Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

The talents, Software and hardware of Quantum Computing: solving your Quantum Perplexity

In recent years, quantum computing has repeatedly made headlines in the media, from quantum computers to quantum mobile phones, quantum computing seems to have quietly entered our lives. What exactly is quantum computing? What does it have to do with quantum mechanics? How is its development? Can it replace the existing electronic computer? Can quantum computing software bring about the great-leap-forward development of AI?

In response to the above hot issues, AI Time specially invited Professor Ying Mingsheng, Special Professor of the computer Department of Tsinghua University and Deputy Director of the Software Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor Ma Xiongfeng of the Institute of Cross Information of Tsinghua University, and Sun Xiaoming, a researcher of the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Four big names from Duan Runyao, director of the Quantum Computing Institute of Baidu Research Institute, work together to analyze the revolutionary impact of quantum computing, as well as personnel training, hardware research and development, software design and landing applications in the field of quantum computing.

Without saying much, let's start to take a closer look at it now.

Understanding Quantum and Quantum Computing

Before we formally discuss it, let's take a look at what quantum computing is. If we trace the roots of quantum computing, we have to go back to the assumption about atoms in Feynman's handout in Physics: everything in the world is made up of atoms. On this basis, the development of quantum theory has experienced two revolutions.

The first revolution was the establishment of quantum mechanics and its direct application, which gave birth to atomic bomb, nuclear magnetic resonance, transistor, laser and other technologies. The second revolution is a new stage that we are now in. The goal is to achieve the precise preparation and regulation of quantum states and quantum systems, and finally to build a macroscopic quantum computer. The research contents include quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum cryptography, quantum measurement and so on. Among them, quantum computing combines quantum mechanics with computational theory, and makes full use of the characteristics of quantum superposition, entanglement and interference, thus showing a strong computing power.

According to the current research situation, Mr. Duan Runyao's research team made the following judgment on the development trend of quantum computing technology.

If you don't know the basic information about qubits, quantum superposition, quantum entanglement, quantum hegemony and so on, you can read "read Quantum Computing" at https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-J99Vk50d2MqwrDtkYcUSQ.

Quantum Computing: a Revolution starting from the Root

At the beginning of the activity, Professor Ying Mingsheng introduced the development and research status of quantum computing from a strategically advantageous position under the topic of "Quantum Computing: a Revolution starting from the Root".

First of all, Professor Ying proposed that the computing model is "tree roots", while the AI of today's fire is "leaves". Quantum computing will be a fundamental revolution.

After that, Professor Ying reviewed the development of quantum computer, pointed out the relationship between Turing machine and quantum Turing machine, and pointed out that the quantum revolution had already started quietly.

Then, Professor Ying specially introduced the theorem of "Turing computable ⇔ quantum Turing computability", and enumerated the research results of Grover algorithm, Shor algorithm, quantum simulation, quantum random walk, HHL (Harrow-Hassidim-Lloyd) algorithm, quantum machine learning, quantum artificial intelligence, VQO (Variational Quantum Optimisation) and so on (for more resources, please refer to http://math.nist.gov/quantum/zoo/) to explain why quantum revolution is needed. Because John McCarthy once proposed "Artificial Intelligence = Computational Intelligence", quantum computing may become the core competitiveness of artificial intelligence in the future.

Finally, Professor Ying briefly introduces the research progress of Google, IBM, Intel, Honeywell, Rigetti, IonQ and other companies in the field of quantum computing hardware, as well as the research progress of Google (Cirq+TensorFlow Quantum) and Microsoft (Q#) in the field of quantum computing software, as well as the academic research opportunities of quantum computing, and emphasizes that quantum computing is a field in which we can participate in the initial stage, and there are many opportunities. But the opportunity is fleeting, and we need to seize it in time.

Training and reserve of talents

In 2018, the New York Times reported that "there are only a few thousand real quantum computing researchers in the world." Although the accuracy of this argument is not yet known, it is a simple indication of the shortage of talent in the field of quantum computing.

