Abstract

Quantum annealing1–6 is a technique that utilizes gradually decreasing quantum fluctuations to search for global minima of complicated cost functions. As an inherently quantum technique, quantum annealing holds the promise to solve certain optimization problems faster than traditional classical algorithms as originally alluded to in the seminal paper of Ray et al. 7.
Quantum optimization devices implementing quantum annealing have been at the forefront of efforts to develop quantum information processing devices that can perform tasks not accessible by the largest high performance supercomputers. Already realized on various platforms8–14, these ‘quantum annealers’ solve optimization problems, that is, they find bit assignments that minimize the cost of discrete combinatorial problems or equivalently the ground states of Ising Hamiltonians, by quenching quantum fluctuations in a manner analogous to how thermal fluctuations are quenched in simulated annealing15. Driving these developments is the hope that quantum annealing devices will eventually be integrated with high performance

Date

2019

Authors

Tameem Albash, Itay Hen

Journal

Science and Culture