The Perimeter Institute is collaborating with AI clusters in Montreal, including IVADO, Institut Courtois, and Mila, to advance the fusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. The goal is to create new computer simulation techniques to advance various scientific fields. The collaboration was launched with a quantum and AI workshop featuring a keynote talk from Yoshua Bengio, a leading AI expert. The collaboration aims to exploit the potential of AI while minimising risks, and to use AI to design the next generation of quantum computers. The project is supported by a $124.5 million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
“What I am proposing could be very useful, because it could help us with our science, but it could also help us build safe systems,”
Yoshua Bengio
Quantum Computing and AI: The Next Technological Revolution
The fusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing is set to bring about the next technological revolution. Canada is at the forefront of this development with significant expertise in both fields. Theoretical physicists from Perimeter Institute and AI experts from Quebec are collaborating to accelerate progress. Their goal is to create powerful new computer simulation techniques that will advance various fields such as chemistry, materials science, pharmaceuticals, climate modeling, and our understanding of the universe.
The Collaboration: Perimeter Institute and IVADO
To kick off the collaboration, Perimeter Institute and IVADO – an AI research, training, and knowledge mobilization consortium led by the Université de Montréal and its university partners in Canada – held a quantum and AI workshop in November. The workshop featured a keynote talk from Yoshua Bengio, a renowned AI expert and one of the “godfathers of AI.” The collaboration also includes two of IVADO’s academic members in Quebec: Institut Courtois and Mila, an artificial intelligence centre with the largest concentration of deep learning academic researchers in the world.
Yoshua Bengio: The Godfather of AI
Yoshua Bengio, the scientific director at IVADO and Mila, is a professor at the Université de Montréal. In 2018, he won the Turing Award, often referred to as “the Nobel Prize of Computing,” with Geoffrey Hinton from the University of Toronto and Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta. Bengio is currently working on creating artificial intelligence that is both useful and safe. He is developing what he calls “AI scientists,” a type of AI that could generate new theories, while ensuring a safe alignment between AI and human goals.
The Role of AI and Quantum Computing
Artificial intelligence involves feeding a lot of data into a computer and having it “learn” from that data. It is finding applications in various fields such as medical technology, astronomy, clean energy research, and materials science. There is a global race to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can multitask and even surpass the abilities of the human brain. On the other hand, quantum computing exploits the quantum resources of “superposition” and “entanglement” to encode information in “qubits” that are in a state of both zero and one at the same time. The goal is to use AI to design the next generation of quantum computers, and vice versa.
The Future of Quantum Computing and AI
The collaboration between AI researchers in Quebec and Perimeter Institute has enormous potential. Roger Melko, a Perimeter associate faculty member who runs the Perimeter Institute Quantum Intelligence Lab (PIQuIL), is already working at the intersection of quantum physics and machine learning. Meanwhile, Christine Muschik, a Perimeter associate faculty member, is an expert in quantum simulations who hopes to make use of artificial intelligence. She has been working with experimentalists at the University of Innsbruck in Austria to take quantum computing beyond “qubits” to “qudits” that exploit higher-dimensional atomic states.
The Impact of the Collaboration
The collaboration between Perimeter, IVADO, Institut Courtois, and Mila is just getting started, and the possibilities have everyone excited. Luc Vinet, chief executive officer at IVADO, says the collaboration with Perimeter is natural and will be powerful. IVADO recently received a $124.5 million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund to support research, teaching, and knowledge transfer in artificial intelligence. Perimeter also fosters the development of young scientists who will make a mark in AI and quantum research across Canada. The collaboration is expected to foster new discoveries and advancements in the field of AI and quantum computing.
“There’s no reason to think that human intelligence is the upper bound of intelligence,”
Yoshua Bengio
“The problems I’m trying to solve require mathematical sophistication that computer scientists usually don’t have, but mathematicians or physicists are more likely to have, and so there are opportunities for collaborations here along those lines,”
Yoshua Bengio
“You could think of causal inference as a subfield of machine learning,”
Robert Spekkens
“Quantum computers have already begun earnestly adopting AI into their design, characterization, and control stacks,”
Roger Melko, a Perimeter associate faculty member
“Perimeter is a fantastic institute with amazing people. At IVADO, we are very multi-disciplinary and we are invested in a very ambitious program. It makes sense that we need to bring together all the best people to achieve our goals,”
Luc Vinet, chief executive officer at IVADO
“There’s so much to do, and I think physicists will play an important role because one has to understand the physics to design the right architecture,”
Witczak-Krempa
Summary
Theoretical physicists from Canada’s Perimeter Institute and artificial intelligence (AI) experts from Quebec are collaborating to create advanced computer simulation techniques, with the aim of advancing fields such as chemistry, materials science, pharmaceuticals, and climate modelling. The collaboration, which includes a focus on the fusion of AI and quantum computing, aims to exploit the potential of artificial general intelligence while minimising risks, and could lead to more powerful and efficient quantum simulations.
“It was great to learn about the research being done in Montreal and to see so many enthusiastic conversations between the two groups,”
Perimeter Institute’s director, Robert Myers.
- The Perimeter Institute and AI clusters in Montreal are collaborating to advance the fusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, aiming to create new computer simulation techniques.
- The collaboration includes the Perimeter Institute, IVADO, Institut Courtois, and Mila, with key individuals such as Yoshua Bengio, Christine Muschik, Robert Spekkens, Elie Wolfe, and Roger Melko.
- Bengio, a Turing Award winner, is working on “AI scientists” that could generate new theories while ensuring safe alignment between AI and human goals.
- The collaboration aims to improve AI’s understanding of cause-effect relationships from data, which could enhance its ability to analyse situations, such as determining the cause of chest pain.
- Melko’s work focuses on using AI to design the next generation of quantum computers and vice versa.
- Muschik is working on taking quantum computing beyond “qubits” to “qudits” that exploit higher-dimensional atomic states, which could lead to more powerful and efficient quantum simulations.
- The collaboration recently received a $124.5 million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund to support research, teaching, and knowledge transfer in AI.
- The collaboration aims to foster the development of young scientists who will contribute to AI and quantum research across Canada.
