The ambitious plans were announced this week by President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio following Kishida’s Official Visit to the White House.

While the leaders affirmed their commitment across a broad range of areas including defence, climate, development, and humanitarian efforts, the new technology collaborations took centre stage and underscore how the US-Japan alliance is evolving into a comprehensive global partnership underpinned by innovation.

AI takes centre stage

One of the headline initiatives is a $110 million partnership between the University of Washington, University of Tsukuba, Carnegie Mellon University, and Keio University. Backed by tech giants like NVIDIA, Arm, Amazon, and Microsoft—as well as Japanese companies—the program aims to solidify US-Japan leadership in cutting-edge AI research and development.

The US and Japan also committed to supporting each other in establishing national AI Safety Institutes and pledged future collaboration on interoperable AI safety standards, evaluations, and risk management frameworks.

In a bid to mitigate AI risks, the countries vowed to provide transparency around AI-generated and manipulated content from official government channels. Technical research and standards efforts were promised to identify and authenticate synthetic media.

Quantum leaps

Quantum technology featured prominently, with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) partnering with Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) to build robust quantum supply chains.

Trilateral cooperation between the University of Chicago, University of Tokyo, and Seoul National University was also announced to train a quantum workforce and bolster competitiveness.  

The US and Japan additionally welcomed new commercial deals including Quantinuum providing Japan’s RIKEN institute with $50 million in quantum computing services over five years.

Several semiconductor initiatives were unveiled such as potential cooperation between Japan’s Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center (LSTC) with the US National Semiconductor Technology Center and National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program. The countries pledged to explore joint semiconductor workforce development initiatives through technical workshops.

Other announced commercial deals spanned cloud computing, telecommunications, batteries, robotics, biotechnology, finance, transportation and beyond—highlighting how the alliance is fusing public and private efforts.

Developing humans

Initiatives around STEM education exchanges, technology curriculums, entrepreneur programs, and talent circulation efforts emphasised the focus on developing human capital to power the coming wave of digital innovation.

While the technological breakthroughs grab attention, the proliferation of initiatives aimed at training, exchanging, and nurturing the innovators, researchers, and professionals across these domains could prove just as vital. The US and Japan appear determined to strategically develop and leverage human resources in lockstep with their efforts to establish cutting-edge AI, quantum, chip, and other advanced tech capabilities.

Both nations clearly recognise that building complementary ecosystems across vital technologies is essential to bolstering competitiveness, economic prosperity, and national security in an era of intensifying strategic competition.

(Photo by Tong Su)

See also: Microsoft AI opens London hub to access ‘enormous pool’ of talent

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Ten times more powerful than its predecessor, but using less electricity thanks to Lenovo’s direct water cooling, the new supercomputer will power AI research for UK industry

The new supercomputer is part of the Hartree Centre’s £210 million Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI) programme, which provides UK industry access to state-of-the-art digital technologies and expertise and is complementary to investments in the wider AI Research Resource (AIRR). 

It will support the HNCDI’s rapidly expanding supercomputing and AI activities, and will be installed later this year at its new £30 million supercomputing centre, currently under construction.   

A leap in supercomputing processing power

A 44.7 petaflop system, the Lenovo ThinkSystem Neptune will perform more than 44 quadrillion floating point operations (calculations) per second.

To put this into context, if you were to carry out one calculation per second, it would take nearly 1400 million years to reach this number.

The new GPU-based system (graphics processing unit) is perfect for AI workloads, and marks a significant leap for the Hartree Centre’s capabilities, with ten times the processing power of its current system, Scafell Pike. Furthermore, it will be more power-efficient, taking up less space and using less electricity per unit of performance.

The new supercomputer uses innovative warm water cooling which can reduce energy demands by up to 40% while boosting performance by up to 10%.

Powering UK Industry with AI

Located at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory, at Sci-Tech Daresbury in the Liverpool City Region, the Hartree Centre is the UK’s only supercomputing centre dedicated to industry engagement. This capability will drive forward innovation in industry use cases and applications.

Its HNCDI programme plays a vital role in equipping businesses with skills and technical knowledge to adopt emerging digital technologies, including supercomputing, quantum computing, and AI.

