Can quantum computers be useful?// $5M competition in Quantum Applications
Quantum is an interesting field of research, but like any promising tech it can be just a bubble with no real world applications
In the past few decades there have been a lot of endless promises to make groundbreaking results, but no one could do anything useful at all.
XPRIZE Quantum Applications is a 3-year, $5M global competition designed to generate quantum computing (QC) algorithms that can be put into practice to help solve real-world challenges.
The key points from the blog post are:
- Google Quantum AI, Google.org, XPRIZE, and GESDA have launched a 3-year, $5 million global competition called XPRIZE Quantum Applications to develop quantum computing algorithms that can solve real-world challenges aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- The competition aims to identify useful applications for both near-term noisy quantum computers and future large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
- Teams will first submit proposals for socially beneficial quantum algorithms, with up to 20 semi-finalists sharing $1 million.
- The finalists will then provide evidence of their algorithm’s performance advantage over classical computing and project its societal impact, competing for a $3 million grand prize and $1 million for runners-up.
- The competition seeks to incentivize research into practical quantum applications beyond abstract problems, quantify quantum advantages, and include diverse innovators in shaping quantum computing for societal benefit.
- Google hopes the collaborative approach will identify transformative quantum use cases ready for when large quantum computers are built, beyond just commercially lucrative applications.
“I discovered that people were using quantum models in the social sciences for things like decision making — in other words, how to use a quantum model to take decision making into account,” said Orrell. “Just like in normal economics, rather than making completely rational decisions all the time, we are finding there are all these other things going on in the background that interfere with thought processes.” Such effects can be modelled using the quantum approach, which takes context into account. And the same tools can be applied to things like the flow of money and information in the financial system.
What is the problem? The main advantage of quantum computers are considered to be performance. But in practice, any conventional smartphone can outperform even the most expensive quantum devices. Logical conclusion - there must be other application of quantum computers.
Quantum technologies such as communications, computing, and sensing offer vast opportunities for advanced research and development. While an open-source ethos currently exists within some quantum technologies, especially in quantum computer programming, we argue that there are additional advantages in developing open quantum hardware (OQH). Open quantum hardware encompasses open-source software for the control of quantum devices in labs, blueprints and opensource toolkits for chip design and other hardware components, as well as openly-accessible testbeds and facilities that allow cloud-access to a wider scientific community. We provide an overview of current projects in the OQH ecosystem, identify gaps, and make recommendations on how to close them today. More open quantum hardware would accelerate technology transfer to and growth of the quantum industry and increase accessibility in science.
This paper discusses the importance and current state of open hardware solutions in quantum technology. The key points are:
1. Open quantum hardware (OQH) encompasses open-source software for designing quantum processors, control software, data acquisition tools, as well as openly accessible facilities like testbeds and foundries for fabricating quantum chips.
2. Various projects are reviewed related to hardware design software (e.g. pyEPR, Qiskit Metal), control and data acquisition (e.g. ARTIQ, QubiC, QUASAR), pulse-level simulation (e.g. Pulser, Bloqade.jl), optimal control/calibration (e.g. C3-Toolset), and error correction designs.
3. Facilities enabling OQH are discussed, including remotely accessible research labs, collaborative testbeds (e.g. AQT, QSCOUT), and fabrication foundries.
4. Gaps and recommendations are provided, such as expanding OQH across technologies, developing standards/APIs, enabling open access to hardware, encouraging reproducibility, addressing policy and IP considerations, supporting education efforts, and building governance for projects.
5. The benefits of OQH include accelerating scientific discovery, increasing accessibility, enabling benchmarking, reducing costs, and fostering a collaborative open ecosystem for quantum technology development.
The article reports that quantum computing firm D-Wave claims to have achieved “computational supremacy” with its Advantage and Advantage2 quantum computers. These machines can reportedly solve transverse field Ising model problems, which are mathematical approximations of how matter behaves during state changes, much faster than the world’s most powerful classical computer, Frontier.
D-Wave estimates that Frontier would require millions of years and more electricity than the world produces annually to solve these problems. However, outside observers are more cautious about the claims. While acknowledging the achievement within a narrow scenario, they point out that D-Wave’s quantum annealing computers are specialized for certain optimization problems and are not universal quantum computers.
The article also discusses the potential commercial viability of such quantum computers, as they may be able to tackle practical problems in logistics and finance industries. Rival firm Orca Computing sees the results as promising for the future of noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers, but also warns that classical algorithms may eventually catch up and outperform these quantum computers.
Overall, while D-Wave’s claimed milestone is significant, there are still challenges and uncertainties surrounding the widespread adoption of quantum computers in the near future, including the need for specialized expertise and potential algorithmic advancements in classical computing.
Quantum computers hold the promise of solving certain problems that lie beyond the reach of conventional computers. Establishing this capability, especially for impactful and meaningful problems, remains a central challenge. One such problem is the simulation of nonequilibrium dynamics of a magnetic spin system quenched through a quantum phase transition. State-of-the-art classical simulations demand resources that grow exponentially with system size. Here we show that superconducting quantum annealing processors can rapidly generate samples in close agreement with solutions of the Schr¨odinger equation. We demonstrate area-law scaling of entanglement in the model quench in two-, three- and infinite-dimensional spin glasses, supporting the observed stretched-exponential scaling of effort for classical approaches. We assess approximate methods based on tensor networks and neural networks and conclude that no known approach can achieve the same accuracy as the quantum annealer within a reasonable timeframe. Thus quantum annealers can answer questions of practical importance that classical computers cannot.
