DARPA Plans to Jump-Start Quantum Computing
(GCN.com) The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to get a jump on solving optimization problems by combining classical computing systems with intermediate-sized quantum devices.
DARPA’s Optimization with Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum devices (ONISQ) program aims to develop and evaluate a hybrid quantum/classical algorithm on noisy, intermediate-scale quantum devices of between a few hundred and a few thousand qubits. Rather than providing exact solutions typically available from fault-tolerant computing, these conditions allow for approximate solutions for combinatorial optimization problems. Solving combinatorial optimization problems would have a significant benefit to the military. The technology could “enhance the military’s complex worldwide logistics system, which includes scheduling, routing, and supply chain management in austere locations that lack the infrastructure on which commercial logistics companies depend,” DAPRA officials said. T