ST. GALLEN, Switzerland, FRANKFURT, Germany and MUNICH, Sept. 21, 2023 — Terra Quantum and Honda Research Institute Europe (HRI-EU), a center for advanced research in intelligent systems, collaborated to develop new methods to shorten escape times in emergency situations.

In the joint project, Terra Quantum and HRI-EU have demonstrated the potential of hybrid quantum computing methods to improve mobility systems in challenging conditions.

“We are very pleased with the results of our collaboration with HRI-EU. This is just the start, we see the huge potential in applying quantum technologies in the automotive and mobility sectors,” said Markus Pflitsch, founder and CEO at Terra Quantum.

Escape Routing

Over the past five decades, disaster occurrences have amplified fivefold, propelled by climate change, extreme weather patterns, among other factors. In disaster scenarios, a timely response is vital and significantly impacts public safety. However, the dynamic and unpredictable nature of these situations poses a severe challenge for technical solutions.

In collaborating, the potential use of hybrid quantum technologies for optimizing evacuation routes during emergencies was evaluated. As part of the Proof of Concept (POC), an earthquake scenario was simulated on a realistic map of a small town. The novel solution demonstrated very promising results, predicting efficient dynamic escape routes for vehicles, and therefore minimizing evacuation times.

“Identifying realistic problems where quantum technologies may unfold their potential constitutes one of the biggest challenges in the field today. This work represents a promising step in that direction and shows how to employ hybrid quantum-classical learning architectures in a real-world use-case,” said Dr. Sebastian Schmitt, Principal Scientist at HRI-EU.

The developed quantum computing solution can account for numerous real-time variables and shows competitive efficiency results compared to traditional computing methods. It utilizes quantum machine learning and requires only local information to make decisions, which amounts to less than 1% of the map information — a crucial factor in an evolving and uncertain emergency scenario. The solutions are obtained from quantum simulations performed on classical computing hardware. This application can be extended to be executed on large-scale quantum computing hardware in the future.

After the success of this POC, Terra Quantum will continue to develop the solution, working towards the applicability in a broad range of scenarios in various city landscapes.

“This is the first step towards showcasing the performance of quantum machine learning to solve highly complex problems that have an enormous impact on people and planet. Very exciting to have worked with the HRI-EU team on improving evacuation times and robustness in emergency situations”- Vishal Shete, MD

More details can be found in the recent preprint paper on Arxiv.

About Terra Quantum

Terra Quantum is a leading quantum technology company based in Germany and Switzerland. It provides “Quantum as a Service (QaaS)” in three core areas, the first one being “Quantum Algorithms as a Service”. Here, customers are provided access to an extensive library of algorithms, such as hybrid quantum optimization and hybrid quantum neural networks, which can be used for solving complex logistics problems or pattern recognition, among other things. Terra Quantum also develops new quantum algorithms for its customers or adapts existing algorithms to their specific needs. Secondly, through “Quantum Computing as a Service”, Terra Quantum offers its customers access to its proprietary high-performance simulated quantum processing units (QPU), the quantum ecosystem’s physical QPUs, while also developing native QPUs. The third division is “Quantum Security as a Service,” through which Terra Quantum offers its unique solutions for secure quantum and post quantum communications worldwide.

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Source: Terra Quantum