Honeywell, popular for its thermostats, is now rolling out a powerful quantum computer which it says will be even more powerful than those built by Google and IBM.
JPMorgan Chase (JMP) has signed on as Honeywell’s first customer, and both companies will work together to develop quantum computing use cases for the finance business in areas such as fraud detection and artificial intelligence for trading.
According to experts, quantum computers could eventually solve complex problems that are a challenge for today’s computers as they process data at a fraction of the speed which normal computers use. They could be used in applications such as financial options or in developing new pharmaceuticals.
Honeywell has combined technology from its various areas of business – including high vacuum systems and precision control electronics – to develop the supercomputer. It has also invested in two quantum software development firms that will work with the company and its quantum customers.
“We wanted to be able to shape how quantum computing gets used,” Tony Uttley, President of Honeywell Quantum Solutions, told CNN Business. “We actually want to be our own best customer in this.”
Uttley also said that Honeywell is already working on quantum computing solutions for its aerospace and materials development businesses.
Honeywell’s partnership with JPMorgan is an avenue to new opportunities for the company. It plans to lease the computing power of its machine to JPMorgan and other firms, allowing customers to send calculations to be run on the quantum computer via Microsoft (MSFT)’s Azure cloud platform.
Last year, Google raised excitement and controversy when it proclaimed “quantum supremacy” with a machine that it said could solve a calculation in seconds that would take a traditional computer thousands of years, a clam IBM pushed back on.
Honeywell says its machine will even be more powerful than its competitors’ because it employs a different method called “trapped ion” quantum computing. This method makes the machine more accurate, among other benefits, giving it a higher “quantum volume”, the unit used to measure a quantum computer’s performance and processing capacity.
Honeywell’s computer will have a quantum volume of 64, and the company expects that metric will increase tenfold every year. By comparison, IBM recently said one of its computers reached a quantum volume of 32. Google has not shared the metric for its computer.
“For Honeywell, this has never been a science project,” Uttley said. “We believe in it because our businesses are going to be impacted by it.”
*Source: CNN