Quantum Artificial Life in an IBM Quantum Computer
This is a pioneering proof-of-principle for quantum artificial life, potentially advancing quantum biomimetics and AI, but it is incremental as it builds on existing quantum computing frameworks.
The authors experimentally implemented a quantum artificial life algorithm on an IBM quantum computer, encoding self-replication, mutation, interaction, and death, with entanglement spreading across generations and experimental data fitting the ideal model accurately.
We present the first experimental realization of a quantum artificial life algorithm in a quantum computer. The quantum biomimetic protocol encodes tailored quantum behaviors belonging to living systems, namely, self-replication, mutation, interaction between individuals, and death, into the cloud quantum computer IBM ibmqx4. In this experiment, entanglement spreads throughout generations of individuals, where genuine quantum information features are inherited through genealogical networks. As a pioneering proof-of-principle, experimental data fits the ideal model with accuracy. Thereafter, these and other models of quantum artificial life, for which no classical device may predict its quantum supremacy evolution, can be further explored in novel generations of quantum computers. Quantum biomimetics, quantum machine learning, and quantum artificial intelligence will move forward hand in hand through more elaborate levels of quantum complexity.