Windows 10: Before heading into the age of AI and Quantum Computing.....

HOSERGUY · Dec 28, 2024

Can we get a fix for the latest Windows 11 Audio Update? It seems to mess with the audio driver on just about every update. Thanks

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Brink · Dec 28, 2024

Google AI Quantum computing takes a leap forward over supercomputers

Quantum computing: It sounds futuristic because until recently, it was. But today we’re marking a major milestone in quantum computing research that opens up new possibilities for this technology.

Unlike classical computing, which runs everything from your cell phone to a supercomputer, quantum computing is based on the properties of quantum mechanics. As a result, quantum computers could potentially solve problems that would be too difficult or even impossible for classical computers—like designing better batteries, figuring out what molecules might make effective medicines or minimizing emissions from the creation of fertilizer. They could also help improve existing advanced technologies like machine learning.

Today, the scientific journal Nature has published the results of Google’s efforts to build a quantum computer that can perform a task no classical computer can; this is known in the field as “quantum supremacy.” In practical terms, our chip, which we call Sycamore, performed a computation in 200 seconds that would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years.

This achievement is the result of years of research and the dedication of many people. It’s also the beginning of a new journey: figuring out how to put this technology to work. We’re working with the research community and have open sourced tools to enable others to work alongside us to identify new applications. Learn more about the technical details behind this milestone on our AI blog.
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Source: Computing takes a quantum leap forward

See also:

What our quantum computing milestone means

Google AI Blog: Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor

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Brink · Dec 28, 2024

Microsoft Quantum proves shallow quantum circuits provide advantage

We know that Shor’s algorithm can factor integers on a quantum computer exponentially faster than any known classical algorithm, and that there are problems, such as the simulation of physical systems as posed by Richard Feynman in the 1980s, that quantum computers can solve that would take classical computers more than the lifetime of the universe to calculate.

But can we prove that a quantum computer can solve a problem exponentially faster than a classical computer?

In 2018, work by Sergey Bravyi (IBM Research), David Gosset (University of Waterloo), and Robert Koenig (Technische Universität München) described a problem that could be solved by a shallow quantum circuit but provably could not be solved by a shallow classical bounded circuit. (More on shallow bounded and unbounded circuits below.)

The primary question left open in their work was: Can shallow quantum circuits solve a problem that even a shallow classical unbounded circuit could not?

The answer is yes.

Robin Kothari, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Quantum, Luke Schaeffer (University of Waterloo and former intern at Microsoft Quantum), and collaborators Adam Bene Watts (MIT) and Avishay Tal (UC Berkeley) recently showed that: shallow quantum circuits can solve problems that cannot be solved by shallow classical unbounded circuits, unless they use exponentially many gates.

These breakthrough results were presented by Luke Schaeffer at the Annual Conference on Quantum Information Processing (QIP), the largest quantum computing conference in the world, and at the Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC). Their findings are outlined here.

Motivated by the constraints of near-term quantum computing hardware, we compared the power of today’s depth-restricted quantum computers with depth-restricted classical computers.

Using today’s quantum computing hardware, we can study the power of quantum computers that run “shallow” quantum algorithms, whose run time is very small compared to the size of the problem being solved.

But first, some quantum basics.

An idealized quantum computer consists of some number of quantum bits, or “qubits.” There is a small set of quantum operations called quantum gates that act on two qubits at a time and can be applied to any pair of qubits. In a single time step, we allow these gates to be applied to pairs of qubits that do not overlap. For example, in one time step we can apply a quantum gate to qubits 1 and 2, and apply a potentially different quantum gate to qubits 3 and 4, and yet another quantum gate to qubits 5 and 6.

A quantum circuit is a sequence of quantum gates.

The depth of a quantum circuit is the number of time steps required to implement a quantum circuit.

Shallow quantum circuits are quantum circuits whose depth is fixed and does not increase with the size of the problem being solved.

The reality of near-term quantum computers is that they have a high error rate and can only tolerate a few time steps of quantum operations before noise overwhelms the signal in the circuit, so on the quantum hardware we currently run, we are motivated to run problems that use shallow quantum circuits.

We use a problem inspired by the work of David Mermin in 1990 on quantum pseudo-telepathy.*

Computer scientists have studied several classes of shallow classical circuits, the most well-known of which are called NC0 and AC0. We will call these circuits “shallow bounded circuits” and “shallow unbounded circuits,” respectively.

NC0 – shallow bounded circuits – are shallow classical circuits where:

The allowed gates are the logical AND and OR gates on 2 bits, and the NOT gate.

The AND gate takes in two input bits and outputs 1, if and only if both inputs are 1.

The OR gate takes in two input bits outputs 1, if and only if at least one input bit is 1.

The NOT gate negates the input bit.

Note that these shallow bounded circuits are known to be quite weak and their limitations are well understood. For example, these circuits cannot solve the simple problem of deciding if all input bits are equal to 0.

AC0 – shallow unbounded circuits – are similar, except that:

The AND and OR gates can accept an unbounded or unlimited number of inputs.

An AND gate with many inputs outputs 1, if and only if all inputs equal 1.

An OR gate with many inputs outputs 1, if and only if at least one of the inputs is 1.

Shallow unbounded circuits are much more powerful than shallow bounded circuits and as a standard and well-studied model, remain an active area of research.

With this discovery, we hope that new doors open, inspiring others to find solutions to real-world problems with quantum computing.

.

