Nvidia working with Google on quantum processors

Nvidia and Google have announced they are teaming up to speed up the design of next-generation quantum computing devices.

Google’s Quantum AI unit will use Nvidia’s Eos supercomputer to simulate the physics of its quantum processors, the two companies said in a statement.

Google will also use the chipmaker’s hybrid quantum-classical computing platform CUDA-Q to accelerate the development of new quantum components needed to break the next technological barrier.

The idea is to overcome the current limitations of quantum computing hardware, which can only run a certain number of quantum operations before computations must cease due to what researchers call “noise,” or interference that can distort meaningful data.

“The development of commercially useful quantum computers is only possible if we can scale up quantum hardware while keeping noise in check,” said Guifre Vidal, research scientist at Google Quantum AI.

“Using Nvidia accelerated computing, we’re exploring the noise implications of increasingly larger quantum chip designs.”

Nvidia, which has overtaken Apple as the world’s most valuable company amid an AI boom, said that its technology will help Google run complex quantum simulations “at a fraction of the cost.” Simulations that would have taken a week can now run in minutes, it said.

“AI supercomputing power will be helpful to quantum computing’s success,” said Tim Costa, director of quantum and HPC at Nvidia. “Google’s use of the CUDA-Q platform demonstrates the central role GPU-accelerated simulations have in advancing quantum computing to help solve real-world problems.”