Recently, HCL co-founder Ajai Chowdhry, popularly known as the ‘Father of Indian Hardware’, spoke to AIM about India’s quantum mission and highlighted the magic AI can bring to quantum computing. He referred to the AI and quantum blend as a “lethal” one.
Major tech companies like Google and Microsoft are actively developing this combination to drive the next wave of the AI revolution.
Big Tech’s AI Quantum Leap
Quantum computing has accelerated developments across varied sectors, such as drug discovery and security. Chowdhry highlights that quantum computers are especially suited for drug development, significantly reducing both the time required for drug discovery and the cost of medications.
Drug Discovery and Cybersecurity
Google Quantum AI, an initiative that started over a decade ago to advance quantum computing and its applications, focuses on developing algorithms and tools to solve complex problems beyond the reach of traditional computers. It has made significant strides in drug discovery.
Google’s Sycamore processor and other quantum models are being used to simulate chemical reactions to accelerate the process of identifying new drugs. Furthermore, the future versions of AlphaFold could leverage quantum algorithms to process complex biological data and investigate protein structure spaces that classical methods cannot compute.
Cybersecurity is another key area where quantum plays a pivotal role. “When a quantum computer which can crack the current cyber security systems comes up, you will be completely open to attacks. This can happen in four to six years. When a powerful quantum computer is ready, it can crack your financial systems, your security systems, and everything else,” explained Chowdhry.
Rahil Patel, chief growth officer of QNu Labs, a quantum-safe data security company, said in an interaction with AIM that AI acts as an enabler in quantum fields, especially in cryptography and secure communications. He noted that while AI could pose risks by potentially breaking traditional encryption methods, quantum technologies can provide protection against these threats.
Recently, Chinese researchers claimed to have used a D-Wave quantum computer to successfully attack substitution-permutation network (SPN) algorithms. They posed a significant threat to encryption standards such as RSA and AES, which are widely used in the banking and military sectors.
Development Continues
Google DeepMind recently introduced AlphaQubit, an AI-based system designed to improve the reliability of quantum computers by identifying and decoding errors with high accuracy.
Detailed in the paper ‘Learning high-accuracy error decoding for quantum processors’, AlphaQubit uses a neural network to decode the surface code, setting new benchmarks in error suppression for quantum systems. This development is considered to be a huge breakthrough in how AI can be advanced for quantum.
Similarly, Microsoft, in collaboration with Atom Computing, has introduced a quantum system with 24 logical qubits, which brings Microsoft closer to fault-tolerant quantum computing. CEO Satya Nadella stated that 100 reliable qubits will mark the achievement of scientific quantum advantage.
Tech giant IBM has been at the forefront of quantum advancements. The company is working on quantum machine learning, where quantum algorithms are used to accelerate the training of AI models. It has also built an AI-powered quantum chatbot named Qiskit Code Assistant.
Not That Simple
While the potential of quantum computers combined with AI seems promising, the challenge of building it remains an obstacle considering how capital-intensive it is. In India, not just capital, but a good collaboration between various institutes is also required for this.
Chowdhry explains the Indian quantum mission to be a unique policy that offers startup funding of up to ₹25 crore, which is different from the traditional grants of ₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore. “That [traditional grants] kind of money is absolutely useless in quantum because quantum needs research and it needs working with education and research institutions,” he said.
Looking at where India stands in the whole quantum computing scene, Chowdhry said that though it is lagging a bit, many countries are, in fact, nowhere close to India. “It’s just that five to seven countries are ahead of us.”
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