PAIR Conference 2026, themed "Frontiers of Next-Generation Physical Intelligence," was held in Shanghai on September 20–21, and its next-generation computing paradigms roundtable discussed two-way empowerment between quantum computing and AI. Hongye Hu of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said Chinese teams have achieved automated calibration of 100-plus-qubit chips without continuous human involvement, and cited Google's AI-controlled physical device achieving non-stop quantum operations, while noting reinforcement learning needed 10^5–10^6 samples versus far fewer with physics-informed methods. Anbang Wu of Shanghai Jiao Tong University backed AI for quantum compiling, program verification and error-correction optimization; Zheng Yan of Westlake University said publication growth in strongly correlated quantum many-body work has not been similarly lifted by AI. On the reverse direction, Hu described quantum generative models with a proven unconditional polynomial memory advantage in certain tasks, while Wu said he has not yet seen a new AI paradigm that truly exploits quantum advantages.

PAIR Conference 2026·Shanghai Institute of Physical Intelligence and Robotics·Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences·+5