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| The Australian physicist shook the heavy metal box that resembled a beer cooler but held a quantum sensor. A computer screen showed that the cutting-edge device — with lasers manipulating atoms into a sensitive state — continued functioning despite the rattling. |
| 这名澳大利亚物理学家使劲摇了摇一个啤酒保冷箱大小的沉重金属盒，盒子里面装着一个量子传感器。计算机屏幕显示，尽管盒子受了震动，但里面的尖端设备没有停止运行，激光仍操纵着原子进入一种灵敏状态。 |
| He and his team had built a hard-to-detect, super-accurate navigation system for when satellite GPS networks are jammed or do not work that was robust and portable enough to be used outside a lab. It could potentially guide military equipment, from submarines to spacecraft, for months with a minuscule risk of directional error — a significant improvement over what is available today. |
| 这名物理学家和他的团队制造出一种很难被发现的超精确量子导航系统，能在卫星GPS网络受到干扰或无法工作时使用，这个系统坚固耐用，而且便于携带，足以投入实用。从潜艇到航天器，它有可能为各种军事设备连续制导数月，几乎不存在方向误差的风险，是现有技术的重大提高。 |
| “The fact that we can do that is probably a wild, insane surprise,” said Russell Anderson, the head of quantum sensing at Q-CTRL, a start-up that recently signed a deal with Australia’s Department of Defense to develop and field-test its quantum sensor technology. |
| “我们能做到这点，可能是一个令人激动、简直无法想象的惊喜，”Q-CTRL公司的量子传感负责人拉塞尔·安德森说，这家初创公司最近已与澳大利亚国防部签定了研发和实地测试量子传感器技术的协议。 |
| The global race to develop quantum technologies of all kinds has accelerated as governments pour investment into the industry and scientists make rapid technical advances. But to maintain an edge over China — which takes a centralized approach to tech development — the United States is considering tougher export controls for quantum. And allies say more limits, on top of those already in place, could stifle momentum because the strength of the American model of tech development comes from its openness, combining pools of public research money with private investment to support scientists from many countries. |
| 随着各国政府对量子技术领域投入大量资金，科学家们快速取得技术进步，研发各种量子技术的全球竞赛已经加速。但为了保持对中国的优势（中国在技术开发上采取集中投资的举国方式），美国正在考虑对与量子计算有关的产品实行更严格的出口管制。盟友们说，在已经采取的措施之上实行更多的限制可能会压制创新动力，因为美国科技发展模式的强项在于其开放性，在于将政府的科研投入与私人投资结合起来，支持来自许多国家的科学家。 |
| For the United States and its allies, the challenge is clear: how to balance protectionism and cooperation in a transformative field where talent is scarce and less concentrated in the United States, making interdependence inevitable and increasingly necessary. |
| 对美国及其盟友来说，面临的挑战显而易见：如何在一个将改变未来的领域中平衡保护主义与合作，这个领域的人才稀缺，而且不都集中在美国，这使相互依存变得不可避免且越来越必要。 |
| “The world has changed, and the pace of technology is much faster than it used to be,” said John Christianson, a military fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who co-authored a recent report on AUKUS, the 2021 security agreement among the United States, Britain and Australia. “We can’t just rely on Americans always having the best stuff.” |
| “世界已经发生了变化，技术发展的速度比以前快得多，”约翰·克里斯蒂安森说，他是位于华盛顿的战略与国际研究中心的军事研究员，最近与他人合写了一份关于美国、英国、澳大利亚2021年达成的安全协议（简称AUKUS）的报告。“我们不能只靠美国人总拥有最好的东西。” |
| Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III are in Australia this week for annual bilateral meetings. Australian officials say they will likely be urged to hurry up and clarify the rules for technology sharing in rapidly-changing fields. |
| 美国国务卿布林肯和国防部长奥斯汀本周将在澳大利亚出席年度双边会议。澳方官员表示，它们可能会敦促这两名美国官员尽快澄清在快速变化的领域共享技术的原则。 |
| In just the past few years, quantum technology has moved to the cusp of widespread use as companies, nations and investors have helped scientists turn the extreme sensitivity of atoms into powerful sensors, more secure communication systems and superfast quantum computers that could drive exponential progress in artificial intelligence, drug discovery, mining, finance and other industries. |
| 在过去几年里，量子技术已接近广泛应用的时刻。在公司、国家以及投资者的支持下，科学家们将高度灵敏的原子状态用于威力强大的传感器、更安全的通信系统，以及超快量子计算机等应用，让推动人工智能、药物研发、采矿、金融及其他行业的指数式进步变得可能。 |
