Scientific applications for the cloud

Monday, January 23, 2012

Any type of scientific research, from biology to nuclear engineering, deals with massive amounts of data, and the complex algorithms that analyze this information require large amounts of memory and bandwidth to be successfully applied. Cloud computing provides scientists with adaptive solutions when storing, managing and interpreting results. But scientific methods can also improve the cloud as well.

For example, quantum mechanics contains an infinite number of variables that can be included in quantum experiments. Though in the developmental stage, quantum cloud computing will eventually be able to improve existing cloud security methods. By incorporating quantum mechanics into cloud information, managed security services will be able to encrypt data on a scale never seen before.

A joint report recently published by the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology at the University of Vienna and the Austria-based Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information explains the idea of quantum cloud computing and offers predictions for future application.

"Quantum computers, besides offering substantial computational speedups, are also expected to preserve the privacy of a computation," the authors state in the abstract. "Our demonstration is crucial for unconditionally secure quantum cloud computing and might become a key ingredient for real-life applications."