Volkswagen Group of America has joined the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Quantum Computing Nomenclature Working Group. Volkswagen Group of America is the only automaker to join the organization so far. The group will be responsible for developing technical standards and providing advice on the social impact of this new technology.

Volkswagen Group IT uses quantum computing in three development areas: traffic optimization research; material simulations especially for high-performance electric vehicle batteries; and artificial intelligence with new machine learning processes.

Recently, Volkswagen experts have succeeded in using quantum computing to develop a traffic management system that will more effectively forecast urban traffic volumes, transport demand and travel times by precise calculations. (Earlier post.) As a result, public transportation organizations, taxi companies and transport service providers will be able to deploy their fleets more efficiently, minimizing wait times for passengers.

Two years ago, we said quantum computing is still ten years out but the progress we have made to-date at Volkswagen is tremendous. At Volkswagen we now use Quantum to simulate molecules, enhance machine learning algorithms, and solve time-critical optimization problems such as traffic flow.

—Abdallah Shanti, Head of Car-IT and CIO Volkswagen Brand

Volkswagen Group Information Technology & Services, Region Americas has been running an innovation team at its CODE office in San Francisco since 2013. The acronym CODE stands for Continuous Optimization and Digital Engineering. The team is composed of software architects, engineers, data scientists, and researchers who work on a broad scale of tasks: from advanced multi-cloud computing automation, devops, mobile applications and mobility solutions to data science and quantum computing topics.