When Iran recently announced a quantum processing algorithm (Google translation) that would help its military to detect water surface disturbances, the instant response from Western media was one of ridicule, based on the displayed hardware. The hardware in question was the Digilent ZedBoard Zynq-7000 hybrid SoC/FPGA development board, which can be yours for less than $600.

Seems absurd, and the claim about any realistic military use absolutely is. But buried deep, deep down, there may be a tiny kernel of truth: because quantum computers are inherently parallel, FPGAs can make a good fit for small-scale quantum simulations.

Does this mean that the Iranian Navy would be better off simulating quantum circuits on an FPGA board than on a GPU or even a used laptop? Probably not. Will this hardware serve the proposed military application in the forseeable future? Absolutely not! Was this a misleading and ridiculous photo op? Yup. 100%.

But is emulating qubits in FPGA fabric a real thing? Turns out it is! Let’s have a look.

Continue reading “Iran’s Military Quantum Claim: It’s Only 99.4% Ridiculous” →