| With its centralized method of funneling billions of dollars to military-affiliated universities, China has produced results that have nearly matched or exceeded the American approach. Some of its claims about quantum breakthroughs and funding pledges have been disputed, but a demonstrable rise in Chinese expertise began a decade ago with surging government investment after the Edward Snowden leak confirmed in 2013 that U.S. and British intelligence agencies had found ways to crack and spy on encrypted internet traffic. |
| 通过将巨额经费集中投到与军方有关联的大专院校，中国取得了几乎相当于或超过美国的量子技术进展。虽然外界对中国在量子技术方面宣称的某些突破和某些投资承诺存在争议，但中国在这方面的专业知识已在十年前开始出现明显增长。在爱德华·斯诺登泄密事件证实美英情报机构已经找到了对网络加密通讯进行破解和间谍活动的方法后，中国政府对量子技术的投资出现激增。 |
| In 2017, China built a 91-acre campus in Hefei, west of Shanghai, with the world’s largest national laboratory for quantum science. Since then, Chinese researchers have published thousands of papers demonstrating critical advances, including, in 2021, the use of a “space-to-ground quantum communication network” linking satellites to a fiber-optic cable connecting Shanghai to Beijing. |
| 2017年，中国在合肥成立了量子信息科学国家实验室，这个占地37公顷的园区建成后是世界上最大的量子科学实验室。中国研究人员已发表了数以千计的论文，展示了关键进展，其中包括2021年打造出将卫星与京沪光纤连接起来进行量子保密通信的“星地量子通信网”。 |
| “For China, the Snowden thing had a psychological impact,” said Edward Parker, a physicist focused on emerging technologies at the RAND Corporation. “There’s also some aspect of national pride — they identified this as a very demonstrable quantum technology where they could become the best in the world.” |
| “斯诺登事件给中国制造了心理冲击，”兰德公司聚焦新兴技术的物理学家爱德华·帕克说。“这里面也有一些民族自豪感的因素，他们认为量子保密通信能非常明显地表明他们拥有能领先世界的量子技术。” |
| Jian-Wei Pan, sometimes called China’s “father of quantum,” has been an important figure. His Ph.D. focused on quantum information science at the University of Vienna under Anton Zeilinger, one of last year’s Nobel Prize winners in physics, and China’s most notable achievements have come with communication that leverages the laws of quantum physics to protect data. |
| 有时被称为中国“量子之父”的潘建伟是该领域的重要人物。他从维也纳大学获得博士学位，曾在安东·塞林格教授指导下专门从事量子信息科学研究，塞林格是去年的诺贝尔物理学奖获得者之一。中国在量子技术方面取得的最引人注目的成就是在通讯中使用量子物理定律保护数据。 |
| According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s critical technology tracker, China appears to be lagging more in quantum computers — which perform many calculations in one pass, making them faster than today’s digital computers that perform each calculation separately — while narrowing the gap in quantum sensing for navigation, mapping and detection. Chinese scientists have even said they are building a quantum-based radar to find stealth aircraft with a small electromagnetic storm, though quantum specialists outside China have questioned their claims. |
| 据澳大利亚战略政策研究所发布的关键技术追踪，中国似乎在量子计算机领域较为落后（量子计算机能同时快速进行大量计算，使其比目前的串行操作计算机更快），同时，中国也正在缩小用于导航、测绘、探测的量子传感器技术方面的差距。中国科学家甚至宣称，他们已成功研制出一种量子雷达，能通过小型电磁风暴发现隐形飞机，尽管国外量子专家对这个说法表示怀疑。 |
| One of the doubters is Michael Biercuk, 43, the founder of Q-CTRL, an American physicist with a military mien and a Harvard Ph.D. who moved to Australia in 2010 to teach at the University of Sydney. He and his start-up, with offices in Sydney, Los Angeles, Berlin and Oxford, are among a cutting-edge group of global quantum leaders who see hyperbole and statecraft in many Chinese quantum announcements and hope to capitalize on what technology-sharing partnerships like the AUKUS security agreement represent. |
| 怀疑者之一是现年43岁的Q-CTRL创始人迈克尔·比尔苏克。这名从哈佛大学获得博士学位的美国物理学家有着军人的气质，2010年移居澳大利亚，现在悉尼大学任教。他和他的初创公司（在悉尼、洛杉矶、柏林、牛津设有办事处）处于全球量子技术行业的领军者行列。他们在中国许多关于量子技术的声明中看到了夸张和政治做法，他们还希望利用AUKUS安全协议这样的技术共享伙伴关系。 |
| “AUKUS, for us, is exceptionally important,” said Professor Biercuk, noting that Q-CTRL works on sensors and quantum computing. “It’s a real opportunity for the homegrown capability we’re building in Australia to be deployed into an international framework.” |