Learn more about quantum computing

Start solving quantum problems; download the Microsoft Quantum Development Kit

* In 1990, David Mermin described a problem that could be solved by a group of quantum computers located far from each other that could not be explained by classical physics. It was as if the quantum computers used telepathy, which gave rise to the term “quantum pseudo-telepathy.” However, shallow quantum circuits cannot solve Mermin’s problem because the solution requires a quantum state known as the cat state (named after Schrödinger’s cat), which shallow quantum circuits cannot create. Instead, the problem used in this result swaps out the cat state and replaces it with a “poor man’s cat state” which can be created by shallow quantum circuits. The resulting problem can be solved by shallow quantum circuits but cannot even be solved by shallow classical unbounded circuits, as the authors show.
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Source: https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/qua...ial-advantage/

Brink · Dec 28, 2024

Microsoft announces Northwest Quantum Nexus for quantum computing

The Northwest is brimming with talented, dedicated people who can deliver quantum computing advances today and secure our quantum future for tomorrow. Today, at the inaugural Northwest Quantum Nexus Summit, we announced the Northwest Quantum Nexus, a coalition assembled by three keystone partners: Microsoft Quantum, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the University of Washington.

In line with the goals of the National Quantum Initiative Act, the Northwest Quantum Nexus accelerates Quantum Information Science (QIS) to develop a quantum economy and workforce in the greater Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada. The high concentration of quantum activity in the Northwest makes it one of the top regions globally to address key QIS needs. The goal of the two-day Summit this week is to bring together the region’s experts who can define the region’s potential to drive quantum computing’s future.

Its objectives include:

Bringing together academia, government, startups, and industry to pursue multi-disciplinary QIS research to deliver scalable quantum computing.

Pursuing quantum computing via collaborative research and development, targeted quantum algorithms and programming, and the development of quantum materials.

Capitalizing on public-private partnerships to promote a rapid exchange of knowledge and resources and drive discoveries in quantum technologies.

Applying research outcomes to application areas and testbeds, including clean energy and sustainability.

Cultivating the future quantum workforce through programs that range from early to higher education and professional levels, as well as the corresponding network of institutions and outlets offering curriculum and training opportunities.

“The Northwest Quantum Nexus represents another big step toward the development of scalable, stable quantum computers,” says Todd Holmdahl, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Quantum. “The partnership just makes a lot of sense – we’re already one of the top regions in the world for quantum research, and the Nexus will help us leverage that expertise to build a quantum-ready workforce and boost the region and nation’s quantum ecosystem.”

Todd Holmdahl, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Quantum

The Northwest Quantum Nexus intersects with another complementary, broad-based initiative led by Microsoft, the Microsoft Quantum Network. Both the Northwest Quantum Nexus and the Microsoft Quantum Network were begun with the understanding that creating a scalable quantum computer will require the collective effort of many skilled and diverse teams. Just last week, Microsoft hosted the Microsoft Quantum Network’s first Startup Summit.

Creating a regional quantum powerhouse

The Northwest Quantum Nexus partnership unites considerable intellectual talent. The University of Washington is one of the top research institutions in the world. It recently established UW Quantum X, which joins existing research endeavors across the university in QIS, including quantum sensing, quantum computing, quantum communication, and quantum materials.

Recently, in a partnership of Microsoft Quantum researchers and the University of Washington faculty, we identified opportunities to ready students with quantum computing programming skills and an understanding of quantum algorithms. Microsoft researchers now teach quantum computing programming and algorithm development with the Q# programming language, giving students a head start in developing quantum solutions.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL) QIS program includes capabilities in algorithm development and programming, as well as expertise in materials synthesis and characterization, quantum chemistry applications, quantum sensing, and workforce development – all fields are seeing tremendous advances today due to the power of a quantum computer.

on the Microsoft Quantum Development Kit chemistry library. The library can be used in conjunction with NWChem, an open-source, high-performance computational chemistry tool funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. With the state-of-the-art tools provided in the Quantum Development Kit – including resource estimation, algorithm programming, debugging and simulation – this collaboration enables chemists to develop quantum chemistry solutions for a quantum computer, and better understand what that solution can look like today.

As for Microsoft, we’ve been driving advances in quantum computing and software development for 15 years. We see the power of quantum computing as solving some of the world’s most challenging problems for a wide range of industries – healthcare, environmental sciences, financial services, auto engineering, and others. Our team of experts in quantum physics, mathematics, computer science, and engineering have partnered with universities, industry, and government on cross-cutting research to advance our scalable qubit approach across the globe.

The prominence of the Northwest Quantum Nexus is expected to increase the visibility of QIS research, leading to even greater collaboration and drawing quantum talent – trainees and employers – to the U.S. Locally, the Northwest Quantum Nexus will help position the greater Pacific Northwest region as a global leader for creating and sustaining an exceptional quantum workforce and economy.

Says Krysta Svore, General Manager for Quantum Software at Microsoft: “The Northwest Quantum Nexus is a pivotal element to making scalable quantum computing a reality. It enables the type of synergistic research and development needed to deliver critical technological advances from quantum algorithms and programming to materials design and development.”

Visit the Northwest Quantum Nexus web site to learn more about this important coalition.
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Source: Microsoft, University of Washington, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory join to establish Northwest Quantum Nexus - Microsoft Quantum

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Windows 10: Before heading into the age of AI and Quantum Computing.....

Before heading into the age of AI and Quantum Computing.....

Before heading into the age of AI and Quantum Computing.....

Before heading into the age of AI and Quantum Computing.....

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