Google starts quantum computing research project

Reuters
A Google logo is seen at the garage where the company was founded on Google's 15th anniversary in Menlo Park, California September 26, 2013. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

(Reuters) - Google Inc said a research team led by physicist John Martinis from the University of California Santa Barbara will join the company to start a project to build new quantum information processors based on superconducting electronics.

The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab is a collaboration between Google, NASA Ames Research Center and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) to study the application of quantum optimization related to artificial intelligence. (http://bit.ly/1nUUeJs)

"With an integrated hardware group, the Quantum AI team will now be able to implement and test new designs for quantum optimization and inference processors based on recent theoretical insights as well as our learnings from the D-Wave quantum annealing architecture," Google's director of engineering, Hartmut Neven, said on its research blog. (http://bit.ly/W8AUkk)

Google, which is working on projects including self-driving cars and robots, has become increasingly focused on artificial intelligence in recent years.

Earlier in January, Google acquired privately held artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies Ltd.

(Reporting By Subrat Patnaik and Arnab Sen in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)