrong.

From the absurd complexity of the planning system to the failure of pension regulations that drives our savings away from British equities, we have built an economic model that rewards the wealthy not the many, the incumbent not the challenger, the bureaucrat not the entrepreneur, the rentier not the risk-taker, the financier not the maker and the old and not the young. We are serfs to debt, trapped by low pay and bloated assets.

Conservatives should accept that to criticise capitalism is not to succumb to socialism, but turning a blind eye to the failures and excesses of capitalism – especially the crony capitalism we have brought on ourselves – makes defeat to Left-wing parties more likely.

It is often said that those without capital will not support capitalism, but if what we have today is capitalism, it should be up to conservatives to change it – and not just defend the indefensible.

Climate change spells 'terrifying' future: UN rights chief

AFP
Mon, July 3, 2023 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said addressing climate change was a human rights issue (Fabrice COFFRINI)

Climate change threatens to deliver a "truly terrifying" dystopian future of hunger and suffering, the United Nations' human rights chief warned Monday.

Volker Turk slammed world leaders for only thinking of the short term while dealing with the climate crisis.

Turk told a UN Human Rights Council debate on the right to food that extreme weather events were wiping out crops, herds and ecosystems, making it impossible for communities to rebuild and support themselves.

"More than 828 million people faced hunger in 2021. And climate change is projected to place up to 80 million more people at risk of hunger by the middle of this century," said Turk.

"Our environment is burning. It's melting. It's flooding. It's depleting. It's drying. It's dying," he said, evoking a "dystopian future".

"Addressing climate change is a human rights issue... there is still time to act. But that time is now," he said.

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries agree to cap global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 -- and 1.5C if possible. The global mean temperature in 2022 was 1.15C above the 1850-1900 average.

On current policy trends, the planet will be 2.8C warmer by the end of the century, according to the UN's IPCC climate science advisory panel.

"We must not deliver this future of hunger and suffering to our children, and their children. And we don't have to," Volk said.

"We, the generation with the most powerful technological tools in history, have the capacity to change it."

Turk said world leaders "perform the choreography of deciding to act and promising to act and then get stuck in the short term".

He called for an end to "senseless subsidies" of the fossil fuel industry, and said the Dubai COP28 climate summit in November and December needed to be the "decisive game-changer that we so badly need".

Turk urged the world to "shun the green-washers" as well as those who cast doubt on climate science, driven by their own greed.

The Human Rights Council's 53rd session runs until July 14.

rjm/ach

Farmers hope recent rains will ease Iowa's drought, now in the longest stretch in 23 years
2

Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register
Mon, July 3, 2023 

With drought conditions deepening across Iowa, Clark Whitaker welcomed the half-inch of rain that fell on his crops and pasture in southwest Iowa last Thursday.

Getting rain this year has been the “luck of the draw,” said Whitaker, who farms about 1,100 acres with his son, Will, growing corn, soybeans and alfalfa that he uses to help feed his cattle, pigs and sheep.

“It’s been very spotty, hit and miss,” said the 67-year-old, who hoped more rain through the weekend would help revive pastures that had burned up, with only 2 inches since May.

Iowa has experienced drought for 155 weeks, the longest stretch since the U.S. Drought Monitor began in 2000, says Iowa Climatologist Justin Glisan. Here, corn grows in front of a poorly-growing hayfield due to drought on Tuesday, August 2, 2022, at Rehder Farms outside Hawarden, Iowa.

Across Iowa, drought conditions are nearing a third year, the longest stretch since the U.S. Drought Monitor began 23 years ago, said Justin Glisan, the state climatologist. Some portion of Iowa has experienced drought conditions over the past 155 weeks, beating the 2011-12 drought that lasted 151 weeks, Glisan said.

The U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday showed almost all of Iowa experiencing abnormally dry or drought conditions. Nearly 90% of Iowa was gripped in drought, with about 45% of the state suffering either severe or extreme drought, including southeast Iowa, where Whitaker farms.

