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Courts in Sarawak are readying themselves to begin applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide judges with guidelines and analysis in their duty to mete out suitable jail penalties and fines.
The AI analysis will also allow prosecutors and lawyers to know in advance the potential outcome of judgement, the Chief Justice of Sabah and Sarawak stated when met after the ceremony to mark the beginning of the Sarawak and Sabah Legal Year.
The application was timely because in the past there were complaints in regards to disparity and inconsistency of penalties passed by magistrates or judges.
The AI application will be operational once the ground rules are created and ready, which will be towards the end of February 2020.
The system is mostly ready for deployment. However, the courts are still in the process of creating ground rules. The way or how it works will be made known to the accused persons and they will know in advance the likely outcome of their cases. Then it will be up to them to plead guilty or to plead not guilty.
As everything is already digitalised, the ‘machine’ will be able to capture historical data. That is why the courts are able to get this up and running quickly.
Earlier on, judges and invited guests were invited to view a demonstration of the AI in action. The AI application is the pilot project of SAINS.
The demonstration was held at one of the programmes for the opening of the Legal Year for Sabah and Sarawak 2020. AI data sentencing isn’t new – it’s been used in America and China but to mixed reactions.
The then Chief Justice of Malaysia stated that the courts have to embrace technological advancement that contributes to improving efficiency.
Such technological advancements are here to stay and Malaysia needs to move along with it, she noted. If this the system (AI) is coming to us, there is no reason why the country should not embark on it.
However, as the nation goes along with it, the government also cannot 100 per cent rely on it and so there must be some human element as well.
Compared to the states in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak are ahead (in terms of advanced technology) as they started much earlier – in 2007. It is, in fact, learning from Sabah and Sarawak in terms of technology.
The usage of AI was first mentioned briefly by former Chief Justice of Sabah and Sarawak during the opening of the Legal Year for Sabah and Sarawak 2019 when he was listing down the potential digital applications to improve the efficiency of the courts in the two states.
As for the use of AI, a data-driven feature called ‘data sentencing’ is currently being fine-tuned before it is introduced in the courts and this will help or guide judges and officers with the sentencing process, he said back then.
Malaysia’s courts of tomorrow
According to an article from February 2019, Malaysia’s judiciary branch’s ambition of joining its counterparts like the US, India, and Singapore may seem a bit lofty to traditional observers, but some significant digital transformation initiatives are already set in motion in the country.
Tech in the courtroom
Among some of the technological upgrade being introduced or to the legal branch of Malaysia are:
- Video conference calling – To enable the courts in different regions to communicate with each other via digital means.
- Case Management System – Expected to be completed by June this year, the system will allow lawyers to be almost paperless.
- Auto-alert System – Helps lawyers avoid forgetting about filing relevant court documents within the due dates.
The adoption rate of technology is markedly slower among the private law firms in the country, compared to its many of its neighbours. One report estimates that Malaysia has about 20 firms exploring tech-driven solutions at the moment to improve operations, lagging behind Indonesia (22) and Singapore (23).
Regulatory hurdles
Malaysia’s flourishing legal tech space could be hampered by policies by the profession’s local regulatory body, the Malaysian Bar, which seeks to oversee the companies that are providing these services.
It has recently, been seeking to advise from its members to include a provision which will allow them to regulate legal technology into Malaysia’s Legal Profession Act (LPA) 1976.
The act which was last amended in 1993 determines the acceptable code of conduct and business practices of lawyers in the country and failing to adhere to the law will result in fines or even disbarment.
These regulations may dampen the tech eco-system in Malaysia as numerous existing players are already shutting down or forced to adopt different business models.
While the jury remains undecided on how the amendment will affect tech companies in this space, for the legal fraternity in Malaysia, adopting technology as quickly as possible is in their best interest, as it will enable them to deliver more value to clients and society in general.

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Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency (CSA) has issued an alert following the discovery of vulnerabilities in more than 100 million internet-connected devices globally. The CSA’s Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCert) said that administrators of the affected stacks are advised to apply security patches immediately.
