We introduce a novel approach to solving dynamic programming problems, such as those in many economic models, on a quantum annealer, a specialized device that performs combinatorial optimization. Quantum annealers attempt to solve an NP-hard problem by starting in a quantum superposition of all states and generating candidate global solutions in milliseconds, irrespective of problem size. Using existing quantum hardware, we achieve an order-of-magnitude speed-up in solving the real business cycle model over benchmarks in the literature. We also provide a detailed introduction to quantum annealing and discuss its potential use for more challenging economic problems.

翻译：我们提出了一种新颖的方法，用于在量子退火器——一种执行组合优化的专用设备——上求解动态规划问题，例如许多经济模型中的此类问题。量子退火器通过从所有状态的量子叠加态开始，并能在毫秒级时间内生成候选全局解（无论问题规模大小），从而尝试求解NP难题。利用现有量子硬件，我们在求解实际经济周期模型时，相对于文献中的基准实现了数量级的加速。我们还提供了对量子退火的详细解读，并讨论了其在更具挑战性的经济问题中的应用潜力。