U.S. Government Agencies Call for Development of Techniques to Quantify Quantum Algorithm Execution Quality
NSA, Army Seek Quantum Computers Less Prone to Error
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+ The Army Research Office and National Security Agency recently teamed up to solicit proposals for research that can help do exactly that.
+ The entities launched a broad agency announcement this week to boost the development of innovative techniques and protocols that allow for Quantum Characterization, Verification, and Validation, or QCVV, of intermediate-scale quantum systems. QCVV is essentially the science of quantifying how well a quantum computer can run quantum algorithms—and experts agree that it’s a necessary step towards useful quantum computing.
“These new methods are sought as the next advances that will empower the quantum computing community to reliably interpret and evaluate emerging larger-scale quantum systems,” officials said in the solicitation.
+ [O]ne of the most powerful aspects of quantum computing is the fact that quantum resources grow exponentially with the number of qubits—so in quantum systems, there is also a continuum of possible errors that can occur. This means the slightest disturbance can propagate throughout the computation and rapidly destroy any information in the system. In order to engineer that noise out, experts first need to characterize it, hence the “C” in QCVV. Relatedly, verification and validation, or the “Vs,” refer to methods to assure that quantum computing systems were designed correctly and operate as expected.
+ The agencies are accepting proposals across two categories in the space: integrated theoretical and experimental intermediate-scale QCVV, and novel theoretical approaches to intermediate-scale QCVV. While the first category engages research on a sort of intense collaboration between theory and experiment, the second hones in on the development of new scalable methods that will be implementable on much larger systems. “The two categories together indicate a clear and aggressive attempt to both conduct and rapidly transition this research into existing and future quantum computing technologies,” Farinholt noted.
Source: Defense One. Brandi Vincent, NSA, Army Seek Quantum Computers Less Prone to Error…
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