By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
A camp for 200 computer engineers and scientists from Nigeria, South Africa and seven other African countries has been arranged by IBM for December 2019 in Johannesburg to brainstorm on quantum coding.
Researchers interested in working with IBM Q can apply online, IBM announced on Jun 12, two months after another American tech giant, Microsoft Corp, laid out plans to tap computer talent on the continent.
In its own announcement on May 15, Microsoft said it had put on the table $100 million to open an Africa Technology Development Centre (ADC) with sites in Nigeria and Kenya over the next five years to 2024.
IBM’s Q Network will collaborate with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg to give African academics and researchers access to quantum computing.
Quantum coding is an experimental science being researched to succeed current computer technology, as IBM gets cracking to take hold of commercial opportunities on the continent.
IBM Q operates out of IBM’s Yorktown Heights research centre in New York and will be accessed from African universities via the cloud.
Medical treatments
IBM believes Q could yield research and development advances in areas such as drug discovery based on Africa’s genetic diversity that could lead to new treatments for diseases like HIV or TB.
This is one of the research areas IBM will focus on in its rollout of Q Africa to Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Wits University will manage access to Q from the 15 additional African education institutions that include Addis Ababa University, the University of Nairobi, and University of Lagos.
Students from various African countries are being considered for the first take-in, with plans for additional camps across the continent hosted by 15 universities.
Commercial applications
“IBM is investing to build capacity in quantum computing on the continent, and enter additional research opportunities in quantum fields,” said Solomon Assefa, IBM Vice President for Africa and emerging markets research.
Also, he added, IBM wants to “figure out potential commercial applications and activate skills and research in the private sector in Africa.
“When IBM considers a country like South Africa, with an advanced insurance, financial and banking sector, we expect them to be an early adopter of practical quantum computing applications.
“We want to be ready when this happens.”
Assefa believes the initiative is just as important to train future computer engineers.
“For Africa to remain competitive for the coming decades we must get the next generation of students quantum ready.
“AI is certainly one of the technologies which is expected to benefit from quantum computing.
“AI systems thrive when the machine-learning algorithms used to train them are given massive amounts of data to ingest, classify and analyse.
“The more precisely that data can be classified according to specific characteristics, or features, the better the AI will perform. Quantum computers are expected to play a crucial role in machine learning.”
IBM is working on bringing quantum computing to commercial applications. The company expects revenues from this to come through as soon as 2021, according to Chief Executive Officer, Ginni Rometty.
Computer’s next frontier
IBM is competing with Google, Microsoft and others in building computers to solve difficult real-world problems currently beyond the reach of the most powerful conventional supercomputers.
“Africa has largely been left out of the industrial revolution, and many technology developments,” said Zeblon Vilakazi, University of the Witwatersrand Deputy Vice Chancellor for research and postgraduate affairs.
“This has seen the continent fall behind in some instances, and with this partnership we want to avoid that happening again with quantum computing.”
IBM is making an early move to get Africa “quantum ready”.
Quantum is the next frontier of computing development and promises much more powerful data crunching, which is especially useful for academic research in complex fields that require simulation and modelling.
This includes chemical simulations and types of optimisation which traditional computers cannot solve.
IBM introduced a quantum computing system geared for commercial and scientific use at the CES trade show in Las Vegas earlier this year.
Known as IBM Q System One, it is expected to find new ways to model financial data or optimise fleet operations for deliveries.
This is IBM’s latest development in its joint partnership with Wits University after it opened its second lab in Africa in 2016 at Wits’s Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in the Braamfontein suburb.
“One of the most promising indicators that Africans should move quickly and invest in nurturing the skills around the burgeoning field of quantum computing is that there is already a long history of academic activity in South Africa,” Vilakazi said.
IBM’s Q Network includes Fortune 500 companies, startups, academic institutions and research labs working on quantum computing and its potential applications.
Wits University is the first African partner on the Q Network and will be the gateway for academics across South Africa and to the 15 universities who are part of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA).
Wits researchers will investigate use of quantum computing and machine learning for cosmology and molecular biology, with a specific focus on HIV drug discovery.
“There are unique opportunities in Africa, which should be addressed by Africans. As we know, African genetics have more diversity than the rest of the world combined. Such diversity is a treasure chest of genetic information,” Vilakazi said.
“This all points to the need for Africans to mine the jewels of the own genetic heritage, including the development of techniques that could soon harness quantum computing for genetics and drug discovery.”
Quantum computing is seen as an aid for understanding the increasing volume of data and scale of problems facing humanity.
“Africa needs to be ready to embrace this new computing paradigm so we can compete and contribute to the world stage. We cannot let Africa fall behind in technology.
“We need to get our students quantum ready today, so they can benefit from this incredible technology tomorrow.”
African-based researchers, academics and students will now have “access to decades of quantum computing capabilities at the click of a button,” Vilakazi enthused.
“South Africa has a history of innovation in quantum physics to draw on (for example, the Nobel prize for the invention of the CAT scan) and even recent surprising successes in a field very much related to quantum computing: supercomputing.
“Over a recent four-year period, the South African Supercomputing team were world champions three-times in the International Supercomputing Competition.”
How Q works
Quantum — or IBM Q, as the based company calls it — is a computer that uses quantum bits (or qubits) to top the capabilities of even the most advanced supercomputers.
“Q systems are designed to one day tackle problems … seen as too complex and exponential in nature for classical systems to handle,” IBM said when it was launched in early 2019.
It named future IBM Q applications in financial data, minimising global financial risk, and optimising logistics.
“It’s not your usual one and zeros. It’s about the superposition of states to create a qubit,” Assefa said, in explaining how Q works.
“Because of that, and that it has so many difference states, the amount of computing you can do becomes exponential.”
Assefa sees other potential research and use-case for Q Africa in financial sectors, mining, and natural resources management.
“What excites me here, is for once we are ahead in Africa for joining this movement.
“In five to 10 years, Q will have significant impact, but if we can start the wave now, you never know what kind of applications and research will come out of this technology.”
This programme is part of IBM Research Africa’s extended build-out on the continent, since launching a facility in Kenya in 2013 and expanding it to South Africa in 2016.
IBM Research has extended its capabilities to a number of partnerships in Africa, including blockchain enabled collaborations with agtech startups Twiga and Hello Tractor.
IBM also maintains an extensive commercial services and consulting business in Africa, for which its research activities could have application.
But it could be years before Q rolls up into that, according to Assefa.
“We are developing commercial grade Q machines … in terms of that being applicable for Africa, it’s still early days.”