In recent years, leading enterprises at home and abroad, including Baidu, Alibaba, Huawei, Tencent, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and so on, have joined the race track of quantum computing, and gradually draw the school-enterprise joint training plan into the blueprint. However, the reality, such as the high barriers to entry and the difficulty of progress, is still a problem hindering the completion of the huge talent gap.

Is the entry threshold for training quantum computing talents high in the end? How long is the industrial landing cycle? Who comes first in personnel training and technological breakthroughs? In this regard, distinguished guests shared their views.

In this regard, Mr. Sun Xiaoming made an introduction based on his own sharing at the China computer Conference in 2018. First of all, in terms of quantity, there are still few researchers in the field of quantum computing, and the order of magnitude of personnel is only on the scale of thousands, of which researchers with physical background account for more than 2/3. Quantum computing actually needs the participation of many researchers with computer background. only with the joint efforts of scholars in many fields can we promote the rapid and harmonious development of the field of quantum computing. Secondly, the whole field is in an era similar to "geographical dafaxian", which is a very good period of development, and it is easier for researchers to make breakthroughs. However, the threshold for engaging in quantum computing is also very high, so we should make a good psychological and intellectual reserve in advance.

As a researcher of physical background, teacher Ma Xiongfeng agrees to divide talents according to physical background and computer background, and explains that he is more concerned about how to implement quantum computers. After that, it is further pointed out that researchers with physical background may focus on building quantum computers, and the common systems at present include superconducting systems, ion trap systems, optical systems, etc., in which the work is some very typical physical experiments. the standard path is to do experiments step by step after learning the four mechanics, which in itself is not very difficult, but we should pay attention to learning some information theory and even statistics. This is very helpful to the later research. People with a computer background focus on using quantum computers.

Duan Runyao put forward his own views on Ma Xiongfeng's point of view. first of all, he clearly pointed out that quantum computing is neither quantum mechanics nor computational theory, but a new discipline formed by the intersection of quantum mechanics and computational theory. It is a separate research field and has its own unique methodology, so the introduction to this subject is very difficult, and there is no shortcut to quickly master the relevant knowledge. Quantum computing involves the knowledge of computational theory, superconducting physics and other fields. It is necessary to understand quantum physics, but we should not fall into the "trap" of studying physics. Instead, we should start with the specialty of computer students and consolidate the foundation of mathematics. Master the formal method, understand the four axioms of quantum mechanics, know how to describe the four axioms with linear algebra, and then try to solve some small problems after mastering the basic "language". In order to gradually enter the "door" of quantum computing, and then gradually supplement the knowledge of physics, forming a spiral process. He also mentioned the interesting phenomenon that often occurs when researchers from two different backgrounds communicate with each other in quantum computing: after hours of discussion, I suddenly find that you are saying "quantum" while I am talking about "computing".

Teacher Ying Mingsheng finally concluded that it is not easy to be a computer scientist to do quantum computers, there is no way to become talents quickly, and it is necessary to study and do research in a down-to-earth manner.

The present situation, difficulty and Prospect of hardware

Teachers put forward their own views on the development status of quantum computing-related hardware, core problems, the most urgent challenges to be solved, the impact of decoherence, possible recent progress and breakthroughs, and what quantum hegemony represents.

Ma Xiongfeng pointed out that different researchers have different levels of optimism about the development of quantum computing hardware. He himself is cautiously optimistic, but Professor Zhu Xiaobo of the University of Science and Technology of China (majoring in superconducting quantum computing) believes that from the current more than 50 qubits to thousands of qubits, physically, no insurmountable difficulties have been found. The existing problems are mainly at the engineering level, such as cryogenic electronics in superconducting systems. For this reason, Google also chooses superconducting quantum computing as the research platform. Jin Qihuan, an associate professor at the School of Cross Information at Tsinghua University (whose research direction is ion trap), is also optimistic that it is only an engineering problem in the range of several hundred qubits. But after a few hundred qubits, a new architecture may be needed, requiring the strength of many other fields.

