U.S. Air Force Partnering with QC Ware to Better Surveil Unmanned Aircraft

(Yahoo.News) U.S. Air Force researchers are partnering with QC Ware to use its machine learning algorithms to better surveil unmanned aircraft.
QC Ware will design and deliver quantum algorithms that are capable of clustering and classifying the flight plans of objects many times faster than the classical machine learning algorithms that are currently used for the job. Using currently available quantum computing hardware, the algorithms will be tested with real-life data, with the aim of determining how many qubits — the basic unit of quantum computing power — are needed for the system to run accurately, as well as the maximum allowable error rate of the calculations.
The Air Force is famous for deploying technologies throughout our history that have really made a difference,” says Michael Hayduk, deputy director at the AFRL’s information directorate. But with competitors like China investing heavily in quantum computing, he adds, “we really have to take a whole of nation approach to the technology,” which includes partnering with private companies like QC Ware.