The D-Wave Advantage quantum system.

LOS ANGELES (May 12, 2022) USC and D-Wave Systems Inc. are launching the first 5,000+ qubit D-Wave quantum computing system physically located in the United States, designed for academic researchers, government users, and business clients, the Advantage quantum system. Other systems are located in Germany and Canada.

As part of the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC) hosted at the USC Viterbi School of Engineerings Information Sciences Institute (ISI), the Advantage system is accessible via the Leap quantum cloud service.

The new system contains the Advantage performance update released in October 2021, featuring the highly connected Pegasus topology and 5,000+ qubits.

The D-Wave Advantage quantum annealer is the largest scale programmable quantum information processor currently available anywhere, said Daniel Lidar, holder of the Viterbi Professorship of Engineering at USC, and the scientific and technical director of QCC.

At ISI we want to be at the forefront of new technologies, and to explore all the possibilities. We are excited to be pioneers in research on quantum computing, and to advance this field so that companies can harness the power of this emerging technology for themselves, said Craig Knoblock, Michael Keston executive director of ISI.

The Advantage system provides a four-fold increase in the number of qubits from our previous system as well as increased coherence and other performance metrics, Lidar said. We have great hopes for the new system as we explore coherent quantum annealing to achieve quantum speedups in quantum simulation, best-in-class optimization and machine learning. Some of our first projects will be to investigate speedup over classical optimization methods for hard optimization problems as well as pursuing additional government-funded research for identification and classification of quantum phase transitions.

Through QCC, USC is currently one of the first universities in the world to host and operate a commercial quantum computing system. The launch of the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center in 2011 was followed by similar investments by Google and NASA the following year.

Quantum Information Science (QIS) is a top priority research area for the nation and has long been a focus of USC Viterbi said Yannis C. Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. In collaboration with Lockheed Martin, we established at ISI in 2011 the first academic home for a quantum computing system, namely D-Wave One.

USC faculty have mentored a new generation of Ph.D. students in QIS, who now have leadership positions in academia and the industry, Yortsos noted. The school has also established a new MS degree in QIS, with current worldwide student demand growing steadily.

For more than a decade, research and education in QIS at USC Viterbi has been thriving and constantly growing, Yortsos said.

The upgrade to Advantage offers multiple benefits for users. It will enable researchers to continue studying how quantum effects may speed up the solution of complex optimization, machine learning and sampling problems, and new breakthrough results in quantum optimization.

Businesses will benefit from the commercial use-cases that can be run on the quantum hybrid solver service. Government agencies and researchers also will have access to one of the most advanced systems in the United States for tackling key public sector initiatives including electrical grid resilience, emergency response and infrastructure optimization projects.

As a part of the D-Wave Leap quantum cloud service, users will immediately be able to access the Advantage quantum computer located at USC in real-time. Leap access gives researchers, government agencies and enterprises access to all of the programming tools and hybrid quantum-classical resources offered through Leap. This system will also be available today for use in Amazon Braket, Amazons quantum computing service.

To date, D-Waves customers have developed hundreds of early quantum applications in an array of fields such as financial modeling, flight planning, quantum chemistry simulation, automotive engineering, health care, logistics and more.

Making quantum computing ubiquitous and available is one of our core areas of focus and is central to the commercialization of quantum computing, said Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. This is an important moment for our U.S.-based customers who want their Leap cloud access to the newest Advantage system and quantum hybrid solver service to be in region.

Eleven years ago, together with Lockheed Martin, we installed our first quantum system at USC, Baratz added. Fast forward to today, delivering one of the most performant commercial quantum computers in the world yet again allows users to harness the power of annealing quantum computing for real-world optimization problems, all accessible real-time through our Leap quantum cloud service and in AWSs Amazon Braket.

Published on May 12th, 2022

Last updated on May 12th, 2022

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USC ISI works with D-Wave to house one of the First US-Based Advantage Quantum Computer - USC Viterbi | School of Engineering - USC Viterbi School of...