Teacher Duan Runyao shared his views: (1) the technical route of realizing quantum computing still needs to be further explored, such as some difficulties in expanding and eliminating noise; (2) the research of hardware and software can not be separated. The development of hardware needs to be driven by needs, as well as the assistance of software tools, so as to improve efficiency.

In view of quantum hegemony, teacher Duan Runyao first expressed his disapproval of this expression, thinking that it is easy to cause improper association and cause unnecessary controversy. He then shared his understanding of quantum hegemony: quantum hegemony refers to a specific computing task (which can be a completely man-made problem that currently seems to have no practicality at all). Compare the time it takes for quantum computing devices and current state-of-the-art supercomputers to complete the same task, if quantum computing devices complete the task faster than traditional computers We can think that quantum hegemony has been basically realized. Teacher Duan pointed out that quantum hegemony is actually a relatively vivid but rough way to measure the advantages of quantum computing, and there is no way to strictly define it, because the performance of computers is also constantly improving. so in a sense, quantum hegemony is a bit of a "pseudo-concept".

When we compare a quantum computer containing only a few dozen qubits with a traditional computer containing tens of thousands of GPU, it already represents a revolution and shows an irreversible trend of technological development. Comparing the "giant" of traditional computing with the "baby" of quantum computing shows the great potential advantages of quantum computing.

Teacher Sun Xiaoming pointed out: the principle of quantum computing is different from that of classical computing. If we can achieve thousands of logical bits, we can accomplish many situations that can not be done by supercomputers at present. But in the next five to ten years, maybe everyone's goal is to make a noisy system (to achieve physical bits rather than logical bits) and consider what can be done on such small-scale, shallow, noisy circuits. It's similar to the adders that classic computer scientists did in the 1950s and 1960s.

Finally, teacher Ying Mingsheng carried out it from the point of view of EDA (the quantum age should be called QDA), and pointed out that QDA is a very promising research direction.

Development of Quantum Computing related Software

Compared with hardware, quantum computing-related software seems to develop faster. With the advent of Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers (devices with about 50 to 100 qubits and high-fidelity quantum gates), it is becoming more and more important to develop algorithms to explore the powerful capabilities of these machines.

The two giants, Google and Microsoft, have made achievements in this area. TensorFlow Quantum developed by Google focuses on quantum data and builds hybrid quantum classical models. It integrates quantum computing algorithms and logic designed in Cirq, and provides quantum computing primitives compatible with existing TensorFlow API, as well as high-performance quantum circuit simulators. Microsoft has released a new programming language Q# and quantum computing development kit specifically for quantum computers.

So, what is the development status of quantum computing related software at home and abroad? Quantum Computing Software Development VS what is the difference between traditional software development? What are the difficulties in development?

In this regard, Professor Ying Mingsheng first gave a clear boundary of the discussion, pointing out that the software for quantum computing is different from the software for designing quantum computers (QDA). Then the distinguished guests spoke.

Teacher Duan Runyao first introduced teacher Ying Mingsheng's monograph Quantum programming fundamentals (Foundations of Quantum Programming), then criticized the misunderstanding that "when the hardware comes out, the software will come out easily", and then pointed out that the software related to quantum computing is a huge project, which requires talents who understand both quantum properties and computing theory, and there are basically no corresponding talents at present. Personnel recruited by enterprises need to be trained before they can carry out their work. Finally, teacher Duan added that as early as October 2017, a UTS team led by he and teacher Ying Mingsheng released a quantum programming environment QSI based on teacher Ying's monograph.

Mr. Sun Xiaoming introduced Ying Mingsheng's whole set of work in the field of programming language and quantum compilation.

Teacher Ma Xiongfeng reviewed the process of understanding quantum software and introduced the process from the beginning to the attention of the enterprise.