| “AUKUS对我们来说非常重要，”比尔苏克说道，并指出了Q-CTRL在量子传感和量子计算方面的工作。“对我们正在澳大利亚建立的本土能力来说，AUKUS为将其运用到一个国际框架中提供了真正的机会。” |
| About half of Q-CTRL’s 100 employees are Australian, half from other countries, and many, including Professor Biercuk, have experience working for America’s elite defense and civilian laboratories. The company’s main software product, which “stabilizes the hardware against everything that goes wrong in the field,” Professor Biercuk said, is already being used by quantum developers in the United States, Canada and Europe, where precise sensor technology is also advancing. |
| Q-CTRL的100名员工中有约一半是澳大利亚人，另一半来自其他国家，其中许多人有在美国顶尖的国防和民用实验室工作的经验，包括比尔苏克。公司的主要软件产品能“在现场使用出现各种问题时稳定硬件”，比尔苏克说道，它已被美国、加拿大、欧洲的量子技术研发人员使用，这些国家也正在精确传感器技术上取得进展。 |
| But moving sensitive technology from one nation to another, or developing technology with cross-border teams, has become increasingly fraught. |
| 但将敏感技术从一个国家带到另一个国家，或使用跨国团队进行技术研发，已变得越来越难。 |
| Fearing that its technology will be used to build the economies of larger countries, Australia has been exploring how to keep its own advances secret. Q-CTRL’s scientists in Sydney already cautiously avoid sharing technical information with colleagues in the United States to avoid being subject to the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), a set of restrictive safeguards for military technology that is widely seen as a major obstacle to modernizing America’s alliances in the region. |
| 由于担心本国技术会被更大的国家用于经济建设，澳大利亚一直在研究如何对本国的技术进步保密的问题。在悉尼工作的Q-CTRL科学家已对与美国同事共享技术信息采取谨慎态度，这是为了避免受美国《国际武器贸易条例》（简称ITAR）的影响，这些针对军事技术制定的限制性保护条例已被普遍视为美国在该地区的盟友实现军事现代化所面临的主要障碍。 |
| If American officials go through with their plan to expand export controls for quantum computing, following a pattern that began with advanced microchips, information itself could be considered an export, meaning details could not be shared with people born outside the United States. |
| 如果美国官员按照已针对先进微芯片开始的限制模式，实施他们在量子计算方面扩大出口管制的计划的话，信息本身可可能被视为出口产品，这将意味着无法与出生在美国以外的人分享详细信息。 |
| “It’s just very complicated if you have to have separate lab facilities with more sensitive things,” said Dr. Parker, the RAND physicist. |
| “如果不得不为了处理更敏感的东西将实验设施分开的话，那将非常复杂，”兰德公司的物理学家帕克说。 |
| Many quantum companies in the United States and elsewhere, including Q-CTRL, are hoping for sensible, clear guidelines. Australian officials and some American lawmakers are also pushing for an exemption from U.S. arms regulations so Australian companies would not be treated as foreign entities. |
| 包括Q-CTRL在内的美国和其他地方的许多量子技术企业希望得到合理且明确的指导方针。澳大利亚官员和一些美国立法者也在推动不将澳大利亚公司视为外国实体的立法，这将让它们免受美国武器出口法规的限制。 |
| For many who work closely with advanced technology, where innovation requires information sharing, there is a gnawing worry that the United States and its closest allies are at risk of squandering recent gains by waiting too long to clarify the legal mechanisms for cooperation. |
| 在许多密切接触尖端技术的工作人员中有一种令人痛苦的担忧。他们担心，美国及其最亲密的盟友在澄清合作的法律机制上等待太久，会面临失去最近的进展给他们带来的优势的风险，因为创新需要信息共享。 |
| On a recent afternoon in the former locomotive factory where Q-CTRL has its offices, Professor Biercuk said the next few years will be crucial. If friendly democracies don’t build quantum’s strengths together, other countries will speed past with sharper militaries and lucrative opportunities. |
| 不久前的一个下午，在Q-CTRL公司用以前的机车厂房改建的办公室里，比尔苏克说，未来几年至关重要。如果友好的民主国家不能一起打造量子技术实力的话，其他国家将迅速超过它们，取得更强大的军事力量和更丰厚的利润机会。 |
| “You better believe that China and any nations allied with China are not going to put restrictions on themselves or their partners,” he said. “Anytime we overly regulate emerging areas of science, we risk simply stopping progress locally and ceding technological advantage to our adversaries.” |
| “你别不信，中国和任何与中国结盟的国家不会限制自己或自己的伙伴共享技术，”他说。“每当我们对新兴科学领域进行过度管理时，我们只会面临停止本地进步、将技术优势拱手让给对手的风险。” |
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