Fujitsu Launches Quantum-Inspired Cloud Service

Fujitsu has launched a Fujitsu Quantum-inspired Computing Digital Annealer Cloud Service. This new service leverages the Fujitsu Digital Annealer, a next-generation architecture inspired by quantum phenomena, for the high-speed resolution of combinatorial optimization problems. The service is now available in Japan and will be progressively rolled out to North America, Europe, and Asia during fiscal 2018.

In 2016, Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. first announced its Digital Annealer service, an architecture dedicated for combinatorial optimization problems, that has the advantages of digital circuitry, namely, a high degree of flexibility in design and noise resistance, as well as high speed inspired by quantum phenomena. Fujitsu Limited has since been working to develop services based on this technology.

The Digital Annealer Cloud Service promises to address use cases that cannot currently be handled by traditional computers due to the massive computational volume required. This not only includes issues that companies in a range of industries face, such as speeding up the search of similarities in molecules for drug discovery, optimizing portfolios in finance, personalizing advertisements in digital marketing, and optimizing the arrangement of warehoused components for factories and logistics, but also challenges confronting society at large, such as transportation congestion and disaster recovery planning.

In addition to deploying this new cloud service, Fujitsu is also launching the Fujitsu Digital Annealer Technical Service to support the application development for customers to define issues, as well as build and utilize mathematical models.

Fujitsu will begin offering its Digital Annealer Cloud Service, and, in addition to its AI and big data solutions technology, will bring together its know-how associated with the development of its Digital Annealer and provide its Digital Annealer Technical Service, which will aid in application development by having dedicated personnel define issues, and build and utilize mathematical models.

1. High-speed calculation of combinatorial optimization problems on world’s largest scale

The Digital Annealer adopts a fully linked design in which the elements within the computer can freely exchange signals with one another. The 1,024 individual bits have full bonding connectivity, and moreover, as it can express bonding power minutely in 65,536 gradations, it has become possible to solve complex and large-scale problems that current quantum annealing machines cannot handle. Furthermore, the utilization of digital circuitry makes it resistant to the impact of noise, making it possible to operate with stability at room temperature, without using special cooling devices.

2. Expanding partnerships

In order to expand the applicable fields of the Digital Annealer Cloud Service, Fujitsu is globally collaborating with 1QB Information Technologies Inc. (1QBit), the leading vendor of software for quantum computers, and from fiscal 2018 it will be possible to also use a Digital Annealer via 1QBit’s cloud service. By implementing a 1QBit framework in the Digital Annealer Cloud Service, the companies are expanding the service’s applicability.

Fujitsu is additionally strengthening its partnership with the University of Toronto, and is currently conducting five joint research projects covering Digital Annealer applications in the four fields of transportation, networking, finance, and healthcare. In healthcare, for example, the two organizations are researching radiotherapy planning, which is anticipated to streamline treatments and thus cut the number of days needed.

3. New AI headquarters

Fujitsu is bringing together three of its technologies-high-performance computing (HPC), which offers massively parallel computational processing, Deep Learning to elicit AI, and the Digital Annealer-so that their respective strengths can support one another in tackling the challenges facing companies and society. Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer that requires advanced-level data analysis technology will work in tandem with personnel possessing advanced AI skills to establish a new AI Headquarters in Vancouver in the first

Fujitsu has already conducted joint trials with a number of customers, including Recruit Communications Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Investment Technology Institute Co., Ltd. (Shareholder : Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Group(100%)), Fujifilm Corporation, and Fixstars Corporation. In addition, manufacturer of servers and other products Fujitsu IT Products Limited was able to reduce transfer distance by up to 45% using the Digital Annealer to optimize the picking plan in its warehouses.

Fujitsu plans to expand the full-scale links in the Digital Annealer from the current 1,024 bits to 8,192 bits, while increasing the precision from 16 bits to up to 64 bits (18.45 quintillion gradations), developing a dedicated Digital Annealing processor, the Digital Annealing Unit (DAU), using Fujitsu’s processor development technology and the latest cutting-edge CMOS technology. In so doing, Fujitsu aims for applications for ever-larger-scale problems. This will enable calculations even for complex problems in society, such as traffic congestion and disaster recovery.

Fujitsu plans to offer a cloud service with DAU within fiscal 2018, and in order to fulfill applications requiring high frequency usage, it also plans to sell on-premises products that can be installed in customer datacenters. – Networks Asia