OpenAI has Started to Hire Quantum Computing Talent

The Question is why?

Hey Everyone,

It’s sort of my day job to cover and write about AI.

So lately OpenAI made a single Quantum computing hire and it took some of us by surprise. OpenAI is the leading Generative AI startup. We know that at a certain point in the future, Generative AI and Quantum computing do converge. We don’t yet know when or how exactly this will take place.

I’m going to be watching Nvidia’s GTC Conference carefully in just a few hours, the opening keynote remarks and the various live talks. Nvidia will know a thing or two about the future of AI software, AI chips and Quantum computing.

This is a speculative topic, but already News outlets have started to cover it.

Ben Bartlett, a former quantum systems architect at PsiQuantum. The hire could be a hint that OpenAI might be steering towards a quantum future, according to The Register.

I was already pondering this as I had noticed the hire, but what can we really make of it?

The Register starts out with a pretty audacious paragraph:

Quantum computing has remained a decade away for over a decade now, but according to industry experts it may hold the secret to curbing AI's insatiable appetite.

Will OpenAI and others utilize Quantum computers one day to train LLMs, is that even possible? It might be possible, one day.

The Long Road in the Pursuit of AQ

At what point does Generative AI and quantum computing truly converge? It could occur given enough breakthroughs as soon as the 2030s.

So Ben has done research focused on the intersection between quantum physics, machine learning, and nanophotonics, and "basically consists of me designing little race tracks for photons that trick them into doing useful computations"

According to the speculation on the Register, there are a couple possibilities ranging from using quantum optimization to streamline training datasets or using quantum processing units (QPUs) to offload complex graph databases, to using optics to scale beyond the limits of modern semiconductor packaging.

I’m seeing other claims that the heart of Bartlett's innovation lies in a patent for "Deterministic photonic quantum computation in a synthetic time dimension," showcasing scalable and efficient quantum computing strategies. Remember this is all extremely speculative.