Quantum Socrates
Microsoft's QC-HPC-AI Philosophy
Socrates' contributions to philosophy include the Socratic Method, virtuous pursuits, “know thyself,” and questioning authority. He emphasized dialogue, critical thinking, and ethical behavior. And while I’m not making any direct comparisons with anyone in particular at Microsoft, the company’s recent reference to having a philosophy caught my attention. It was in a private communication, so I sure hope you missed it.
This philosophy, in short, involves quantum computing (QC), high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence (AI) working together in harmony: QC-HPC-AI. The order appears to be interchangeable.
This synergy shouldn’t surprise anyone, so what got my attention?
Know thy role.
We know that the promise of QC is to accelerate computation, including for HPC and AI tasks. We know that the role of HPC is to accelerate QC and AI tasks. And we know that the promise of AI is to make QC, HPC, and everything else better. They have distinct yet complementary roles.
So, again, what’s the big deal?
Well, I read and write a lot. I’ve ghost written about integrating QC with HPC within datacenters. I’ve talked about QC and AI, and I’ve helped promote QC+AI. But before my recent article “Sweet Scientific Advantage,” which is about Atom Computing and Microsoft, I don’t recall combining all three. And if I deliberately search for it now, I can find a smattering of it, but a good percentage of the results are Microsoft.
Know thy Copilot.
What really gets my attention is the role of AI in Azure Quantum, specifically Copilot: making everything easier for end users. Look beyond QC-HPC integration, HPC model training, and QC-AI integration — all technical stuff — and focus on end users for a moment. How do you use all this stuff?
I just listened to Dr. Bob Sutor say that precisely simulating a caffeine molecule requires 160 qubits and my AC1000 has 1,000; can I do that? Thumbs up, Copilot. Baby steps; help me simulate lithium hydride. Thumbs up, Copilot. Wait a minute; why did that execute classically? Thumbs up, Copilot.
In other words, we’ve got this obvious synergy among three technologies, and one of those technologies wraps it all in a user-friendly package.
Conclusion
Microsoft intends to share its philosophy throughout 2025, the International Year of Quantum. Socrates’ contributions were recorded and disseminated by his students, so I guess that’s my role now for Microsoft.
Fun fact: Off the top of my head, with one exception, every dragon that has graced The Quantum Dragon has been created with Copilot.
"Socrates by Leonidas Drosis, Athens - Academy of Athens" by Leonidas Drosis is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/?ref=openverse.