The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has bought a quantum computer in the hope that the technology can be installed in battlefield tanks, says , the CEO of Orca Computing. Orca announced the deal with the MoD this week, but the initial focus is on research and training.
“This device we’re shipping to them certainly won’t do anything a classical computer won’t, and I suppose, in that view, it’s a research tool,” says Murray. “There’s a lot of activity being funded at the moment on upskilling them, getting them familiar with the system and getting them ready for actually having their own device.”
Orca has had a quantum computer set aside for the MoD in its own laboratory for several months, used for testing and training. It now has four months remaining of a six-month deadline to supply the MoD with a PT-1 computer that will be installed at one of its bases.
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The PT-1 computer is a photonic device that doesn’t require bulky supercooling equipment, like some alternative quantum computer technologies. It fits within a small housing that can be installed in a standard computer server rack.
Murray says this ease of use was part of the appeal for the MoD. “They talked about it going on a tank or going on a moveable platform,” he says. “Obviously, we’re not there yet, but that’s something that you might be able to do with the Orca system being at room temperature.”
Future, more powerful versions of the device may have to be larger in order to perform useful calculations that aren’t possible with classical computers, says Murray, but he believes that such a device could still be installed in a range of military equipment.
“It lends itself to all of those types of things, and it’s more durable. I mean, one day, maybe a fighter jet. I think we’re focusing mostly on just maybe a larger-scale platform that can live on the ground,” he says.
Modern battlefields involve a huge amount of reconnaissance and observation with a range of sensors, and turning all of that data into useful information is a “very computationally challenging task”, says Murray. Quantum computers theoretically have the ability to radically speed up certain types of task, including simulation and optimisation, and this could potentially give soldiers an edge over their adversaries in certain situations.
An MoD spokesperson didn’t answer direct questions about the use of quantum computers in tanks, but told żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ that: “Our ambition is that this technology will make communication on the battlefield significantly easier through applications such as image recognition and sensor management. This technology will make information processing for command decisions on the battlefield more agile and reduces risks from data sharing with an undeployable processor located off the battlefield.”
