NASA and Google intend to use a kind of quantum computer

The computer does not fit the rigid and well-known definition of a "quantum computer", but it utilizes quantum effects for its operation.

NASA plans to use a quasi-"quantum" computer. The computer does not fit the rigid and well-known definition of a "quantum computer", but it utilizes quantum effects for its operation.

The computer, developed jointly by Google, NASA and other scientists, and which costs 15 million dollars, is supposed to be 3600 times faster than existing computers and be used in an active NASA facility. Unlike normal computers, the modern computer utilizes a physical-quantum result known as quantum tunneling. This result makes it possible to solve certain mathematical problems in second particles.

Google wants to use the device located at NASA's research center in California to test how a quantum computer can advance applications such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and voice recognition. NASA itself intends to use the state-of-the-art computer to prioritize problem solving and planning applications. The Canadian company that makes the computer, D-Wave Systems, has been the target of much skepticism over the years from quantum computing experts around the world. Until the publication of the company's research results at the beginning of the year, some experts even claimed that it does not appear that the computer is making use of any definite quantum outcome.

Quantum computing is based on exploiting the strange behavior of matter at the quantum level. Most of the research in this type of computing has focused on the development of quantum logic gates similar to the logic gates that exist today and which form the basis of the ordinary computers we all know. However, physicists have discovered, time and time again, that the main problem in the approach based on quantum logic gates is the preservation of the quantum bits, that is, the basic units of quantum information (quantum bits, qubits), in their original quantum state. "The abstract system collapses within a fraction of a second to a normal system of "zero" and "one" and then you lose all the advantages of the quantum world," explains Professor Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey in the UK.

Instead of being based on a standard quantum computer, D-Wave Systems focuses on developing devices that utilize the method known as "quantum annealing" where the "best" mathematical solutions can be found among all the system's existing options. The researchers believe that the scientists who dealt with the subject of quantum computing chose the wrong approach and explain that the quantum relaxation method allows physicists to take advantage of the quantum result known as "quantum tunneling" which allows each and every particle to "sense" its neighbor. "The gate model is the worst model that quantum computing scientists could have chosen," claims Geordie Rose, the technology director of D-Wave Systems. "And when we look back 20 years from now, at the history of the field of quantum computing, we will wonder why anyone even thought the gate approach was a good idea."

The researchers' approach requires a completely different way of phrasing the question and is only effective for certain questions. However, preliminary results presented this month at a major computing conference show that indeed this approach succeeds in finding the best solution (the lowest mathematical minimum point) to a problem for which there are many combinations of possible answers. In one case, the approach was able to find a solution to a specified problem in half a second, whereas conventional software would have taken 30 minutes.

A classic example of this type of problem is the "traveling salesperson problem" (also known for short as the TSP Traveling Salesperson Problem), which deals with a traveling salesperson, who, as part of his job, must pass through many cities connected by a road network, in one day, and seeks to find the shortest route connecting them all, And this is in order to reduce his travel time as much as possible (and the resulting financial expenses, of course). The new chip is able to compare all the available options at the same time, instead of switching from one to the other. The device, which costs close to 15 million dollars, and which is installed in a box that cools the chip almost to absolute zero, should reach NASA for research in the fall of 2013. The American giant Lockheed Martin upgraded its computer purchased from D-Wave at the beginning of the year Systems.

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