The technology world might soon be welcoming its first quantum computing software vendor, an Australian systems-analysis firm called Aerospace Concepts. The company, which also has a U.S. presence in a Washington, D.C., technology incubator, has partnered with Lockheed Martin to perform applied research about complex systems analysis on Lockheed’s D-Wave Systems quantum computer.
What that means, Aerospace Concepts COO Michael Brett told me via email, is that the company wants to develop algorithms that can wade through the complexities of creating advanced systems and help determine designs that best balance the various inherent tradeoffs. “For example,” he wrote, “a satellite needs to trade power and capacity while minimizing mass, so what is the best combination of factors to improve design.”
Theoretically — because the technology is still very much in its early days –quantum computing is ideal for this type of optimization problem as well as for advanced machine learning tasks, as D-Wave CEO Vern Brownell explains in the video below. NASA and Google also possess a D-Wave quantum computer.
To read more and view the video, click here.