It is enabling productivity, innovation and growth in UK organisations through access to these advanced supercomputing technologies, which are typically available only to academia and large-scale industry,

Solving global challenges

At the HNCDI, the new supercomputer will be strategically positioned to contribute to discovery-led industrial research, focusing on solutions to global challenges in areas such as:

• weather and climate modelling
• cleaner energy initiatives
• drug discovery
• health technologies
• new materials
• automotive advancements
• legal applications

This includes the Hartree Centre’s continued collaboration with the UK Atomic Energy Authority, which is using the Centre to research new reactors for clean nuclear fusion energy.

Ultimately, the new supercomputer will reduce the time and cost associated with making research breakthroughs, including for organisations such as the Met Office, Unilever and Rolls Royce, that the Hartree Centre has continued to work with over the last decade.

Kate Royse, director, STFC Hartree Centre, said: “We are very excited to be working with Lenovo on our next generation of supercomputer at the Hartree Centre. Our mission is to equip UK industry with the knowledge, skills and compute needed to fully unlock the potential of advanced digital technologies. With our new supercomputer we will be able to support UK industry in the use of big data and AI technologies to enable UK businesses to take a leading role internationally on the responsible adoption and exploitation of AI technology.”

Noam Rosen, EMEA director HPC/AI, Lenovo, said: “Lenovo is equally enthusiastic about our collaboration with the Hartree Centre on its ambitious journey to revolutionize HPC and AI capabilities in the UK. Our collaboration is not just about delivering a state-of-the-art supercomputer; it’s about building a versatile, robust, and powerful system tailored to meet the Centre’s diverse and evolving needs. From advanced modeling and simulation in various scientific disciplines to pioneering work in AI and machine learning, this new power-efficient supercomputer will be a cornerstone for innovation, pushing the boundaries of big data and AI technologies to bolster the UK industry’s global leadership in responsible and ethical technology adoption.”

Mark Thomson, Executive Chair, STFC, said: “STFC’s agreement with Lenovo is an exciting milestone in our mission to provide UK businesses with access to the vital infrastructure and expertise that will help them to grow and succeed on a global scale, which in turn will drive productivity and job creation. By enabling UK industry to adopt advanced digital technologies, we are supporting the government ambitions to build a competitive and innovative digital economy that will both turbo drive economic growth and reap societal benefits for the UK, as well as for the UK to be a global AI superpower.”

The HNCDI new Lenovo supercomputer in numbers:

• The ThinkSystem Neptune can perform the same number of calculations as 20,790 top of the range smartphones
• An hour of calculation on a market leading smartphone would take 0.17 seconds
• It can hold 4500 hours of 4k video in its working memory
• It can hold 60,000 hours of 4k video in its hard disks

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

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GlobalData highlights a 14 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) increase in related patent filings from 2020 to 2022, underscoring the vast influence and potential of quantum AI across industries.

Adarsh Jain, Director of Financial Markets at GlobalData, emphasises the transformative nature of Quantum AI:

“Quantum AI represents a transformative advancement in technology. As we integrate quantum principles into AI algorithms, the potential for speed and efficiency in processing complex data sets grows exponentially. This not only enhances current AI applications but also opens new possibilities across various industries. 

The surge in patent filings is a testament to its growing importance and the pivotal role it will play in the future of AI-driven solutions.”

Kiran Raj, Practice Head of Disruptive Tech at GlobalData, highlights that while AI thrives on data and computational power, the inner workings of the technology often remain unclear. Quantum computing not only promises increased power but also potentially provides greater insights into these workings, paving the way for AI to transcend its current capabilities.

GlobalData’s Disruptor Intelligence Center analysis reveals significant synergy between quantum computing and AI innovations, leading to revolutionary impacts in various industries. Notable collaborations include HSBC and IBM in finance, Menten AI’s healthcare advancements, Volkswagen’s partnership with Xanadu for battery simulation, Intel’s Quantum SDK, and Zapata’s collaboration with BMW.

Raj concludes with a note of caution: “Quantum AI offers the potential for smarter, faster AI systems, but its adoption is complex and demands caution. The technology is still in its early stages, requiring significant investment and expertise.

