Quantum computing software company Multiverse has created a new algorithm that illustrates how current quantum computers can be used to do the type of complex mathematical calculations required for optimisation problems. This could be useful in finance and engineering sectors and will “only improve as quantum computers improve,” the company says.
Details of the algorithm have been published in a new paper, explaining that when run it can turn even lower qubit quantum computers available today into advanced calculators to carry out equations used by scientists, banks and engineers on a daily basis.
These calculations now possible using noisy early quantum computers include carrying derivatives, partial differential equations and Fourier analysis, a way to break down a signal into simpler pieces for easier analysis. Some of these calculations are relatively straightforward for classical computers running specialist software, but not so for quantum machines, which, with the right optimisation, could perform particularly complex equations much faster.
The Multiverse team found that the simulations they ran to test their algorithm are “at least comparable to the best classical computers” that are available today and will continue to improve as quantum computing performance increases. Effectively the better the quantum computer, the more it will outpace the performance of the same algorithms on classical machines.
“Our research shows that we can transform today’s Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices into advanced quantum-based ‘calculators’ that are able to do very complex calculations with very few qubits and limited error correction and provide value now,” said Román Orús, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Multiverse.
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