Nature: On paper at least, quantum computers can solve decryption, factoring, and certain other number-crunching mathematical problems faster than their classical counterparts can. Now MIT’s Seth Lloyd and his collaborators have opened up another area in which quantum computers could prove helpful: artificial intelligence. In Lloyd’s proposal, the quantum methods could be used to break up problems into smaller chunks that are then used by the computer to guide it toward the solution. Such machine-learning approaches underlie artificial intelligence and could find any number of uses, including image recognition for comparing photos and simultaneous localization and mapping for autonomous vehicles.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
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