The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab (Quantum AI Lab or QuAIL), is a joint initiative by NASA, Universities Space Research Association (USRA), and Google.
With a goal to pioneer research on how quantum computing might improve with AI and machine learning, the partnership also explores to advance machine learning to make it work easier for quantum computers than conventional machines, as it solves other difficult computer science problems that happen within the two fields.
The lab is hosted at NASA's Ames Research Center, located at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley..
The Quantum AI Lab was first announced by Google Research in a blog post on May 16, 2013.
At the time of launch, the Lab was using the most advanced commercially available quantum computer, D-Wave Two from D-Wave Systems.
The computers are designed purposefully for quantum annealing to solve a single type of problem known as quadratic unconstrained binary optimization. The computer boasts a CPU of about 512 qubits, which is a major improvement over the D-Wave One series' CPUs which has about 128 qubits.
Google believes that quantum computing might help improve the web and speech recognition technology. University researchers might also use it to devise better models of diseases and climate, among many other possibilities.
As for NASA, "computers play a much bigger role within NASA missions than most people realize," explained quantum computing specialist Colin Williams, who is also the director of business development and strategic partnerships at D-Wave.
"Examples today include using supercomputers to model space weather, simulate planetary atmospheres, explore magnetohydrodynamics, mimic galactic collisions, simulate hypersonic vehicles, and analyze large amounts of mission data."
D-Wave itself has been backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who put interest in quantum computing, as well as CIA's investment arm In-Q-Tel.
USRA invites researchers across the United States to use the machine, by allocating 20 percent of its computing time open to the university community at no cost through a competitive selection process, while the rest of it is split evenly between NASA and Google.
"We’ll be having some of the best and brightest minds in the country working on applications that run on the D-Wave hardware," continued Williams.
Later in January 2014, Google upgraded the quantum computer from 512 qubits to more than a 1000 qubits. The company then reported advancements on their research, publicly showing results comparing the performance of the D-Wave Two in the lab with that of classical computers.
The results were ambiguous and provoked some heated debates on the internet.
In later tests, independent researcher found that for some types of problems the quantum computer was 3,600 times faster than traditional supercomputers. According to a D-Wave official, the machine performed even better in Google’s tests, which involved 500 variables with different constraints.