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Google starts quantum computing research project

The Google logo is spelled out in heliostats (mirrors that track the sun and reflect the sunlight onto a central receiving point) during a tour of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert near the California-Nevada border February 13, 2014. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

(Reuters) - Google Inc said a research team led by physicist John Martinis from the University of California Santa Barbara will join the company to start a project to build new quantum information processors based on superconducting electronics. The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab is a collaboration between Google, NASA Ames Research Centre and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) to study the application of quantum optimization related to artificial intelligence. (http://bit.ly/1nUUeJs) "With an integrated hardware group, the Quantum AI team will now be able to implement and test new designs for quantum optimization and inference processors based on recent theoretical insights as well as our learnings from the D-Wave quantum annealing architecture," Google's director of engineering, Hartmut Neven, said on its research blog. (http://bit.ly/W8AUkk) Google, which is working on projects including self-driving cars and robots, has become increasingly focused on artificial intelligence in recent years. Earlier in January, Google acquired privately held artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies Ltd. (Reporting By Subrat Patnaik and Arnab Sen in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)