Google says it has a Quantum Computer that actually works and is 100 million times faster than any of today’s machines.
Why Google’s new quantum computer could launch an
artificial intelligence arms race
By Dominic Basulto December 10
Ever since the 1980s, researchers have been working on
the development of a quantum computer that would be exponentially more powerful
than any of the digital computers that exist today. And now Google, in
collaboration with NASA, says it has a quantum computer — the D-Wave 2X — that
actually works.
Google claims the D-Wave 2X is 100 million times faster
than any of today’s machines. As a result, this quantum computer could
theoretically complete calculations within seconds to a problem that might take
a digital computer 10,000 years to calculate. That’s particularly important,
given the difficult tasks that today’s computers are called upon to complete
and the staggering amount of data they are called upon to process.
On the surface, the D-Wave 2X represents not just a
quantum leap for computing, but also for the field of artificial intelligence.
In fact, Google refers to its work being carried out at NASA’s Ames Research
Center as “quantum artificial intelligence.” That’s because machine learning
problems that today are too hard or too complex for computers could be solved
almost instantaneously in the future.
Due to the specifics of how Google’s quantum computer
works — a process known as quantum annealing — the immediate applications for
Google’s quantum computer are a class of AI problems generally referred to as
optimization problems. Imagine NASA being able to use quantum computers to
optimize the flight trajectories of interstellar space missions, FedEx being
able to optimize its delivery fleet of trucks and planes, an airport being able
to optimize its air traffic control grid, the military being able to crack any
encryption code, or a Big Pharma company being able to optimize its search for
a breakthrough new drug.
You get the idea – the new Google quantum computer could
potentially be worth millions, if not billions, to certain types of companies
or government agencies.
Moreover, consumers might also benefit from the
development of quantum artificial intelligence. In a promo video for its
Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, Google suggests that travel might be one
type of consumer optimization problem worth pursuing. Imagine planning a trip
to Europe, selecting which cities you’d like to visit, telling a computer how
much you’d like to pay, and then having Google optimize the perfect trip
itinerary for you.
There’s just one little problem with all this, however —
quantum computers are notoriously difficult beasts to tame. You’ve basically
got Schrödinger’s Cat trapped inside each and every D-Wave. With quantum
computers, you’re dealing with quantum bits (“qubits”), not digital bits.
Unlike digital bits, which are binary (either 1 or 0), a qubit could be either
– or both at the same time! That means you have to deal with all the quirky
properties of particles predicted by quantum mechanics – such as superposition
and entanglement – in order to program quantum computers correctly.
Oh, and each 10-foot-high D-Wave computer also needs to
be super-chilled to a temperature that’s 150 times colder than that of deep space,
making them pretty much inaccessible to anyone who hasn’t been stockpiling
liquid helium.
And that’s where the AI arms race comes into play. That’s
because you have a digital supercomputer — IBM Watson — that also wants to play
the AI optimization game. IBM Watson also wants to optimize the R&D process
for pharmaceutical researchers to find new cures. And IBM Watson also wants to
play in the consumer realm as well, where it’s already at work optimizing the
training regimens of top-flight athletes.
And it’s not just Google D-Wave vs. IBM Watson in some
kind of ultimate cage match to see who’s better and faster at optimizing
solutions to really hard problems — it’s all the other classes of
unconventional computers out there. Consider, for example, the new memcomputer,
which mimics the way the human brain works, storing and processing information simultaneously.
There are plenty of other unconventional computers too, including some that are
biological. Not to mention the other research labs and universities — such as
Yale University, which recently launched the Yale Quantum Institute — that are
also working on their own quantum computers.
What all this points to is the fact that traditional
digital computing (what Google refers to as “classical computing”) is on the
way out. We’re now looking for a new heir apparent and Google hopes to anoint
D-Wave as the rightful heir. With its big announcement that quantum computing
can actually work, Google hopes to show that they’ve figured out how to make
practical quantum computers for the commercial market.
Any time you claim to have created something that’s 100
million times faster than anything else that’s ever existed, though, you’re
bound to run up against skeptics. And, indeed, there are plenty of skeptics for
the D-Wave. One big quibble about the quantum qubits, for example, is that the
test results were not nearly as impressive as Google claims they were. That’s
because the digital computer trying to defeat the quantum computer was forced
to compete under Google’s house rules, which basically meant that it had to use
the same algorithm that the quantum computer used — and that algorithm had
already been carefully sculpted to the peculiarities of the quantum world.
Imagine running a race against a competitor in shoes that are too big, pants
that keep falling down, and on a course where your competitor can run across
and through the track — not just around it.
Going forward, it’s possible to think of two vastly
different scenarios for quantum computing. The first scenario is that Google
uses these D-Wave quantum computers to completely corner the market in
artificial intelligence. Just as once nobody could have predicted that everyone
would own their own personal computer one day, maybe people will all own their
own quantum computers one day.
The other scenario is that the world moves on to other
forms of computing, perhaps using components that are easier to program than
qubits. Maybe quantum computers are just too quirky, too hard to program, to
solve the types of problems most people want to solve. Quantum computers may be
able to optimize an entire nation’s air traffic control grid or fly a
spacecraft to Mars, but what if you just want to check your phone to know what
to wear to work tomorrow?
Either way, the future of artificial intelligence will
never be the same. Thanks to exponential gains in computing power on the
horizon, it’s becoming increasingly clear that today’s digital computers have
the potential to become obsolete. Let’s just hope that tomorrow’s
super-powerful quantum computers don’t become transcendent and try to take over
the world.
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