Martin Lockheed NEW

by SAYPER in Military, May 29, 2011

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimates that development of the new warplanes will cost a total of $56.4 billion and conclude in 2018, a 26 percent cost increase and a five-year schedule slip from the program’s current baseline.

PDefense contractor Lockeed Martin Corp. is betting big on the promise of quantum computing.

The company recently shelled out big money to Canadian firm d-waved for the world’s first commercial quantum computer.

D-Wave says quantum computers can be used to solve hard problems that ordinarily take too long even for supercomputers. Some examples: Financial risk analysis, object recognition in images, computer vision, and bioinformatics — the types of analytical thinking that people are good at, but computers find difficult.

Lockheed Martin has been looking into the matter and has kept the U.S. government apprised of its actions, the company said. It said its staff is working to restore employees’ access to its systems.

The shiny new D-Wave One sold to Lockheed Martin comes with a team of researchers who will work closely with the company in the years ahead to get the most from the system. The companies were mum on the purchase price.