Security patches have already been rolled out to address threats called Name: Wreck. These bugs are a set of Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerabilities that have the potential to cause either Denial of Service (DoS) or Remote Code Execution, allowing attackers to take targeted devices offline or to gain control over them. The widespread use of popular sets of rules called stacks and often external exposure of vulnerable DNS clients lead to a dramatically increased attack surface. Organisations in the healthcare and government sectors are the most affected, said, security researchers. Other sectors implicated include entertainment, retail, manufacturing, financial services, and technology.
A cyber-security firm’s report said that Name: Wreck affect these stacks, which govern how devices can “talk” to each other over a network such as the Internet. However, the firm said that not all devices running the affected stacks are vulnerable, but it conservatively estimated that if 1% of the more than 10 billion deployments are, then at least 100 million devices are at risk.
Potentially affected equipment and devices include consumer electronic products such as wearable fitness products, smartphones, printers and smart clocks, ultrasound machines, defibrillators, patient monitors and critical medical equipment such as magnetic resonance imaging, storage systems, industrial manufacturing robots, and energy and power equipment in industrial control systems.
Also affected are unmanned combat aircraft, commercial aircraft, self-driving cars, space exploration rovers and critical systems for aviation, and high-performance servers and network appliances in millions of IT networks. It is not clear how many devices in Singapore are affected by these bugs.
The cybersecurity firm added that unless urgent action is taken to adequately protect networks and the devices connected to them, it could be just a matter of time until these vulnerabilities are exploited, potentially resulting in major government data hacks, manufacturer disruption or hotel guest safety and security. The firm said that one way a cybercriminal could exploit Name: Wreck is to compromise ultrasound machines that connect to a website to get firmware updates. They could also use the bug to redirect the ultrasound machines to their sites to download fake firmware which is malicious. The infected ultrasound machines could then be instructed by the malware to upload all medical records to the cybercriminal.
Although security patches have been rolled out, the cyber-security firm said patching can be difficult in some cases. For instance, if affected devices are not managed centrally, it means each one must be manually patched. Some devices also cannot be taken offline for this because of their mission-critical nature, such as medical devices and industrial control systems.
If patching is not available, SingCert advised administrators to enforce segmentation controls and proper network hygiene measures such as restricting external communication paths and isolating vulnerable devices. They should monitor patches released, monitor all network traffic for malicious data, and configure devices to rely on internal DNS servers.
Accordingly, the CSA’s core mission is to keep Singapore’s cyberspace safe and secure, to underpin National Security, power a Digital Economy, and protect the country’s Digital Way of Life. To underpin National Security, CSA continuously monitors cyberspace for cyber threats and protects and defends Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) to ensure the continuous delivery of essential services to Singapore residents. The agency analyses the risks that the threats pose and take appropriate mitigation measures to prevent them from affecting users.
Nonetheless, despite its best efforts, cyber-attacks may still succeed. To deal with them, the CSA have incident response teams who stand ready to investigate, contain and remediate serious cyber-attacks on our CIIs. CSA also regularly conducts cybersecurity exercises to ensure that the critical sectors are ready to respond promptly and effectively in the event of an attack.
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The use of a simple organic molecule during the fabrication of a two-dimensional (2D) perovskite results in one of the highest recorded efficiencies for perovskite-based devices. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) employing this 2D perovskite material achieved an external quantum efficiency as high as 20.5%, which rivals the best organic LEDs, according to research co-led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU).
Led by Professor Andrey Rogach, Chair Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, CityU, and his collaborator Professor Yang Xuyong from Shanghai University, the research team has worked on 2D perovskite materials and succeeded to realise such efficient and bright green LEDs.
Their technology yielded the best-reported performance on both current efficiency and external quantum efficiency. This work has now put the perovskite LEDs close on the heels of current commercial display technologies, such as organic LEDs.
The findings were published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, titled “Smoothing the energy transfer pathway in quasi-2D perovskite films using methane sulfonate leads to highly efficient light-emitting devices”.
