DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIÁN, SPAIN – October 9th, 2024 – Multiverse Computing, a quantum AI software company, today announced it will work with Airbus Defence and Space to build a new gesture-based control system for fighter jets as part of a challenge within the EPIIC European Defence Fund project.
Multiverse Computing won a competitive application process with its “Quantum Gesture Recognition for Aerospace Control” project. The team will develop a cutting-edge gesture recognition algorithm inspired by quantum computing principles to improve the way pilots interact with aircraft systems. The solution will be tested in a simulated environment at Airbus Defence and Space facilities. The project started this month and ends in September 2025.
The control system for fighter jets allows pilots to interact with aircraft systems using physical gestures like hand movements without the need for traditional controls like buttons or switches.
“These new non-contact gesture-based control interactions will enhance pilot situational awareness, mission effectiveness, and overall aircraft performance,” said Enrique Lizaso Olmos, co-founder and CEO of Multiverse Computing. “Combined with Airbus’ insight into pilot interfaces, our expertise in building quantum machine learning algorithms and efficient LLMs positions us well to develop these controls.”
The cockpit technologies studied by Enhanced Pilot Interfaces and Interactions for Fighter Cockpit (EPIIC) program include interactions on at least five focus areas (Virtual Assistant, Adaptive HMI, LAD, Helmet Mounted Display and Interactions) which includes gesture-based hardware and gesture-based algorithms. Airbus is leading the gesture-based part of the challenge.
The gesture-based solutions must reliably and efficiently interact with different systems in a fighter cockpit environment and address challenges such as adaptability to gloved hands, robustness in high-vibration environments, and physical integration constraints.
These solutions can improve operational efficiency by enabling natural and efficient interactions with the systems and could include virtual reality and augmented-reality technologies.
The EPIIC project is a pan-European initiative that addresses the challenges of future air warfare and collaborative combat. EPIIC consists of more than 20 organizations from 12 European countries, including major industrial companies, university research departments, innovative start-ups, and businesses.
Multiverse Computing is a leading quantum and AI software platform dedicated to applying quantum and quantum-inspired AI solutions to address complex challenges in finance, energy, manufacturing, logistics, space, life sciences, healthcare and defence, delivering tangible value today.
Leveraging expertise in quantum and quantum-inspired AI algorithms, the company maximizes results from both current quantum devices and classical high-performance computers. Its flagship product, Singularity, allows professionals across all industries to leverage quantum computing to speed up and improve the accuracy of optimization and AI models with existing and familiar software tools. The company also has developed CompactifAI, a LLM compressor which uses quantum-inspired tensor networks to make AI systems such as large language models more efficient and portable, reducing size by over 90%, with only a 2 – 3% drop in accuracy, and with over 50% savings in retraining and inference costs.
The Multiverse team of over 160 full-time employees, comprising 25% PhDs and representing more than 43 nationalities, is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of quantum computing. With a portfolio of nearly 100 patents and over 40 research publications, our intellectual property portfolio underscores our commitment to innovation. Over the past three years, MVC has won numerous industry awards uncommon for an early-stage startup, including recognition as one of the 100 Most Promising Companies in AI and most recently 2024 Future Unicorn award from DigitalEurope, a leading trade association representing digitally transforming industries in Europe. Multiverse Computing is also the largest European Quantum AI Software Company.
Multiverse Computing has offices in Spain, Canada, France, Germany, UK and Italy.