“Key challenges include the need for advanced cybersecurity measures and ensuring ethical AI practices as we navigate this promising yet intricate landscape.”

(Photo by Anton Maksimov 5642.su on Unsplash)

See also: Google expands partnership with Anthropic to enhance AI safety

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The UK is Europe’s AI leader. Indeed, behind the US and China, the country’s tech sector overall has the third-highest amount of VC investment in the world – more than Germany and France combined – and has produced more than double the number of $1 billion tech firms than any other European country.

Gerard Grech, CEO of Tech Nation, said:

“As a nation uniquely positioned between two economic powerhouses, the US and the EU, we must harness innovative regulation that will enable us to propel ourselves as an international hub and leader for AI, quantum computing, and deep tech.

This is a critical step towards creating a distinctive, value-driven tech ecosystem in the UK, setting us apart from other tech hubs.”

To support British startups, an ‘AI Sandbox’ was announced by the chancellor. The sandbox features a number of initiatives designed to encourage AI research and investment.

Among them is a prize pot containing millions of pounds. £1 million will be up for grabs every year over the next decade for the best AI innovations created by teams and individuals.

Ludovico Lugnani, Technology Solicitor at BDB Pitmans, comments:

“Following yesterday’s news of Open AI’s launch of its upgraded GPT-4 chatbot, the Budget’s announcement as to the creation of an AI sandbox offers a promising outlook for the UK to speed up the arrival of AI products to market.

As part of this, particular emphasis should be placed on providing effective guidance as to the implications of copyright law on generative AI applications following the recent claim by Getty Images against Stability AI over breach of copyright.”

Elsewhere, £2.5 billion is being ploughed into advancing quantum computing. The powerful machines will enable a literal “quantum leap” in AI.

“The power that AI’s complex algorithms need can be provided by quantum computing,” the chancellor told the Commons.

£900 million is also being invested to create an exascale supercomputer that will be several times more powerful than the country’s biggest computers and advance not just AI research, but also science, healthcare, defense, weather modelling, and more.

“[The supercomputer] should be a huge boost to the UK’s ability to support cutting-edge research in areas requiring complex modelling and simulations, such as climate change, pharmaceutical development and hi-tech engineering,” commented Nick White, Partner at law firm Charles Russell Speechlys.

Only one exacomputer is currently known to exist. The computer, known as Frontier, is housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, United States.

Other relevant announcements in the Spring Budget are targeted less at the AI industry specifically but aim to solidify the UK’s ranking as the second-best country after the US to invest and launch a business.

Under the ‘Full Expensing’ plans, companies investing in R&D and IT equipment to boost growth will benefit. Every pound a company spends on new IT equipment and machinery can be deducted in full from taxable profits.

The independent OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) says the measure will increase business investment by three percent every year. The chancellor has committed to the measure for the next three years but intends to make it permanent “as soon as we can responsibly do so”.

Furthermore, smaller businesses will also have an increased annual investment allowance of up to £1 million. This means that 99 percent of SMEs will be able to deduct the full value of all their investments from taxable profits.

Matt Hammond, Founder of Talk Think Do, said:

“I wholly welcome the tax savings on IT investments, research and development as announced in today’s budget. In recent years, Talk Think Do has benefitted substantially from the R&D relief and as a result, we have been able to reinvest the extra cash directly into hiring sector-leading talent.  

R&D relief has helped to accelerate our expansion by over 750 percent in just four years. We are a successful example of how the relief has encouraged greater innovation in UK businesses and has unlocked significant growth opportunities. Today’s update benefits the economy at large and so I am glad to see this has been considered in the budget.”

The creation of 12 investment zones is set to further boost the UK’s tech credentials and spread opportunity across the country.

Eight have been announced in England and will be around research institutions in the East Midlands, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, North East, South Yorkshire, Tees Valley, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire.

Four more will be in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. These investment zones, based in the UK’s devolved administrations, will be announced by the end of the year.

Rikke Wichmann Bruun, CEO of MRM UK, commented:

“The announcement of investment into technology – including green technology – through the 12 investment zones presents a great opportunity for businesses and brands in the UK.