The key to the powerful change lies in the addition of around 10% of a simple organic molecule, called methane sulfonate. This molecule reconstructs the structure of the 2D perovskite nanosheets, while simultaneously enhancing exciton energy transfer between sheets of different thicknesses. It is also useful in reducing defects in the 2D perovskite structure, contributing to higher efficiency.
The consequences for producing better LEDs are encouraging. The brightness of 13,400 candela/m2 at a low applied voltage of 5.5 V and external quantum efficiency of 20.5% is recorded. This is close to the maximum that can be achieved by many existing LED technologies and has almost doubled the external quantum efficiency level of 10.5% reported in the previous collaborative study of the same groups two years ago.
“The CityU team has built up its expertise on perovskite materials to a very high level in a relatively short period of time, thanks to funding support from Senior Research Fellowship by the Croucher Foundation,” said Professor Rogach.
“The high brightness, excellent colour purity, and commercial-grade operating efficiency achieved marks 2D perovskites as an extremely attractive material for future commercial LEDs, and potentially also display technology. It’s a tangible outcome from both fundamental and applied research into novel nano-scale materials” he adds.
Other collaborators include researchers from CityU, Shanghai University, Jilin University, University of Science and Technology of China, Nankai University, Wuhan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Innovation in LED tech
According to an earlier OpenGov Asia article, researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have discovered a novel way to enhance the efficiency of the ultraviolet (UVC) light-emitting diode (LED) disinfection technique and developed a closet that could kill 99.99% of the bacteria and viruses on the garment inside within a minute. The closet is now in use at three special schools under Po Leung Kuk.
UVC is widely used for disinfecting purposes in private and public facilities, but the light source of existing UVC disinfection products are mainly mercury lamps, which not only has lower germicidal efficiency but is also bulkier with a much shorter lifespan than the LED light.
Moreover, mercury lamp has a longer disinfection cycle and requires time for warming up while LED emits light instantly. Since last year, over 140 nations, including the US, EU, China, Japan and Australia, have implemented a treaty on gradually phasing out the use of toxic mercury in commercial and industrial processes.
However, despite LED lights’ superiority over its mercury-based counterpart, it is not yet widely adopted in sterilisation products due to its narrow beam angle and low output efficiency with traditional single-layer reflector.
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Dozens of students, lecturers, and officers at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology (PTIT) can now use motorbike parking services, keep track of class schedules, check exam scores, and pay for meals entirely on their smartphones.
PTIT is a key human resource research and development unit of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC). With the aim of promoting digital transformation to improve the quality of training and research, the Institute deployed the PTIT S-Link mobile application for students, lecturers, and managers with essential functions.
PTIT S-Link sends students alerts about an upcoming lesson. It notifies the user about learning subjects, venues, and other detailed information about the class. The app was made operational in late 2020 and has over 12,000 downloads.
According to a press release, a digital university is taking shape at PTIT. In September 2020, during a talk with PTIT members, the MIC Minister, Nguyen Manh Hung, noted that PTIT, a “miniature society” with young dynamic people has favourable conditions to build a digital society. To prepare the labour force for digital transformation, an online university is the best way to “train digital citizens”. The Institute plans to unveil D-Lab, an online practice platform, S-Class, a smart class platform, and an intelligence operation centre (IOC), shortly.
The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) said Vietnam is striving to become a leading country with a fully digitised educational sector. It wants to produce a Vietnamese workforce that has globally recognised digital transformation knowledge and skills.
Though the institute has been using IT in its activities for many years, it still faces difficulties upgrading the application. The biggest problem is the lack of a digital university model and transformation at the Institute. In the first period, PTIT is focused on researching and shaping the architecture of the digital university and completing the digital transformation plan by 2025.
With the spirit of carrying out digital transformation in accordance with the “miniature digital nation”, the institute studied national policies and built its digital transformation plan under the three pillars of the national digital transformation programme: digital administration, service, and society.
“The fourth quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021 will be the time for the institute to cooperate with a digital technology firm to build a digital university,” Hung said. The Minister’s proposal spurred on development in the institute, the release noted.
