The US Defense Department and UTS have formed a multi-million-dollar partnership to advance quantum technology by creating new benchmarks for success.
Image via iStock.
The Centre for Quantum Software and Information (QSI) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is partnering with the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on three of its projects in the newly commenced Quantum Benchmarking program.
According to DARPA, the program will “… estimate the long-term utility of quantum computers by creating new benchmarks that quantitatively measure progress towards specific, transformational computational challenges.”
As part of the multi-million-dollar partnership, QSI at UTS will team up with some of the world’s leading corporations and quantum startups. Primary project partners include HRL Laboratories and Zapata Computing, who will collectively develop new techniques and tools surrounding the assessment and benchmarking of quantum computing algorithms and applications at scale.
With our breadth of capability across the quantum software stack, this program is a great fit for QSI.
Professor Michael Bremner
Director, UTS Centre for Quantum Software and Information
Research Director and UTS Associate Professor Simon Devitt will lead two of the DARPA projects. He said every step forward in quantum technology presents the community with a new opportunity to learn and grow.
“These DARPA initiatives will help us better understand the reality of where we are, and the potential for what’s ahead.
“We will be working with leading potential end users on assessing quantum applications of direct importance to their industries and partnering with billion-dollar quantum startups to link these applications to hardware roadmaps for large-scale quantum computers,” said Professor Devitt.
UTS will also partner with domain-level experts from Boeing, IonQ and General Motors, and quantum experts from The University of Southern California, The University of Texas at Dallas and Aalto University, Finland.
“With our breadth of capability across the quantum software stack, this program is a great fit for QSI," said Michael Bremner, Professor and Director of the Centre for Quantum Software and Information at UTS, and lead investigator on one of the DARPA projects.
“QSI will play a major role in this program, bringing both experiences in the development of quantum algorithms and experience in the resource benchmarking of quantum computing applications.”
Quantum Information Scientist at HRL Labs Dr Adam Holmes said the program has vast potential.
“This is an exciting program that could answer a question we have been asking for decades: how valuable and transformative will quantum computers actually prove to be once they are reliably built?
“The teams DARPA has put together combine skillsets from in-depth quantum hardware knowledge up to quantum algorithmic expertise, and crucially include subject matter experts working on hard problems in big industries like aerospace, automotive and biotechnology. Together, I’m optimistic we can make strides towards answering this question and guiding the development of future quantum systems,” said Dr Holmes.
Marna Kagele, Boeing Technical Fellow, said: “We look forward to contributing our expertise to this important work and collaborating to advance our collective understanding of the real-world applicability of quantum computing capabilities."