Computer Science

Quantum bits are fussy and fragile. Useful quantum computers will need to use an error-correction technique like the one that was recently demonstrated on a real machine.

Algorithms that zero in on solutions to optimization problems are the beating heart of machine reasoning. New results reveal surprising limits.

Today’s powerful but little-understood artificial intelligence breakthroughs echo past examples of unexpected scientific progress.

A new model of learning centers on bursts of neural activity that act as teaching signals — approximating backpropagation, the algorithm behind learning in AI.

To help them explain the shocking success of deep neural networks, researchers are turning to older but better-understood models of machine learning.

So-called topological quantum computing would avoid many of the problems that stand in the way of full-scale quantum computers. But high-profile missteps have led some experts to question whether the field is fooling itself.

Computational neuroscientists taught an artificial neural network to imitate a biological neuron. The result offers a new way to think about the complexity of single brain cells.

Researchers are turning to the mathematics of higher-order interactions to better model the complex connections within their data.

The most widely used technique for finding the largest or smallest values of a math function turns out to be a fundamentally difficult computational problem.