Quantum Matters: Quantum & AI – Early Days For A Killer Combination

Guest Post by Karina Robinson

Artificial Intelligence (AI) suffers from two massive blocks: colossal, costly energy use and a transparency deficit. The technology can be technically feasible but is still too expensive for most organisations to consider it. That was the conclusion of a recent paper from MIT Future Tech, which looked at computer vision tasks as an example of an AI-enabled technology. But the MIT group isn’t alone in highlighting the problem.

The computing cost of Deep Learning is exploding. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, made it clear last year that training ever larger Language Learning Models (LLM) is not the way to advance AI, not least because teaching GPT-4, its latest product, cost over $100m, while by 2027 it is estimated that the AI industry could consume as much power as a country the size of the Netherlands.

On the openness front, the models are far too opaque – usable in consumer applications but a legal minefield for companies to consider rolling out. Their tendency to ‘invent’ plausible facts is also not helpful.

Quantum is the route through which AI’s limitations can be lifted.

Two perception issues are delaying the advance. Firstly, there is an impediment to AI/Quantum cooperation based on misapprehensions that quantum is only about hardware – creating a quantum computer with enough power to break current encryption. That is unlikely to happen for several years. It may take up acres of media space, but much more advanced are quantum sensors, some of which are already in the market, while in quantum communication the Chinese are apparently more advanced, and quantum software/quantum-inspired software is advancing at pace. All of these are based on quantum physics and applicable to AI in different ways.

The second issue is the silo mentality of many of the companies involved in these fields, who have separate divisions for AI and Quantum, or only concentrate on one. Nevertheless, more visionary firms are breaking through the barrier.

Scott Faris, CEO of US firm Infleqtion says, “The convergence of AI and Quantum is one of the most powerful combinations that we are starting to unlock. The convergence will have both immediate and long-term implications.”

Karina Robinson is Senior Advisor to Multiverse Computing and Founder of The City Quantum & AI Summit

The firm, which manufactures quantum products and parts, ranging from sensors to computer hardware, counts NASA as one of its clients. Faris points out that quantum-enabled technologies are “quickly demonstrating their utility in addressing the crushing data infrastructure scaling challenges driven by AI. Scaled networks of quantum sensors will create vast new data sets of unparalleled precision and value which will be unlocked by parallel advancements in AI.”

A case in point is CompactifAI, the product launched late last year by Multiverse Computing*. Europe’s largest quantum software and quantum-inspired software firm, which counts Bosch and the Bank of Canada among its clients, uses its technology to compress the data from a Large Language Model (LLM) by up to 70%, thus using much less computing power, and achieve results that are comparable in quality.

“Left on its own, AI is going to burn the world by consuming intolerable levels of energy,” says CEO Enrique Lizaso. His firm, shortlisted as one of three finalists in the European Future Unicorn Award, is using its AI and quantum-inspired capabilities in fields ranging from forecasting weather catastrophes – on the increase with global warming – to helping car manufacturers in the training of their Machine Vision.

This is done on the premises of the industrial site, rather than data processing centres, with faster retraining of the multiple streams of data, reduced processing power requirements and added security.

Lizaso is adamant that the cross over between AI and Quantum is environmentally helpful in other ways. He notes that optimising routes for shipping, for instance, or optimising the amount of fuel tankers need for a journey, cuts back on the carbon footprint of the ship.

Nvidia, best known as the AI chip market leader, is also keen on quantum.

“AI is accelerating quantum computing today. We’re starting to see researchers tap into the mature infrastructure of AI and accelerated computing to leverage things like Large Language Models (LLMs) to develop new quantum algorithms and improve the performance of quantum computers,” says Tim Costa, who leads the HPC and Quantum Computing Product Team.

“We are just starting to scratch the surface of how Gen AI can improve quantum computing,” he adds, noting however, that in the near term researchers are already investigating quantum machine learning (QML) and quantum-inspired methods for financial applications like fraud detection and forecasting.

Recently, researchers from the University of Toronto, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and NVIDIA developed a new quantum algorithm called the “GPT-Quantum Eigensolver.” It uses the framework of generative AI models to generate quantum circuits with desirable properties, in this case to calculate the ground state energy of molecules of interest. Versions of this generative quantum algorithm can be applied towards important problems in drug and new materials discovery, as well as a host of other applications, some of which we cannot even imagine.

As for the problem with the unclear thinking process of AI, and its fantasising, quantum is also part of the answer.  To use it more widely, the interpretability of the system is key – in essence understanding why a system makes the decisions it does so it can be held accountable. Only last week Quantinuum, formed from the merger of Cambridge Quantum and Honeywell Quantum, announced a first public step in creating AI that is “interpretable and accountable” via the development of a framework for compositional models of AI using a type of maths called category theory. Their academic paper has yet to be peer reviewed.

Humankind’s biggest challenges will not be solved tomorrow by the combination of Quantum & AI. Nevertheless, at the risk of creating a hostage to fortune, I would predict many will be solved in the next decades by those firms at the forefront of the Quantum & AI journey.

*Karina Robinson is Senior Advisor to Multiverse Computing and Founder of The City Quantum & AI Summit which takes place on Monday, October 7th.

TQI Exclusive: 2023’S The City Quantum and AI Summit On A Mission To Create An Accessible, Inclusive And Entrepreneurial Quantum Community

The City Quantum and AI Summit 2023 will take place on Monday, October 2 at the Mansion House. The event brings together the City and the Quantum Community in the heart of the City of London for the third time. We talked to Karina Robinson, CEO of Redcliffe Advisory, founder of The City Quantum and AI Summit and senior adviser to Multiverse Computing, about this year’s edition of this unique quantum event, designed to take an inclusive approach that invites all elements of science and society to help usher in the quantum era.

