Atos and OVHcloud are taking the quantum shift “as a service”. The two companies have entered into a strategic alliance in the field of quantum, to make the Atos quantum emulator available in the OVHcloud cloud.
The QLM (Quantum Learning Machine) from Atos makes it possible to develop quantum software layers independent of the hardware platform. From start-ups to large schools, via large companies, private and public players will be able to run algorithms on a quantum emulator, which reproduces different approaches to quantum computing.
“The idea is to go and explore concrete application cases,” explains Eric Eppe, global manager of solutions marketing and the HPC and quantum portfolio at Atos, to ZDNet. Atos and OVHcloud are working together to provide as many people as possible with “the fantastic means that we find in QLM today”, he says.
To do this, the Atos software platform is therefore agnostic. “We offer a complete programming environment that provides access to the three major families of quantum technologies, which are on the market or which will arrive on the market in the coming years”, specifies Eric Eppe.
Apps for the NISQ era
This strategy is to prepare for the arrival of quantum machines, summarizes the head of Atos. According to Eric Eppe, since “the real difficulty is to make hardware that is stable and scalable”, it is better to get started “immediately”, believes the latter. “The first in the quantum race is going to take a huge market share compared to the others,” he adds.
The first applications will target the first generation processors known as NISQ, or “Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum”. “A number of customers have already found applications for quantum. Even a factor of 2 on part of an algorithm is advantageous”, assures Eric Eppe. However, “quantum technology will not replace everything overnight, but it will take the lead on certain problems”, he nuances. Among the exploratory fields, Eric Eppe mentions combinatorial optimization, which is talked about as much in the world of finance as in the airline industry.
The Atos group declared earlier this week a future split of its assets into two separate companies. The entire HPC and Quantum part will be integrated into the SpinCo structure, which specializes in the digital transformation, big data and cybersecurity markets, we were told.