26 October 2013

Quantum leap...


Google, NASA and D-Wave recently released a video (see it by clicking on the link above!) explaining the features of their new common project: a Quantum Artificial Intelligence lab which will aim to create one of the first commercial quantum computers.

So what is a quantum computer? Quantum computers are computation devices that make direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition, entanglement, multi-verse or tunnelling (all mentioned in the video) to perform operations on data. The main difference with “normal” (digital) computation is the use of qubits instead of bits. Whereas a bit (i.e. a binary digit: a digit of the binary numeral system and the basic unit of information in computing) can only have one of two values: either a 0 or a 1, a qubit can actually exist in superposition of the two values, having 0 and 1 at the same time... This new type of computer will allow us to answer many questions that can't be answered with current computers. Beautiful, but how will they achieve that?

Even if it is still too soon for normal people like us to understand the power of these computers, the key might be optimization. As they explain in the video, optimization is one of the major obstacles in computer science nowadays, since even with today's mega computers there are still some problems that we aren't able to solve because of their extreme demands in calculation. For instance, they give the example of the travelling salesman who wants to know which would be the shortest and fastest route to visit a particular number of cities. There are so many possible routes depending on so many factors (for example, 479 001 600 different combinations within 12 cities), that it would actually take hundreds of years to calculate all of them if we work with a considerable number of cities (above 20)…

The main aim of the project is to improve machine learning, i.e. artificial intelligence, so we can develop more efficient processors that could be used in radars, aircraft systems, smartphones, etc. An example of this “intelligence” would be one of the latest features Google has been working on: infallible facial recognition, which is ostensibly only a human capability. Since it is Google which is behind this project, we can be very optimistic about the progress of the research as the American giant is cutting edge.

It is awesome that humans have been actually able to create something that may answer the questions that we cannot answer by ourselves. It might seem like pure fantasy now, but with quantum processors we will eventually do some incredible things, like run computer-simulated universes that are indistinguishable from our own real universe, complete with simulated minds…

Article by Jesús Bujalance

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