Professor Ying Mingsheng introduced that the research of foreign quantum software should actually begin in 1996, and further analysis shows that the control flow of the program is very different in classical computing and quantum computing, and the existence of classical variables or going directly is very different. To consider different things, the underlying theory is also completely different. And concluded: we may not be the Alan Turing of the quantum computing era, but we may become the Bill Gates of the quantum era.

Can a quantum computer do it?

With the increasing popularity of quantum computing and the gradual emergence of different sounds, is there a theoretical problem as to whether quantum computers can be realized? Can it be realized in reality? Teachers have made wonderful and profound discussions from the perspective of logic, axiom, and actual progress, and this part is particularly exciting, but considering that all readers are optimistic about quantum computers, they are no longer presented in words. Interested readers can watch our video playback, which is sure to refresh everyone's understanding of quantum computing.

Future (Future) = Quantum Computing (QC) + artificial Intelligence (AI)

Academician Yao Qizhi, a Turing Award winner, put forward "F=QC+AI" when looking forward to the future at the Mozi Forum in August 2018, that is, the future (Future) = quantum computing (QC) + artificial intelligence (AI). With quantum computing and artificial intelligence, it is possible to build a system that can rival the human brain and use our knowledge to create new wisdom.

At present, relevant research teams around the world are exploring the intersection of quantum computing and artificial intelligence in the future. The computing power of quantum artificial intelligence provides a revolutionary tool for the development of artificial intelligence, which can exponentially accelerate learning ability and speed, and promote the development of AI applications. The use of artificial intelligence technology (such as deep learning framework) may also break through the bottleneck of quantum computing research and development.

How will artificial intelligence and quantum computing affect each other in the next decade? Will artificial intelligence enter the stage of "strong artificial intelligence" more quickly with the help of quantum computing?

Teacher Duan Runyao first listed the public's urgent expectations for the feasibility and landing time of quantum computers, and pointed out the two most basic conditions for building quantum computers: (1) a group of smart minds, and (2) the most advanced and best technology.

(1) it needs to be achieved through painstaking and long-term personnel training. As for (2), he believes that the most advanced and best technology at present is the AI technology represented by deep learning, and it is worth paying attention to discussing the application of many of the most important deep learning frameworks in quantum computing, including Baidu PaddlePaddle. Therefore, the development of quantum computing is definitely inseparable from AI technology. On the other hand, quantum computing can simulate the quantum system and optimize the search and processing effect of big data. Therefore, quantum computing is likely to play a great role in promoting AI. However, it should not be easy to achieve strong artificial intelligence, because the definition of strong artificial intelligence is not clear enough, but quantum machine learning will be a large and hot field, because a lot of promising work has been done. There is no doubt that in the next decade, AI will be a very big starting point for quantum computing, and the two are intertwined and inextricably related.

Sun Xiaoming added: quantum computing will promote the development of AI, in turn, AI will also affect the development of quantum computing, quantum information, and even physics, probably not just in the next decade, the two disciplines may have been promoting each other. At present, the application of quantum computing to AI has seen several potential research points, but theoretical analysis needs to be done carefully. In comparison, in go or other board games with limited steps, based on quantum computing, can we determine who has the winning strategy in terms of computational complexity? In other words, from the point of view of theory, can quantum computing solve the problem of completeness in polynomial space? Achieving strong artificial intelligence may be more difficult than this goal.

Teacher Ma Xiongfeng pointed out that as a researcher with a background in physics, he used to regard all problems as quantum mechanics. But is the human brain dominated by quantum computing or classical computing?

Professor Ying Mingsheng supplemented Ma Xiongfeng's speech. At present, we have not seen the application of quantum computing in logical AI, but there are many applications for machine learning and a lot of high-quality work, such as TensorFlow Quantum platform, but this idea still requires us to think seriously. Quantum computing provides a different way of computing, which must be helpful to AI, because the former AI is still computing AI.

