Nvidia is helping Google design quantum computing processors

Nvidia, the chipmaker at the centre of a boom in artificial intelligence use, is teaming up with Alphabet’s Google to pursue another technology once relegated to science fiction: quantum computing.

Google’s Quantum AI division will use Nvidia’s Eos supercomputer to speed up the design of quantum components, according to a statement from the companies on Monday. The idea is to simulate the physics that is required for quantum processors to work, helping them overcome current limitations.

This field of computing aims to use quantum mechanics to create machines that are much faster than today’s semiconductor-based technology. But it is still early. Though various companies have claimed to make breakthroughs with quantum computing, it may take decades for large-scale commercial projects to be ready – if they come at all.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, believes its technology will help Google sort out one thorny issue. As quantum processors become more powerful, it gets harder to distinguish between actual information and interference, known as noise.

“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, a research scientist from Google Quantum AI. “Using Nvidia accelerated computing, we’re exploring the noise implications of increasingly larger quantum chip designs.”

To help make this happen, Nvidia is offering a giant computer powered by its AI accelerator chips. It will simulate how the components of a quantum system will interact with their environment. For example, many quantum chips have to be cooled to extremely low temperatures for them to work at all.

Such calculations have previously been extremely expensive and time-consuming. Nvidia says its system will deliver results in minutes that would have taken a week before, at a fraction of the cost.