Quantum computers could solve complex tasks that are beyond the capabilities of conventional computers. However, the quantum states are extremely sensitive to constant interference from their environment. The plan is to combat this using active protection based on quantum error correction. Florian Marquardt, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, and his team have now presented a quantum error correction system that is capable of learning thanks to artificial intelligence.
In 2016, the computer program AlphaGo won four out of five games of Go against the world's best human player. Given that a game of Go has more combinations of moves than there are estimated to be atoms in the universe, this required more than just sheer processing power. Rather, AlphaGo used artificial neural networks, which can recognize visual patterns and are even capable of learning. Unlike a human, the program was able to practise hundreds of thousands of games in a short time, eventually surpassing the best human player. Now, the Erlangen-based researchers are using neural networks of this kind to develop error-correction learning for a quantum computer.
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