At present, AI should be regarded as a technology rather than a science. If we regard AI as a science, we may still be in prehistory. After careful consideration, we will find that we now say that computing is intelligent, reasoning is intelligent, and devices are intelligent, but on the other hand, we never know what intelligence is, in which quantum computing may be helpful.

It is the golden season to sow quantum giant trees.

Quantum computing is an unprecedented field, which can test our knowledge system on a new level, but every progress is difficult and great, and finally the establishment of an actual quantum computing system will be an extremely great challenge. In the face of challenges and opportunities, we need to keep the heart of seeking knowledge and constantly improve ourselves. Predecessors planted trees, posterity enjoyed the cool, and now is the golden season to sow quantum trees! For the future, the teachers also gave a wonderful discussion.

Teacher Duan Runyao believes that life is short, which leads to people's reluctance to think in the long run. Quantum mechanics has been discovered for more than 100 years, but our understanding of this subject is almost still in the laboratory and limited to some mysterious phenomena, the broad masses of people know little about it, compared with Newtonian mechanics has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, quantum mechanics has not given full play to its practical influence and value. He specifically mentioned that he met Dr. Charles Bennett, one of the founders of quantum information, on a high-speed train to the airport after attending the Asian Quantum Information Conference (AQIS2007) in Kyoto, Japan, in 2007, and the two had a heated discussion. After this impressive discussion, he suddenly realized that quantum information science could finally show many mysterious phenomena in the microscopic quantum world that could not be felt intuitively before in the macro world by means of calculation and communication. this will be a major progress in human civilization. Because quantum mechanics is by far the most accurate portrayal of the world, the resulting machines will also represent the limits of computing. There is still uncertainty about what we do today, but we can't back down because of difficulties. What we need most now is investment, including not only the investment of young people, but also the investment of money. The life bud of quantum computing has been born, and it can certainly break out of the cocoon, but before that, it needs the care of each and every one of us (in terms of implementing general quantum computing, the most important thing is to solve the problem of error correction. at present, no complete quantum logic bit has been made, and once a breakthrough is made, it will surely grow exponentially).

Subsequently, teacher Sun Xiaoming quoted Academician Yao Qizhi's point of view to make a summary: "Quantum computing is only one kilometer away, but it will be a very difficult one, and it will take a period of time." we need to go forward one after another and keep working hard. The prospect is very optimistic, but it requires our constant investment, unremitting efforts, and more people to join us. This is the "Geographic dafaxian era" of quantum computing. In the field of quantum algorithms and complexity, there seem to be very few well-known quantum algorithms that can be counted by both hands, but this is because theoretical research requires real and strict proof, and it has to be very hard-cored and faster than the best classical algorithms available. In addition, the talent training of quantum computing is not enough. Mr. Sun, together with Mr. Duan and Mr. Shang Yun of the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, organized the Winter School of quantum computing and held two cutting-edge workshops on quantum computing (CCF ADL88 and CCF ADL101) relying on the ADL of the Chinese computer Society, but they did not cover enough people. We expect more relevant teachers and students to join the field of quantum computing and promote the development of the discipline. Realize one's own value and promote scientific progress.

Teacher Ma Xiongfeng said that he fully agreed with Mr. Duan and Mr. Sun. More than a decade ago, quantum computing may have been in the dark, but today, quantum computing is in the early hours of the morning, the first ray of sunshine has appeared, and quantum computing is a sunrise industry.

Finally, Professor Ying Mingsheng made a summary. Quantum computing has gone through half a century, and we need to continue to persist in the future. today, young talents in the industry have done an excellent job, and quantum computing must have a future.

Due to the time limit of the activity, we have not answered all the questions. In the follow-up, we will sort out the answers to the questions in the form of words. We look forward to your continuous attention to AI Time and teachers.

Editor: Tian Zhiyuan

Manuscript review: Ying Mingsheng, Sun Xiaoming, Ma Xiongfeng, Duan Runyao

Https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/296FCFybn31IUiPyx-SmQQ

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