A Startup Uses Quantum Computing to Boost Machine Learning

MIT Technology Review ^ | Will Knight

[RoosterRedux]

A company in California just proved that an exotic and potentially game-changing kind of computer can be used to perform a common form of machine learning.

The feat raises hopes that quantum computers, which exploit the logic-defying principles of quantum physics to perform certain types of calculations at ridiculous speeds, could have a big impact on the hottest area of the tech industry: artificial intelligence.

Researchers at Rigetti Computing, a company based in Berkeley, California, used one of its prototype quantum chips—a superconducting device housed within an elaborate super-chilled setup—to run what’s known as a clustering algorithm. Clustering is a machine-learning technique used to organize data into similar groups. Rigetti is also making the new quantum computer—which can handle 19 quantum bits, or qubits—available through its cloud computing platform, called Forest, today.

The demonstration does not, however, mean quantum computers are poised to revolutionize AI. Quantum computers are so exotic that no one quite knows what the killer apps might be. Rigetti’s algorithm, for instance, isn’t of any practical use, and it isn’t entirely clear how useful it would be to perform clustering tasks on a quantum machine.

[FredZarguna]

By the way, I should also point out that Wheeler was Feynman's thesis advisor, so it's appropriate that the correct instruction on how to properly understand these "counterintuitive" results would come from his student.

Wheeler is probably the greatest physicist--certainly the greatest American physicist--that no one has ever heard of.