Communications of the ACM
Behind the Scenes at Google's Quantum AI Lab
Tasks that take normal computers years to complete can be processed in seconds by the D-Wave Two quantum computer, Google says.
Credit: D-Wave Systems Inc.
Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab in May installed the 512-qubit D-Wave Two computer from D-Wave Systems, under the direction of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to explore quantum computing and space research. "The overwhelmingly obvious killer app for quantum computation is optimization," says D-Wave's Geordie Rose. Optimization is necessary because obtaining useful information is increasingly difficult as problems grow more complex and volumes of data rise.
Nevertheless, researchers still do not know the best applications for quantum computing, says NASA's Eleanor Rieffel. "We don't know what the best questions are to ask that computer," Rieffel says. "That's exactly what we're trying to understand now."
Google's AI Lab researchers say quantum computing can solve the most daunting computer science problems of the day. "We're particularly interested in how quantum computing can advance machine learning, which can then be applied to virtually any field: from finding the cure for a disease to understanding changes in our climate," the researchers say on their website.
From HPC Wire
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2013 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found