IonQ Collaborates with Hyundai on a Quantum Machine Learning Application for Image Classification...

It's no secret that as automobile companies move towards autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles a substantial increase in computational sophistication will be required to make it happen. Although it is unlikely that anyone will be installing a full-fledged quantum computer inside a car for many decades, quantum computers still have a huge potential in accelerating the training of a machine learning model for various automotive related machine learning applications. Training machine learning models is the most computationally intensive activity in machine learning. It consists of feeding the model with a large data set of potential situations and using sophisticated algorithms to create mathematical models that can be used to recognize features in an image.

Example of a Neural Network that Can Distinguish Between a Stop Sign versus a Yield Sign in a Picture

IonQ's latest project with Hyundai is to use their Aria quantum computer to help create a machine learning model for use in classifying 43 types of road signs that would be common in mobility situations. Although the training of the model would not occur in the automobile, once the model is created using it could be performed with an on-board classical computer that receives input from an on-board camera and determines if any of the road signs are present in the image.

The initial phase of the program will be to use IonQ's Aria processor to create a model and then take it to Hyundai’s test environment and simulate various real-world scenarios. Longer term activities could include expanding the research to include more general 3D object detection so that the system can recognize pedestrians or cyclists. For this project, IonQ will be using a breakthrough algorithm for encoding images into quantum states.

This is the second project involving quantum computing that IonQ has announced with Hyundai this year. In January, they announced a study to examine the use of quantum computing for finding improved battery chemistry. IonQ's news release announcing this new quantum machine learning project with Hyundai can be accessed here.

April 19, 2022