Nvidia backs quantum computing with Boston centre debut

Nvidia is ramping up its support for quantum computing with the opening of a new centre to further research dedicated to the technology.

The Nvidia Accelerated Quantum Research Center (NVAQC) will be based in the US city of Boston, and is expected to open its doors later this year. Its mission will be to “help solve quantum computing’s most challenging problems”, according to the company.

The centre will host research collaborations with quantum computing specialistss such as including Quantinuum, Quantum Machines and QuEra Computing. It will also partner with universities’ quantum research groups, such as Harvard’s Quantum Initiative in Science and Engineering and MIT’s Engineering Quantum Systems (EQuS) teams.

The MIT researchers will be working on “core challenges like quantum error correction, hybrid application development and quantum device characterization”, EQuS head William Oliver said.

The NVAQC will have its own resident supercomputer, a GB200 NVL72 system packing 576 Blackwell GPUs. Researchers will use Nvidia’s own CUDA-Q platform, which can be deployed across both quantum computing and classical computing setups to develop hybrid algorithms.

Nvidia hopes for Boston quantum computing centre

Nvidia is hoping the centre will further the integration of quantum and artificial intelligence, which it believes is a stumbling block to creating quantum systems.

“The center will be a place for large-scale simulations of quantum algorithms and hardware, tight integration of quantum processors, and both training and deployment of AI models for quantum,” said Tim Costa, Senior Director of Computer-Aided Engineering, Quantum and CUDA-X at Nvidia.

The centre will study how AI can tackle classical quantum problems, including quantum error correction. That is, spotting where measuring qubits has caused errors, and automatically correcting them.

Through its collaboration with Quantinuum, it will develop new compilation techniques that can speed up quantum algorithms.

Meanwhile, quantum startup Quantum Machines will team up with Nvidia on building controller tech for interfaces between quantum chips and Nvidia’s GB200 processors.

The company’s support for quantum technologies appears to be at odds with comments made by its CEO Jensen Huang earlier this year. At the CES trade show in January, Huang said he thought useful quantum computers were decades away – but he may have since changed his mind. At Nvidia’s recent Quantum Day event, where the NVAQC was announced, Huang took part in a panel where he invited fellow panel members to “explain why I was wrong”.

You might also be interested

• Right to Repair USA: fixing the system one state at a time
• Hey Mac users, phishing hackers are coming for your passwords now
• Jano Bermudes Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer at CyXcel: “IT devices and edge computing are becoming the new normal in industrial spaces”