Artificial intelligence superimposes quantum technology and goes to subvert the future.

Text/Chen Gen

At present, artificial intelligence and quantum computing have long been hot research topics in their respective fields.

With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, artificial intelligence technology, as a strategic technology leading this round of scientific and technological revolution and this round of industrial transformation, has become a new engine to promote economic and social development.

In social life, artificial intelligence has been widely used in smart home, smart medical care, smart agriculture, smart manufacturing, smart finance, smart driving and other fields, and its industrialization has achieved remarkable results. In addition, machine learning has gradually revealed its advantages in many complex scientific issues, including cancer detection, extreme weather prediction, and exploration of new exoplanets.

Quantum technology is also a sharp weapon to promote the progress of digital society. Among many scientific achievements in the 20th century, quantum theory is undoubtedly one of the greatest discoveries, which provides a framework for the establishment of various unified theories of modern physics.

Compared with some improved technologies in the current scientific community, quantum technology has a subversive role. What it subverts is the electronic computing that currently occupies the mainstream position, that is, the traditional and mainstream computers still use electrons as the basic carrier. It can be said that quantum technology itself is one of the core contents of digital technology and the core force to promote the digital economy era.

When artificial intelligence meets quantum technology, what kind of future will it show when subversion is superimposed and subverted?

But quantum computing meets artificial intelligence

Quantum AI, as its name implies, is the combination of quantum technology and artificial intelligence, and it is also the application of quantum technology in the field of artificial intelligence. Among them, quantum technology refers to quantum computing technology.

Compared with the 70-year history of artificial intelligence, quantum computing is relatively younger. Although quantum mechanics, as the protagonist of the whole 20th century, directly contributed to the development of information technology such as semiconductor transistors and lasers, the concept of quantum computing was not really born until 1980s.

In 1981, Feynman, a famous physicist, observed many difficulties encountered by ordinary computers based on Turing model in simulating quantum mechanical systems, and then put forward the idea of analog subsystem of classical computers. Since then, quantum mechanics has entered the process of rapid transformation into real social technology, and human beings are marching faster and faster on the road of quantum computing application development.

Generally speaking, quantum computing is a new computing mode that follows the laws of quantum mechanics to regulate quantum information units for computing, which is completely different from the existing computing mode. Classical calculation uses binary digital electronic method to operate, and binary is always in a certain state of 0 or 1.

Quantum computing, by virtue of the superposition characteristics of quantum mechanics, can realize the superposition of computational states, that is, it includes not only 0 and 1, but also the superposition state in which 0 and 1 coexist. In addition, coupled with the characteristics of quantum entanglement, quantum computer will theoretically have faster processing speed and stronger processing ability on some specific problems compared with the classical computer that uses the strongest algorithm at present.

In October 2019, Google announced the use of 54 qubit processors Sycamore in the journal Nature, realizing quantum superiority. Specifically, Sycamore can complete the specified operation in 200 seconds, while the same amount of calculation on the world’s largest supercomputer Summit will take 10,000 years to complete.

In 2020, China team announced the advent of the "Nine Chapters" of quantum computers, challenging Google’s "quantum hegemony" to achieve global leadership in computing power. As a quantum computer with 76 photons and 100 modes, Chapter Nine is 100 trillion times faster than the fastest supercomputer "Fuyue" at present. For the first time in history, the performance of a quantum computer built by photons surpassed that of the fastest classical supercomputer.

When quantum computing meets artificial intelligence, the computing power of quantum computing will bear the brunt of the development and breakthrough of artificial intelligence. In fact, a major feature of artificial intelligence’s demand for computing power is the parallel computing of massive heterogeneous data, which is difficult for traditional CPU chips. Therefore, this has become the reason why chips such as GPU, FPGA and ASIC are so popular in the field of artificial intelligence.

