Quantum Computing Collaboration Announced
NASA, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and Google are partnering to assess the potential of quantum computers to perform calculations that are difficult or impossible using conventional supercomputers. A quantum computer is being installed in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at NASA's Ames Research Center, and is expected to be operational in early fall 2013.
Quantum computing is based on quantum bits or qubits. Unlike traditional computers, in which bits must have a value of either zero or one, a qubit can represent a zero, a one, or both values simultaneously. For certain types of optimization problems, the quantum properties of a qubit allow researchers to effectively try all possible solutions at once, arriving at the best solution much more quickly.
Potential benefits to NASA include dramatically improved algorithms for optimization tasks in air traffic control, autonomy, robotics, navigation and communication, system diagnostics, pattern recognition, and mission planning and scheduling.
The research team at Google will focus on how the quantum system may help build more accurate models for everything from speech recognition, to web search, to protein folding. The collaboration allows the broader academic community, through USRA, to utilize a quantum computer and to work together with researchers at both NASA and Google. The computer is being leased by USRA from D-Wave Systems.