Even with recent showers, and scattered storms over the July 4th weekend, the state is unlikely to escape the drought anytime soon, Glisan said.

Recent rain — and signals that Iowa farmers will see more precipitation in July — will help, Glisan said. But “we will need several months, if not more than a year, to really get enough precipitation to chip away at the long-term deficit” in Iowa, he said.

Glisan said May and June are typically Iowa’s wettest months of the year, but the months as of last week had received only 62% of the normal rainfall, Glisan said. Southeastern Iowa has received less than half its normal rainfall, he said.

May was the 21st driest May in 151 years of record-keeping in Iowa, Glisan said, and June could rank the same, depending on rainfall totals through the weekend.

The reason: A blocking high-pressure system has stymied east-west flow across Iowa, preventing normal rainfall from the Gulf of Mexico, Glisan said.

“In July, we expect to see the pattern shift toward a more active storm track and wetter weather possibilities,” he said.

That’s good news for Iowa farmers. July is a critical time for the state’s corn crop, which will begin tasseling, part of the pollination process that’s a big factor in determining yields.


“We need a lot of rain in July to keep us going,” said Aaron Saeugling, an Iowa State University Extension agronomist in southwest Iowa.

“Soybeans appreciate a good drink, too, but August is much more critical for soybeans, reproduction-wise,” Saeugling said.

Nearly 90% of Iowa is in moderate to extreme drought, the U.S. Monitor showed Thursday. Iowa has experience some level of drought for the past 155 weeks, the longest stretch since the Drought Monitor began in 2000, the state climatologist says.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s weekly crop report shows Iowa's crops have deteriorated: 56% of Iowa’s corn was considered good to excellent, dropping 16 percentage points from the first week in June, and 48% of the state’s soybeans are good to excellent, dropping 22 percentage points.

The rain "was a short-term blessing, but farmers still face a long-term challenge to get enough moisture" for their crops, Saeugling said.

Clarabell Probasco, an ISU Extension agronomist in southeast Iowa, said crops have shown signs of stress: Corn leaves curl tight to prevent moisture loss and soybeans are yellow.

Additionally, the week’s thunderstorms also have brought strong winds along with rain for southern Iowa farmers, knocking over corn plants, Probasco and Saeugling said. Farmers will need some time to determine whether the corn can recover.

The drought probably means some farmers are unlikely to see record yields this year.

“It’s taken top-line yields off the table,” she said, adding that the lack of rain has been especially difficult for cattle and other livestock producers that graze their animals on pastures.

Some farmers are hauling water to their herds and are worried they won’t get a second or third cutting of alfalfa to help feed their herds throughout the winter.

Whitaker said he has enough water for his cow and calf herd. Without some rain to help his pastures, he will need to feed his grazing cows, a move that typically wouldn’t happen until August or September. That will dip into the reserves that he puts away for winter.

“It’s ugly on the grass situation right now,” he said.

Still, Whitaker said his crops look “surprisingly good,” thanks to some timely rains and improving seed genetics. They'll get better with more precipitation.

"Nobody cares if it rains on our parade" this July 4th, he said.

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa's drought is the longest the state has seen in 23 years, beating 2011-12

State’s prolonged drought brings additional fears of arsenic in dwindling water supply: ‘A problem that a lot of people are not aware of’



Roberto Guerra
Sun, July 2, 2023 

Prolonged drought in Colorado is doing more than just drying rivers. It’s also ruining the quality of drinking water, Inside Climate News reported.

Decades of little rain have brought water levels dangerously low, which is increasing the amount of heavy metals in the water people and animals rely on for hydration.
What’s happening?

Human industrial activities have spewed an excess of planet-warming gases into the atmosphere over decades, causing our planet to heat up. This has also brought about an increase in floods and droughts in certain parts of the world.

As a result, the American West has been suffering from a powerful drought for over 20 years, a contributing factor in the drying up of important water sources, like the Colorado River.

But overuse is also to blame.

