How Quantum Physics Can

Improve EV’s

Charging as Quick as Getting Gas

First off, charging your EV is slow. And I mean SLOW. That’s why in 2012, a research group

proposed the, at the time, never thought of idea of Quantum battery. This battery would use the

quantum property of entanglement to charge multiple battery cells at once opposed to one at a

time. This would come to be known as the quantum charging advantage and would see many

more hop onto the idea. In 2022, the Theoretical Physics of Complex Systems within the

Institute for Basic Science (IBS) released a research paper in which they stated the finding that in

classical batteries, the maximum charging speed increases linearly with the number of cells

within, quantum batteries employing global operation can achieve quadratic scaling in charging

speed. To put this into perspective we must imagine our typical EV that has a battery containing

about 200 cells. Utilizing quantum charging would see speed up 200 fold.1 Yes, you heard that

right, 200!! This means that your at home charging time could go from around 10 hours to only 3

minutes and at high speed charging stations from around 30 minutes to mere SECONDS. Some

researchers say that this technology can go far beyond EV’s and consumer products, and into

things such as in future fusion power plants which require large amounts of energy to charge

and discharge instantly.

1 https://phys.org/news/2022-03-quantum-technology-electric-cars-fast.html
 Quantum Machine Learning

Traditional machine learning utilizes AI in order to predict outcomes without specifically being

told to. The algorithms use historical data as an input to predict new outputs. Many machine

learning programs use Kernel functions enable them to operate in a high-dimensional, implicit

feature space without ever computing the coordinates of the data in that space, but rather by

simply computing the inner products between the images of all pairs of data in the feature space.
2
This operation is often computationally cheaper than the explicit computation of the

coordinates. QuantaMagazine says: “A kernel is a measure of how related two data points are

with respect to a particular feature. Think of a simple data set containing three items: BLUE,

RED and ORANGE. If you examine them as colors, RED and ORANGE are neighbors. But if

you look at the number of characters, BLUE sits between RED and ORANGE. Kernels are like

lenses that allow an algorithm to classify data in different ways to find patterns that help

distinguish future inputs. Implementing them is a trick to recast information in a new light,

Temme said, allowing you to zero in on strong relationships otherwise hidden in data.”3 Kernels

have no inherent relation to quantum physics, though quantum computers are able to manipulate

data similarly. It was suspected that a quantum algorithm could be designed for this area of data

manipulation and it is thought that this combo could excel at learning and applying patterns. In

another study done by Valeria Saggio, they tried an experiment where a “special crystal” is

gently placed into a tiny electric oven and heated up to 77 fahrenheit. It was then bombarded

with a beam of photons which would then split in two. One photon would go right into a light

detector which would end its journey right then and there. The other would be sent into a tiny

2 https://programmathically.com/what-is-a-kernel-in-machine-learning/
3 https://www.quantamagazine.org/ai-gets-a-quantum-computing-speedup-20220204/
silicon chip; a Quantum Computing processor. Miniature instruments would drive the photon

down different paths of which only one was correct. Her results showed that her processor could

retry with a different path. Ultimately the goal was to see if a Quantum Computer could teach

itself the right path which it did, proving the experiment a success. This study was just one in a

long-running question of the existence of “Quantum Speedups”. In a separate study done by

IBM, it was proven that, “quantum computers can learn to classify data in a task that is infeasible

for any classical computer.” Both studies tackle different areas in the world of Quantum

Computing, though in the end, they reveal the same thing: “Given the right circumstances,

quantum machine learning can outmaneuver classical algorithms.”4 One of the advantages of

quantum computers that could influence machine learning is Superposition which gives the

qubits (Quantum Bits) the ability to float somewhere between 1 and 0 whereas your classical bit

can only be in a 1 or 0 state. This unique property gives quantum computers the ability to cut

down the number of computational steps and arrive at the right answer. Now we get to the fun

part. It is believed that quantum machine learning has the potential to revolutionize autonomous

driving. IonQ and Hyundai are working together to ensure that this belief becomes a reality. In a

paper released by IonQ in April 2022, they stated that,” Image classification and 3D object

detection are foundational steps toward the next generation of mobilities, including autonomous

vehicles. Together, IonQ and Hyundai will look to improve computational functionality through

more efficient machine learning on quantum computers, as they can process enormous amounts

of data faster and more accurately than classical systems. Using a breakthrough in encoding

images into quantum states, IonQ is already well underway in classifying 43 types of road signs

using IonQ’s quantum processors. The next phase will see the two companies apply IonQ’s

machine learning data to Hyundai’s test environment and simulate various real-world scenarios.”

4 https://www.quantamagazine.org/ai-gets-a-quantum-computing-speedup-20220204/
“As part of this project, IonQ and Hyundai will look to develop quantum techniques for the

broad task of 3D object detection, expanding the current work on recognizing road signs to

include other objects like pedestrians or cyclists. Running object recognition tasks on IonQ’s

latest quantum computer, IonQ Aria, should enable more efficient processing with lower costs,

leading to the development of safer, more intelligent mobilities in the future. With 20 algorithmic

qubits (#AQ), IonQ Aria is the industry’s most powerful quantum computer based on standard

application-oriented industry benchmarks.”5 I’m extremely excited to see how this quantum

technology develops in the future and it would be cool to potentially be a part of it.

5 https://ionq.com/news/april-19-2022-ionq-hyundai-quantum-machine-learning