As mentioned above, quantum computing has parallel computing ability and information carrying capacity that classical computing technology can’t match. In the foreseeable future, although the quantum computer will not completely replace the classical computer, it will rely on its unique advantages in parallel computing, quantum behavior simulation, etc., and play a role in specific scenarios with extremely high computing power requirements.

At the same time, the super computing power of quantum computing comes from quantum parallelism, so it is very suitable for parallel computing needed by artificial intelligence. On the contrary, when quantum computers are gradually pushed into public view, more intelligent machine learning algorithms are also needed to "adapt". It can be seen that the meeting of quantum computing and artificial intelligence will inevitably promote the further development of quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

When subversion overlaps subversion

If machine learning relies on the high parallelism of quantum computing to further optimize traditional machine learning is the most important application of quantum computing in the field of artificial intelligence. Then, the derivative application of quantum computing in artificial intelligence will further realize the current application breakthrough of artificial intelligence.

For example, in artificial intelligence, game theory is widely used, especially in distributed artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. When quantum expansion and game theory are combined to form quantum game theory, it will provide a new tool for solving problems in the development of artificial intelligence. Quantum game theory models the game phenomenon through the cognitive decision-making process, and studies and describes the game phenomenon and its countermeasures with the help of relevant methods of quantum mechanics theory.

In 2016, Google’s company DeepMind’s Alpha Dog was born based on quantum game theory. Alpha Dog beat Li Shishi, the world’s top Go player, in the first year of its release, and beat Ke Jie, the world’s number one, the next year, bringing artificial intelligence to a new climax.

For another example, in the semantic analysis of natural language, whether using artificial intelligence technology or quantum technology, the mathematical structures of the two are similar in some places. In other words, quantum algorithm is extremely suitable for analog subsystem. Ambiguity can be expressed by superposition, which means that the processing speed can be greatly improved by quantum computing in natural language processing.

In addition, in the field of artificial intelligence, pattern recognition is a particularly important field. For example, identify objects. However, researchers of artificial intelligence often only consider identifying and distinguishing classic objects.

In recent years, with the continuous development of quantum computing and the increasing concern of society, researchers have solved the problem of quantum gate and also studied the resolution of quantum measurement. It is found that through an optimal protocol design, rapid identification can be achieved with the least number of queries, and the resolution of quantum operations is thus well reflected.

Of course, in turn, artificial intelligence can also help solve complex quantum problems. For example, synthesizing drugs and dealing with different chemical reactions are difficult to simulate by solving quantum equations, but some problems can be solved by artificial intelligence. Another example is to solve the ground state energy problem of quantum multi-body Hamiltonian, and artificial intelligence can also be used.

Whether applying quantum technology to artificial intelligence to promote the further development of artificial intelligence technology or applying artificial intelligence to solve complex quantum problems, as Moore’s Law is approaching the physical limit, quantum technology as a subversive technology needs to be developed urgently.

Quantum technology takes quantum as the basic unit of calculation, which revolutionizes the computing architecture with electrons as the basic unit. Firstly, it can improve the security of information communication, and secondly, it can improve the computing power, so that it can be widely used in more industries. It can be said that quantum technology is an important force in the digital technology system, and it is also the core force in the digital economy era with the same name as big data, artificial intelligence and blockchain.

Whether Google’s "Platanus acerifolia" or China’s "Nine Chapters", the horn of quantum superiority has sounded. From the perspective of national policy, the Quanum Manijesto of the European Union and the White Paper on the Development of Quantum Computing of the United States both emphasize the application of quantum information in artificial intelligence.

At the same time, with the increasing R&D efforts and investment of major scientific research teams, research institutions and technology giants, the research in the field of quantum artificial intelligence has begun to explode. This can not only promote the development of artificial intelligence, improve the learning efficiency and accuracy of machine learning, but also promote the prosperity of the quantum world.

The future world is a world driven by quantum computing and artificial intelligence. The world outlined by quantum artificial intelligence will be exciting enough, but it will also make the world full of new challenges.