About 80% of the Colorado River goes toward agriculture, the majority of which goes to feeding cows for meat production.

Inside Climate News reported that a study led by Kathy James, an associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, has found increasing levels of arsenic, a carcinogen that occurs naturally in soil, in drinking water that has been depleted by drought.

As a result, it is estimated that the number of people in the contiguous U.S. exposed to dangerous levels of arsenic may increase from 2.7 to 4.1 million.
Why does arsenic in drinking water matter?

Exposure to arsenic from water used for drinking and irrigation of food crops poses a huge risk to human health, as long-term limited exposure can cause cancer and skin lesions and has been associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes, according to the World Health Organization.

Melissa Lombard, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, told Inside Climate News, “I think it’s a problem that a lot of people are not aware of. Climate change is probably going to impact water quality.”
What’s being done about it?

Julie Zahringer, a chemist and laboratory director of SDC Laboratory in Colorado, encourages people to test their drinking water for arsenic.

“It’s colorless, it’s odorless,” Zahringer told Inside Climate News. “Most families don’t know if they’re drinking arsenic.”

In addition, she said another potential remedy would be to install reverse osmosis water filtration at the kitchen sink, which costs about $300 from an outside supplier, reported Inside Climate News.

In 2009, a water-quality campaign also found high levels of arsenic in the area. The campaign, led by the nonprofit San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council, has worked with local real estate agents to make sure domestic water wells are tested for heavy metals before someone buys a home that uses those same water wells.

For now, it appears water testing and installing sophisticated water filtration systems are the best way to prevent residents from drinking water with dangerous levels of arsenic.

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New ‘significant’ deep-sea discovery leaves scientists stunned: ‘They are pristine’



Lajja Mistry
Sun, July 2, 2023

Amid global concerns over coral’s survival in rising sea temperatures, scientists have discovered deep-sea coral reefs in a previously unexplored part of the Galapagos marine reserve — and they’re teeming with life.

According to The Guardian, scientists used a special human-occupied submersible called HOV Alvin and dove to a depth of about 600 meters (nearly 2,000 feet), making the unusual discovery of a healthy and active coral reef.

The discovery is surprising as scientists have described the coral reef to be in great condition, as it lacks evidence of any human damage or pollution.

As part of the Galapagos Deep 2023 project, HOV Alvin carried two scientists, Dr. Michelle Taylor and Dr. Stuart Banks, and explored the sea using state-of-the-art sampling capabilities and visual upgrades that included improved high-quality still and ultra-high-definition 4K video imaging systems, reported The Guardian.

“They are pristine and teeming with life – pink octopus, batfish, squat lobsters and an array of deep-sea fish, sharks and rays,” said Dr. Taylor.

The newly discovered coral reef might be hundreds of years old, thriving, and housing a plethora of living creatures such as the pink octopus, batfish, squat lobsters, and an array of deep-sea fish, sharks, and rays and over 50% live coral coverage in many areas.

The discovery of the reef is significant because prior to this, scientists believed Wellington Reef, along the coast of Darwin Island, was among the few shallow reefs surviving in the islands, after 1982-83’s El Niño.

El Niño is a recurring phenomenon that affects rainfall and causes rising ocean temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.

Six hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos waters are home to about 2,900 species of marine plants and animals.

With the discovery of the deep-water coral reef, scientists are more hopeful about the survival of that healthy coral despite alarming sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. It also raises hopes about the existence of other deep-water coral reefs.

Ecuador’s environment minister, José Antonio Dávalos, told The Guardian that the discovery was “encouraging news” and emphasized his determination to establish new marine protected areas in Ecuador.

“These newly discovered reefs are potentially of global significance — a ‘canary in the mine’ for other reefs globally — sites which we can monitor over time to see how pristine habitats evolve with our current climate crisis,” Dr. Taylor added.

Exclusive-Microsoft faces EU antitrust probe after remedies fall short, sources say

Foo Yun Chee
Mon, July 3, 2023 


By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Microsoft is likely to face a European Union antitrust investigation in the coming months after remedy discussions with the EU watchdog to avert such a move appear to have hit a roadblock, people familiar with the matter said.

