Experts explain how the Genesis Mission will merge AI and quantum to further scientific discovery and research.<\/p>\n
The Energy Department\u2019s new Quantum Genesis initiative<\/a> aims to bring artificial intelligence and quantum computing together to accelerate scientific discovery, a combination national security researchers say could help overcome some of the biggest barriers to quantum computing.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my mind, the Genesis Mission first and foremost will help us get to performant quantum computers. You\u2019re always going to have a classical computer controlling a quantum computer,\u201d Sandia National Lab Computing Research Center Director Jennifer Gaudioso told GovCIO Media & Research. \u201cWith the high-performance computing and AI tools that Genesis is bringing, we will have more effective controls to integrate AI and quantum.\u201d<\/p>\n In the context of today\u2019s supercomputers, Gaudioso said quantum computing<\/a> will become another tool in the broader ecosystem.<\/p>\n \u201cI really think we\u2019re headed to a heterogeneous computing future,\u201d Gaudioso said. \u201cSome problems will be best solved on a data flow accelerator with an AI backbone. \u2026 A quantum computer will do something that nothing else can do for us.\u201d<\/p>\n AI\u2019s Impact on Quantum<\/p>\n The new initiative stems from the department\u2019s broader Genesis Mission<\/a> that aims to integrate the agency\u2019s 17 national laboratories and supercomputers into a single unified AI platform. Quantum Genesis aims to develop and deploy the world\u2019s first fault-tolerant quantum computing capability by 2028.<\/p>\n Gaudioso said researchers are only beginning to understand how AI and quantum<\/a> reinforce each other.<\/p>\n \u201cThis work of thinking about how AI and quantum can be used together is just getting started. We\u2019re at the point where it seems real, and that wasn\u2019t the case in the past five or 10 years,\u201d said Gaudioso.<\/p>\n Why Quantum Matters<\/p>\n Gaudioso discussed how she sees quantum computing solving problems beyond today\u2019s supercomputers in areas such as materials science, drug discovery<\/a> and national security<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAtoms and molecules are inherently quantum mechanical, and those are the first problems where we believe we will see quantum advantage. They\u2019re super hard. We can only approximate them on classical computers, and we believe those are the areas where we\u2019re going to see real advantage emerge from quantum computing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n