The ambition to transform Britain into the ‘next Silicon Valley’ also echoes new research conducted by our agency which found that Brits are the most optimistic about technology’s potential, in comparison to other Europeans.”

Cambridge, Oxford, and London – the so-called ‘golden triangle’ – are often seen as Europe’s closest rivals to Silicon Valley. Each city benefits from world-leading universities and research institutions that help to produce innovative startups and address global talent shortages.

The three cities are based in southern England and have historically benefited more from investment compared to the rest of the UK. Other cities – including Edinburgh and Manchester – have attracted increased investment in recent years, but it’s hoped the new zones will close the gap and unlock the potential across every region of the UK.

“Predictions that inflation will fall to 2.9 percent by the end of 2023 will be very welcome and there were a range of measures announced to boost the economy, including 12 new regional investment zones and a new policy to replace the ‘Super Deduction’,” said Stuart Haynes, Corporate and Commercial Partner at law firm Aaron & Partners.

“There are some fantastic tech innovators in this country and it’s pleasing to see the chancellor really get behind this sector to be a catalyst for economic growth.”

(Image Credit: Zara Farrar / HM Treasury under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license)

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The new Science and Technology Framework is the first major piece of work from the newly created Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and will challenge every part of government to better put the UK at the forefront of global science and technology this decade through 10 key actions – creating a coordinated cross-government approach.

In doing so, the Government will foster the right conditions for industry innovation and world leading scientific research to deliver high-paid jobs of the future, grow the economy in cutting-edge industries, and improve people’s lives from better healthcare to security.

The 10 points of the new Science and Technology Framework centre on:

• identifying, pursuing and achieving strategic advantage in the technologies that are most critical to achieving UK objectives
• showcasing the UK’s S&T strengths and ambitions at home and abroad to attract talent, investment and boost our global influence
• boosting private and public investment in research and development for economic growth and better productivity
• building on the UK’s already enviable talent and skills base
• financing innovative science and technology start-ups and companies
• capitalising on the UK government’s buying power to boost innovation and growth through public sector procurement
• shaping the global science and tech landscape through strategic international engagement, diplomacy and partnerships
• ensuring researchers have access to the best physical and digital infrastructure for R&D that attracts talent, investment and discoveries
• leveraging post-Brexit freedoms to create world-leading pro-innovation regulation and influence global technical standards
• creating a pro-innovation culture throughout the UK’s public sector to improve the way our public services run

The delivery of this new Framework will begin immediately with an initial raft of projects, worth around £500 million in new and existing funding, which will help ensure the UK has the skills and infrastructure to take a global lead in game-changing technologies.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Trailblazing science and innovation have been in our DNA for decades. But in an increasingly competitive world, we can only stay ahead with focus, dynamism and leadership.

“That’s why we’re setting out 10 key actions under a bold new plan to cement our place as a global science and technology superpower by 2030 – from pursuing transformational technologies like AI and supercomputing to attracting top talent and ensuring they have the tools they need to succeed.

“The more we innovate, the more we can grow our economy, create the high-paid jobs of the future, protect our security, and improve lives across the country.”

Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said: “Innovation and technology are our future. They hold the keys to everything from raising productivity and wages, to transforming healthcare, reducing energy prices and ultimately creating jobs and economic growth in the UK, providing the financial firepower allowing us to spend more on public services.

“That is why we are putting the full might of the British government and our private sector partners behind our push to become a scientific and technological superpower, because only through being world-leaders in future industries like AI and quantum will we be able to improve the lives of every Briton.”

The initial package of projects to drive forward the actions of the Science and Technology Framework includes:

• £250 million investment in three transformational technologies to build on the UK’s global leadership in AI, quantum technologies and engineering biology, so they can help a range of industries tackle the biggest global challenges like climate change and health care. This forms part of our commitment to the five technologies within the science and technology framework, which also includes semiconductors and future telecoms
• publication of Sir Paul Nurse’s Independent Review of the Research, Development and Innovation Organisational Landscape with recommendations to make the most of the UK’s research organisations, ensuring they are effective, sustainable and responsive to global challenges
• testing different models of funding science, to support a range of innovative institutional models, such as Focused Research Organisations (known as FROs), working with industry and philanthropic partners to open up new funding for UK research. For example, this could include working with a range of partners to increase investment in the world leading UK Biobank, to support the continued revolution in genetic science
• up to £50 million to spur co-investment in science from the private sector and philanthropists to drive the discoveries of the future, subject to business cases. The government is already talking to Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt, about additional support of up to $20 million as part of this work
• £117 million of existing funding to create hundreds of new PhDs for AI researchers and £8 million to find the next generation of AI leaders around the world to do their research in the UK
• a £50 million uplift to World Class Labs funding to help research institutes and universities to improve facilities so UK researchers have access to the best labs and equipment they need to keep producing world-class science, opening up entirely new avenues for economic growth and job creation
• a £10 million uplift to the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund, totalling £50 million, to boost the UK’s next tech and science start-ups who could be the next Apple, Google or Tesla
• plans to set up an Exascale supercomputer facility – the most powerful compute capability which could solve problems as complex as nuclear fusion – as well as a programme to provide dedicated compute capacity for important AI research, as part of the response to the Future of Compute Review
• £9 million in government funding to support the establishment of a quantum computing research centre by PsiQuantum in Daresbury in the North-West

The Framework has been designed in consultation with industry experts and academics, to help deliver stronger growth, better jobs, and bold discoveries to tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow.

The plan will be a cross-government endeavour led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to bring together responsibility for the UK’s world class research and innovation system with the 5 technologies of tomorrow – quantum, AI, engineering biology, semiconductors, future telecoms plus life sciences and green technologies, into one single department for the first time.

Director of the Francis Crick Institute and lead reviewer of the Landscape Review, Paul Nurse, said: “It is absolutely right, as the Prime Minister has said, that the future of the UK depends upon research, science and technology. Only by being a leading science nation can the UK drive a sustainable economy, increased productivity and generate societal benefits such as improved healthcare and protecting the environment.

“The Government’s endorsement of this approach is to be fully supported. My Review of the research, development and innovation landscape makes a range of recommendations across the whole RDI endeavour, which if adopted together, provides a blueprint for government to make the UK a genuine science superpower.”

Today the government is also announcing a further extension until 30 June 2023 of the financial guarantee provided to the UK’s Horizon Europe applicants so that eligible, successful bids for calls closing on or before this date continue to be guaranteed funding, supporting them to continue their important work in research and innovation.

Science, innovation and technology are the drivers of economic growth and productivity. More than half of the UK’s future labour productivity growth will come from adopting the best available technologies and the rest from ‘pushing the frontier’ of technology even further. Each £1 of public R&D investment leverages £2 of private R&D investment in the long run.

The announcements build on existing Government efforts to support science and technology. This includes setting up the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) to fund high-risk, high-reward R&D; investing £100 million in a pilot bringing together national and local partners in Glasgow, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands to accelerate their growth into major, globally competitive centres for research and innovation; and publishing the UK Digital Strategy committed to rolling out world-class digital infrastructure, unlocking the value of data to create growth, innovation and societal benefits across the UK and harnessing digital transformation to build a more inclusive, competitive and innovative digital economy.

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London.

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“A sharp focus on AI hardware manufacturing, research, and design is critical to meet the demands of the world’s evolving devices, architectures, and systems,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the MIT School of Engineering, and Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. 

“Knowledge-sharing between industry and academia is imperative to the future of high-performance computing.”

There are five inaugural members of the program:

• Amazon
• Analog Devices
• ASML
• NTT Research
• TSMC

As the diversity of the inaugural members shows, the program is intended to be a cross-disciplinary effort.

“As AI systems become more sophisticated, new solutions are sorely needed to enable more advanced applications and deliver greater performance,” commented Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

 “Our aim is to devise real-world technological solutions and lead the development of technologies for AI in hardware and software.”

A key goal of the program is to help create more energy-efficient systems.

“We are all in awe at the seemingly superhuman capabilities of today’s AI systems. But this comes at a rapidly increasing and unsustainable energy cost,” explained Jesús del Alamo, the Donner Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

“Continued progress in AI will require new and vastly more energy-efficient systems. This, in turn, will demand innovations across the entire abstraction stack, from materials and devices to systems and software. The program is in a unique position to contribute to this quest.”

