The Quantum Leap: JPMorgan Chase and Argonne’s Breakthrough in Quantum Algorithm Speedup

In a groundbreaking new paper published in Science Advances on May 29, researchers at JPMorgan Chase, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, and Quantinuum have made a significant discovery – clear evidence of a quantum algorithmic speedup for the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA).

Quantum computing has long been hailed as the next frontier in technology, promising unprecedented computational power and capabilities. The QAOA algorithm, which has been extensively studied and implemented on various quantum computers, holds immense potential for a wide array of applications across industries such as logistics, telecommunications, financial modeling, and materials science.

“This work is a significant step towards reaching quantum advantage, laying the foundation for future impact in production,” said Marco Pistoia, head of Global Technology Applied Research at JPMorgan Chase.

The research team delved into whether a quantum algorithm with low implementation costs could outperform the best-known classical methods. By applying the QAOA to the Low Autocorrelation Binary Sequences problem, a task with relevance in physical systems, signal processing, and cryptography, the team demonstrated that the quantum algorithm could solve increasingly larger problems at a faster rate than its classical counterpart.

To assess the algorithm’s performance in an ideal noiseless setting, JPMorgan Chase and Argonne collaborated to develop a simulator on the Polaris supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a DOE Office of Science user facility. The simulation showed the potential of quantum computing in advancing the field of information science.

“The large-scale quantum circuit simulations efficiently utilized the DOE petascale supercomputer Polaris located at the ALCF. These results show how high-performance computing can complement and advance the field of quantum information science,” said Yuri Alexeev, a computational scientist at Argonne.

In a key step towards practical realization, the researchers conducted a small-scale implementation of the algorithm on Quantinuum’s System Model H1 and H2 trapped-ion quantum computers. By incorporating algorithm-specific error detection, the team succeeded in reducing error impacts on algorithmic performance by up to 65%.

“Our partnership with JPMorgan Chase has culminated in a groundbreaking three-way research experiment involving Argonne. The results underscore the unmatched quality of our H-Series Quantum Computer, which enables error-correcting and error-detecting experiments with gate fidelities that outperform other quantum computers,” said Ilyas Khan, founder, and chief product officer of Quantinuum.

With this significant breakthrough, the prospects for quantum computing have never been more promising, paving the way for revolutionary advancements in various industries and ushering in a new era of computing capabilities.