Unspoofable Navigation

It’s been nearly 25 years since the U.S. government stopped purposefully degrading GPS signals, allowing citizens to pinpoint locations more accurately. But now GPS spoofing—deliberate disruption of a satellite signal with false location data—is wreaking havoc with civilian and military navigation. Ex-Googler Luca Ferrara’s passion project can help. AQNav, a project from SandboxAQ, uses quantum magnetometers that track waves from the Earth’s crust, cross-checking them against known maps, thus using AI to pinpoint location reliably without GPS. The only way to spoof the tool, used by commercial customers, would be to create planet-sized rock formations to throw off the natural wave signals. “It’s a use case for quantum AI that I think can actually be easily understood and directly benefit people with a real need,” says Ferrara, who leads the AQNav team.

Disclosure: Investors in SandboxAQ include TIME co-chair and owner Marc Benioff.