Levy flights describe statistical properties of elementary quantum magnets as well as of bees foraging for food. Credit: Christoph Hohmann (MCQST Cluster)

At first glance, a system consisting of 51 ions may appear to be easily manageable. But even if these charged atoms are only switched back and forth between two states, the result is more than two quadrillion (1015) different orderings which the system can take on.

The behavior of such a system is practically impossible to calculate with conventional computers, especially since an excitation introduced to the system can propagate erratically. The excitation follows a statistical pattern known as a Lvy Flight.

One characteristic of such movements is that, in addition to the smaller jumps which are to be expected, significantly larger jumps also sometimes take place. This phenomenon can also be observed in the flights of bees and in unusual fierce movements in the stock market.

While simulating the dynamics of a complex quantum system is a very tall order for even traditional super computers, the task is childs play for quantum simulators. But how can the results of a quantum simulator be verified without the ability to perform the same calculations it can?

Observation of quantum systems indicated that it might be possible to represent at least the long-term behavior of such systems with equations like the ones the Bernoulli brothers developed in the 18th century to describe the behavior of fluids.

In order to test this hypothesis, the authors used a quantum system which simulates the dynamics of quantum magnets. They were able to use it to prove that, after an initial phase dominated by quantum-mechanical effects, the system could actually be described with equations of the type familiar from fluid dynamics.

Furthermore, they showed that the same Lvy Flight statistics which describe the search strategies used by bees also apply to fluid-dynamic processes in quantum systems.

The quantum simulator was built at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at The University of Innsbruck Campus. Our system effectively simulates a quantum magnet by representing the north and south poles of a molecular magnet using two energy levels of the ions, says IQOQI Innsbruck scientist Manoj Joshi.

Our greatest technical advance was the fact that we succeeded in individually addressing each one of the 51 ions individually, observes Manoj Joshi. As a result we were able to investigate the dynamics of any desired number of initial states, which was necessary in order to illustrate the emergence of the fluid dynamics.

While the number of qubits and the stability of the quantum states is currently very limited, there are questions for which we can already use the enormous computing power of quantum simulators today, says Michael Knap, Professor for Collective Quantum Dynamics at the Technical University of Munich.

In the near future, quantum simulators and quantum computers will be ideal platforms for researching the dynamics of complex quantum systems, explains Michael Knap. Now we know that after a certain point in time these systems follow the laws of classic fluid dynamics. Any strong deviations from that are an indication that the simulator isnt working properly.

Reference: Observing emergent hydrodynamics in a long-range quantum magnet by M. K. JoshiF. Kranzl, A. Schuckert, I. Lovas, C. MaierR. Blatt, M. Knap and C. F. Roos, 12 May 2022, Science.DOI: 10.1126/science.abk2400

The research activities were subsidized by the European Community as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the European Research Council (ERC); by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Excellence Cluster Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST); and by the Technical University of Munich through the Institute for Advanced Study, which is supported by funding from the German Excellence Initiative and the European Union. Additional support was provided by the Max Planck Society (MPG) under the auspices of the International Max Planck Research School for Quantum Science and Technology (IMPRS-QST); by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Federation of Austrian Industries Tyrol.

Authors Prof. Michael Knap (TU Munich) and Prof. Rainer Blatt (University of Innsbruck) are active in Munich Quantum Valley, an initiative with the objective of establishing a Center for Quantum Computing and Quantum Technology (ZQQ) over the next five years. Here three quantum computers are to be built based on superconducting qubits as well as qubits from ions and atoms. Members of the Munich Quantum Valley e.V. association include the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW), Fraunhofer (FhG), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Friedrich-Alexander-Universitt Erlangen-Nrnberg (FAU), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt Munich (LMU), Max Planck Society (MPG) and die Technical University of Munich (TUM).

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Dynamics of Complex Quantum Systems and the Flight of the Bee - SciTechDaily

In 2006, the British mathematician Clive Humby famously proclaimed that data is the new oil.Little did he know it would also become the new art.