In December 2020, Minister Hung stated that one digital university has likely become eligible for pilot transformation. With instructions from the Minister, the institute has become one of the pioneers in building and applying a digital university model. PTIT is not, however, the only digital school in the country.
The targets set in the Hanoi National University’s development strategy by 2030 are: reforming teaching methods towards modernisation, integrating personalisation into IT platforms, and creating learner-centric infrastructure. It also aims to establish intelligent university management and organisation models, execute comprehensive digital transformation in all activities, and operate the shared digital data knowledge system synchronously. The university will interconnect data for effective administration, management, and the renewal of teaching, learning, and research activities. One of the key tasks in 2021-2025 of the school is perfecting the modern university management and organisation model in association with building smart universities.
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Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) co-organised a webinar with the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) on 7 April 2021) to update Russian companies on Hong Kong’s latest business environment under the new normal, and encouraging them to tap the business opportunities arising from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) development.
Speakers at the webinar provided Russian companies with the latest information on business opportunities in Hong Kong regarding retail, e-commerce and import trade. They also highlighted how the city can tap opportunities amid rapid changes related to the world’s digital transformation in the face of the global pandemic.
The event started with welcoming remarks by the Vice President of MCCI followed by a video presentation on Hong Kong under the new normal. This included business opportunities, challenges and prospects from the Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK.
He said that the pandemic has fuelled a digital transformation globally and Hong Kong is ready to benefit. The Hong Kong SAR Government is committed to promoting the development of innovation and technology (I&T), with a special focus on research and development, state-of-the-art I&T infrastructure, a tech talent pool, investment funding and other support measures to improve the ecosystem for start-ups.
Russian companies can leverage the city’s sophisticated technology ecosystem to meet the growing demand for digital marketing and technology-related services in the Mainland and across the region.
He added that the GBA development offers huge business opportunities to Hong Kong in various areas. He urged Russian companies to set up a presence in Hong Kong and make use of the city’s status as an international finance centre, the low and simple tax regime, its robust common law legal system and vibrant business environment to expand into the lucrative Mainland market.
InvestHK’s Principal Consultant in Moscow told the webinar, “Through this webinar, we aspire to unveil the unparalleled advantages that Hong Kong grants to all sorts of entrepreneurial minds and daring corporations eager to expand into Asia and globally with all our expertise and care.”
An Entrepreneur and the Founder and Managing Director of a venture studio and consulting firm, based in Hong Kong and Co-Founder of Digital Week Online, a Business Development Specialist also shared his experience in doing business in Hong Kong, highlighting the business opportunities in retail, e-commerce and importation to Hong Kong.
About InvestHK
InvestHK is the department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government responsible for attracting foreign direct investment and supporting overseas and Mainland businesses to set up or expand in Hong Kong. It provides free advice and customised services for overseas and Mainland companies.
Hong Kong: an emerging tech hub
Hong Kong is rapidly emerging as a regional tech hub. Key IT infrastructure includes Hong Kong Science Park and Cyberport.
Hong Kong Science Park aims to transform Hong Kong into the regional hub for innovation and technology development. Home to 600 technology companies and about 13,000 technology talents, Science Park is a complete ecosystem that connects stakeholders, nurtures talent, facilitates collaboration, and drives innovation for commercialisation.
A leading information and communication technology hub in the Asia-Pacific region, Cyberport is a creative digital community of over 900 digital tech companies engaged in various forms of digital technology, such as FinTech, eCommerce, IoT/Wearables and Big Data/Artificial Intelligence.
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The Philippines’ Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Department of Education (DepEd) strengthened the partnership between the agencies to clear the path towards the digitalisation of the education sector with the establishment of the Public Education Network (PEN).
The DICT and DepEd started coordinating on the development of the PEN last year. It is aligned with President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive during his 5th State of the Nation Address (SONA) last year for both agencies to connect all schools, especially last-mile schools, and DepEd offices nationwide.