Microsoft, which has been fined 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in the previous decade for practices in breach of EU competition rules, including tying or bundling two or more products together, found itself in the EU crosshairs after a complaint by Salesforce-owned workspace messaging app Slack in 2020.

Microsoft added Teams to Office 365 in 2017 for free, with the app eventually replacing Skype for Business.

Slack alleged that its rival had unfairly integrated workplace chat and video app Teams into its Office product. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Microsoft kicked off talks with the European Commission last year in a bid to stave off an investigation. It recently offered to cut the price of its Office product without its Teams app.

The European Commission, which hopes a price differential between Office with Teams and Office without the app will ensure a level playing field with rivals and give consumers more choice, has been seeking a deeper price cut than that offered by the U.S. software giant, the people said.

The EU executive declined to comment.

A Microsoft spokesperson said: "We continue to engage cooperatively with the Commission in its investigation and are open to pragmatic solutions that address its concerns and serve customers well."

The company, which risks a fine up to 10% of its global turnover if eventually found in breach of EU antitrust rules, could still improve its remedy before the watchdog kicks off an investigation.

($1 = 0.9147 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; editing by Mark Potter, David Evans and Sonali Paul)

Supercomputer makes calculations in blink of an eye that take rivals 47 years

James Titcomb
Sun, July 2, 2023 

Google researchers claim the latest technology is beyond the capabilities of existing supercomputers 

- Google Quantum AI/PA

Google has developed a quantum computer that instantly makes calculations that would take the best existing supercomputers 47 years, in a breakthrough meant to establish beyond doubt that the experimental machines can outperform conventional rivals.

A paper from researchers at Google published online claims that the company’s latest technology is “beyond the capabilities of existing classical supercomputers”.

Proponents of quantum computers say the technology, which relies on the peculiar states of quantum physics, can create hugely powerful machines able to battle climate change and create breakthrough drugs.

However, they also threaten to undermine today’s encryption systems, making them a national security priority.

Four years ago, Google claimed to be the first company to achieve “quantum supremacy” – a milestone point at which quantum computers surpass existing machines.

This was challenged at the time by rivals, which argued that Google was exaggerating the difference between its machine and traditional supercomputers.

The company’s new paper – Phase Transition in Random Circuit Sampling – published on the open access science website ArXiv, demonstrates a more powerful device that aims to end the debate.

While the 2019 machine had 53 qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, the next generation device has 70.

Adding more qubits improves a quantum computer’s power exponentially, meaning the new machine is 241 million times more powerful than the 2019 machine.

The researchers said it would take Frontier, the world’s leading supercomputer, 6.18 seconds to match a calculation from Google’s 53-qubit computer from 2019. In comparison, it would take 47.2 years to match its latest one.

The researchers also claim that their latest quantum computer is more powerful than demonstrations from a Chinese lab which is seen as a leader in the field.

IBM's quantum computer prototype - IBM

Google’s paper demonstrates how larger quantum computers can manage “noise” – interference that threatens to disrupt the fragile states in which qubits operate – to continue to make calculations.

The researchers said: “We conclude that our demonstration is firmly in the regime of beyond-classical quantum computation.”

The rival machines were measured on a randomisation task that critics say favour quantum computers and lack any practical value beyond academic study.


Steve Brierley, the chief executive of Cambridge-based quantum company Riverlane, said: “This is a major milestone. The squabbling about whether we had reached, or indeed could reach, quantum supremacy is now resolved.”

Sebastian Weidt, the chief executive of Brighton-based start-up Universal Quantum, said quantum computers needed to demonstrate more practical functions.

He said: “This is a very nice demonstration of quantum advantage. While a great achievement academically, the algorithm used does not really have real world practical applications though.

“We really must get to utility quantum computing – an era where quantum computers with many thousand qubits actually begin to deliver value to society in a way that classical computers never will be able to.”