As one of the foremost practitioners of what he calls data painting, the Turkish American artist and TED Fellow Refik Anadol has been using data as the substance of his work for the better part of a decade. Over that time, hes won awardslike Lumen Prize and been featured at Venice Architecture Biennale and in shows at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

I have always been interested in painting with data, Anadol told Artnet News from Barcelona last weekend, where he was on site to create a new digital artwork for the facade of Antoni Gauds iconic Casa Batll. Thousands of onlookers crowded the outside square towatch the illumination in an event organized by theOFFF Festival. The work was already traded as an NFT through Christies last week, when it sold for$1.38 million(and came with a dinner for 10).

Refik Anadol, Living Architecture: Casa Batll, courtesy of RAS

For me, NFTs and digital art should be experiential. Landmarks have become my canvas, Anadol said. Im interested in exploring the architectural domain as deeply as I can. All my art works tend to have a physical connection to public space.

Using AI to regeneratively map iconic public buildings, Anadol works in equal parts architecture, graphic design, and computer science using a JavaScript object-based coding language called VVVV, which allows for live programming and projection mapping.

It was at UCLA that I learned about creative coding, he says, referring to his time in the schools media arts program. There, his advisors includedChristian Moeller, Casey Reas, and Jennifer Steinkamp.

In 2014, after graduating, he established the Refik Anadol Studio,which currently has a staff of 15 people. Our staff is multicultural and multilingual, Anadol said. We have an incredible staff of different minds and competencies.

Early in his career, Anadol focused on finding support from fellow technologists, rather than in the art world. Back when I first opened the studio in 2014, our earliest collaborators were not from the art or design worlds. They came from tech, he said.

In Quantum Memories, made when he was Googles artist-in-residence, he used the search giants publicly available quantum computing algorithms to 3D map the possibility of a parallel world. Part sci-fi, part next-level computer graphics, thealgorithm processed approximately 200 million images of nature to form an interactive algorithmic gesamtkunstwerk, mimicking the real-time simulations of audiences movements into an entangled web of generative world-building.

Refik Anadol, Quantum Memories, 10M x 10M x 2.5M AI Data Sculpture.Courtesy RAS

In another piece, Melting Memories (2018), inspired by his uncles Alzheimers diagnosis, Anadol transformed brain scans into projected images for the walls of the Pilevneli Gallery in Istanbul.The artwork and others also drew on Anadols longstanding interest in the imagery and history of space exploration.

To date,various iterations of the NFT have been auctioned via Nifty Gateway and Sothebys, with total sales of the project now exceeding $13 million USD, according to CryptoArt.io.Im extremely grateful to the NFT community for supporting my work, he said. The NFT world has given my studio economic independence.

(Asked what he has done with his wealth,Anadol says that whatever he doesnt reinvest into his studio goes to charity. OneNFT from a collection titled An Important Memory for Humanityraised $1.5 million for St Jude Childrens Hospital.)

Seoul Light, DDP, Seoul, KR, Courtesy RAS

In my art practice, I often ask myself the question: how would a computer collaborate with us to make art that not only is futuristic, but also about the possibility of various futures? he said. I do think that we approach answering this question only when we combine research efforts in various fields, including neuroscience, architecture, quantum computing, material science, philosophy, and arts.

Anadol is now busily preparing for two new works: one for an exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi that reimagines Italian Renaissance artworks; the other, a new piece to be shown in Istanbul and based on the writings of the13th-century Persian poet Rumi.For the latter work, Anadol will construct a digital installation in the foyer of the recently redesigned AKM Theater in Taksim Square.

All of us are standing on the shoulders of giants, Anadol said. Im just trying to explore the language of humanity.

