UCL Computer Science To Explore Natural Language Processing On Quantum Computers For Content Discovery and Archive Retrieval
A new consortium funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering will build on work in quantum mechanics and linguistics conducted over 15 years by researchers at University College London and Quantinuum
CAMBRIDGE, UK, NOVEMBER 28, 2022 — Quantinuum, the world’s leading integrated quantum computing company, has joined a consortium with University College London (UCL) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to explore the industrial relevance of quantum natural language processing (QNLP) and quantum-inspired natural language processing.
The consortium, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering for a Senior Research Fellowship at UCL, will build on a long-term exploration of quantum mechanics and linguistics by Quantinuum’s chief scientist Professor Bob Coecke, head of artificial intelligence Professor Stephen Clark, and Professor Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh of UCL Computer Science.
The BBC hopes to find new ways to represent content in forms readable by computers, to support tasks such as content discovery and archival retrieval. This builds on the Corporation’s previous work with Sadrzadeh on Enhancing Personalised Recommendations with the use of Multi Modal Information.
Ilyas Khan, founder of Cambridge Quantum Computing and CEO of Quantinuum said: “Developing quantum computing so that the broadest and most diverse populations can benefit, means looking across the timing spectrum at applications that can be made productive in the short, medium and long term. As part of our long-term work, we anticipate that true language processing will become important with fault tolerant quantum processors, and our work with the BBC and UCL is a very significant step towards being prepared to take advantage of quantum computers when they become available at scale. Quantinuum is a leader in the fields in which it operates, and this leadership is built on deeply meaningful collaborations such as this.”
In their 15-year collaboration, the researchers established a unified model of statistical and compositional meaning for natural language, in the seminal 2011 paper Mathematical Foundations of a Compositional Distributional Model of Meaning. The foundational work was guided by Professor Coecke’s categorical quantum mechanics formalism. Experimental evidence followed suite by Professor Sadrzadeh’s work on Concrete Models and Experimental Evaluations for the Categorial Compositional Distributional Model of Meaning. The advance of these techniques beyond academic research, to a scaled industrial level, will take capabilities from mere sentence level to general text, using methods which were initiated in the papers The Mathematics of Text Structure and Evaluating Composition Models for Verb Phrase Elliptical Sentence Embeddings.
The broadcaster’s archives reflect a century of global news and cultural life across the UK and beyond. It is one of the largest broadcast archives in the world, with over 15 million items, including audio, film, and text documents, as well as toys, games, merchandise, artefacts, and historic equipment.
About Quantinuum
Quantinuum is the world’s largest integrated quantum computing company, formed by the combination of Honeywell Quantum Solutions’ world leading hardware and Cambridge Quantum’s class leading middleware and applications. Science led and enterprise driven, Quantinuum accelerates quantum computing and the development of applications across chemistry, cybersecurity, finance, and optimization. Its focus is to create scalable and commercial quantum solutions to solve the world’s most pressing problems, in fields such as energy, logistics, climate change, and health. The company employs over 480 people including 350 scientists, at nine sites in the US, Europe, and Japan.
Kaniah is Chief Legal Counsel and SVP of Government Relations for Quantinuum. In her previous role, she served as General Counsel, Honeywell Quantum Solutions. Prior to Honeywell, she was General Counsel, Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies, LLC, and Senior Attorney, U.S. Department of Energy. She was Lead Counsel before the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Kaniah holds a J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law and B.A., International Relations and Spanish from the College of William and Mary.
Jeff Miller is Chief Information Officer for Quantinuum. In his previous role, he served as CIO for Honeywell Quantum Solutions and led a cross-functional team responsible for Information Technology, Cybersecurity, and Physical Security. For Honeywell, Jeff has held numerous management and executive roles in Information Technology, Security, Integrated Supply Chain and Program Management. Jeff holds a B.S., Computer Science, University of Arizona. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, attaining the rank of Commander.
Matthew Bohne is the Vice President & Chief Product Security Officer for Honeywell Corporation. He is a passionate cybersecurity leader and executive with a proven track record of building and leading cybersecurity organizations securing energy, industrial, buildings, nuclear, pharmaceutical, and consumer sectors. He is a sought-after expert with deep experience in DevSecOps, critical infrastructure, software engineering, secure SDLC, supply chain security, privacy, and risk management.
Todd Moore is the Global Vice President of Data Encryption Products at Thales. He is responsible for setting the business line and go to market strategies for an industry leading cybersecurity business. He routinely helps enterprises build solutions for a wide range of complex data security problems and use cases. Todd holds several management and technical degrees from the University of Virginia, Rochester Institute of Technology, Cornell University and Ithaca College. He is active in his community, loves to travel and spends much of his free time supporting his family in pursuing their various passions.
Retired U.S. Army Major General John Davis is the Vice President, Public Sector for Palo Alto Networks, where he is responsible for expanding cybersecurity initiatives and global policy for the international public sector and assisting governments around the world to prevent successful cyber breaches. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks, John served as the Senior Military Advisor for Cyber to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy. Prior to this assignment, he served in multiple leadership positions in special operations, cyber, and information operations.
