Google’s Quantum Computing Push Opens New Front in Cloud Battle
For years, Google has poured time and money into one of the most ambitious dreams of modern technology: building a working quantum computer. Now the company is thinking of ways to turn the project into a business.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google has offered science labs and artificial intelligence researchers early access to its quantum machines over the internet in recent months. The goal is to spur development of tools and applications for the technology, and ultimately turn it into a faster, more powerful cloud-computing service, according to people pitched on the plan.
A Google presentation slide, obtained by Bloomberg News, details the company’s quantum hardware, including a new lab it calls an "Embryonic quantum data center." Another slide on the software displays information about ProjectQ, an open-source effort to get developers to write code for quantum computers.
[iframe id="google_ads_iframe_/5262/business/news/technology_1" title="3rd party ad content" name="google_ads_iframe_/5262/business/news/technology_1" width="1" height="8" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" data-integralas-id-eabf93db-9989-5257-4e5c-34596e22bbdf="" style="font-variant: inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch: inherit;line-height:inherit; border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;border-right-width:0px; border-top-width:0px;font-family:inherit;font-size:18px;margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left: 0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;vertical-align:bottom"] [/iframe] "They’re pretty open that they’re building quantum hardware and they would, at some point in the future, make it a cloud service," said Peter McMahon, a quantum computing researcher at Stanford University.
These systems push the boundaries of how atoms and other tiny particles work to solve problems that traditional computers can’t handle. The technology is still emerging from a long research phase, and its capabilities are hotly debated. Still, Google’s nascent efforts to commercialize it, and similar steps by International Business Machines Corp., are opening a new phase of competition in the fast-growing cloud market.
bloomberg.com
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