BOSTON, September 20, 2022 — Computer Zapata announced today that it has made significant progress in its mission to obtain the University of Hull quantum ready for future space exploration. A year into the collaboration, both teams have seen enough progress to expand their plans to expand the search for life indicators in deep space.
Together, Zapata and the University of Hull developed new techniques to extrapolate meaningful data from noisy quantum devices and used them to calculate the ro-vibrational spectrum of hydrogen to obtain results comparable to classical simulations. peak, as well as the experimental results. The results obtained with these new quantum techniques can already be used to detect molecular hydrogen in space.
Much of the progress is due to the University of Hull’s successful migration of Big Compute capabilities from classical to quantum computers. Big Compute is the term used by Zapata to refer to the market category of heterogeneous, distributed computing resources needed to solve the most complex computing problems of enterprises and other technologically advanced organizations. It builds on previous technical revolutions such as Big Data and AI and leverages a wide range of classical (e.g. GPU, TPU, CPU), high-performance (HPC), and quantum (e.g., quantum-inspired computers, NISQ devices, fault-tolerant quantum computers).
In practical terms, this means that when more powerful and fault-tolerant quantum computers become available, the team of scientists from the University of Hull will be able to dramatically increase the scope of their exploration, the complexity and the number of molecules they can search for. . and how quickly they analyze their findings – as they search for life beyond planet Earth.
“The magnitude of what we are trying to accomplish today is daunting,” said Dr David Benoit, lecturer in molecular physics and astrochemistry at the University of Hull. “There are over 16,000 different life-indicating molecules that we are looking for in space, but we could greatly increase our search with quantum computers as they become more powerful in the future. And we’re going to need that power. We are not looking for a needle in a haystack here. It would be easy. This effort is more like searching for a speck of dust in a warehouse through a straw.
Throughout the project, the teams achieved several new discoveries and scientific breakthroughs. These findings led them to expect the quantum algorithm to scale better than the classical algorithm in the future, allowing larger molecules to be studied that would not be possible with a classical computer. Zapata Computing and the University of Hull also documented this research and recently published an article regarding the results titled “A Path to Accurate Potential Energy Curves on NISQ Devices”. The teams will also share the results of the project and the results of the first year of work at Quantum Tech London in their September 20 presentation titled “Using Quantum Computers to Search for Extraterrestrial Life in Deep Space.”
“The scale of what the University of Hull is trying to achieve technically is a clear indication that the need for Big Compute capabilities today is critical to preparing for the quantum future ahead,” said Christopher Savoie. , CEO and co-founder of Zapata Computing. . “There is no doubt that finding life in deep space is difficult, but it is a perfect challenge for a quantum computer – and there are steps that the University of Hull is taking, similar to those that many companies are taking, to make iterative progress and prepare for these more powerful machines as they come online.
About Zapata Computing
Zapata Computing, Inc. is the leader in enterprise quantum software. The Company’s Orquestra platform supports the research, development and deployment of quantum-ready applications for the most complex enterprise computing problems. Zapata has pioneered new ML, optimization, and simulation methods to maximize the value of near-term quantum devices, and partners closely with ecosystem hardware providers such as Amazon, D-Wave, Google, Quantinuum, IBM, IonQ and Rigetti. Zapata was founded in 2017 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Source: Zapata Computing
