Amsterdam University Press eBooks
9 Optimisation and AI: What are companies doing today?
Koen Groenland
Abstract
Optimisation and AI: What are companies doing today?The earlier chapter on quantum applications discussed whether quantum computers can offer practical speedups for optimisation and AI.We concluded that this is a subtle case and that it is still unclear how much utility quantum computers can provide in these fields.Still, a large body of literature claims some form of near-term speedup in specific quantum applications.What's really going on here?This chapter aims to build a more detailed intuition of how different organisations are exploring quantum applications.We will assess some example research papers, examine the problems they tackle, and analyse how convincingly they point to quantum utility.Moreover, we will look at the most fruitful directions for finding new and useful quantum algorithms.But before we dive into these details, let's take a step back and ask ourselves: what must a quantum algorithm do to be a genuine improvement over its classical counterpart?