The Download: PsiQuantum's Useful Quantum Machine and Record-Breaking Subsea Tunnel

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The machine that could change the world will be housed in a room that looks like a data center crossed with an ice cream factory. Inside, some 100 stainless-steel cabinets each hold hundreds of chips.

On those chips, thousands of light particles will fly through a maze of optical switches and beam splitters. Each photon must be accounted for, because precisely measuring where it ends up will help answer questions that current computers might take millions of years to solve. This computer, as described, does not exist.

It's the brainchild of a company called PsiQuantum, founded in 2016 by four physicists from UK universities. The company aims to be the first to build a useful quantum machine. Read the full story on the company's quest.

I'm currently around 1,000 feet beneath the North Sea, in a dark, dank cave. It smells weird. And I'm increasingly aware of the pressure from millions of tons of seawater just above my head.

I'm under the iconic fjords of Norway to visit what will soon become the world's longest and deepest subsea road tunnel—an exceptional engineering feat that will carry drivers deep beneath the North Sea. I'm here to understand how you make a 16.6-mile highway that sits 1,280 feet below the sea at its deepest point. And also—at a time when it can feel hard to get anything done—to reassure myself that ambitious engineering is still possible.

That we can still make things. This is our latest story to be turned into an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it's released.

I've combed the internet to find you today's most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Meta allegedly used AI to target workers with health issues for layoffs Their lawsuit says Meta relied on AI to create a termination list. (Guardian) + And pinpointed staff who took maternity or disability leave.

(Reuters) + One was allegedly informed the day before her water broke. (Ars Technica) + The layoffs aimed to offset Meta's AI spending. (Gizmodo) + AI agents are not your 'coworkers.' (MIT Technology Review) 2 OpenAI's first consumer device will be a mobile smart speaker The screenless device will serve as an 'AI companion.' (Bloomberg) + It'll let you talk with ChatGPT.

(Verge) + And use a camera and sensor to understand your environment. (Reuters) + It's set to launch next year. (Engadget) 3 The US military sent explosive drone boats into combat for the first time They attacked an Iranian midget submarine and naval port.