Under the memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed between the two agencies, the DICT will provide medium to long-term assistance to DepEd, including the allocation of bandwidth from the DICT’s high-speed Internet infrastructure project, augmentation of DepED’s future satellite capacity through DICT’s existing very small aperture technology (VSAT) satellite and teleport facilities, the building of internet backbone up to last-mile schools under the DICT’s National Broadband Programme (NBP), and the provision of data transport service using DICT’s fibre optic network under the Government Network (GovNet) project and Microwave towers.
Under the agreement, the DICT will also give immediate assistance to the DepEd on advocating for the presence of ICT service providers in public school premises; provisioning of online resources, materials, and systems for educational use; giving teachers and learners access to DICT’s Tech4Ed facilities and its attached computer laboratories and research facilities; and coordination with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), among others.
The agencies also inked a separate MOA for the use of suitable real estate properties owned or under the administration of DepEd as sites or locations for the implementation of DICT’s Shared Passive Telecommunications Tower Infrastructure (PTTI) or the Common Tower Initiative.
According to the DICT, education shall continue to play a key role in the socio-economic prosperity of a nation. Hence, the country needs to envision how education can emerge stronger, more responsive, and more effective from this global crisis than ever before. To do this, the agency is continuously assisting the DepEd with the transition from a traditional classroom setting to blended learning and shall continue to draw on the benefits provided by ICT to make this shift possible.
The DepEd said this partnership is designed not only to deal with COVID-19 but also to deal with the future. The agency hopes to improve the education sector with the help of partner agencies.
Accordingly, as reported by OpenGov Asia, the Philippine Full Digital Transformation Act of 2020 mandates all government agencies, government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), instrumentalities and Local Government Units (LGUs) to adopt a digital plan that aligns with the Philippine Digital Transformation Strategy 2022.
With COVID-19, digital transformation in the government has taken on a sense of urgency. Contract tracing and distribution of aid could be smoother if data is harmonised, and digital systems are put in place more comprehensively. Lawmakers in the country plan to harmonise collected personal data of Philippine citizens, businesses, land, and transactions, among others. Further, it will open opportunities that will likely drive the government to invest in developing additional organisational capability and staff competencies.
With all these plans taking on urgency in the light of the pandemic, the government predicts it will be expedient to build a Digital Transformation Department to manage the ambitious and yet highly practical investment. The department would be expected to support and roll out the office’s digital transformation strategy. Lawmakers in the country stressed that there is no reason to delay the drive to realise the full modernisation of government services to serve Philippine citizens – adequately, efficiently, and securely.
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More data centre and warehouse developments will qualify as state significant developments (SSDs) in NSW under planned changes to the state’s planning approvals process. The reforms, which come into effect in June, will temporarily lower the threshold for facilities to be assessed as SSD for two years to fast-track approvals and stimulate economic activity.
SSD is a type of development deemed important due to its size, economic value or potential impact, requiring Independent Planning Commission or ministerial sign-off before it proceeds. Proposals are assessed by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, instead of local councils.
The threshold for data centres will fall “from $50 million CIV [capital investment value] to 10 megawatts total power consumption (which roughly equates to a CIV of $40 million)”. Warehouses, on the other hand, will fall from “$50 million CIV to $30 million CIV for a two-year period” before reverting to $50 million CIV. The department said the changes will “more accurately” reflect the scale, complexity and potential impact of data centres and warehouses, providing a “clear and more certain planning pathway”.
The Planning Minister stated that the reforms would allow projects to travel through the planning system more quickly at a time when demand for data centres and warehouses is increasing. “During the pandemic, there has been a noticeable shift closer towards e-commerce, remote working and cloud storage which has led to an increase in data centres and warehouses. These are great for stimulating the economy – they’re simple to build, simple to assess and create a higher number of direct and indirect jobs,” he said.
Data centres and warehouses represent a $4.9 billion pipeline of projects so by lowering the threshold to assess more of them as SSD, the NSW Government is pushing them through the planning system more quickly. The Minister added that the number of planning assessment officers would also be boosted to help manage the demand as a result of the changes.
