Canadian quantum computing company D-Wave announced today that it is giving free access to its Leap 2 quantum cloud computing service to anyone involved in any way with the fight against the coronavirus . The offer is not limited to those doing drug research , but is aimed more generally at anyone trying to combat the coronavirus, such as those involved in modeling the spread of the virus or new diagnostics.
One of the positives that makes D-Wave’s program stand out is that it has managed to attract a significant number of partners, who are working on other projects. The list of partners includes Volkswagen, DENSO, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, MDR, Menten AI, Sigma-i Tohoku University, Ludwig Maximilian University and OTI Lumionics. These partners can provide their knowledge to teams using Leap 2 to develop solutions against the Covid-19.
The whole project began rolling out a week and a half ago, said Alan Baratz, the company's CEO. He stressed that teams working on Leap 2 will receive a commercial license, so there is no need to open source their solutions. They will also not have the one-minute per month limit, which is usually the standard limit for using D -Wave's cloud service.
“When we launched Leap 2 on February 26th with our hybrid solutions service, we launched a quantum computing capability that is now capable of solving a number of problems – large-scale – such as real-world manufacturing problems,” Baratz said. “If nothing else, it could be another tool that will prove useful to those working to try to find solutions to the pandemic. And we should make it available.”
As he says, they can't say for sure that the teams that gain access to systems will find solutions that could work. "But what we do know is that it would be remiss not to make this tool available for free."
Leap is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Japan , and 32 countries in Europe. These are also the regions where D-Wave's partners are active and where researchers will be able to freely use its systems.
