Google and NASA Unveil New Futuristic Quantum Computer

The world's first quantum computing company, D-Wave Systems entered into a new agreement that supports a joint revolutionary project among Google, NASA and USRA (Universities Space Research Association). This pioneering project focuses on leveraging quantum computing to boost artificial intelligence, machine learning and to help tackle difficult optimization problems for both the web and the space company. Problems that are difficult even for the largest supercomputers to assimilate.

"Through research at NASA Ames, we hope to demonstrate that quantum computing and quantum algorithms may someday dramatically improve our ability to solve difficult optimization problems for missions in aeronautics, Earth and space sciences, and space exploration," said Eugene Tu, Center Director at NASA's Ames Research Center. "The availability of increasingly more powerful quantum systems are key to achieving these goals, and work is now underway with D-Wave's latest technology." quoted D-Wave's press release on this event.

Google and NASA have been working with a quantum computing system created by D-Wave at the NASA Ames Research Center over the last two years. The contract has now been renewed for seven years. This enables them to install D-Wave 2X, a state-of-the-art quantum processor released earlier this year that is doubly powerful than its predecessor. The contract further allows them access to futuristic technology created by D-Wave, as and when made available.

According to the Financial Times, The latest D-Wave 2X system comes with over 1,000 qubits, nearly double the number of the system (500+ qubits) that Google and NASA have been testing, making it the most powerful computer to reckon with, to date. Unlike the bits than can be either on or off, qubits can be in both states at the same time. This immensely increases the potentiality level and the wide array of possibilities in the field of artificial intelligence. NASA's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) is the space agency's hub for an experiment to assess the potential of quantum computers to perform calculations that are difficult or impossible using conventional supercomputers.