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NFT Artist Refik Anadols First Supporters Were in the Tech World. All of a Sudden, Hes Become a Star at Auction, Too - artnet News

Research conducted within the Cluster of Excellence Matter and Light for Quantum Computing (ML4Q) has analysed cutting-edge device structures of quantum computers to demonstrate that some of them are indeed operating dangerously close to a threshold of chaotic meltdown. The challenge is to walk a thin line between too high, but also too low disorder to safeguard device operation. The study Transmon platform for quantum computing challenged by chaotic fluctuations has been published today inNature Communications.

In the race for what may become a key future technology, tech giants like IBM and Google are investing enormous resources into the development of quantum computing hardware. However, current platforms are not yet ready for practical applications. There remain multiple challenges, among them the control of device imperfections (disorder).

Its an old stability precaution: When large groups of people cross bridges, they need to avoid marching in step to prevent the formation of resonances destabilizing the construction. Perhaps counterintuitively, the superconducting transmon qubit processor a technologically advanced platform for quantum computing favoured by IBM, Google, and other consortia relies on the same principle: intentionally introduced disorder blocks the formation of resonant chaotic fluctuations, thus becoming an essential part of the production of multi-qubit processors.

To understand this seemingly paradoxical point, one should think of a transmon qubit as a kind of pendulum. Qubits interlinked to form a computing structure define a system of coupled pendulums a system that, like classical pendulums, can easily be excited to uncontrollably large oscillations with disastrous consequences. In the quantum world, such uncontrollable oscillations lead to the destruction of quantum information; the computer becomes unusable. Intentionally introduced local detunings of single pendulums keep such phenomena at bay.

The transmon chip not only tolerates but actually requires effectively random qubit-to-qubit device imperfections, explained Christoph Berke, final-year doctoral student in the group of Simon Trebst at the University of Cologne and first author of the paper. In our study, we ask just how reliable the stability by randomness principle is in practice. By applying state-of-the-art diagnostics of the theory of disordered systems, we were able to find that at least some of the industrially pursued system architectures are dangerously close to instability.

From the point of view of fundamental quantum physics, a transmon processor is a many-body quantum system with quantized energy levels. State-of-the-art numerical tools allow one to compute these discrete levels as a function of relevant system parameters, to obtain patterns superficially resembling a tangle of cooked spaghetti. A careful analysis of such structures for realistically modelled Google and IBM chips was one out of several diagnostic tools applied in the paper to map out a stability diagram for transmon quantum computing.

When we compared the Google to the IBM chips, we found that in the latter case qubit states may be coupled to a degree that controlled gate operations may be compromised, said Simon Trebst, head of the Computational Condensed Matter Physics group at the University of Cologne. In order to secure controlled gate operations, one thus needs to strike the subtle balance between stabilizing qubit integrity and enabling inter-qubit coupling. In the parlance of pasta preparation, one needs to prepare the quantum computer processor into perfection, keeping the energy states al dente and avoiding their tangling by overcooking.

The study of disorder in transmon hardware was performed as part of the Cluster of Excellence ML4Q in a collaborative work among the research groups of Simon Trebst and Alexander Altland at the University of Cologne and the group of David DiVincenzo at RWTH Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Jlich. This collaborative project is quite unique, says Alexander Altland from the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Cologne. Our complementary knowledge of transmon hardware, numerical simulation of complex many-body systems, and quantum chaos was the perfect prerequisite to understand how quantum information with disorder can be protected. It also indicates how insights obtained for small reference systems can be transferred to application-relevant design scales.

David DiVincenzo, founding director of the JARA-Institute for Quantum Information at RWTH Aachen University, draws the following conclusion: Our study demonstrates how important it is for hardware developers to combine device modelling with state-of-the-art quantum randomness methodology and to integrate chaos diagnostics as a routine part of qubit processor design in the superconducting platform.

Reference:Berke C, Varvelis E, Trebst S, Atland A, DiVincenzo DP. Transmon platform for quantum computing challenged by chaotic fluctuations. Nat Comm. 2022;13:2495. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29940-y

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Quantum Computing Needs a Balance of Order and Disorder - Technology Networks