D-Wave’s VP of Software & Cloud Services Explains “Quantum Computing and Machine Learning are Extremely Well Matched”

(VentureBeat) Murray Thom, D-Wave’s VP of software and cloud services, is interviewed by Venture Beat’s Emil Protalinski. The discussion included Leap 2, a new version of its quantum cloud service for building and deploying quantum computing applications. The two discussed what benefits quantum computing will bring for businesses and developers. They also discussed the business applications D-Wave has already seen to date.
D-Wave was the first company to sell commercial quantum computers, which are built to use quantum annealing. Applications include everything from cryptography and optimization to machine learning and materials science. In fact, D-Wave has a webpage dedicated to quantum computing applications including airline scheduling, election modeling, quantum chemistry simulation, automotive design, preventative health care, logistics, and more.
Thom believes quantum computing and machine learning are “extremely well matched. The features the technology has and the needs of the field are very close. “Thom explained that D-Wave has seen success particularly with optimization and machine learning use cases. And he has the data to back it up: D-Wave’s customer applications are about 50% optimization, 20% AI and ML, 10% materials science, and 20% other. “Optimization stands out because it’s much more intuitive and easier to grasp,” Thom added.