National Science Foundation Pushes into the Quantum Cloud

April 16, 2020 by Rusty Flint

National Science Foundation Pushes into the Quantum Cloud

The Quantum Cloud is much like the computing cloud that we all typically know about and use (often unknowingly). Services such as AWS (amazon web services) are cloud services which means that companies such as QuantumZeitgeist do not need to run on rack of our own physical hardware. Making sense in today’s technological climate, the NSF is making funds available for those wanting to use Cloud Quantum Computing as a service with the aim of enhancing certain key research areas.

Funding will be promoted by NSF for these key research areas:

Quantum algorithms and their experimental realization;
Quantum compiler and run-time infrastructure design;
Fault-tolerant computing and other methods to boost the performance of existing quantum-computing hardware;
Benchmarking of architectures, systems, algorithms, and scalable error-correction techniques;
Quantum simulations, optimizations, cryptography, and machine learning; and
Demonstrations of feasibility for applications of quantum algorithms.

National Science Foundation and Amazon Web Services, IBM, and Microsoft Quantum are coordinating to make available cloud-based quantum-computing platforms to advance research and build capacity in the academic setting
National Science Foundation

There are three main players in the NSF’s recent notice, IBM, Amazon and Microsoft. You can learn more about these companies by going to their respective Quantum Cloud pages below.

Rusty Flint

Rusty is a science nerd. He's been into science all his life, but spent his formative years doing less academic things. Now he turns his attention to write about his passion, the quantum realm. He loves all things Physics especially. Rusty likes the more esoteric side of Quantum Computing and the Quantum world. Everything from Quantum Entanglement to Quantum Physics. Rusty thinks that we are in the 1950s quantum equivalent of the classical computing world. While other quantum journalists focus on IBM's latest chip or which startup just raised $50 million, Rusty's over here writing 3,000-word deep dives on whether quantum entanglement might explain why you sometimes think about someone right before they text you. (Spoiler: it doesn't, but the exploration is fascinating.