NTT DoCoMo pilots quantum community optimization

DoCoMo reported having the ability to scale back paging sign congestion by 15% at peak calling instances

Japanese cellular community operator NTT DoCoMo has examined a hybrid quantum-computing-based community optimization method from D-Wave Quantum, and plans to deploy the answer at its department places of work over the approaching months.

DoCoMo was in a position to make use of the hybrid quantum answer to realize “demonstrable cellular community efficiency enhancements,” in keeping with a joint press assertion from the 2 firms. Particularly, DoCoMo use the quantum optimization to ease congestion at cellular base stations throughout peak calling instances by decreasing paging indicators by 15%, by prediction of cellular machine motion patterns and subsequent optimization of which base station gadgets would connect with.

The pilot testing was carried out in elements of Japan’s Tokai, Chugoku and Kyushu areas and in comparison with typical strategies of approaching the identical drawback.

As D-Wave defined it, its hybrid-quantum know-how was used to “optimize base station monitoring areas — that are small geographical areas — that collectively ship paging indicators and course of intensive historic information on machine actions between stations.” That helped NTT DoCoMo to foretell future machine motion patterns and “decide the perfect mixture of base stations to re-establish connections as gadgets transfer between monitoring areas,” the businesses mentioned.

“The info quantity transmitted by paging indicators has been growing, and if there is no such thing as a response from the terminal, information have to be resent over a wider space. As well as, the latest proliferation of smartwatches and IoT gadgets has resulted in an elevated quantity of paging indicators, which has put a burden on base station services, producing a difficulty,” DoCoMo mentioned in a June 2024 paper describing the scope and results of the quantum trial. DoCoMo mentioned that this was the primary demonstration of growth of an algorithm that reduces paging signaling utilizing a quantum laptop.

“Whereas a general-purpose solver took 27 hours, D-Wave’s hybrid solver accomplished the identical job in simply 40 seconds,” in keeping with D-Wave and DoCoMo. “The take a look at outcomes confirmed that quantum optimization led to a 15% discount in paging indicators, permitting roughly 1.2 instances extra terminals to be linked during times of excessive name quantity.”

“We anticipate that our quantum optimization technique will additional refine community effectivity, permitting us to take care of high-quality service with out further infrastructure investments as community visitors will increase,” mentioned Takatoshi Okagawa, director of analysis and growth technique at NTT DoCoMo. “With D-Wave’s hybrid quantum know-how, we goal to set a brand new commonplace within the telecommunications trade for operational efficiency.”

With proof of the quantum answer’s applicability to enhancing community efficiency, DoCoMo says it is usually making use of quantum optimization throughout its different enterprise models, together with together with finance, retail, visitors and logistics, amongst others.

“Telcos are confronted with a slew of accelerating operational complexities — from 5G implementation to ever-shifting shopper calls for — and want novel options to take care of a aggressive edge,” mentioned Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “DoCoMo’s profitable pilot sends a transparent sign — that at present’s quantum applied sciences are able to fixing telcos’ advanced optimization issues, with the potential to raise buyer satisfaction, preserve community efficiency and mitigate rising infrastructure prices.”