PALAISEAU, France, Dec. 14, 2021 — Thales, Pasqal, Paris Region and GENCI today announce a new two-year partnership to develop new methods to address planning and scheduling challenges related to critical systems’ optimization through Pasqal’s quantum processor.

The process of planning (selecting the appropriate policies and procedures to fulfill a mission or a project) and scheduling (converting the project action plans into an operating timetable) are key steps for many critical applications such as logistics, air traffic control, industrial automation, resource allocation, disaster recovery assistance, etc. Computational complexity and processing time explode when the problem’s dimension increases (number of events, resources or constraints); in other terms, the scalability is the blocking part. Quantum computing can change that. The project aims to demonstrate the scalability potential of a quantum approach to solve this type of problems, which applies to Thales’ various areas of expertise.

Relying on a 100+ qubit platform which provides high connectivity and performance, Pasqal’s quantum processors can efficiently address large size problems that are completely out of reach of classical computing systems.

The project is supported by the PAck Quantique program (PAQ), an initiative launched in 2020 by Paris Region, GENCI and Le Lab Quantique. The initiative aims to accelerate the development of the quantum technologies industry in Paris region and create synergies between industrial groups and start-ups.

The three-year program should strengthen Paris’s and France’s leadership in the field of quantum at European level and improve France’s key local players’ competitiveness at international level. The program also aims at highlighting Paris hub’s dynamism and attractiveness to foster implementation of new companies.

“Thales is fully committed in developing quantum technologies in particular for quantum sensors and quantum communications that will provide a real breakthrough for many Thales’ applications domains. The partnership with Pasqal, GENCI and Paris Region give us the opportunity to explore one other important facet of quantum: the quantum computing. What is of particular importance of us, is that we will be able, together with Pasqal, to design and solve optimization problems related to real use cases of high importance for our customers, such as air traffic optimization or space mission scheduling to name a few.” Bernhard Quendt, SVP Group Chief Technical Officer, Thales

“We are thrilled to work on concrete applications with a major technological player such as Thales. The techniques we will develop through this collaboration will be useful for various fields relevant to Thales’ activities. Creating value to end-users is a main focus for Pasqal: we continue to push our technology, both on the hardware and software levels, to best answer our partners’ needs and solve their bottleneck problems. We are working hand in hand with our partners: Thales, GENCI and Paris Region, to build a leading Quantum industry in the area.” Georges-Olivier Reymond, CEO of Pasqal

“Together with Le Lab Quantique, GENCI and Paris Region launched the Pack Quantique (PAQ) to enable industries and startups in their journey to quantum computing. AQUAPS represents the joint effort between Thales Research & Technology and Pasqal experts to “quantumize” TRT scheduling use cases and is the 4^th project since the launch of the initiative. Through Paris Region’s funding and GENCI’s free access to the future Pan-European Hybrid HPC/Quantum Infrastructure, this very challenging project will enable both Thales and Pasqal to assess the scalability of the designed algorithm”. Philippe Lavocat, CEO of GENCI and Alexandra Dublanche, Vice-President of the Paris Region in charge of Economic Recovery and Development, Attractiveness, and Innovation.

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Source: Pasqal