Quantum computing could positively impact UN Sustainable development goals in coming decades

Standard Chartered and Universities Space Research Association partner on Quantum-Inspired Machine Learning for Environmental, Social and Governance applications

LONDON and WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Advances in quantum computing technology have such broad applicability in the long term that they could positively impact all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The team aims to develop advanced machine learning approaches to forecasting natural disasters, such as floods and cyclones, and explore how current-generation quantum processors, future quantum computer designs and physics-based hardware solvers could be leveraged to improve beyond the state-of-art achievable by classical machine learning techniques.

At Standard Chartered, Elena Strbac, Global Head of Data Science and Innovation, said “We are excited to be renewing our partnership with our USRA colleagues in an area of such vital importance for the Bank, our clients, and our communities. We are keen to learn and to explore how quantum computing can help to accelerate the global goal to Net Zero, which is so critical for the future of our planet.”

Developing quantum advantageous solutions requires careful test and evaluation and a deep understanding of the limits of current and future digital and quantum approaches. The USRA quantum team in the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS), will test, evaluate and enhance aspects of highly performant classical models and also design hardware-software systems that use the most advanced quantum machines available on the cloud.

Craig Corte, Global Head of Digital Channels and Client Data Analytics at Standard Chartered, said: “Similar to other major technological advancements, quantum computing is set to bring widespread benefits as well as disrupt many existing business processes. This is why it’s important for companies to future-proof themselves by adopting this new technology from an early stage. The partnership with USRA gives us access to world-class academic researchers and provides us with a unique opportunity to explore a wide range of models and algorithms with the potential to establish quantum advantage for the real-world use cases.”

USRA’s Dr. David Bell, Director of the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS) at USRA noted that “USRA is committed to advancing capabilities in environmental data sciences to help mitigate the impact of disasters such as wildfires and floods. This partnership brings together an interdisciplinary team of scientists in quantum computing, environmental data sciences and machine learning to examine how emerging technologies can be developed and applied to address computationally demanding problems in Enviromental, Social, and Governance (ESG) applications.”

The two organisations have already collaborated on quantum annealing research in three Universities, and produced technical papers ranging from portfolio optimization to scheduling.

For more information, contact:
Standard Chartered:
Shaun Gamble, shaun.gamble@sc.com
USRA:
Suraiya Farukhi, sfarukhi@usra.edu

About Standard Chartered

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About USRA

Founded in 1969, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the U.S. Government, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) is a nonprofit corporation chartered to advance space-related science, technology and engineering. USRA operates scientific institutes and facilities and conducts other major research and educational programs. USRA engages the university community and employs in-house scientific leadership, innovative research and development, and project management expertise. RIACS is a USRA department for research in fundamental and applied information sciences and leading projects on quantum computing.

More info at: https://riacs.usra.edu/quantum/ and www.usra.edu.