A Richmond-based, high-tech firm is helping develop a new generation of computers whose operating characteristics delve, theoretically, into other dimensions.
Omni Circuit Boards Ltd. announced earlier this month it had signed a five-year research and development agreement with Burnaby’s D-Wave Systems Inc. to supply aluminum trace printed circuit boards for its quantum computers.
Omni’s president, Paul Jackson, said his company has been working with D-Wave for several years and is the world’s only developer of aluminum trace printed circuit boards built to operate at a super conductive level.
“Traditionally, they (computer circuit boards) are manufactured using copper as a conductor,” Jackson said, adding D-Wave’s unique requirement for its quantum computers is to have them run at extremely low temperatures — absolute zero, which is minus 273 Celsius. That way the machines can operate at ultra fast, superconductive levels where there is zero electrical resistance.
“And aluminum is one of the materials that will superconduct at that temperature,” Jackson said.
While D-Wave is the world’s first producer of commercially available quantum computers — its clients include Google, NASA, and the NSA (National Security Agency) in the U.S. — Omni has also been shipping its circuit boards to research facilities in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the U.S.
But just what sets quantum computers apart from the regular ones which are termed “classic computers?”
Jackson explained they use the properties of quantum physics — a branch of physics which deals with physical phenomena at nanoscopic scales — to go beyond the binary computations of classic computers where information is stored as zeroes or ones.
Quantum computers use what is known as qubits which can be a one or a zero, or both at the same time. And that offers the tantalizing concept which is the stuff of dreams for science buffs.
“A way D-Wave described it is that when the machine is computing, it’s actually reaching out into another dimension,” Jackson said.
And what they are generally tasked with analyzing is called “big data.”
“They (quantum computers) look at problems that have more data going into them than a conventional computer would be able to solve,” Jackson said.
“That’s why D-Wave has customers like Google. They are looking for patterns... trying to get smarter. What NSA does with it, that’s another question.”
Another real world application for this new age computing power could be employed in the financial sector to try and forecast the future based on accumulated data.
For Omni, the opportunity to work on cutting edge computers is welcomed.
“This is huge for us. D-Wave is evolving very quickly, as far as what their processors are capable of. So, the footprint keeps getting smaller and smaller. And their requirements keep getting tighter and tighter,” Jackson said.
The challenge for Omni is to get out ahead of that development curve.
“We have been, with our technology, able to be there,” Jackson said. “And with this project we should be able to continue to do so.”
Curently Omni employs a workforce of 10 in its nondescript, east Richmond offices. Plans are for that number to increase, but by how much, Jackson did not say.