The SSD assessment pathway reforms come as the department plans further changes to the SEEPs to streamline the delivery of smaller data centres through the complying development pathway. The pathway offers an accelerated approvals process by the council or an accredited certifier for “straight forward developments”, as long as they “meet strict construction and building standards”
It follows a noticeable increase in the number of data centre development applications, particularly using the regional development of SSD pathways. “This means we’re making it easier to build small-scale data centres without lengthy planning approvals while providing a swifter pathway for large scale ones,” the Minister said.
Each data centre development is estimated to contribute up to $1 billion in construction and fit-out costs to the NSW economy. The Managing Director of an Australian cloud, data centre, government cybersecurity and telecom company said that the reforms were “really practical” and would “support NSW’s short-term economic recovery”.
His company has invested more than $200 million in the past year alone building two facilities. The firm is proud to be part of that economic rebuild and look forward to continued partnership with the state and federal government to do more, he added.
The Managing Director of Australia’s branch of the world’s largest data centre and colocation infrastructure provider also welcomed the announcement. “With eight data centres in the state today, any legislative changes that speed up the planning system is an important step forward,” he said.
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On 20 April 2021, Army will launch its Quantum Technology Roadmap. The launch will occur during the Quantum Technology Challenge 2021 (QTC 2021) at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre and will include presentations from Australia’s Chief Scientist as well as the Chief Defence Scientist.
Quantum technologies have been identified as having substantial disruptive potential across defence. However, their true capabilities, limitations, countermeasures and most disruptive applications are still being discovered.
Army aims to leverage Australia’s national strength in quantum technology research to gain and retain an early quantum advantage. The Roadmap provides the framework to achieve this through partnering with broader Defence, Australia’s academia and emerging quantum industry, and aligned nations. The Roadmap adds to Army’s accelerating engagement with emerging technologies and evolution, as described in Accelerated Warfare, Army in Motion and Army Objective Force.
Whilst the launch event is restricted to defence personnel and select guests, the Roadmap and a recording of the launch will be published on the Land Power Forum after a short delay on 20 April 2021. To be alerted of the publication and to view the recording, audiences are to register via the website.
QTC 2021 is a key first step in the Roadmap and will see teams of Australia’s world-leading quantum scientists and engineers compete to show how quantum technologies can deliver Army unprecedented capabilities. Pitches from each of the remarkable teams competing in QTC 2021 will be included in the launch recording.
About QTC 2021
The first Army Quantum Technology Challenge (QTC 2021) will be held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on 20 April 2021. The Challenge will see teams of Australia’s world-leading quantum scientists and engineers compete to show how quantum technologies can conceptually deliver Army unprecedented capabilities, including:
- Making the ground transparent: imaging what is hidden subterranean
- Resupplying troops in battle quickly, safely and efficiently: optimisation of large-scale resupply by squads of autonomous uncrewed ground vehicles.
- Denying the enemy secure communications: countermeasures quantum encryption.
QTC 2021 will be the first in a regular series of challenges that will enable Army to leverage Australia’s national strategic strength in quantum technology to rapidly identify the most disruptive and advantageous applications of quantum technologies for the land domain.
Future challenges will respond to opportunities and problems identified by members of Army and the wider quantum technology community.
The challenges are a key component of Army’s Quantum Technology Roadmap, which will also be launched at QTC 2021. The Roadmap also contains plans for the development of the high-value applications and technologies identified by the challenges, focused on Army’s needs. The Roadmap, a recording of the launch and recordings of the pitches by each of the QTC 2021 teams will be published.
The need for quantum technologies
According to an earlier article by Army, quantum technologies exploit the fundamental laws of nature to reach the ultimate limits of sensing, imaging, communications and computing, and thus promise otherwise impossible capabilities.
They are no longer scientific speculation; substantial public and private investments around the world are driving these technologies out of laboratories.
This acceleration will see quantum technologies transform our lives over the next 20 years. This will be even more evident when combined with other emerging technologies, such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, space technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Now is the time that Defence must begin to understand, explore and exploit quantum technologies throughout its operations if it is to gain and retain a quantum advantage.