Fujitsu announces details of a ground-breaking proof of concept (PoC) project with NatWest for its quantum-inspired Digital Annealer technology. Fujitsu is helping the bank solve some of its most complex, challenging and time-consuming financial investment problems by optimizing its mix of high-quality liquid assets including bonds, cash and government securities.
Quantum computing is considered by many to be the ultimate goal for computing sciences, but current quantum computers are limited in their capabilities. Not only are they complex, somewhat unreliable and error prone, they are also few and far between and extremely expensive to operate. Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer represents the perfect bridge to true quantum computing, since it is adept at solving complex combinatorial problems accurately and reliably, and its current processing capability is constantly expanding to address ever more complex problems and scenarios.
The Fujitsu Digital Annealer includes software developed in collaboration with 1QBit, a leading vendor of software for quantum and quantum-inspired computing. The solution is now available as a cloud service. It is designed to adress a wide variety of problems that traditional computing struggles with solving in a realistic timeframe. Scenarios include challenges faced by companies in a range of industries, such as the search for similarities in small molecules for drug discovery, optimizing portfolios in finance, reducing production times for custom manufacturing, and optimizing the arrangement of warehoused components for factories and logistics. Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer technology is also able to analyze complex data to help find new solutions to the challenges facing society at large, such as traffic congestion and planning for disaster recovery.
Kevin Hanley, Director of Innovation from NatWest said: “We’re really excited about the possibilities presented by quantum computing. Given our first application of quantum-like computing power has been so successful we think the technology could be applied to many other calculations and problems the bank faces on a daily basis. In the long run, quantum-inspired computing could completely change the way banks operate, making them much more efficient and cheaper to run, which in turn would mean customer’s benefit from better deals and improved service.”
