Google announced Thursday its plans to team up with NASA in the creation of a new laboratory that will house a quantum computer from D-Wave Systems.
Called the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, it will be hosted in NASA’s Ames Research Center while the Universities Space Research Association will invite researchers from around the world to spend time in it in hopes that scientists will be able to solve some of computer science’s greatest mysteries.
“We believe quantum computer may help solve some of the most challenging computer science problems, particularly in machine learning,” Google’s Director of Engineering Hartmut Neven said in a blog post.
Machine learning, he explained, is the art of building better models in order to achieve more accurate predictions.
“As an analogy, consider what it takes to architect a house,” Neven explained. “You’re balancing lots of constraints – budget, usage requirements, space, limitations, etc. – but still trying to create the most beautiful house you can. A creative architect will find a great solution. Mathematically speaking the architect is solving an optimization problem and creativity can be thought of as the ability to come up with a good solution given an objective and constraints.”
As another example, Neven posed the following scenario:
Suppose you are trying to find the lowest point on a surface covered in hills and valleys. While a classical computer might start at a random spot on the surface and look for a lower spot until there are no more left, the user is left with a "local minimum" and not necessarily the lowest point in the whole valley,
“That’s where quantum computing comes in,” Neven said. “It lets you cheat a little, giving you some chance to ‘tunnel’ through a ridge to see if there’s a lower valley hidden beyond it. This gives you a much better shot at finding the true lowest point – the optimal solution.”
Or, at least, that’s the theory anyway. Moving beyond simple faith, however, and into the realm of scientific proof and evidence will take the efforts of scientists everywhere with access to a quantum computer – a possibility soon to be realized.
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