Zapata AI Unveils Quantum Computing’s Economic Potential in DARPA’s Benchmarking Program Phase II

Zapata AI, in collaboration with Rigetti Computing, University of Southern California, HRL Laboratories, and L3Harris, has published research findings from Phase II of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking program. The research highlights the economic value and resource requirements for select use cases where quantum computing may be transformative. The company has been developing use cases for quantum computing and software tools to predict future quantum computers’ capabilities. The research includes applications such as catalyst design, computational fluid dynamics, and material simulation. Zapata AI’s Lead Research Scientist and Co-Founder, Peter Johnson, emphasized the potential economic benefits of quantum computing across industries.

Zapata AI’s Research on Quantum Computing’s Economic Impact

Zapata Computing Holdings Inc., also known as Zapata AI, has recently published research findings from Phase II of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking program. The research, conducted in collaboration with Rigetti Computing, University of Southern California, HRL Laboratories, and L3Harris, focuses on the economic value and resource requirements of select use cases where quantum computing could bring about significant changes.

Zapata AI’s research aims to quantitatively measure the economic value of specific quantum computing use cases and the associated hardware-specific resources required for a given level of performance. As the only company participating across all program tracks, Zapata AI’s results provide valuable insights into the potential of quantum computing.

Quantum Computing’s Potential Economic Benefits

Peter Johnson, Lead Research Scientist and Co-Founder for Zapata AI, expressed enthusiasm about the potential economic benefits of quantum computing across various industries. The research conducted by Zapata AI and its partners during Phase II of the program estimated the economic utility of several high-value applications, representing millions or billions in potential value, and the quantum resources required to unlock that value.

The applications studied include homogenous catalyst design, incompressible computational fluid dynamics for applications such as simulation-driven ship design, and correlated material simulation for applications such as superconductor and battery design. The research results for these utility and resource estimates were released on June 10 and are available on http://arxiv.org/.

DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Program

DARPA initiated its Quantum Benchmarking program in 2021 with the aim of reinventing the metrics critical to measuring quantum computing progress and applying scientific rigor to often unsubstantiated claims about quantum computing’s future promise. Zapata AI was selected by DARPA for participation in Phase 1 of this program in 2022, with the Phase I award focused on building BenchQ, an open-source tool for benchmarking quantum computing applications, and demonstrating its value for resource estimation.

In 2023, Zapata AI was selected for Phase II of the program, which is focused on improving the tool to increase community adoption. The remainder of Phase II, expected to conclude in March 2025, will see Zapata AI and its partners continue to optimize the quantum algorithms studied for the various applications and improve the utility estimates to understand the value proposition of future quantum computers.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Zapata AI is accelerating Generative AI’s impact across industries by delivering solutions which are higher performing, less costly, and more accurate and expressive than current, classical approaches to AI.

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As the Official Quantum Dog (or hound) by role is to dig out the latest nuggets of quantum goodness. There is so much happening right now in the field of technology, whether AI or the march of robots. But Quantum occupies a special space. Quite literally a special space. A Hilbert space infact, haha! Here I try to provide some of the news that might be considered breaking news in the Quantum Computing space.

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