Other key areas of exploration include:

• Analog neural networks
• New CMOS designs
• Heterogeneous integration for AI systems
• Monolithic-3D AI systems
• Analog nonvolatile memory devices
• Software-hardware co-design
• Intelligence at the edge
• Intelligent sensors
• Energy-efficient AI
• Intelligent Internet of Things (IIoT)
• Neuromorphic computing
• AI edge security
• Quantum AI
• Wireless technologies
• Hybrid-cloud computing
• High-performance computation

It’s an exhaustive list and an ambitious project. However, the AI Hardware Program is off to a great start with the inaugural members bringing significant talent and expertise in their respective fields to the table.

“We live in an era where paradigm-shifting discoveries in hardware, systems communications, and computing have become mandatory to find sustainable solutions—solutions that we are proud to give to the world and generations to come,” says Aude Oliva, Senior Research Scientist in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Director of Strategic Industry Engagement at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.

The program is being co-led by Jesús del Alamo and Aude Oliva. Anantha Chandrakasan will serve as its chair.

More information about the AI Hardware Program can be found here.

(Photo by Nejc Soklič on Unsplash)

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The company’s roster of accelerated computing kits now exceeds 150 and supports the almost three million developers in NVIDIA’s Developer Program.

Four of the major new SDKs are:

• ReOpt – Automatically optimises logistical processes using advanced, parallel algorithms. This includes vehicle routes, warehouse selection, and fleet mix. The dynamic rerouting capabilities – shown in an on-stage demo – can reduce travel time, save fuel costs, and minimise idle periods.
• cuNumeric – Implements the popular NumPy application programming interface and enables scaling to multi-GPU and multi-node systems with zero code changes.
• cuQuantum – Designed for quantum computing, it enables large quantum circuits to be simulated faster. This enables quantum researchers to simulate areas such as near-term variational quantum algorithms for molecules, error correction algorithms to identify fault tolerance, and accelerate popular quantum simulators from Atos, Google, and IBM.
• CUDA-X accelerated DGL container – Helps developers and data scientists working on graph neural networks to quickly set up a working environment. The container makes it easy to work in an integrated, GPU-accelerated GNN environment combining DGL and Pytorch.

Some existing AI-related SDKs that have received notable updates are:

• Deepstream 6.0 – introduces a new graph composer that makes computer vision accessible with a visual drag-and-drop interface.
• Triton 2.15, TensorRT 8.2 and cuDNN 8.4 – assists with the development of deep neural networks by providing new optimisations for large language models and inference acceleration for gradient-boosted decision trees and random forests.
• Merlin 0.8 – boosts recommendation systems with its new capabilities for predicting a user’s next action with little or no user data and support for models larger than GPU memory.

Accelerating quantum research

Nvidia has established a partnership with Google, IBM, and a number of small companies, national labs, and university research groups to accelerate quantum research.

“It takes a village to nurture an emerging technology, so Nvidia is collaborating with Google Quantum AI, IBM, and others to take quantum computing to the next level,” explained the company in a blog post.

The first library from the aforementioned new cuQuantum SDK is Nvidia’s initial contribution to the partnership. The library is called cuStateVec and is an accelerator for the state vector simulation method which tracks the full state of the system in memory and can scale to tens of qubits.

cuStateVec has been integrated into Google Quantum AI’s state vector simulator qsim and can be used through the open-source framework Cirq.

“Quantum computing promises to solve tough challenges in computing that are beyond the reach of traditional systems,” commented Catherine Vollgraff Heidweiller at Google Quantum AI.

“This high-performance simulation stack will accelerate the work of researchers around the world who are developing algorithms and applications for quantum computers.”

In December, cuStateVec will also be integrated with Qiskit Aer—a high-performance simulator framework for quantum circuits from IBM.

Among the national labs using cuQuantum to accelerate their research are Oak Ridge, Argonne, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. University research groups include those at Caltech, Oxford, and MIT.

Nvidia is helping developers to get started by creating a ‘DGX quantum appliance’ that puts its simulation software in a container optimised for its DGX A100 systems. The software will be available early next year via the company’s NGC Catalog.

(Image Credit: Nvidia)

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