In This Story
Nvidia (NVDA+0.80%) is partnering with quantum computing companies Quantinuum, QuEra Computing, and more to build a Boston-based research center that will integrate quantum computing with AI supercomputers.
The Nvidia Accelerated Research Quantum Center, or NVAQC for short, will strive to make large-scale, useful, accelerated quantum supercomputers.
“Quantum computing will augment AI supercomputers to tackle some of the world’s most important problems, from drug discovery to materials development,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a press release.
Major quantum companies will provide researchers from Harvard and MIT with “unprecedented access to the technologies and expertise needed to solve the challenges of useful quantum computing,” MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science William Oliver said in a prepared statement.
The move might come as a surprise to some, considering the Nvidia chief’s comments voicing uncertainty in the near-term applicability of quantum computing mere months ago.
Earlier this year, Huang made headlines and tanked quantum stocks with his assessment that useful quantum computers were at least 15 to 30 years away.
But he seems to have regretted his words as he hosted a league of quantum computing executives on Thursday at the first “quantum day” as part of the company’s GPU tech conference (GTC). Huang started the panel on Thursday by apologizing for his comments, going on to say that this was “the first event in history where a company CEO invites all of the guests to explain why he was wrong.”
It’s uncertain if investors are convinced, though: Quantum computing stocks IonQ (IONQ-10.00%) and Rigetti Computing (RGTI-10.10%) ended the day down more than 9% on Thursday following the panel.
The center will be operational later this year, but the “plumbing for this has been in place for a while,” according to Rajeeb Hazra, CEO of Quantinuum — a founding partner of the center and a privately held company born through a merger of U.S.-based Honeywell (HON+0.69%) quantum solutions and U.K.-based Cambrige Quantum.
Quantinuum’s technology has been integrated with Nvidia’s open-source quantum development platform CUDA-Q since 2022, the same system that will be used at the research center.
The center will be accelerating research in two areas, according to Hazra: making quantum computers better and more error resilient, and developing specific use-cases for these computers in fields such as pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and carbon sequestration technology.
While he acknowledges that there is more work to be done, Hazra is more optimistic than Huang on the timeline for quantum-computing usability.
“I think Jensen’s postulate was getting useful work out is a long time away. We disagree, because we are getting useful work out today, and particularly with the combination of classical and quantum computers,” Hazra said.
Quantinuum says that the company’s trapped-ion quantum computers are doing work that cannot be simulated on classical computers as of 2024.
“So by running a quantum computer, you are now generating unique data you could have never had before,” he said.
Hazra also expects to use the center as a “premier test bed to accelerate” generative AI systems that use quantum computing.
Hazra and a slew of other tech executives, like IBM (IBM-3.31%) CEO Arvind Krishna, are bullish about the potential for discovery that comes from “turbocharging AI with quantum data.”
Quantum computers work on the subatomic level and are probabilistic models. They not only are significantly faster than classical computers in some circumstances, they also have the potential to go beyond already produced knowledge, to then give artificial intelligence agents insights about nature on a subatomic level.