What’s the mission of The City Quantum and AI Summit?

I’m glad you mentioned the word ‘mission’ for it truly is that! Our mission three years ago was to create a small conference – around 200 people, with only 60 at dinner – where CEOs, Chairs and the C-suite in financial service firms would meet and hear from their peers in quantum firms. Three years on our rules are the same: no lingo, no jargon from any panelist. As a result, they convey in English understandable to the lay person why end users should adopt and invest in quantum technologies.

Why is it always at the Mansion House, the home of the Lord Mayor of the City of London?

Too many conferences consist of quantum people talking to each other in charmless venues of interchangeable homogeneity. We wanted to create deals and business opportunities for the industry in the heart of the City of London. And the heart of City of London is right here in the Mansion House a British gilded palace, but one that is truly global in its outlook: it houses the Egyptian Hall, complete with Roman statues, and in the other rooms you will see one of the finest collections of Dutch Old Master paintings.  The conference attracts increasing numbers of major decision makers from those far-sighted companies that already embrace quantum or may be thinking of it.

What excites you most about the Summit this year?

The Summit’s vision has always been very matter of fact in growing the quantum ecosphere. But there has to be room for the madness of the science – for surely there is a craziness to entanglement, a mind-blowing unreality to superposition? Thus The City Quantum and AI Summit commissioned a film on quantum from artist Marina Landia with music by techno musician Ila, which he composed on Amazon’s Braket. I can promise you a movie premiere to end all premieres at its showing on October 2nd!

The Head of the NATO Innovation Fund is giving a keynote. How does the military fit into the equation?

I was involved in brainstorming NATO’s Quantum Strategy over two sessions this spring. I am a total believer in dual purpose technology, civilian and military, and the many synergies to be achieved in collaboration. Additionally, the threat to our imperfect democracies with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought home the importance of keeping NATO at the forefront of technological innovation.

Quantum technology is such an advanced technology — will attendees be mainly scientists?

No, no, no! The quantum world has more than its fair share of them, but panels are generally moderated by VIP ‘outsiders’. Their names ensure bankers, business people and other non-scientists feel comfortable attending in person or online.

For instance, Diana Brightmore-Armour, CEO of the UK’s 350-year old private bank, C Hoare & Co. chairs the panel on Financing Quantum – dream or nightmare?; William McDonnell, COO of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) chairs the panel on using quantum for environmental purposes; while lawyer Julia Black OBE, who is member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology, chairs the panel on AI & Quantum – Today and Tomorrow.

And we are hosted by Alderman and Professor Michael Mainelli, who will be Lord Mayor (Ambassador) for the City of London from November.

If your business isn’t directly tied to quantum, is there any value for business leaders to attend?

There is no such thing as a business that won’t benefit. At its most basic, quantum is about simulation and optimisation, and beneficial for sectors as diverse, for example, as drug discovery or supply chains, or in de-risking financial portfolios and undersea sensing.

There is also no such thing as a business that won’t be harmed by its decryption potential.

The City Quantum and AI Summit has already gained a reputation as a persuasive advocate for democratization and inclusion within the quantum community. Can we expect more in this year’s summit?

Without a community effort to strengthen Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) we are going to create an ecosphere of $450-$850 billion a dozen years from now which will suffer from group think and exclusionary practices.

Therefore the Summit is sticking to its two principles of free for all comers, to ensure students and young professionals attend, and gender balance on all panels.

We are holding the annual brainstorming D&I lunch. It counts on the participation of the London School of Economics’s (LSE) The Inclusion Initiative, an institute that creates inclusive cultures in businesses, and DiviQ (what’s that?), the new D&I organisation for the quantum industry, as well as City Big Wigs like Michael Cole-Fontayn, Board member at JP Morgan Securities and a great advocate for the cause.

Last year we produced a LSE briefing and we hope to do the same this year.

What’s special about the dinner?

It’s in the Old Ballroom amid gilded candelabras –a striking contraposition of tradition with the latest technology – and will feature a conversation between whurley of Strangeworks and Dame Elisabeth Corley, Chair of Schroders and the Impact Investing Institute. Boutique investment bank Perella Weinberg, with its Deep Tech specialty, is kindly sponsoring it.

Tell us about the panels — it looks like quite a list of experts and thought leaders.

We have stalwarts like Jay Lowell of Boeing, Roman Orus of Multiverse Computing, Nadia Carlsten of SandboxAQ, Lory Thorpe of GSMA, Denise Ruffner of Women in Quantum, Luke Ibbetson of Vodafone, Carmen Palacios-Berraquero of NuQuantum, Scott Faris of Infleqtion, llana Wisby of OQC investors like Candace Johnson of Seraphim, Stuart Woods of Quantum Exponential, Ekaterina Almasque of Open Ocean; for financial applications Georgios Korpas of HSBC and Michael Dascal of Fidelity; for pharmaceuticals Lene Oddershede of Novo Nordisk.

Any new features at The City Quantum and AI Summit 2023?

We are delighted to support the Institute for Physics (IOP) and Quantum Exponentials’ qBIG award to Cerca Magnetics, as well as its call for applications for the 2024 prize. And delighted too that our Media Partners are once again The Quantum Insider and Quantum London!

For registration, click here.