Eleanor G. Rieffel, NASA Ames Research Center Assessing and Advancing the Potential of Quantum Computing: A NASA Case Study
Quantum computing is one of the most enticing emerging computational paradigms. It has the potential to revolutionize diverse areas within the future of computation. While quantum computing hardware has advanced rapidly, from tiny laboratory experiments to quantum chips that can outperform even the largest supercomputers on specialized computational tasks, current processors are still too small and non-robust to be directly useful for any real-world applications today. Nevertheless, we are entering an era of unprecedented capabilities for the exploration of quantum algorithms and protocols beyond what is possible today. There is also the opportunity to map out large-scale architectures and estimate resources for early fault-tolerant quantum computing, tailored to specific applications, through codesign of algorithms, quantum error correction, and hardware.Â
In this talk, I’ll discuss NASA’s work in assessing and advancing the potential of quantum computing, illustrating advances in algorithms, both near- and longer-term, in designing novel quantum error correction methods, in resource estimation, and in co-design. I’ll also highlight physics-inspired classical algorithms that can be used at the application scale today. The talk will conclude with a discussion of open research directions.